By Eric Davis, DVM
 |
| Becky Hillenbrand |
A local farmer brings his burro to the RAVS clinic in Peña Blanca
in central Mexico. |
It had been a long week in Mexico and a long day. This summer, the RAVS team visited the village of Peña Blanca in central Mexico, providing veterinary care to working horses and burros belonging to local farmers.
This hilly desert in the state of Guanajuato is strikingly beautiful, picturesque, and full of Mexican history. It is also a very hard place to live if you are “campesino”—a domestic animal.
Farming is difficult, but there are few other jobs. Most residents have family working in the United States to support them. The dry, dusty pastures are all overgrazed, and the fields seem to have more stones in them than corn plants. Feed for horses, burros, and cattle consists of dry corn stalks. Dogs live on scraps. Cats eat what they can catch. Transport is by horse or burro, with the exception of the occasional broken-down pickup truck.
Some of our clients walked or rode for two or three hours to get to the clinic, which was held in a meager patch of shade under a tree surrounded by cactus plants.
After treating some 80 animals for wounds, parasites, saddle sores, and dental problems, the team of two RAVS staff members, two volunteer veterinarians, and two veterinary students, were just cleaning the equipment and preparing for the long, bumpy ride to the next little village.
A shy woman with a sleeping baby on her back came up to us and said that she had a sow who had been trying to have piglets all day, and that she was afraid that the sow would die without our aid. I had noticed the woman earlier when she had brought in two weary looking burros. Nothing in this hard land is fat, but her animals and her children were a little thinner and more ragged than most. We had worked on the burros’ teeth, wormed and vaccinated them, and gave them water.
Field Operations
Darkness was falling as we reached the walled yard off a cobblestone road where the woman’s family lived. The gate creaked open to reveal five more young children, several thin dogs, some chickens, and a small sow. A fair amount of corn husks, broken furniture, old cloths, and other debris lay strewn about. The pig was too young to be bred. However, pigs roam free in these communities, and there is no control over when they become pregnant. She was lying on her side in the middle of the compound, groaning. She looked exhausted and in pain.
This would be a difficult situation in an emergency clinic with clean water, lights, a surgery table, and an anesthesia machine. We had none of these.
I sent the students to our vehicle to get pain medication and buckets for water, and then I knelt down to examine the struggling animal. It was nearly dark, and Cindy, our technician, needed a flashlight to take the sow’s pulse and to examine her.
I was just starting to see if I could feel the position of the piglets when I felt a sharp burning pain in my right hip. One of the dogs had lunged from under a tree where she was protecting her puppies and sunk her teeth into the first thing she found—my rear end.
As soon as I turned around the brave mother dog returned to her litter. The woman was very upset by the performance, especially since we were trying to help her sow. However, I assured her that the dog hadn’t really hurt me and was just defending her pups. I also suggested that she keep her dogs back from our surgery area.
The small pig was not going to be able to deliver her piglets successfully. Without our help she would certainly die a painful death. Even in these far-from-ideal conditions, the only solution was an emergency cesarean. Soon Armando and Becky, our student volunteers, had identified a rickety structure that we could use for a surgery table. The sow was anesthetized and shaved (with a straight razor), and we were beginning to prep for surgery.
By this time it was pitch dark and our flashlights were beginning to fade. Surgery is a visual endeavor, and light is an absolute requirement. So one of the children came out of the house with a light bulb connected to a tangle of wire. Cindy, and then a wide-eyed teenage girl, held the 60-watt light over the table as we began to drape the patient for surgery. The light was a big help.
Emergency Delivery
As the womb was opened, struggling piglets literally began to fall into the light. Cindy, Armando, and Dr. Lauzze went to work resuscitating, drying and trying to control five wriggling, oinking, balls of energy. It was difficult to believe that they could all have fit in the small sow. As Becky completed the surgery, meticulously closing the surgery site, I got out more antibiotics and analgesics for our patient.
Dr. Lauzze sutured a small wound on one of the piglets who had struggled off the table in the dark. Armando explained the aftercare that the sow and piglets would require. Before leaving we made a bed of cornstalks and rags for the new mother and her litter, making sure the local guard dogs were kept away from them. The family was very appreciative of our efforts. We told them that we would return the next day to check on the sow.
We headed out for the long drive through the desert, with ghostly cacti all around. After a little sleep on a hard floor, we drove back to check on our night’s work before starting another clinic, in another village. The sow was walking around, eating a little, and the piglets looked great.
Making Every Kindness Count
What did we accomplish? Enough? It's a question we struggle with often. The burros won’t get tetanus, thanks to our vaccinations, but they will still be living on corn stalks. The sow didn’t die, but her future is not particularly bright. The mother dog only has a good story about sinking her teeth into a “gringo.”
Maybe, though, one of the children will see that animals are deserving of medical care and kindness. Maybe some U.S. veterinary students will realize the satisfaction of helping creatures who are in dire need. Maybe a few animals’ lives will be just a bit better.
Sometimes that is all you get, no matter how hard you try.
Eric Davis is RAVS director.
RAVS is a program of The Fund for Animals and The Humane Society of the United States.
