A team vets and veterinary nurses from Pride Veterinary Centre recently travelled to Morocco to work with the charity Help The Street Animals of Morocco.
Volunteering On The Streets Of Morocco
Vic, Debs, Chrissy and Keyly gave up their spare time and funded the trip themselves.
Upon arrival, they split in to two teams:
The Street Team, aka The Wranglers, who worked in the medina catching animals for sterilisation and providing veterinary treatment. The Clinic Team, who sterilised as many animals as possible, while providing other veterinary care as necessary. The capture site of each animal was recorded, so they could be released exactly where they were found after treatment was complete.
Trip Highlights
They had a really busy first week, neutering 108 cats and treating another 196 cats and the street teams treating over 100 kittens. Here are some of the highlights from the trip.
Puppy Amputation
The street team brought a puppy in to the clinic who was very lame and in a lot of pain.
Upon examination, Debs discovered that one of its hind legs was shorter than the other, which was highly suggestive of a dislocated or fractured hip.
Due to limitations of aftercare with street animals the decision was made to amputate her leg as she would then be able to lead a perfectly normal like with 3 legs.
During surgery, they discovered that she had in fact fractured her hip.
Puppy has now recovered well and was really happy walking around and eating well.
Kitten Enucleation
This little kitten lives in the medina with its mother and siblings. When the street team were doing their rounds providing flea and worm treatment to the street cats they discovered he had a ruptured eye.
He was brought in to the clinic to have this assessed and it was decided an enucleation would be the best option.
The anaesthetised and removed the eye and he stayed in the clinic overnight. He recovered really well and was lapping convalescence diet as soon as he was awake.
The kitten was reunited with his mum the next day
Bloated Kitten
Chrissy treated a little kitten, who was living with her brother in a cardboard box in the Medina.
They were treated for fleas and worms, but when Chrissy went back the next day to give them their second dose she noticed the little kitten was alone, looked a little bloated and was a lot quieter.
She was given another dose of wormer and administered an enema. By the end of the day she was a lot brighter, eating well and her abdomen was less bloated.
Cat With An Abscess
This little cat was brought in by the street team at the end of week one with a large ruptured abscess and multiple small ones around his head.
He was sedated and had the areas clipped and cleaned. Medical honey was applied to the areas to help draw out infection and it was decided to keep him in the clinic so he could continue to be treated with twice daily cleaning and honey applications.
The wounds healed well and he is a lot happier, eating well and enjoying all the attention from the team.
The end of the first week of the trip saw Vic, Debs and Chrissy returning to the UK, and Jess joining Keyly for the remainder of the trip.
Week Two
The second week was just as busy for the team in Morocco. The team spent a lot of time helping the dogs in the Medina, neutering and vaccinating them. In addition to this, they were still neutering and treating cats (a total of 96).
They also visited the little cat with the abscess wounds who is very happy and healing really well.
