CONGRATULATIONS - WE HAVE TWO WINNERS

Congratulations to our two winners of the "Win a Trip to Tonga" competition that we have been running nationwide over the past 3 months.

Emily Fraser from Dunedin South Veterinary Clinic and the team at Unitec Veterinary Hospital in Auckland have won our two prize packages. Thank you to everyone who helped SPAW raise over $5,500 for our cause through this competition. Thank you also to our kind donor (anon) for gifting the flights to us to run this wonderful competition. Vet Clinics all over NZ got behind it and we will be running another competition next year.

We will be bringing you updates on the teams successes from the June Tonga Clinic.

Thank you to all of the vet clinics who entered and contributed to this wonderful result for SPAW and island animals. 

1. Orewa Beach Vet Clinic 2. Vet Care Grey Lyn 3. Templeton Vet Clinic 4. Kaitaia Vets 5. Wellsford Vets 6. Manukau After Hours Vet Clinic 7. Wadestown Vet Clinic 8. Care Vets Johnsonville 9. Dunedin South Vet Clinic 10. Kumeu Vets 11. Pet Doctors, Howick 12. Shirley Vet Centre 13. Pt Chevalier Vet Care 14. Papatoetoe East Vet Centre, 15. Northland Veterinary Clinic, 16. Takapuna Carevets, 17. Parkhill Vet Hospital 18. Ms. Sasha Johnson Vet Nurse, Invercargill 19. Mr Peter Jones Vet Nurse, Invercargill, 20. Somerville Vet Clinic, Howick, 21. Unitec Veterinary Hospital 22. Anexa te Kauwhata 23. Care Vets Te Atatu.

SPAW

WIN A TRIP TO TONGA

We have been donated two return airfares and accommodation for two lucky NZ vet nurses (sorry non kiwis - next time).  We thought we would get as many vet nurses and clinics in NZ engaged so are running an easy competition which will help SPAW and island animals at the same time, while offering a life-changing experience for two kiwi vet nurses. We do want to support the industry, and this is one way of doing that.

SO ... get behind S.P.A.W. cause we are 100% kiwi ...

www.spaw.org.nz/competition

REGISTER YOUR CLINIC NOW

Awesome, Brilliant ... Volunteering on Tonga ..

Thanks to Pfizer Animal Health, kiwi Vet Nurse, Jo Pilcher was fortunate to win a trip to volunteer with SPAW.  Jo joined Dr. Andy David and other volunteers for one and a half weeks, working alongside of him directly and enjoying the journey as part of our wider volunteer team.  Jo wrote to us about her time and we share some of her comments with you ....

"How best to describe my time volunteering for SPAW in the Kingdom of Tonga? Brilliant? Awesome? Words can only portray so much. You have to be there to get a true appreciation of how wonderful Tonga is: the place, the culture, the people, of course working with the animals, and seeing how much good SPAW is achieving. Volunteering for SPAW provided a perfect combination of hard work, adventure, and relaxation. For me it was a truely gratifying experience and I can not speak highly enough about my time spent there." Jo Pilcher, New Zealand

SPAW really encourages any vet or veterinary clinic to sponsor one of their vet nurses to attend a SPAW clinic. The professional and personal development a vet nurse will experience while volunteering for SPAW can be life-changing.

So, why not consider sending a vet nurse to Tonga in 2012.  It will be well worth it - in fact - why not come too?

The team at SPAW

A volunteers perspective - Dr. Alex Melrose (NZ)

4am. Up and go. Excitement tinged with apprehension provides a great counter to the call of sleep. Avoid the mirror, that’s why they call it a Red-eye flight.

It’s a quick flight, less than 3 hours, the temperature’s already hitting 25 when we hit the Tongan tarmac. Customs seem happy with our bulging suitcases. With 2 pairs of shorts and 3 t-shirts the remainder of the 25kg made up of copious donated supplies from Pfizer, Shoof and KahuVets. A declaration we are working with their ministry keeps them totally happy and we’re waved through to an enthusiastic, welcoming and overheating Karen.

Buy some water.

Into the rented Terrano and off we head, Dr Cathy and nurses Jo and Leanne complete the team. Lush fields, Taro and palms roll by. Roadside stalls sell fruit, veggies and fish every few hundred metres.

First stop, Kingdom Coffee, Jo and Vinnie Kupu. These guys are legends, a welcome local guiding light, nestled in the midst of their ultra-relaxing and amazing coffee plantation retreat.

Having someone on the ground that cares so deeply for animals and specifically to manage our SPAW clinics… Invaluable. 

The barbeques, the coffee, the smiles, the local contacts, the reception work and meet and greet at the clinic. Really oils the vet team machine.

Onto our digs. The green Lodge. Great location half way between where we will be working, and Nukualofa township. The place is massive, totally secure with security fencing and really clean and tidy. Way flasher than expected, 3 houses, 9 bedrooms, not fully used by this smaller team but perfect for future visits of vet and nurse teams. It was to be accompanied by its own special nightly concert of roosters, wildlife, dogs and church choirs. Decibels.

We unloaded some medicines, and 2 Minute noodles, set our snorkelling gear aside and headed back down the road towards the clinic.

We’d hired the empty doctor’s surgery at Glennis Marfys, again, a perfect setup, front-side parking, waiting room, reception, surgery room with observation window, and a consult room. 

The couple of hundred kg’s of supplies start to find their place on the shelves, and storerooms. We’re well stocked with all the basics thanks to our awesome sponsors. 

We take a group vote and speed off to the closest beach to cool down , a cliff-top café, coral swimming holes and mini blowholes await. Fan-bloody-tastic.

Back to Kingdom coffee for barbequed whole parrotfish, what a day! A couple of large bats zoom past. Day2. A quick breakfast and we speed over the potholes to kick off the clinic. Hand painted signs and radio ads have done their part and people start rocking up from 8am. 

Pico, a little puppy, short on height, but fully believing itself to be the alpha male, he bossed the other arriving patients around to his little heart’s content. Perhaps he thought we said he was to be tutored rather than neutered. We’ll help his owners later on with getting him to Australia upon their return.

A steady stream of locals and ex-pat kiwis and aussi’s swing on by. Some gut infections to be treated, fevers to be alleviated, pregnant cats to spey and lots of nervous dogs ready for their ops. We have an audience. Interested and super grateful. Man it’s hot. 

The ministry of Ag boss drops in to welcome us and wish us well and their small animal vet tech Nau joins the team. He’s one hell of a nice guy, skilled and a massive assist with communicating with local Tongans.

Cathy was taking the lead expertly, this being her second trip she knew all the routines that work best in this environment. When Dr Andy arrived the next day sharp as a tack it was my turn to pass down the routines. 

House call to a local home with 15 dogs were followed by visits to the Prison and School farms to check conditions for their very valuable pigs and chickens.

Throughout the week the antibiotics flowed, the scalpels whirred (in controlled fashion of course) , the suture packets emptied, and groggy pets were safely shipped back home. Somehow we managed to fit in swims, snorkels, a dive or two, great dinners and a huge supporters party at Jo and Vinnie’s Koffee Plantation and desex 180 dogs and see countless others for various ailments. Phew!

We left Andy and Jo to carry on the great work and sped to meet our flight literally from the beach to the airport. What an adventure. 

A unique experience. The hospitality on the island. The grateful owners. The daily challenges. The heat. The teamwork. The rescued pups. The community education. The glowing health of  animals treated on previous trips. Feels great.  

Alex .... (keen to get back to Tonga)

To see more photos from our November clinic, join us on Facebook just enter South Pacific Animal Welfare in the FB search field  ...

As if our new website wasnt exciting enough ...

Thanks to travelling NZ documentary maker Amy Taylor we now have an amazing video which features our stars - our volunteer team - from our August clinic to Tongatapu.  Amy was inspired by SPAWs work and wanted to help us share our message.  After a busy year, shooting a Moko documentary, travelling back and forth from the islands and getting married, Amy was kind enough to travel from Vava'u to Tonga to film our team for 3 days and spend hours editing this piece for us - all free of charge. WOW. We are indebted to Amy, but know she had a heartfelt mission to help island animals - her way of giving something back to the animals she dearly loves.


Our team are heading up to the Kingdom of Tonga today ... so we will be posting more exciting news from the frontline ... in the meantime, enjoy the video - its awesome.

Much love
The team at SPAW

New Website

Exciting news ... today after a whirlwind turnaround we have proudly launched our new website. Its been a work in progress (actually still is) but we are really proud of it .. not only that, but we have twitter, utube and blog capabilities too ... its so exciting.

All the more mediums to share our stories and work from the islands we run programmes on and daily activity in the SPAW whanau ... we are building a great team of people who are helping us drive this amazing grass roots kiwi charity forward at a rapid speed - watch out the Pacific, we are headed your way!

A huge thanks to Gavan from Alternate Instinct for providing his services for free saving SPAW several thousand dollars in website development fees (which we couldnt afford anyway) and also to the team at Miru and Lovebyte for their contributions to our new fab webpage!

http://www.miru.co.nz
http://www.lovebyte.co.nz
http://alternateinstinct.co.nz


So keep an eye out on SPAW activity via our new website, utube and twitter ...

Malo ....

The team at SPAW

Skupors - our first assisted export arrives home

In May 2011 we were really pleased to be able to help our first two dogs be sent to the homeland of their adoptive parents - one to Australia and the other to New Zealand.

Skupors (the island dog) was reunited with her family here in New Zealand just a few weeks ago.  Jane Pares who lived on the northern island of Ha'apai for several years and her family had adopted Skupors - a homeless dog with little hope until they took her into their home. Skupors became such a huge part of their family, the thought of leaving without her was unimaginable.

So,when Jane and her family ended their tenure in Tonga they were distraught with worry over what may happen to Skupors.  Skupors was placed with friends in Vava'u (a neighbouring island) while Jane and her family returned to NZ to make appropriate arrangements - surely something could be done to get Skupors to NZ.

With no registered veterinarians on Tonga, and New Zealands strict animal import laws, getting Skupors to NZ would have been finacially crippling and logistically near impossible.  But fortunately for Skupors and her family, our SPAW clinic was scheduled for May so after several phone calls & emails between Karen and Jane, the team kicked into action, with volunteers assisting in securing the vaccines and medications required to clear Skupors through NZ customs and quarantine and getting them up to Tonga (Thanks Dr. Geoff Malcolm for helping here).  As this was our first "export" it was all abit of a learning and things come into play that you dont think of, like purchasing a microchip scanner and making sure all the correct paperwork is completed - if anything was missed, it could have meant Skupors being sent straight back to Tonga when arriving in NZ and we couldnt risk this.  

Skups first round of treatments were administered by our volunteer vet team on Vava'u and she was set. Jane (being a lovely canine mum) had, just a week prior, driven all the way from Whangarei (via Karens house to pick up some vet supplies) then straight to the airport where she boarded her plane to Tongatapu (with our vet team). From here Jane then flew to Vava'u to spend Skupors last few weeks in her homeland, with her.   So what an adventure. One little dog, and alot of love and commitment to bring her home to New Zealand.


Skupors safely arrived in NZ (chaperoned by Jane) just a few weeks ago (thanks to new quarantine laws and SPAWs efforts) and was cleared from quarantine soon after (thanks to new quarantine laws and our vets efforts, Skupors quarantine time was only a few short weeks vs the old laws that confinded an animal for 3 months).  Word on the street is Skups is settling nicely into her new home in the north island and loving all the new sights and smells so prevalent to a dogs world. She is even adjusting to the colder climate and not having sand under her paws at every moment!



We hope to help many animals (and families) in the same way over the coming years - whether it be to the US, NZ or Australia we think it is well worth the effort.


We wish Skupors all the best in her new kiwi homeland.

The team at SPAW