During my time with Amardeep I was introduced to his work assistants who were all extremely friendly and welcoming, allowing me to aid them in their activities and giving me various pieces of information regarding their field of expertise. Amardeep himself was also very engaging and enthusiastic, and I was really impressed by the scope and amount of work that he carried out in even a single day. His office consisted of a lab-type space with kennels around the outside and a main house. The conditions were very good, but I was a little concerned about the dogs in cages. Some were there for boarding, whilst others were recovering from various conditions - the cages were rather small and I noticed that they were barely ever taken out to go for walks or socially interact. On one of my last days I was shocked by the amount of dogs circling around in the small spaces and whining sadly. I think that it would be very useful if Amardeep got a clinic with perhaps a little garden space for dogs to move about in. However, I understand the necessity of keeping these dogs confined - when they are in such poor conditions they must be monitored closely.
My day's usually went as follows: I would arrive in the morning at around nine and immediately go into the clinic. The staff would be cleaning out cages and such and I would help them while waiting for the vet to arrive. Once he came a number of different tasks could be carried out. One day we got in his car and made the rounds to different houses. The first house we went to had some dogs that needed to be vaccinated, including a tiny puppy that had recently been sent over from the US. The dogs were sometimes quite hard to inject, and had to be pinned to the floor or tide up and muzzled. I found this aspect of his work a little intimidating, but I soon grew more used to this. The vet also had to give them pills of sorts, and he would prise their mouths open, close them, and then massage their throats to make them swallow it. We also went to a house of a german shepherd that had been attacked by monkeys. She was an old dog and had gashes all over her face. We shaved the fur around and on the cuts off (to see it more clearly) and then disinfected them. The vet said that she might have to have stitches, but he decided to leave it for a while and see how they healed up naturally first. We also saw a dog with flea bites and a large rash on her belly, the vet told her owner that they had to wash her with a special shampoo and apply a certain type of cream to the irritated skin. We visited many other dogs, mostly those who needed vaccinations, and also picked up some more dogfood on the way back. Another day we perfomed sugeries. One dog had a tumour on her belly, bulging out like a rock, and it had to be removed. The vet told me that if I felt lightheaded I should sit down outside, making it very clear that since this was my first surgery I should take precautions and be prepared for anything. We sedated the dog so that she woldn't feel any of the operation, and then the vet meticulously snipped a circle around the tumour. He then proceeded to cut through the layers of flesh until he could remove the tumour and place it in a metal bowl. After this was finished he stitched it up - putting in two layers of stitches (the under one with dissolvable stitches) to be on the safe side. We also performed an operation on a cat that came in. The cat had been neutered a couple of years ago but had a cut of sorts on one of its balls. The vet and his assistant cut it open and removed a piece of hard white tissue which had been sticking out a bit. I had to hold the tweezers and scissors and such in this operation, but it wasn't half as graphic as the previous one. We stitched it up and he seemed fine aftwerwards.
Another activity was the drip feeding. Some puppies and older dogs that were recovering from their various conditions couldn't eat solid food yet and so had to be fed glucose solution through a drip. This took quite a while, involving the dog lying out on the bed still while the entire bag dripped down. Each bag took at least an hour or so, and it was rather stressful for all those involved. The dog had the drip securely lodged in his or her arm, but if it moved the needle would leave the vein and the entire process would have to of been repeated. The dogs sometimes squirmed and we had to pin them down with all our strength, which I felt terrible doing. However, I think exploring activities like this is useful as it lets me know that not all parts of such a career can be as hands-on and engaging as surgeries.
I had one awful experience during my time with the vet. One morning I arrived to find a small cage in the corner of the lab that hadn't been there the day before. I asked the assistant what it was and he reached in and pulled out a dead puppy, bringing it up to me to examine. I was shocked by the way he picked up the body, as if it was nothing but a rag doll in his hands, meaningless and worthless. This disregard for life terrified me, especially when he went outside with it and came back empty-handed. I asked him what they did with the bodies and he informed me that if the owners didn't want them they dumped them in a pit outside Nairobi. I understand that in this sort of field you can't afford to be sentimental, but it was still a disconcerting experience for me, and one that I would very much like to forget.
In conclusion, during my time at the vet I did everything from surgeries to feeding dogs and learnt a great deal about this profession. I now have a far deeper understanding of what this career entails and what a vet does on a normal working day. I had mixed feelings about my time working with Amardeep - I love animals, but I feel that I love them too much to have to carry out the necessary activities of a vet. I don't know what I would do if I was unable to save a life, and I don't want to spend each and every day watching animals in pain - though I do realise that it's worth it to cure them. I definitely gained a lot from this experience, however - I recognised my strengths and weaknesses with regards to working with animals (both stemming from my passion for them), gained confidence, and became far more aware of what I want to do in the future. I feel that this profession may not be for me, but I do value all that I have learnt from it.
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