By Barry Burtis http://www.baycitiesanimalhospital.ca/
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Pet Talesby Barry B. Burtis D.V.M.Our train journey was now well begun. Several days had passed since departing Pretoria in South Africa, as we rolled through the semi-arid countryside that fringes the Namib Desert of central Namibia. It was just past 7 a.m., in bright morning sunshine that promised another hot day. I was looking out the window of our compartment, as the train slowed and came to a halt. Alongside us, there was a wooden platform and a small wooden building with a nearby sign announcing, in painted letters, faded and peeling, that we had arrived in Rehoboth.
Actually, we were at the train stop in Rehoboth. The small town itself still lay some distance away. Nevertheless, several small, tired buildings stood in a row a few hundred meters beyond the train platform. It appeared they had been built many years ago in hopes that train travel would play a much bigger role in carrying visitors to the town. Now the structures were dilapidated and decaying and no local residents were anywhere in sight. A small adobe store appeared to be the most vital in the line-up. At the moment, though, even this store seemed as abandoned as the shell of a 1950’s era pickup truck, parked in front. There, resting on rims, tireless for years, with all its windows and both doors missing, the truck stood, slowly rusting in the desert dryness.
Who would believe that this location would become, for me, the scene of one of the most memorable highlights of a recent visit to Africa? It certainly was not on our itinerary and I am quite sure that few, if any, of my fellow travelers even remember the place. However, let me explain.
Before the train had come to a complete stop, from my window vantage point, I had spotted a fenced enclosure holding a herd of perhaps fifty goats. It was located at the end of the row of buildings just described. A woman, of substantial size, in a pink dress, could be seen moving amongst the goats. She intrigued me and I wished that I could talk with her and learn about her animals. However, it was time for breakfast. After the meal, all the passengers would be disembarking to spend a night off the train in a lodge near the Sossusvlei dunes in the desert. I needed food to start a busy day.
Imagine, though, if you can, my delight at finding that after I had eaten, packed and all ready to go, I had 45 minutes before we were to depart. I hopped off the train and made straight for that herd of goats, a short, brisk walk away. As I approached the fence of the enclosure, the surface I was walking on changed from hard packed sandy soil, supporting scattered clumps of grass, to a less firm, ever so slight, crunchy material. On closer inspection, I found it to be a carpet of dried, desiccated goat fecal pellets laid out around me. Obviously, goats had been gathering around this enclosure, in large numbers, for many years. I was glad desert conditions had so thoroughly dried the droppings that it would be unnecessary to do any shoe cleaning before returning to the train.
I threw off my backpack, placed it on a nearby tree stump and walked up to the fence enclosing the goats. I carried only my camera. I could now see the 50-60 goats were being held in a fenced corner of a somewhat larger surrounding paddock. A windowless shack, constructed with sheets of tin forming both the sides and the roof of the structure was located in a corner of this paddock area, just a short distance from where I stood. Scattered about the entranceway, cooking pots and a plastic chair proved it was a home. A cat sat under the chair silently surveying the scene before it. Several guard dogs had not missed my arrival and I was very glad that a fence separated us as they rushed toward me. They were in full voice, leaving no doubt as to their unhappiness to see me. My concern lessened slightly when I saw the woman in the pink dress still standing on the other side of the fence among the goats. In fact, she was not alone. A teen-aged girl, who later I learned to be her daughter, was there with her. It was this young girl who called off the dogs and conveyed to them that I was an acceptable visitor.
Through this fence, constructed of closely placed wooden posts, interlaced with smaller sticks and barbed wire, rendering it quite in penetrable, I wished them good morning. Needlessly, I am sure, I told them I was a visitor from the train and asked if they would mind if I took some photographs of them and their goats. In a friendly, welcoming tone, spoken in fluently understandable English, the teen-ager assured me that would be no problem. Well, the part that comes next proves that you can take a veterinarian out of the veterinary practice but you cannot take the practice of veterinary medicine out of the veterinarian. However, I have run out of space for now, but will continue this story in my next column. Barry Burtis is a local companion animal veterinarian. Past Pet Tales can be found at www.baycitiesanimalhospital.ca
Pet Talesby Barry B. Burtis D.V.M.
If you happen to have read the last Pet Tales column, you may remember I have left you standing with me outside a small fenced enclosure of 50-60 goats. It is early morning of another, soon-to-be, blistering hot day. Inside the enclosure, a woman and her daughter are trying to milk some of the goats. I have just left my train, the Pride of Africa, standing on a single railway track a few hundred meters distant and I am enjoying a superb photo op moment, on a journey through Namibia. I have snuck away from all the other passengers on the train to enjoy this experience, but have only 20-30 minutes before I must re-join them for our excursion into the desert.
After initial greetings and gaining permission for the photography, I told the woman and her daughter that I was an animal doctor from Canada. The teen-aged girl immediately told me that they were having health problems with some of their newborn goats. Several had already died. She said there were a nanny and her kid, just a few weeks old, similarly affected, close by. It was in the fenced paddock area that surrounded the more heavily fortified area where the goats spent the night and where the milking was now being done. I asked if it would be possible for me to examine the kid. I was immediately invited into the paddock. I crawled between the strands of barbed wire and, fortunately stepped unscathed into the paddock. As I was doing so, I had occasion to reassess my decision. For one thing, I could not remember the last time, if ever, that I had examined a goat. However, of much more immediate concern, were those three guard dogs that had reacted so unfavourably to my approach a few minutes earlier. Despite being scolded into accepting my presence then, this time they were even surer that I should not be in the paddock. They came at me, in full charge, hackles raised, and lips curled back, snarling, barking and growling in unison. Fortunately, once again, my teen-aged protector was able to call them off and allow me to remain, unwounded.
Nearby, were the nanny goat and her sick kid. The girl told me that this one, just like the others, seemed very painful when it stood and could take only a few steps before collapsing, when it tried to walk. I picked it up, examined it and noted its very swollen, painful joints - especially the carpal and elbow joints of the front legs. Otherwise, there were no abnormal findings. When I placed it back on the ground, the nanny came closer and stood protectively over her offspring. There, lying on the ground, with its legs folded beneath it, the kid began to vigorously nurse from its mother. Minutes later, when the nanny wandered off to search the barren ground for something to eat for herself, the kid remained behind, lying on the ground.
I was quite confident I knew the young goat's problem. My tentative diagnosis was joint ill or infectious arthritis. It is a common illness that affects young goats. Bacteria, from either the umbilicus or the gastro-intestinal tract, enter the blood stream to reach the joints. Affected joints become swollen, warm and very painful, the goat becomes non-weight-bearing on the affected limb, and can develop a fever and lose its appetite. Weakness and death may follow. The same disease can affect young dogs. In my experience, it seems more common in medium and large breed dogs, less than a year old.
I asked the young girl if she had any medicines she had used in those kids previously affected. She went into the tin sheet shack, a few steps away, which was her home and returned carrying one bottle of an injectable antibiotic and another of a vaccine. When I questioned her how she had obtained these medications, she told me they were available in the nearby town. I suggested another anti-bacterial medication that, in my opinion, might be more successful in treating the kid and told her the dosage to use. I reached into my pocket and gave her money to buy the medicine. I told her it would be important to keep the nanny and kid close together during treatment. Perhaps gathering food and bringing it to the nanny, since it would be impossible for the kid to keep up with its mom when the herd was out grazing. Unfortunately, for this little goat, some of the more aggressive therapies - flushing the joints and intra-articular antibiotics - were just not possible, in these circumstances.
Sadly, I will never know the outcome of this case. However, as I hurried back to the train I knew I had just had an experience that I would never forget. In this bleak, harsh and unforgiving, semi-desert setting of central Namibia, I had just witnessed and been part of, another example of the millennial old human-animal bond. Barry Burtis is a local companion animal veterinarian. Past Pet Tales can be found at www.baycitiesanimalhospital.ca
HI ..
ReplyDeleteYour blog is quite nice and its really about amazing animals.
Thanks for the post and for the blog.
Aadi Stellon