Animal adventures in Trichy, India : Ganesh the fearless

I started my day today by putting on another zari with the help of a wonderful chemistry professor, Sarah. After assembly I was headed meet up with Dr. Abi at an animal nutrition conference. I rode 'side saddle' on Solomon's bike and it was kind of nice because most of the women in Trichy ride that way. It took forty five minutes for the conference to start because Abi told me that the other doctors don't believe the conference is a priority so they will wander in on their own time. I am going to take the next few sentences to be kind of gross fair warning to anyone who does not want to read any further. The conference was about canine feces consistency and what diseases that could indicate, dog vomit and its origins, and fluid intake during treatment. I learned quite a bit about poop today! First there is a rating system for fecal matter. Dog owners do not be concerned with the number of dumps your dog takes in a day it is all about consistency! All healthy poop should be able to come off the side walk. If it would take a hose to remove most of the fecal matter from the ground then that is a red flag. The first time the feces looks like that its shouldn't be a huge concern but after the third time there is a problem. Also fun fact some symptoms are signature of the small or large intestine. If your dog is constantly in the poop stance (crouched with back arched) and there is a sense of urgency it is most likely a problem with the large intestine whereas if there is a lot of it when the dog goes it may be the small intestine. I also learned that if a vet is feeling your dog and they tell you they are palpating their stomach call them out. it is near impossible to palpate their stomach unless its extremely distended; most vets are palpating the colon and intestine. If you want to make sure your dog is eating well their food should consist of three portions rice or grains and one part chicken or lean protein, this is the best diet for dogs. There are a ton of tests that can be done to determine the proximate causes of a dogs weird poop but most of the tests the polyclinic does not offer which is why it is critically important to obtain all the history from the owners; a lot of diseases are breed specific. Alright I am going to talk briefly about vomit and then we can move on to the less graphic parts of the day! It is critically important for owner communication when it comes to vomit. Vomiting can be induced by several things but the most important thing to remember is that it causes a lot of distress and discomfort to the dog. Vomiting is almost never an immediate effect of anything even though dogs digest things over fifty percent faster than humans. Some vomiting like diarrhea is normal but if it continues for more than 3-5 days then there is a definitive problem. The last slide show the presenter gave was rushed because we lost so much time when trying to get started. Solomon then picked me up and took me back to the hostel for lunch.

Everyone this is Dr. Abi. She is by far my favorite doctor at the clinic.

After lunch I took a much needed shower and changed before we headed over to srirangam temple. This temple was huge it consisted of several different structures and Ganesh (spunky chemistry professor) told us it took 400 hand carved stone columns. Before we entered the temple I encountered my first temple elephant. It was a sad sight to see in my eyes but as my mom said I cannot change a culture. I pray that the elephant was not standing on the concrete all day but there is no way of knowing for sure. I know that the US does some pretty graphic things to livestock animals but seeing the elephant brought the whole animal rights argument to a full circle. Animals are paying for the greed and corruption of homo sapiens. I will not go on my rant any further but I will say that this is a different culture and I am trying my very best not to judge, I apologize if I offended anyone with my view of the treatment of temple elephants. As we walked into the heart of the temple there was this golden eagle god that stood at least ten feet tall in the middle of the temple and people were sitting around it singing praise. Ganesh told me to give him my phone, little did I know that he would be taking ten plus pictures and getting yelled at for ten minutes later until they were deleted. Ganesh will later swear that he was scolding the Hindu not the other way around. As we continued walking around the temple the stones on the wall were all covered in old tamil language. Solomon who was not excited at all about coming on this trip was actually starting to lighten up when he saw it. As we continued to walk through the temple grounds there were several statues of Hindu gods which we found out were washed everyday with a mixture of water, curd, tumeric, and milk (Ganesh joked and called this the Hindu version of holy water then asked me if I wanted to drink it, I politely declined). The last leg of the grounds was covered in sand/dirt. It was a wonderful feeling on my toes and made me feel like I was back at home (I live by the coast). Being able to feel the dirt between my toes and smell the incense was so relaxing and was a nice change from the ever bustling town of Trichy. Nobody tell Solomon but I can tell he actually enjoyed this part. He was back on edge when we walked past the praising Hindus and stared at the shrine. It is interesting to observe other peoples different belief systems I can see it widening my perspective and for that I am slightly indebted to them. When we were headed back Solomon did one of the most thoughtful things and let me pet puppies at a local pet store. Nothing puts a smile on my face like puppy kisses. Thank you Trichy for another life changing day.