Areas covered: De La Costa and San Jose in Montalban

Team: Denise Wood (CARA), Rosemary Yates (CARA), Adrian Wood (CARA), Michael Stiell, Scott Hitchman, Dr Lyn (volunteer vet) and Dr Jenil (volunteer vet).

Transport: 2 four wheels drives and a hired van.

DE LA COSTA

We started the day in De La Costa; at least this time it wasn’t raining which made life slightly easier. We set up at the barangay office to offer anti-rabies, medical assistance and food. The people started to come with their dogs and even some cats. It wasn’t really busy in this area because a lot of their animals perished in the floods, but we had a slow steady stream of animals. As the whole team wasn’t needed for this, a few volunteers went street to street to feed the stray animals and announce to the

people to go to the barangay office for medical assistance for their animals. The streets are still very bad, the people are still trying to recover, very deep mud on most streets apart from the main roads. We fed dogs and cats wherever we found them , this time we also had fresh water and bowls - clean water in that area is virtually impossible to find for a stray animal, they would get sick from drinking the muddy water which is full of all sorts of disgusting things. We made the discovery that the local dogs have no idea what to do with proper dog biscuits, they almost turned their noses up at it. Their stable diet is normally rice; the leftovers from their human companions. Faced with ‘proper’ dog food they sniffed at it suspiciously and then hesitantly take a few bites! These are dogs whose ribs are showing….

It was decided a further trip should be do

ne to De La Costa when the people have recovered more, they really are not in the frame of mind for animal relief, they are still living in such miserable conditions. On the next trip we will give them collars and leashes because of course they lost everything in the flood.

58 anti-rabies shots given, medical cases treated and dog/cat food given out.

SAN JOSE

In the afternoon we went to San Jose, also in the Montalban area. Here they are well into the recovery stage and we were literally swamped with dogs and cats.

We treated medical cases and gave anti-rabies inoculations to the healthy animals. Dog and cat food was given to everyone; we had a lot with us this time as we had hired a van for that prime purpose so we didn’t run out as on previous occasions. We did however run out of anti-rabies so a further trip will need to be done and on that trip collars and leashes given out. Lots of rope and bits of wire were being used inplace of collars and leashes.

We saw lots of

very skinny companion dogs but a surprising number of healthy looking cats. One man

came with six dogs in a van, I was suspicious he might be breeding them for dog meat but of course I had no proof. He certainly wasn’t gentle with them, I saw him throw one literally in the back of the van, he then got a lecture from me in English which of course went on deaf ears. I need a crash course in Tagolog!

A successful day but of course the help needed is never ending.

121 anti-rabies shots given, numerous medical cases and dog/cat food.

This project has been made possible with the support of the International Fund for Animal Welfare http://www.ifaw.org