Having not previously met any of the team I was certainly relieved to meet a lovely group of truly dedicated people. Combined with my eagerness to lean and get amongst it, Aaron’s antics and incessant chatter, Ray’s ability to cop the brunt of our jokes yet still laugh with us, Jan’s caring nature and tremendous laugh and Julia’s inspiring desires and purposeful views, we had a team that gelled well (not to mention ate like Kings as we each took our turn to cook dinner!). 

As successful as it was, our week was certainly not entirely smooth sailing. As we first drove into the community on the Sunday afternoon our visions of a bustling township were met instead with a deserted and rather eerie ghost-town. As it turned out almost all of the community had gone to kiwikurra for a 4 day football carnival, leaving only 20 or so elderly men and women of the normally 400 strong community. Our plans to dive straight into desexing on the Monday were scraped for a dog census and ivermectin administration... lucky we were a flexible mob! The significant population absence also meant that Julia and Jan’s hopes of reinstituting the help of locals who had previously assisted with the program were initially dashed, but thanks to the eager help from Rodney (the community ESO) and Michael (one of the local men) later in the week we managed to achieve an overwhelming number of desexings (56 in total!) for only 4 days of surgery.

Having not seen the dogs prior to the first two AMRRIC/Ark Animal Hospital programs I had no starting point from which to compare, however on our arrival the dogs certainly seemed on the whole quite healthy with few skin problems or parasites. To my surprise, I was impressed with their condition and would definitely attribute their healthy state to the previous Ivermectin and desexing programs that had occurred in the months prior. I traversed three states in one week, spent time in my first indigenous community, and felt like I was contributing to an organisation that is really helping to make a difference (as cliché as it sounds!). I had an absolutely amazing week and fortunately don’t think that the reality that I’m back to the real world has yet set it. I am sincerely grateful to AMRRIC not only for the incredible (and often un-thanked) work that they do, but also for providing me with such an exceptional experience. I certainly will never forget it and hope that it is only the start of my work on dog health programs such as that at Kintore. Bonny Cumming