Chame After Report

On Saturday, the Spay the Strays Group held another clinic – this time in Chame.  We were lucky enough to have many new, enthusiastic volunteers who joined with our dedicated “old-timers” to make things go smoothly.  With only one vet and his vet tech, they were able to spay and neuter 36 animals in just 9 hours.  That brings our total since 2007 to 1,753.   The bad news is that we have 59 animals still on a waiting list!  That’s because the local people definitely understand now and appreciate the difference that pet sterilization will make in the quality of the lives of the animal and its owner. We are also encouraged by the increasing support we receive from the Panamanian communities.  For the first time, the Mayor of the Chame district paid for the food for our volunteers and the Chame town representative made sure the site was ready and worked hard to set up tables and chairs for us.  A resident of Chame found the site for us and met with the Mayor several times to ensure his support.  Appointments were made and verified by a lady living in Las Lajas who is bi-lingual.  This sense of community involvement is truly heartwarming.

Most of the animals that come to our clinics have some sort of serious problem stemming from their difficult lives.  At the Chame clinic we conducted three abortions, operated on  four dogs with untreatable venereal disease,  and provided medicine for numerous cases of mange and tick fever and parasites.  All of these situations make surgery even riskier than it already is.  The Spay the Strays Group statistically has had a less than 1 percent mortality rate which is remarkable since these animals are in a weakened state and require strict adherence to aftercare procedures (handed out to all owners) which oftentimes does not happen.  In an animal hospital, the vet would keep an animal overnight and monitor its recovery and the cost would be very steep.  Instead, Spay the Strays is dedicated to high volume, high quality and low cost surgeries for animals without this costly recourse.  Our vets are experts at what they do since they perform more sterilizations in one day than many vets do in a year.  But, aftercare must be the responsibility of the owner and occasionally follow up treatment will be needed.