SolMate Santiago

Log #80 August, 2009

Mitch

Updated Friday, 28 August 2009

Jalipa Spay/Neuter Clinic

Updated Thursday, 20 August 2009

Jalipa clinic
location, front driveway (reception area)

Jalipa clinic
location, side yard (OR and recovery)

Dr. Gaby,
Marco, Diana and Nadia setting up the OR

The monster's owner,
carrying home his other dog - the nice one

Ours was the third and last car to rally at Dr. Gaby's clinic for the caravan to Jalipa. Our van and Marco's SUV were packed with medical equipment. Steve's borrowed SUV contained our first patient, a fluffy white dog.

After winding around the streets of Valle, we picked up our Jalipa contact and then headed north on the Minatitlan highway. Twenty minutes up the road we found little Jalipa, and with our trusty guide, located the house that opened its doors, and later its kitchen, to us.

It's not often that we get so much space to operate in. This facility was amazingly spacious, the house, pool and casita stretched the whole width of the block, driveway to driveway. Behind the house, mid-block, there was a whole lotta cookin' going on.

There was a waterproof tin roof to cover the operating room, and we stretched our tarps between a couple of trees to, 1st, protect from the sun, and later to keep off the rain.

Seems like every clinic has its unique excitement. The Jalipa clinic had a mean, growly, macho dude who wasn't real thrilled at being shoved into a cage, and really not thrilled to have anyone near him. He snarled and lunged at anyone who dared to step within three feet of his cage door.

In order to poke the brute with his first dose of tranquilizer, Diana positioned herself behind the cage while Stan and Nadia tilted it from the front end. When the bundle of nerves and muscle slid to the back, Diana poked him in the butt through the bars.

Even with a little downer in him, the boy was none too friendly, so Stan used a capture pole to coax him out of his cage. About that time, his young owner showed up. As usual, the mean and viscious mutt was butter in the hands of his little boy, and the boy's arrival was perfectly timed. The young owner was able to slip a muzzle on his brute, no problem, and from there on out, handling him was no problem, either.

Mister macho dude was our 8th and last patient of the day, a light case load. Our little crew of eight had plenty of time to wander to the back of the house where pozole had been stewing on an open flame since morning. We didn't get any pictures of the pozole or of the stewed pig served with it cuz we were too busy stuffing our hungry faces. What a treat!

Stan taking a heart
rate - mouth gauze keeps the flies out

Satisfied customers

Updated Monday, 10 August 2009

Back to House Work

Some items just aren't available in our local tiendas, or even in our local Home Depot. Curtain hanging had been on hold for three little plumbing parts, the disk-shaped wall mounts to screw plumbing pipe into. We picked them up in Seattle between eating binges.

Attaching the curtain rod to the wall,
end angle dangling while Stan measures

Stock curtain rods don't come in custom configurations, so we designed a special one out of galvanized pipe. It had to be deep enough to cover the roller at the top of the roll-up door, and wide enough to attach to the far wall, one end right-angled and one end straight-on to the wall.

Although the design was ours, the curtain rod idea came from one of Editha's Good Housekeeping magazines.

One thing that the magazine didn't mention was that the pipe would be greasy and draggy on the curtains, so even though we won't be opening and closing them, we added PVC pipe over the galvanized pipe to help with the glide.

Before and after, the finished product and the new paint job

SolMate Santiago contact: mj(at)solmatesantiago(dot)com