Entry, Experiences
Catherine Gilabert, Colorado

This past summer I was lucky to go on my very first RAVs trip.  I was able to meet students from all over the country and one from Canada.  This was the first time that I helped out in a spay/neuter clinic and I have never worked in an under privileged community, so this was really an eye opener.

So, coming from a suburban upbringing, I had never camped before and that was one of my worries coming into this trip.  I never had to squat to go potty, never had to go without showers, and never had to work for more than 8 hours straight in my life.  WELL, thank goodness we actually had a good location and slept on beds and had showers available to us.

On one of the last days I was there, I was in receiving   I was doing the physical exam on a Bichon Frise that was extremely matted and definitely needed to be castrated.  The owner did not want to castrate him because she wanted to breed him.  Well the fact that his penis was so matted that the ability to breed would never happen didn't bother the owner.  I had to take 30 minutes with this owner to convince her that the only way we could treat the skin infections occurring all over his body was by castrating the dog so that we could actually put him under anesthesia to shave him.  

During this 30 minutes the dog peed all over my leg and tried to bite me, right before surgery he peed on another students back and also tried to bite her, and after surgery he barked until his owner came to pick him up.  

I feel like I grew a lot in that day.  I learned that owners don't see the obvious, once you castrate a dog it will still want to mark his territory, and that even though I got a headache at the end of the day, I was able to help one dog get treated for his skin infections AND help decrease the dog population, even if it was only for a few months.  Because I'm pretty sure they were just going to buy another dog.