Page 69 - World of Animals - Issue #36

help. That’s why we want to get something going work out how we can practically help. Then we Diary of
there. build from there.
I’m also off to Thailand on Monday. We set up
international training centres in Thailand and India, Are there any projects that really stand out a global vet
where we train vets on the front line of animal for you?

welfare in humane techniques. So they can safely When I first set the website up, I was working
and kindly help animals in the areas where they from my garage as an evening project. A request Tackling rabies
live. We train around 400 vets a year in Thailand came through from a charity in India, where some on the front line
and India to use antibiotics and do surgery – it’s American tourists had witnessed piles of dead
going really well! dogs on the side of the road. The wife of the We work very synergistically with our sister
We are helping donkeys that are so desperately doctor who owned the local hospital had been
valued in India to cart materials that their owners attacked by wild dogs, so the reaction from the charity Mission Rabies, going to global
rabies hotspots. It is a horrible disease.
(often just through lack of education) will slice local municipality was to kill all the dogs – they It kills a child every nine minutes around

open the sides of their noses to get better airflow, were paying per tail. The American tourists found the world and it’s completely preventable
among other things… We go there, we treat those a local charity, and I received an email. I went over by vaccinating dogs, as 99 per cent of
donkeys, we educate the owners and we train up there and straight away I had to see a cow that all rabies cases are transmitted through
the local para-vets who can give the animals on- was heavily pregnant and had broken both its dog bites in Africa and Asia. We do very
going support. So the donkeys have a better life legs. Of course, cows are sacred, so I bought the focused campaigns; in May for example we
and they’re also more productive. cow from the family and I shot it but cut the baby went to Blantyre in Malawi, which has the
Among other things, we are also trying to calf out, which survived. I gave the calf back to
rescue lions in Armenia that inhabit the ‘World’s the family. Then we went to the place where they highest rate of child rabies deaths of any
city in the whole of Africa. We vaccinated
saddest zoo’, living in tiny little box-like cages for were killing the dogs and we neutered 70 dogs 35,600 dogs in 20 days.
four years. We have got them out of those cages in two days. Local TV crews saw what we were When we are there, our days usually
now but we need to work on getting them back doing and there was huge community support. start at about 4-5am. Normally if we are
to the UK to a lion sanctuary here. There’s a lot They stopped killing the dogs and instead started doing a rabies drive we will go out for a
going on! a sterilisation campaign. morning capture because that’s when you’ll
Thanks to the work of all the people there,
How do you identify the areas where your help the entire area has now been declared rabies- get the dogs, at dusk and dawn. I’ll spend
a few hours out and about, catching and
is needed? free. I went back and saw the family with the vaccinating dogs and going door to door,
Often requests come in. We work with charities calf, and they’re now really happy. Another of marking, GPS logging and data recording.
in much smaller places that really need our help. my favourites was when we went to the refugee Then it’s back for breakfast! And then
We never send money, we always send ourselves camp in Kenya. It just goes to show that people the rest of the day is quite varied – it might
instead, so we go over and meet with them and living in really tough places do love their animals!
include operations and treatments, dealing
with any scenarios and talking to different
“It just goes to show that people living in really people, or getting the community support
and going into schools to give talks about
tough places do love their animals!” what we are about and what we’re doing.
Then at about 3-4pm we will go out
again until about 6-7.30pm, catching and
vaccinating more dogs. When we catch
them, we give them a jab and then send
them right on their way. Then it’s home for
a nice cold beer!
The main issue is sustainability. Anyone
can go in and vaccinate dogs, but the
thing that will make the difference is
training the locals up. We’ve set up this
whole education component for that;
during the 20 days that we were in Malawi
we educated 91,000 children!
How can people get
involved and help out?
First things first: check out the website!

There’s a lot of information there on how
you can get involved. You can become
a supporter of WVS, which is massive.
With people’s support and donations we
can help with so many amazing projects!
And if anyone wants to be a vet, you just
have to stick at it – I have no regrets. It’s a
wonderful job. We also run volunteer trips
for ready-trained vets that cater for all
different types of people.

For more information, check out
Luke Gamble and his www.wvs.org.uk, or get connected with
team work closely
with sister charity the Worldwide Veterinary Service on their
Mission Rabies to social media channels.
catch and vaccinate
dogs in Africa and Asia
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