Member-only story
A VETERINARIAN’S LIFE
One-Eyed Annie
The Peruvian pup who stole our hearts
In 2008 I traveled to Peru to do a week-long surgical clinic.
These trips had become a family affair and on this one, I was joined by my husband, two of my children: twenty-three-year-old Robin, twelve-year-old Maddie, and a vet tech from my hospital in Canada.
Our host, Rosemary, lived in a small coastal village.
The local residents had been told that they could bring their pets in the morning to be spayed or neutered, and pick them up later.
But it was the strays in the nearby town, that Rosemary was truly motivated to help.
Each morning, her small army of volunteers, mostly cousins, would take turns driving through the streets in a van filled with cages.
The idea was to scoop up as many dogs and cats as possible and drop them off for surgery. At the end of the day, once awake and recovered, they would be returned to their home town.
As part of each procedure, I would notch the patient's ear so, in the future, it would be easy to identify the ones that had already been fixed.
After a grueling trip from Toronto- two flights, and a three-hour bus ride- the five of us dropped our bags and looked around at our lodgings.
