This past weekend I got to go with many other OVC students to Caledonia to take part in a full day of pet wellness at the Six Nations reserve, which was headed by Grand River Veterinary Hospital. Vet student volunteering was organized by the OVC Community Outreach Program that I am becoming more involved with next year.
We had a bit of a briefing in an email about just how many pets and owners would be coming, and how to make things run efficiently in order to handle the high volume. We were also informed about heartworm and that we were likely to see positive tests and how to handle those. Ticks are also another important pest, so we had some information about the various products available. Our basic needs were rabies vaccination, heartworm testing and microchipping, with the additional options of DA2PPC, lepto and lyme vaccines. Various companies (Merial, Zoeitis and Bayer) generously donated supplies.
We arrived at 8 to Caledonia and there were already cars parked out to the road. We were outside set up in a tent and it was the PERFECT day to be out, not too windy and not too hot. We had a quick briefing on what we were going to be doing, as well as their medical protocols. Vets, vet students, vet techs and “client host” volunteers all had to work together to keep paperwork organized and keep the flow going. Soon we were set up at our table with a freshly graduated and smiley veterinarian, a veteran vet tech who coached our group into being the most efficient, and 3 bright eyed freshly-finished-first-year vet students. The tent had about 16 tables of teams, and some families showed up with up to 6 dogs so it was definitely a full house.
(this was our table! We were so busy this was the only picture I was able to get all day!)
Soon enough the dogs started pouring in and before we did anything we took a blood sample to send it for heartworm SNAP 4DX tests done in house. The idea was to have the result back to the client by the time we had taken the history, done a physical exam and administered the vaccines, and then heartworm, flea and tick products would be discussed at checkout. They also got free dewormer when they left!
We saw basically every dog breed under the sun, it was amazing to see the variety of dogs. Big dogs, small dogs, old dogs, puppies, purebred dogs, mixed breed dogs (my favourite was a pug x cairn terrier), friendly dogs, and some not-so-friendly dogs. Our team’s tech was unbelievable. She would help show an owner how to hold the head of a nervous dog, talk us through holding-off the vein and restraint, and hit the vein every. time. She even showed some of us how to take the blood. No matter how difficult the dog was they got the sample, even when it looked kind of hopeless. Almost all of the dogs were friendly and well behaved on the table and the owners were all very nice and engaging with us, as well as very patient! Some people had been lined up for several hours. I was glad to see that the clinic was being utilized to it’s fullest.
At the end of the day word was that we saw a little over 300 pets, and we had about 30 positive heartworm tests. Apparently this prevalence has dropped a bit from what they saw last year, which is an encouraging sign that these clinics are having an impact!
At the end of August I am going on a RAVS (Rural Area Veterinary Services) trip with the Humane Society of the USA. We had a presentation by a few students at OVC that had been on previous trips and really enjoyed them and I was very interested. It is a unique program in that it is teaching-centred and they want vet students to learn a lot, and there is yet to be a similar program established in Canada. I’ll be going to North Dakota this summer to the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation for a 7 day clinic. I think 4 days are spay and neuter, and 3 days are general wellness.
After this weekend, I’m expecting to be basically doing 7 days straight of what we did in Six Nations, just with longer hours. I’m also expecting to be exhausted but also engaged and inspired. I’m glad I did the wellness clinic this weekend as a bit of a primer for my trip!
Shannon Finn: Student Veterinarian 