The Animal House...

Dr. Patricia Lechten, Lisa, and Anita travelled to Lyndford approximately 45 minutes outside of Ocho Rios Jamaica. A non-kill shelter hidden in the landscape of the mountains that was started by Maureen Sheridan in 2003. The shelter currently houses 141 friendly canines. A nearby location houses 45 felines. The shelter has 2 live-in care takers, Orville Reynolds and Patrick Smith. We started on our journey to the shelter by driving through Fern Gully, an old dried up riverbed. It's now a main road used to travel through the tropical rainforest. The rainforest was more dense back in the 1980`s but due to traffic and pollution a lot of the plants have slowly died near the roadways allowing more light to enter the dense terrain.
Upon our arrival at the Animal House located near an old bauxite mine we were greeted by many barking dogs all coming to say hello. They were well socialized, in good condition, and happy! We unpacked our supplies, and got started right to work as we had many dogs to spay and 5 positive heartworm cases to treat.

We sorted out who had been fasted for surgery that morning. A surgical table consisting of a towel, a rope and surgical instruments were on the stove in a stainless steel dish with boiling water acting as our autoclave. Lisa sedated our first patient; a spay and mammary mass removal. She placed an intravenous indwelling catheter, induced with Propofol and maintained on a Propofol CRI. There was no electricity there but a generator helped us. We had one pair of clippers to use. The surgical area was clipped, prepped, scrubbed with Betadine, and we were set to go.

All Lisa had was a stethoscope and her senses to guide her through the monitoring process of anesthesia. At this point all were given an NSAID and injection of long acting antibiotic. We moved about our day recovering and re-anesthetizing patients until we completed 10 surgeries. At the end of the day all were recovered and we left for the evening. We met some truly unique pets there (all awaiting adoption) like Winston a Jamaican Brown dog (very common). He had previously been hit by a car and had a compound fracture of the tibia/fibula area which had healed in a bend. This made it very difficult for him to walk properly. He was a very loyal dog, constantly beside Lisa nudging his head under her arm for a hug. Another dog that we came to like was Shaggy. Shaggy had been found as a malnourished stray by a tourist at the Dunn`s River Falls. We gave her the nickname "Mother Hen" as she had to be in the same area of all the recovering patients to watch over them. She totally acted like she owned the house. She definately had lots of personality.

Each day we made our journey up through the rainforest to our remote destination to help these animals. Each morning we were greeted by the care workers who were anxiously awaiting as they would have our surgical table made up, instruments already sterilized and the first group of canines waiting for sedation after being fasted. Most of the time the weather was warm. Cloudy overcast skies and rain showers off and on made for humid conditions. Each morning we checked incisions from the surgeries from the day before. There were a few dogs that liked to lick open their incisions overnight, luckily we had some Elizabethan collars on hand to cure that problem. The animal house does have a website if you would like to visit or experience what we did, they can be reached at www.theanimalhousejamaica.org.

All in all to experience Jamaican culture was unique. We have never traveled to this island before. Having the experience with locals instead of the "tourist" feeling was different and enjoyable.
They were all very welcoming and we seemed to fit right in. We ate unique fruits like the Jamaican apple, and cuisine that was Jamaican favorites like Festival, Sardine Fritters, Oxtail soup and Jerk. We stayed at the Blue House Bed and Breakfast (you can search for the Blue House on Trip Advisor) and we have never stayed at a more welcoming place. Elise who runs the house was so helpful with our journey ensuring everything was organized. Darryl the chef at the Blue House made us incredible dishes. While we were there we were lucky enough to enjoyed the sights of the Dunn`s River Falls and Reggae Beach, and sounds of Bob Marley. It was Bob Marley`s Birthday on Feb 6th. They have a huge festival at nine mile in the rural countryside of where Bob Marley was born.

Our last day there we said our goodbye`s to our newly found friends, canine and human. We will forever take this wonderful experience inside our hearts and hope to keep in contact with "The Animal House of Jamaica". We would like to thank all our contributors and clients that helped make this trip possible. We wanted to say Maureen, Orville, Patrick and Ben keep up the amazing work of caring and helping the abandoned animals.