Thursday June 27, 2013

The dog for the job

Wheel Power by ANTHONY THANASAYAN

Inevitable: Zhar the Doberman at the Gasing Veterinary Hospital in Petaling Jaya, Selangor. With him are our columnist and the veterinarian Dr Adah Jayamalar.

 

After being neutered and spending 10 days recovering from the pain, Zhar the Doberman bounds back into action.

IT was time to get those annoying stitches removed last week.However, this time, it wasn’t me heading to the hospital or to see a doctor (as I had done several times in the past after major surgery).
I was on my way to see a veterinarian, for a change.

The patient? My two-year-old assistance dog, Zhar the Doberman.

And although it was only four little stitches that needed pulling out at the end of the day, the task itself – as you can imagine – was gargantuan; doubly so if you are in a wheelchair!

But thank God for his providence of human angels. Mine flew in, in the form of my best buddy, Andrew Martin. We have been pals since we were teenagers.

Andrew came over to the house to help me “pack” a rather reluctant 40kg canine into the back seat of my car.

Zhar has no problems with this, usually. At every chance, he would happily leap into the back seat the moment I open the car door. However, this time round, the whole exercise seemed all too suspicious to him.
I don’t blame him. For one, he was forced to wear an Elizabethan collar: a large cone-shaped plastic medical device to prevent animals from licking sutures after surgery, and ruining them.

The collar limited Zhar’s visibility, causing him to feel disoriented, and he kept knocking into things in the car.
That – and also the fact that I had “lied” to him 10 days earlier.

A promised car ride surreptitiously ended up with him on the operating table half an hour later to have his privates fixed. (Neutering is a must for canines that work with disabled persons, for better concentration and bonding.)

As much as I had wanted to, I couldn’t be with Zhar during the surgery as it was conducted in a room on an upper floor.

In addition to Andrew, I had to summon another godsend of a volunteer, Daniel Thuraisingham, a “dog whisperer”, to calm Zhar down before the procedure.

I later heard that Zhar had put up quite a struggle with everyone, despite all of them being extra nice to him in order to get him sedated. I knew exactly how my darling dog felt, especially with me not being around all of a sudden.

I still recall how, at the age of 10, I had fought hard with the doctors and nurses, even kicking a couple of them in the operating theatre, when they were trying to put me under general anaesthesia.

Being in an icy cold room, surrounded by men and women wearing masks and gloves and holding creepy-looking instruments, who were telling me (and later, shouting at me) to go to sleep, is enough to scare the living daylights out of any boy who did not know what was about to happen.

But while my surgery turned out to be chaotic, Zhar’s, I’m thankful to say, went brilliantly.

A few hours after the operation, Daniel brought a still-groggy Zhar home.

Our roles were switched at once – I became caregiver to my Doberman instead of the other way around.
I cancelled all my appointments for the next few days so that I could be around for my dog.

During the first few hours, I had to feed small amounts of water to Zhar – using a syringe to prevent him from throwing up due to the effects of the anaesthesia. But the cheeky fellow enjoyed the extra attention so much that he refused water directly from the bowl until I called his bluff.

Psst! Don’t tell the doctor, but I took off the collar every time Zhar had his meals or went to the bathroom (as I scooped up the poop and flushed it down the toilet). But the collar went back on promptly after his “tasks”.

It was also amazing how my other service dogs, two German Shepherds and a Shetland sheepdog, behaved during Zhar’s convalescence. They just stayed out of the way and allowed me to spend extra time with him.
Zhar did not kick up as much of a fuss as I had expected when his stitches were removed. That is probably because I was with him when it was done in a clinic on ground level.

The moment he came home and the collar was removed, the service dog sprang into action.
He romped around my room and started picking up stuff that had been lying on the floor during the 10 days that he was recovering.

They included empty plastic drink bottles and some very important calling cards that I thought I had lost.
Zhar walked straight up to me and pushed the cards into the palm of my hands, with a glint of enthusiasm in his eyes.

Yes, folks! Zhar is certainly back and all is well again in my world, with my family of service canines!

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