Angie Connell- Kintore reflections

I found the week I spent as a volunteer vet in an aboriginal community to be an incredibly rewarding experience. The program, run by AMRRIC, addressed the relative over population of dogs in the community by surgical desexing and initiated a parasite control program, aiming to reduce the incidence of zoonoses, aggression and subsequent dog bite injuries. The long term goals of the program include creating a sustainable dog program employing indigenous community members and instilling a sense of the responsibility of pet ownership through school visits, holding an open clinic and distributing collars and dog food samples. I volunteered with AMRRIC on their second of three visits to Kintore scheduled over a period of 6 months.

We reached Kintore, which is 530 km west of Alice Springs, by air, flying over the spectacular West MacDonald ranges. The community is home to approximately 400 people and has a health centre, school, general store, women’s centre, and an arts centre. Our team consisted of two vets, Jan Allen and myself, Julia Hardaker, EO of AMMRIC and a veterinary nurse, Aaron Tucker.

After a meeting with the council, word got around that we were in town, and people had a clear idea of the benefits of the services we were offering. Rex and Sharon Gibson were our two translators, and with the assistance of their beautiful son Lawrence we canvassed the community performing a head count of male and female dogs and any litters of pups, worming them with ivermectin and fish paste sandwiches.

On our second day we had an excellent response. Visiting houses to round up potential surgical candidates we found that people were happy for us to operate on not only their female dogs but also the males. We strongly encouraged castration discussing the benefits with the owners in terms of aggression and fighting. I was surprised that it was accepted so readily; people could see from our first visit that desexed animals made better companions. Of course as in any cross section of society, there were those that preferred to keep their dogs entire. The dogs are valued for security, hunting and companionship, however they are not trained or disciplined as “pets” they are their own entities, free to wander off or hang around. They were not used to being restrained, even by their owners, let alone white people and the owners were equally wary about restraining them for sedation. Once sedated, heavily, using a dose of acepromazine, butorphanol, atropine and if necessary a hint of metedominine, they were driven to our “surgery”. We worked outdoors in an undercover area behind the health centre. This was a central area and we were very visible to the community in this location. Children and adults were encouraged to watch, ask questions or help restrain animals. The temperature was over 40 degrees every day and twice it was over 45, which was less than ideal for the anaesthetised patient and surgeon.

Over the 5 days we desexed 38 dogs, 18 male dogs and 20 females. This was an excellent achievement although we felt we could have done more had we been able to catch them. The impact our program has had on the community can be seen simply in the ten litters of unweaned pups were seen at the first visit, compared to one litter this time.

I would like to thank AMRRIC for allowing me to volunteer on this program. As I had never done any community work before I found the idea quite daunting at times, but the team members were very experienced and supportive. I will certainly be involved in similar programs in the future! Angie Connell.

Ray Barnett- on Kintore

In May 2008 I had the privilege to be involved in an AMRRIC dog health programme in the Northern Territory community of Kintore. I had only recently heard of AMRRIC through a former workmate, “gypsy” Jan Allen, and thought a week of volunteer work in the desert would be a good holiday from demanding pet owners and the sound of ringing telephones which are some of the less pleasant realities of private veterinary practice.

The trip proved to be thoroughly enjoyable and rewarding. It was an opportunity to work with new and interesting people, and meet some local characters (both indigenous and non-indigenous). It also provided a glimpse of Australia’s contemporary indigenous culture and a chance to visit a part of Australia that most people will never see.

AMRRIC’s desire to improve the health of both the animals and people in remote indigenous communities is a commendable goal, and it is very satisfying to have made a small contribution towards achieving that goal in Kintore through dog desexing and parasite control. With regular veterinary visits to communities it would seem that substantial health benefits are possible.

Thanks to Julia, Jan, Aaron (the fearless dog catcher) and Bonny for making the expedition such an enjoyable and memorable experience.

Ray Barnett (pictured above with colleague Jan Allan and (R) desexing the hard way!!

Bonnie Cumming- Speaking about Kintore

As a final year veterinary student at the University of Queensland with aspirations to ‘make a difference’, upon discovering AMRRIC and the amazing work that the organisation does I desperately wanted to be part of the team. I managed to convince Executive Officer Julia Hardaker that I was enthusiastic enough to volunteer on the 3rd stage of the Kintore pilot dog health program, and when accepted I could barely contain my excitement. When I later discovered that we were driving out to Kintore from Alice Springs the photographer in me was elated!

I had read the previous reports and felt that I was sufficiently prepared for the veterinary work, however having never been to, let alone worked in an Indigenous community I had few expectations for what the community would be like. I knew very little about indigenous culture and practices and have since realised how naive I was to a significant part of our country. Any hesitations that I had however, were long forgotten by the end of our week in Kintore as the community welcomed us and the work that we were doing.

Having not previously met any of the team I was certainly relieved to meet a lovely group of truly dedicated people. Combined with my eagerness to lean and get amongst it, Aaron’s antics and incessant chatter, Ray’s ability to cop the brunt of our jokes yet still laugh with us, Jan’s caring nature and tremendous laugh and Julia’s inspiring desires and purposeful views, we had a team that gelled well (not to mention ate like Kings as we each took our turn to cook dinner!).

As successful as it was, our week was certainly not entirely smooth sailing. As we first drove into the community on the Sunday afternoon our visions of a bustling township were met instead with a deserted and rather eerie ghost-town. As it turned out almost all of the community had gone to kiwikurra for a 4 day football carnival, leaving only 20 or so elderly men and women of the normally 400 strong community. Our plans to dive straight into desexing on the Monday were scraped for a dog census and ivermectin administration… lucky we were a flexible mob! The significant population absence also meant that Julia and Jan’s hopes of reinstituting the help of locals who had previously assisted with the program were initially dashed, but thanks to the eager help from Rodney (the community ESO) and Michael (one of the local men) later in the week we managed to achieve an overwhelming number of desexings (56 in total!) for only 4 days of surgery.

Having not seen the dogs prior to the first two AMRRIC/Ark Animal Hospital programs I had no starting point from which to compare, however on our arrival the dogs certainly seemed on the whole quite healthy with few skin problems or parasites. To my surprise, I was impressed with their condition and would definitely attribute their healthy state to the previous Ivermectin and desexing programs that had occurred in the months prior.

I traversed three states in one week, spent time in my first indigenous community, and felt like I was contributing to an organisation that is really helping to make a difference (as cliché as it sounds!). I had an absolutely amazing week and fortunately don’t think that the reality that I’m back to the real world has yet set it. I am sincerely grateful to AMRRIC not only for the incredible (and often un-thanked) work that they do, but also for providing me with such an exceptional experience. I certainly will never forget it and hope that it is only the start of my work on dog health programs such as that at Kintore.

Bonny Cumming