Seychelles November 2025

Nous voilà, yet again having a wonderful trip to the Seychelles, not simply because of the time spent on the beach but because though our numbers were slightly lower,  (The general elections, had been monopolising more peoples time) we worked very well as a team. 

We had gained 4 new people.  Amy’s friend, Lydia,  a RVC Anaesthetist.  Koen, my employer for 17 years, in my french life and Sophie, his partner.  Sophie stepped in on the nursing side helping post operation.  Finally, Charlotte, a Kuwaity and a wonderfully upbeat member of the team, who helped as a vet (she had graduated in Mumbai) and also as a vet nurse and also as an excellent journalist, managing to take pictures of absolutely everything! 

During these trips as vets, you find yourself reaching the end of the day and comparing with your colleagues, ‘So how many bitches did you spay?´But this trip for me was less competitive (I am not just saying that because I didn’t win!!! ) but more about our ability to work as a team.  It was simply fantastic, we had an amazing dynamic.

We were on day 11 at  Grand Anse and Koen, the man in our girl group was spaying a young GSD x (deep chested) bitch, when he started worrying that it wasn’t breathing properly.  He called over Amy (RCVS surgical resident, don’t worry we only treat her like a god, when things start going wrong 😉 ) Amy had thankfully just finished, she took a look, agreed and rushed over to get an ET tube.  Suzy, obviously had it to hand… that seems negligible, but in the moment, you haven’t got time.  Dying doesn’t take long.  Suzy knows exactly where everything is in the suitcase, which is a skill.  As Amy pushed the ET tube down into the dogs trachae, a large puddle of liquid splashed onto the floor.  Koen, stopped operating, spayed or not spayed the objective had now changed, keeping the dog alive became the priority.  I was on my table finishing an operation and I looked over at Lydia, half way through her cat spay.  ‘Lydia, get over there, they need your skills, I’ll finish your cat’  so she dropped her tools and we swapped places.  So now Koen was closing his incision site as quickly as possible , whilst Amy and Lydia were injecting reversal agents and adrenalin, with stethoscopes held to the chest of the cyanotic gasping dog.   The dog took a good 30 minutes of close supervision, before she finally regained a ‘happy to be alive’ appearance.  At times like this it feels so special to be a part of the Spay Sisters team.  

Thank you all for your support with a special mention to Tanya and Tamara for a very nice donation.  Like all our donations, we promise the money we receive only goes on equipment and medicines.  We even fund our own surgical gloves and celebratory cocktails!  So every gift you give goes to help those dogs and cats get sterilised and live a happier life.  

“We wanna thank our lovely volunteers, the government and our faithful sponsors. Bravo, boardwalk, Jules takeaway, Cap du Cerf, Delplace , four seasons, le nautique, UCPS , Sterling. We had also some anonymous donors and we wish to say a big thank you and we look forward to working together in the future for the good of our furry friends and the country.”

And just a huge THANK YOU to Maria and all her helpers, for their assistance in our stay …. And guess who got an invite to return in 2 years …WE DID 🙂