Using Animal Care to Promote Empathy in Children

On Sept 26 Clinic Day, our team was greeted by animal owners waiting with their dogs and cats at 7 a.m.

We control the gate by bringing in people and their animals one-by-one. 

Cats are attended to first, carefully transferred from maize bags to cages, despite the surrounding dogs. Full disclosure - in the process one cat ran away so in future we will do the transfers in a designated classroom. 

We follow a first-come, first-serve policy for registered people.  We put laminated numbered ear tags on each animal so that we can easily match animals with their medical form and their owner.  Ear tags and forms are also colour coded; white for clinical and yellow for surgery. 

Several years ago, we realized the need to have a two-step numbering system - so now each person has a registration number and is also given a service number at the gate; animal ear tags are pre-numbered and link to their owners registration number.

Each person keeps their registration card pinned to their shirt until after their animal is atttended to and they leave the site. 

Non-registered people (there are always some) are accommodated at the end of the queue. Their form is blue.

At first glance this might all seem like over kill but we have learnt that each of these steps reduces "people issues" so our focus remains on service delivery.

Another lesson learnt - to safeguard keys the night before as this year we had to fetch the keys the morning of from the school watchman at his home - every year we learn something new!

Our objective is to get the day flowing as quickly and smoothly as possible. 

This year, our first surgery was at 8:30 a.m. and the first dog in the recovery room was at 9:00 a.m. which was our target!

Through planning and management - plus problem solving - we ensure your donations are put to effective use. Thank you for being part of our team - your donations and your trust mean a lot to us!

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VUSUMNOTFO - Parenting for a Sustainable Future™

Our Mission - To reverse dependency - we strengthen child development and learning practices in 17 Swazi communities

Our Motto - Do what you can, with what you have, now

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Early Childhood Programme - tackling insufficient understanding of how young children develop and learning, including factors that influence this

Activity 1.1. Parenting - ii) conduct a veterinary clinic annually, to promote animal care as a positive demonstration of responsibility and empathy to children