Volunteering on Koh Chang...

I spent a little bit over a week volunteering at the Koh Chang Animal Foundation, working with Lisa the founder and on site vet, and two other volunteers... Virginie, a Pediatric nurse from France, and Kane a current resident of Koh Chang who is a vet nurse, and is originally from Australia :)

The Koh Chang Animal Foundation is a non-profit animal health clinic that was established by Lisa McAlonie in 2002. It is located on the island of Koh Chang in Thailand near the Cambodian boarder. The foundation is supported by private donations.

The main focus of the foundation is to educate the local people on how to provide their animals with good general health care and offer the services necessary to do so. There is no official billing system at the foundation and it is asked that people pay for the materials used, but the time and treatments are free. People usually cover the cost of materials, plus they give a donation towards the care of the temple and street animals.

I had a lot of fun helping out around the clinic by giving lots of Tender Loving Care to the sick and injured animals, and kittens, watching surgeries, and giving tours to visitors. The clinic was about a 20 min walk from Jungle Way, and each morning I got there at 9am and left around 6pm.

It was interesting to see many tourist come in, not only to visit the clinic, but they would also come in with animals that needed veterinary assistance. In my pictures you can see a Swedish couple (with the white dog) who brought in this female dog that they fell in love with at the beach. They brought her in because she had a broken back leg, and wanted to pay for her vet bills...

It turned out that she had many more issues then just the broken leg. After deciding to spay her, Lisa discovered that she had been given "dog birth control" which had done major damage to her internal organs, and she had also been the victim to sever abuse. Apparently the birth control had not worked correctly and she had gotten pregnant... resulting in upset owners and abuse to get rid of the puppies (This is why she came in with the broken leg). After over an hour of surgery, everything was fixed and the dog was sent home, spayed, and in better condition then when she arrived. As for the Swedish couple, they are trying to adopt her and bring her back home with them :)

I spent the majority of my time caring for the Parvo pup Todo... It was amazing to watch her improvement in only a few days. The first day I worked with her she could not stand or move... and I had to feed her water and liquid food through a little syringe. Little by little she started getting better, and by my last day, she was up and running around :) and we were able to take sun baths together. Its amazing because in the U.S. parvo puppies usually never survive, and or are treated. Huh? Anyway I had lots of fun and have thousands of pictures if anyone wants some more animal action!!!

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