Happy Dogs Cuenca - Sep 19, 2015

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On Saturday we finally had the opportunity to volunteer with Happy Dogs Cuenca. This is a group of Ecuadorian veterinary doctors, vet students and vet techs that work with an organization called ARCA (I don't know what it stands for). They set up places in different neighborhoods where they can go and perform spay and neutering on the dogs and cats in those neighborhoods. On Saturday there were four people that performed 70 surgeries. We were there until they were working on the 62nd animal.

Debi was working on sterilizing the instruments and getting them to the surgeons when they started on a new animal. I was in Post Op 2 where the animals were brought after surgery and Post Op 1 where they are cleaned up and checked for any extra bleeding or repertory problems. We would lay the animals down and cover them up so it was dark and they could sleep some more until they started coming out of the anesthesia. Once they started trying to get up and walk we would notify the family and then bring the animal out to them.

After having had about 7 Border Collies ourselves I of course was especially attracted to a beautiful BC and spent a lot of time with that one. Debi came over to my area and became attached to one street dog and was trying to convince me that we should take it home. I did not give up since it was a male and would probably lift its leg all over the house.

We had left home at 6:30 and caught a bus to the other side of the city, met with other volunteers, then were given rides up to where we would be working. Aside from sitting for about 30 minutes to have a sandwich that we had brought from home, we were on our feet until 5 in the afternoon. We just couldn't be on our feet anymore and had to leave. We were very tired, but it was a very fulfilling experience and we will try to do it again.


We were not able to volunteer on Sunday, but they performed another 70 surgeries that day.

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