Despite costing a fortune in operations for eyes, knees and abscesses, prescription food and medicine to control allergies, she is the love of my life.

The current heat wave in my home town is making nights really uncomfortable and recently I only got three hours sleep one night.  I should have turned into a major grump but Bailey met me at the kitchen door that morning with love and jellybeans and that beautiful smooshy face – she reminded me that life is about living in the moment.

Perth Bali Nights

21st July 2012

Fremantle Function Centre

Tickets will be available in MAY

Perth has a wonderful affinity with Bali and thousands of us travel there every year. During our holidays it’s hard to ignore the plight of Bali’s street dogs and many of us wish there was something we could do. People often tell me how they fed a dog near their hotel with scraps from their breakfast or how they paid a local to put food out for a starving dog after they went home.

Not many people are aware that the Bali Animal Welfare Association is a huge advocate of Bali’s street dogs. They run a number of programs, each designed to increase the welfare of the dogs.

Probably one of the most gratifying programs is BAWA’s street feeding. They visit areas where sick or malnourished dogs are known to be and feed them up on rice and dog biscuits. If the dog needs medical treatment for fur loss or other problems the medicine is hidden inside the food.

BAWA also works with village leaders and regularly visits areas around the island, sterilising up to 40 dogs a day, creating a smaller and healthier street dog population.

Companion animal care, i.e. looking after a pet, is not something the people of Bali are traditionally taught or brought up with. This is a symptom of poverty (in all countries, including Australia). BAWA runs education programs in local schools, teaching kids, their families and their communities how to care for pet dogs.

The Animal Ambulance is the face of the Balinese Animal Welfare Association. It is seen in villages catching dogs for the spay/neuter team, on the beach in Padang Bay feeding a skinny dog under a bus and heads out every day to emergency call outs from locals and tourists about sick or injured animals.

BAWA rescues puppies (and kittens) from the street and cares for them until they are old enough to be re-homed. There are often more than 100 animals at the clinic – puppies, dogs, kittens and cats – and BAWA’s resources are always pushed to capacity.

On top of all this BAWA works tirelessly with Bali’s government, village leaders and authorities like the World Health Organisation to eradicate rabies.

Perth Bali Nights, a fundraising night, will be held for the first time this year and our aim is to raise $20,000 to fund the running of BAWA’s two 24 hour ambulances for a year.

The evening will include a Quiz, Fashion Show and a main Auction as well as a market stall, silent auctions, raffles and games and some fantastic prizes provided by our sponsors.

Businesses interested in sponsorship please contact Gabby on 0423 538 245.

Individuals interested in helping out on the night please contact Gabby also.

If you’re going to Bali in the meantime and see a dog that needs help:

CALL BAWA ON 0361 981 4907

But sometimes you get the opportunity to see a real relationship between a Balinese and their dog.

This young girl brought her dog to the village town hall to have her dog sterilised by the Bali Animal Welfare Association.

Excitement shows on her face as she realises she is part of something very important.

The two sit side by side for an hour or so until it's their turn.

Every time the vet nurse tries to approach the dog it starts growling. So the young girl is asked to hold his lead but move back from him so the nurse can net him.

Safely bundled up, the vet nurse is now able to inject pre-med, vitamins and pain killers.

The girl is asked to "hold" her dog while the anaesthetic starts to work. He will be less stressed with her near him, rather than a stranger.

Her brother helps keep the dog subdued until the drugs take effect.

Finally the dog is sedated enough to be removed from the net without the risk of him biting the BAWA staff. The vet nurse removes his lead before prepping him for surgery.

The children watch as their dog is shaved and cleaned for surgery.

Worry replaces excitement as the children watch on.

The children watch the operation with a serious calm that belies their young years. There were no tears, throwing up or fainting despite watching the operation from beginning to end.

The dog finally gets his red collar and is laid out in the recovery area. The young girl will be able to take her friend home in a couple of hours.

Click here to read the full blog post.

My driver drops me in the middle of the village just as a dog-catcher expertly traps a wily pet with a practiced twist of his wrist and one seriously sturdy net.  Twisting round and round, reducing the struggling dog to a ball of yowling, the loop of the net is laid around the animal, the handle is then removed and threaded through the net, to lift the dog safely into the back of a van.

The Bali Animal Welfare Association working with village heads, regularly visits areas around the island, educating locals on companion animal care and sterilising pets and strays for free, creating a smaller and healthier street dog population.A couple of years ago I was out with the BAWA ambulance as they fed and medicated sick and hungry dogs in pretty Padangbai, a ferry port to some of the smaller islands.  I was photographing a dog eating rice on the footpath when a ferry arrived and a whole heap of tourists disembarked and swamped the beach.  One of them stopped and asked me if the dog was feral.  In Australia a feral dog is wild and dangerous, a threat to livestock and even children.  The dog I was photographing at Padangbai probably had no owner and ran with the village pack.  He probably also had a street and a house that he called his own and knew every person that lived on that street and barked “stranger danger” at every person that didn’t.  I was surprised and saddened to realise that many tourists see street dogs as wild and dangerous when every single one of them just wants to be a companion pet but never had the opportunity.

The reality is that street dogs in all poor communities can be family dogs that have a home and are fed but are allowed to roam the streets unrestricted.  They can be  neighbourhood dogs that share a street or two in a village, a local calls them a pet but their only food comes from scavenging.  Or they can be what the World Health Organisation designates as feral – independent and unrestricted.  But in reality urban dogs never quite fall into this category as they still live in a symbiotic relationship with humans and their pack territory often coincides with a village’s border.

BAWA recognises this relationship between pack territories and village borders and uses it to their advantage.  Dogs don’t often cross pack or village “borders” so by sterilising one village at a time BAWA can methodically and effectively control dog populations which, in turn, increases dog welfare; less competition for limited resources means more food for individuals; reduced malnourishment decreases the spread of disease and parasites.

Back in Singapadu a field operating theatre has been set up in the village hall – a concrete floor with a traditional Balinese pagoda roof.  It’s a public holiday so the local kids have come along to watch the show or bring their dog to be sterilised. Red rope cordons off the “sterile” area around fold-out operating tables.  At the top of the step a mat has been laid out with bucket, soap, razors and primitive tattoo punch.  The BAWA van backs up to the bottom of the steps, opens the back door and two staff lift out a dog netted so snugly it can only move enough to breath (and not enough to bite).

 

The vet administers four shots through the net, including pre-meds, vitamins and pain killers.  Within minutes the dog is subdued enough to be carefully removed from the net and laid out on the mat where he gets cleaned, shaved and tattooed and then laid out on the operating table.  Half an hour later his wound has been stitched and superglued and he is laid out in recovery – a rubber mat surrounded by a temporary plastic green fence.

A Balinese man brings his beat up old junk yard dog to be sterilised.  He holds the old dog’s head while the vet nurse injects the pre-med anaesthesia. The dog starts to stagger on the end of his lead and the owner begins counting to ten with all the dramatics of a referee in a boxing match counting down a knockout.  To the kids delight the dog is still standing at the end of the countdown but ten minutes later Old Junkyard has curled up and gone to sleep.  The owner decides to go home and heads off on his motorbike.  Old Junkyard hears the particular growl of his owner’s bike through his pre-med lethargy and realises he’s been left behind.  On wobbly legs he sets off after his owner who is in blissful ignorance.  Weaving erratically down the road Old Junkyard has an audience of children and adults all howling with laughter as he gets slower and more wobbly the further he goes.  Half an hour later, the BAWA van finds him asleep on the side of the road and brings him back to the town hall for a shave, tattoo and the removal of two small pieces of his anatomy.

I’ve been told that western vets are often impressed with the field operating skills of the BAWA staff and so was I.  Anaesthesia by injection means there’s no monitor or intubation.  Top up is done by sight, watching for little telltale signs like twitching eyes or twitching tongues.

A couple of hours later when the dog starts to come around it’s driven back to its home or street, where it’s less likely to be stressed by claustrophobic and unfamiliar surroundings.  Also by returning the dog to its home environment, it’s spot in the local pack won’t be replaced by an outside unsterilised dog.

A week or so later, BAWA staff return to the village to do a visual check on, up to 30, post op dogs easily identified by their new red cloth collars.  Surprisingly, despite field operating, unhygienic recovery environments and the humidity, post op infection rate is really low.  Clearly street dogs have adapted well to their environment and have strong constitutions in spite of parasites, disease and malnourishment.

The team will return again after the next breeding season to repeat the process all over again.  The locals now understand the importance of sterilising their dogs, the queue will be longer at the village hall and the dogs will be wilier than ever – they know what’s coming!

 

Makeshift Collar