WVS assists with GCWS’s first trip to newly formed Paxos Animal Welfare Society
Paxos Trip October 2006
PAWS (Paxos Animal Welfare Society) was founded in Corfu airport in May 2006. Lindsay Geddes and Linda Parker were delayed at the airport for 7 hours and began chatting about the feral cat problem in Paxos where they had both been holidaying that week.Instead of the normal idle chat they put their words into action. Lindsay wrote to the Mayor of Paxos detailing the problem and suggesting a possible solution. After much correspondence the Mayor agreed to a vet and nurse team to visit the island organised by the GCWS (Greek Cat Welfare Society).
Angela Collins from the GCWS put us in touch with PAWS and dates and flights were finalised for our trip.
Two weeks prior to our visit a bilingual speaker from the Athens sector of GCWS travelled to Paxos and held a meeting in Gaios, the main town on the island. She spoke of the charity and the main purpose behind our visit and asked for volunteers to help us during our stay.
Meanwhile back in the UK we were busy collecting as many free donations of drugs and equipment from our reps as possible and ordering all the other supplies we would need. Many a phone call was made to various people to tell them we were coming, including the Greek consulate and the airline who, thankfully, gave us free excess baggage!
Finally on the 9th October we drove to Gatwick airport and departed for Corfu. Once in Corfu we had to get the ferry to Paxos where we were met by Linda.
We stayed in Loggos, the smallest town on the island. The first week was spent there with Petra Spitzer, our trapper, collecting as many feral cats as she could. Petra is an Austrian lady that lives on the island, she had been to the meeting in Gaios and had agreed to help us during our trip, we would have been lost without her!
Over the course of 9 days we managed to neuter 140 cats, the average number in one day was 15, with a record number of 22 spays in one day. We spayed 83 females only 2 of which were pregnant and castrated 57 males. Each cat was injected with a triple combination anaesthetic of Domitor/Vetalar/Torbugesic which we found a satisfactory combo in most cases. Some of the feral cats got so agitated being trapped that the anaesthetic did not work and we were forced to let them go and try again later in the week. Once anaesthetised the cats were clipped and aseptically prepared for surgery using Hibiscrub. All cats were injected peri-operatively with Duphamox LA and Droncit. Any other health issues were addressed whilst the cat was asleep. Surprisingly, quite a number of the cats had dental disease which needed attention.
We had 3 surgical kits to work with, these were sterilised using a pressure cooker at the end of every day, cold steriliser (Novasapa) was used in between operations once the kits had been washed in Virkon and rinsed.
Most of the cats ears were tipped (a “V” shape removed from the left ear tip) so they would be easily recognised as neutered, though some of the local “owners” did not want this done. We had a system using masking tape to label the cats in the cages with the owners name and/or trapping location and if the ear was to be tipped or not, once anaesthetised the tape was stuck to the cat so we knew who they were, then the tape was placed on the recovery cage for the owner to collect or us to release later in the day.
Cats trapped and operated on in the morning were released at 6pm as long as they were awake enough, most owners were asked to keep their cats in the cages until morning but we were limited to recovery space and a second lot of animals were operated on in the afternoon so the space was required, the “second sitting” were released early the next day so we were ready to start again.
As we were the only vets on the island we were often asked to treat dogs this proved a bit of a problem as we had only come prepared for cats. We did manage to help “Scruffy” a cross bred dog that had been in a fight, he had lost part of his ear and the rest was infected and beyond repair. Using Domitor and Torbugesic we removed the rest of his ear and put him on antibiotics for 10 days, we had taken some Rimadyl with us and were able to provide him with pain relief too.
We were also asked to put a dog to sleep which had Leishmaniasis, a common disease of the dogs on the island.
Other treatments for dogs included lick granulomas and wounds from fighting while cats were treated for ear mites and eye infections.
During our trip we had no post-op complications or infections, all our patients recovered well, some of the older cats were given Anti-sedan if deemed necessary. A few cats were put to sleep due to cancerous ears or rotten mouths and old age which we could not treat, this was only done at the request of the owner or feeder of the animal.
Ringworm was also a common problem but we had no means of treating it. Owners were advised on general cleanliness and handling using gloves, Canestan cream was available through the pharmacy in Gaios.
At the end of our stay on Paxos we were able to explore the island by road and by boat, going round the whole coast line looking at the caves along the way. Paxos is a very beautiful island and we thoroughly enjoyed our trip, we would recommend this trip to any vets and nurses that want to make a difference to the feral cats of Greece.
Michaela Bone MRCVS and Lucy Kemp VN
