In September, we have been able to treat multiple animals for external parasites with donated products. Jack, a young stray male dog who lives in our local community in Istanbul, had a Seresto collar applied to protect against fleas for eight months and ticks for four months. Treating strays can be difficult so the decision of whether to use a collar, topical treatment or a chew is made on a case by case basis and needs to consider what parasites the animal needs to be treated for. As Jack is a friendly dog who is well loved by several locals, a collar was suitable as its fitting and his reaction to it he can be monitored daily.
Meanwhile, in one of the forests near Istanbul we have been using topical treatments as we may never see these dogs again. Even that can be challenging however, as there are some dogs that we cannot get near. In these cases the chews are the best options, but not all dogs will eat the flavoured chews, even when hidden amongst delicious food of cooked chicken and other types of meat. As a result, our treatment approach needs to be flexible as sometimes we have eight or more dogs in the vicinity and we need to make sure that no one gets a double dose.
We have treated 8 dogs for fleas and ticks in the forest, with some also receiving treatment for mange. We are particularly concerned about a dog we have named Noddy. We discovered him at the edge of the forest in January with severe skin and ear infections. We contacted the council veterinary services about him but he proved to elusive to be caught for treatment. Noddy wouldn’t eat the flea and mange treatment that we hid in food and he was too scared and in pain to allow us to administer any skin treatment. We revisited the location where we had seen him on multiple occasions but were unable to find him for a time.
Then, whilst cycling through the forest recently, we spotted a dog which looked like him. We returned that afternoon with food to confirm that it was in fact Noddy. Unfortunately the mange had worsened and he had lost more weight. While Noddy wags his tail and will eat food from your hand, his ear infection and skin infection cause him to much pain for him to allow us to touch him. Thankfully, this time we have been able to administer flea and mange medication via a chew in his food. Noddy was accompanied by seven other dogs, several with evidence of mange. The following day we purchased more mange medication and returned to two locations where we were able to treat these dogs as well. We hope to visit these locations in the forest regularly to develop the trust of these dogs in order to enable us to continue to medicate them, and hopefully improve Noddy’s weight and skin condition.
