NWT–Day 4

DAY FOUR: AUG. 31, 2006

After a good night’s sleep, we started out the day by stopping in at Doug’s government office and meeting all of his co-workers, while Doug picked up more Rabies vaccine. The NWT government has provided all Rabies vaccines. We traveled on to Rae-Edzo, arriving at 11 am. Doug immediately went out searching for dogs he could catch and bring in for us as the team set up and prepared for the day’s surgeries. There was a funeral today in the community so we quickly realized the day might go slowly as most of the community would be attending the funeral and unable to bring in their dogs.

The dogs which were brought in to us today seemed mostly to be females, and turned out to be complicated surgeries – mature spays, in-heat spays – which were time consuming. All went well though, and we plugged away until 10:30 pm, a total of 21 dogs operated on today.

Doug received a phone call from the team in Lutsel K’e, requesting that they be allowed to stay there until Sunday and work. They report that people are lined up at the door with their animals, unlike in Rae where Doug has to go out and look for them and catch them. Lorraine, the freelance journalist, flew back from Lutsel K’e today and joined us, reporting on the team there and all they are doing. A report will be posted on the website at a later date by Lorraine about Lutsel K’e. Doug will arrange the flight changes for the four other team members to remain on in that community.

Arriving home at 11:45 pm, we had a quick bite to eat and crawled into our sleeping bags.