Working at the KAT Centre

Working at the KAT Centre was one of the hardest things I've ever done. For the first week I came home every night and cried. I had a hard time understanding how people could be so cruel and how they could lack so much compassion for a living being--one day I attended a furry pure-bred male dog that our staff had picked up on the streets. It had been tortured by its owner. It's tail had been partially cut off and the spinal cord was exposed and someone had taken a knife and purposefully cut open the skin between its toes. The dog couldn't stop shrieking and chasing his tail in pain. One would think that after years of mistreatment the street dogs of Nepal would be aggressive, but in my entire time at the KAT Centre, not a single dog showed signs of aggression. The volunteers and I discussed this mystery at length and in the end we reasoned that it was survival of the fittest. An aggressive dog in Nepal would be mercilessly beaten to death, so only the submissive ones survive. These are some of the portraits that I took during my last days at the KAT Centre.

This is Tinki. My face still breaks into a huge smile when I say her name. I found Tinki cowering in the back of one of the cages at the centre. She had just been spayed and was about to be put back on the streets. I took her out because she was too scared to eat her food. I tried to hand feed her and after some coaxing she finally gave in. I carried her for a while and by the end of the day she had adopted me. Jan let me keep her the whole time I was there and I promised to find her a home. Tinki soon established that she was boss of the KAT Centre and guardian of the puppies. She made me laugh all of the time, once when I was working on my computer I closed the office door and Tinki found a way to jump four feet up in the air and through the office window and she promptly seated herself on my lap. Before I left I put up signs all over Kathmandu and about a month after I left an elderly Tibetan couple adopted her. I hope she has a good home.

Tinki cuddling

Tinki thinking she's a momma

A few of the animals that passed through our clinic were lucky enough to receive real veterinary care from two Australian vets that came to Nepal to volunteer for two weeks. This picture was taken just after Lola had her arm surgery.