Langley Advance

Site updated Tuesday, October 10, 2006 09:52 AM

Animal control: Vet helps curb dog population in the Arctic

A Langley veterinarian describes a one-week trip to the Northwest Territories as busy but rewarding, as she helped spay and neuter about 60 dogs.

by Roxanne Hooper

Banquet tables covered with blue weather tarps were foisted up onto wooden blocks so they could serve double duty as operating tables.

Bags of intravenous drugs and saline were strapped alongside a trouble light on a broomstick.

And many other makeshift steps had to be taken to convert a government works yard garage into a makeshift clinic and operating space for the better part of a week.

They were less than ideal conditions, but Langley veterinarian Dr. Liz Bartlett still managed to help spay or neuter some 60 dogs, as well as vaccinate and deworm about 100 more, during a visit to the Northwest Territories last month.

"It's amazing what one can do with everyday materials," she said, as old boards and rolls of paper toilet paper were also gathered to help create the temporary clinic.

"It had been cleaned up for us coming in, but it was a garage and had tools hanging all over the walls and stuff," Bartlett said, recalling the only work setting available within a small village called Rae Edzo, about an hour's drive outside from Yellowknife.

"We had to rely on our basic skills, that's for sure," she said.

The 55-year-old Walnut Grove woman joined a team of six volunteers with the Canadian Animal Assistance Team (CAAT) who flew into the remote arctic community to help curb a growing dog problem.

While some of the dogs running the streets have homes and owners, most are strays that many of the locals are fearful of approaching, Bartlett said.

In April alone, she noted there were 14 incidents of dogs biting people - in a town with a population of less than 2,000.

Typically, when there is a problem with overpopulation of dogs, the community holds a "dog shooting day." And until a few years ago, bounties were also issued as another means of controlling over population, Bartlett explained.

As an alternative method of population control, however, CAAT was invited in for the first time to spay and neuter as many of the dogs as possible, then mark them with a very visible tag in their ear to prevent them from being shot.

Bartlett was accompanied by one other surgeon from Vancouver, but said she could never before imagine doing so many surgeries. In an average week, she might sterilize between two and 10 dogs. They operated on more than 60 in the five-day window.

"It was rewarding," Bartlett told the Langley Advance.

"We made a difference in the dogs lives, anyways."

Bartlett, who has been a vet for the past 30 years, owned her own practice in New Westminster until her husband Wayne was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago. That prompted her to sell the business, and now Bartlett works six months a year substituting for other Lower Mainland vets when they're away on holidays.

In spring, Bartlett joined CAAT, and this is the first of what she expects will be many trips she'll be making on their behalf.

"It was a way to go into an area where I could use my veterinarian skills and help people," she said. "And we will probably go back and do more work in the outskirt areas, where they don't have veterinarian services."

CAAT was founded in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, sending 82 Canadian veterinarians, vet technicians and assistants to Louisiana to help in the rescue of thousands of injured and displaced animals.

Based in Vancouver, CAAT has developed the infrastructure and volunteer base to respond rapidly to future catastrophic disasters and other relief and humane education projects such as this crisis developing in the remote northern reaches of Canada.

Another team, which flew out at the same time on First Air, did some similar work in the Northwest Territories community of Lutsel K'e, population 500.

"We basically planted small seeds of change - for the animals and for the people," Bartlett said. "It was a challenging and rewarding experience."

While there's no date set for CAAT to return to the Arctic, Bartlett believes she will be part of the team when it makes a return visit.

published on 10/10/2006