Meet Dr. Pranav Joshi

This man has changed my perspective, my goals, and me as a person. He is such an inspiration and I am SO incredibly grateful that I was able to spend a few days at his clinic. 

There are lots of dogs on the property. Often times the animals end up staying at the clinic to recover for an extended time...and then they don't leave or it's impossible to part with them. Here are some of the permanent residents below. You'll notice that they all have some issues, but they are happy, energetic dogs. 

I know what you're thinking--this dog has an incredible natural turnout. Well, it's not exactly natural.

Straight leg = normal

Amputee. He was the sweetest little guy!

I don't know the back story on this dog, but if I had to guess he was likely hit by a car or motorbike and received spinal cord injuries. He doesn't have use of his back legs. He just tucks them up under his chin and walks around on his two front legs. Watch for him in the video above. This guy is a fighter. He's also an attention hog. He would follow me around and paw at me until I leaned down to pet him. 

Surgery time

It occurred to me that not everyone has seen a dog uterus and ovaries. So, here you go. Dogs have a bicornuate uterus, compared to the simplex uterus of humans. What that means is that a dog's uterus is not a large single chamber, but rather split into uterine horns. It makes more sense when you realize that dogs are litter-bearers and humans are not, usually. The tan, bean-looking think in the foreground at about 8:00 is an ovary.

Manual tattooing. It's basically needles arranged into numbers that are pressed into the flesh and then filled with ink, see picture below.

Dr. Pranav had this hanging in his office, and when I have my own space you will see it hanging in mine too. 

 Dr. Pranav has taken it upon himself to spay and neuter the dogs around Bhaktapur. Nobody asked him to, and the government does not pay him. He uses the money he receives from his charity, Bhaktapur Animal Welfare Society and profit from his private practice, to fund his dog welfare work. Every Wednesday through Friday his team goes out and catches 5-7 dogs, sterilizes them, and releases them back to the area where they were picked up. He selflessly gives of his time, knowledge, materials, medications, etc to perform these surgeries. It is so inspiring to me! Through this endeavor he has built himself a reputation and a safer city. When we were walking around we bumped into at least 4 people that came up and talked to us and thanked Dr. Pranav for treating their dog. He's living proof that you can do well by doing good. The following pictures are ones I took while out walking around the outskirts of the city looking for some patients.

Anybody wanna take a guess at what this is? We just found it on the hillside while we were walking around. 

Here's some more of it. It isn't cultivated, it just grows wild. I'll put the answer at the end of this post. Vet friends: this was a plant in our Toxicology class

The vast majority of buildings are made of brick with a little bit of concrete, just like this one. It's not hard to imagine how a large earthquake could cause a lot of damage here.

Typical roadside shops with the living quarters above.

 Even though the houses are tightly packed together, people are still very connected to their food source. You can see the gardens that are commonly found on every property, even within the city.

Looking for dogs...

This is a dog that lived nearby the clinic. When I first saw it I thought it might be a wolf with his large size, solid black color and scruffy appearance. 

Now, I know some of you are asking, "Jess, how do you catch these dogs? Aren't they free-roaming? My little furbaby barely comes when called, so how do you get close enough to catch these dogs?" 

The answer my friends: tranquilizer darts and a blowgun

Pranav practicing. His aim and the power behind his shots is quite impressive; makes me glad I am not on the receiving end.

Pranav has a few different blowguns. He uses different ones depending on what animal he is darting and the distance the dart has to travel. This green one above he outfitted with a reel and fishing line. He kept losing darts as the dogs would run off and could either not be found, or the dart would fall out somewhere on the mad dash between being hit and sedation kicking in. So, now he attaches fishing line to the darts and after he hits the dog, he just reels the dart back in. Genius! 

This is a crowd that gathered after darting a dog. We picked up 5 dogs this morning, and only had to dart one. The rest could be easily caught and people went and caught some dogs for us once they knew what we were doing. Dog population control is very well-received by the people here. This is great free publicity and how Pranav has built his reputation.

So, the plant above, what are your guesses? 

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The plant is Cannabis sativa, aka marijuana.