How to Help Animals in Kampala?

 In the past week, we've had some interesting animal moments.

It was one evening last week when the first encounter happened. We were all inside, at a dark 8pm, when we heard the sharp, sudden sound of a wooden pole being thrashed against the stone floor outside our back door. 

Alarmed, we rushed into the kitchen and peered through the mosquito netting. 

Standing near our back door was our night-guard, brandishing a long pole. At his feet lay a still-wriggling, half dead snake, struggling for life after our night-guard had leapt into action and thrashed it with the pole, hoping to kill it swiftly.

Unfortunately, the poor creature was writhing around, presumably in pain. We stepped outside, Ben rushing forward to identify the species of snake. It was a harmless house snake. It seemed such a waste to know that it was about to die. We would have let it be, knowing that it hunts and rids our garden of my dreaded enemy, the rats of Kampala.

Andrew decided to put it quickly out of its misery - as the photo can attest...

This weekend, we had some more interesting animal moments. I decided to take Harry to the vet, since he has had a limp and clearly was having some trouble with his back leg. 

Harry rarely goes in the car, so he was quite amazed at the start of our journey, sitting upright in the rear of our car, staring at the multitude of Kampala motorbikes as they whizzed past our window on the 40 minute car journey. He was quite happy to arrive at the vet's, intrigued by his outing to a new place:

Once at the vet's, Harry was sedated while the vet examined his sore leg. 

The vet recommended an X-ray.... but since the clinic has no X-ray machine, the vet phoned the nearby medical clinic where we would normally go ourselves if we are unwell!

The clinic reported that all was quiet at that particular moment... so the vet's assistant drove with me to the medical centre, where we rushed in the back door with the sedated dog, hoping not to meet any invalid people who may be alarmed at the sight of a dog using their medical facilities!!

Harry was taken to the X-ray room and laid on the table for his X-ray. 

Sadly, the X-ray showed that Harry's back, right knee had been broken and had mended itself wrongly, which was now causing his limp. He needs pins put in to help him regain mobility in his leg, but no-one is sure whether a suitably qualified veterinary surgeon could be found in Kampala.

I felt sad having to drive a groggy Harry back home without having a clear answer about how to help him. He's the best pet dog we could have hoped for and it's sad to see him limping at just 3 years old. I will do some research, but here in Uganda, there are not so many options for surgery for animals. 

The boys took turns to sit in the back of the car with Harry as we navigated back home through traffic that had turned into long traffic jams during our 5 and a half hour outing.

For now, we will try painkillers and calcium tablets, but I'd love to see my dog fully active without pain in his leg... I'll keep you posted if we find any leads on helping him.