![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.spaysisters.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/image1.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nAfter all the regular problems of travel from Cornwall, or more easily from France, 5 of us met up at Luton Airport on Sunday 29th<\/sup> September.\u00a0 Suzy Howes was arriving 2 days later from Jordan. \u00a0 We were taking an afternoon Easyjet flight to Tel Aviv.\u00a0 Obviously, in order to fly into Israel, there are \u2018before check-in\u2019 security checks but Jonathan Shpgel had written us a letter.\u00a0 Helena and I were carrying all the instruments and all the anaesthesia ie\/ vast quantities of Ketamine and we just passed through the \u2018straight faced\u2019 interrogators without problems.\u00a0 Katie, however when asked \u2018was everything in her bag her own\u2019 replied \u2018NO\u2019 before trying to explain, she had taken masks and gloves from work, with their permission of course!! …. anyway she won\u2019t make that mistake again.\u00a0 We finally all got on the plane.<\/p>\n You never actually know what will happen the other end.\u00a0 As email was the only contact we\u2019d had with \u2018Let the animals live\u2019, but I needn\u2019t have worried.\u00a0 We walked out through customs and were greeted by a man with a sheet with my name on it and with a mini bus outside.\u00a0 He took us to \u2018Black and Wild\u2019, a super hostel at 250m from the sea.\u00a0 We had 2 rooms, of 2 and 4, which were adjoining with a bathroom between.\u00a0 It was now 11pm and our first working day started by Shevach picking us up from the hostel at 7.30am!!<\/p>\n So Shevach arrived outside our hostel and took us by bus to the Charity\u2019s Clinic.\u00a0 The Clinic was a nice, clean, small clinic like most vets, the world over, with T-shirts, cat food and flea products on sale in the small reception area.\u00a0 The operating theatre, which became \u2018our room\u2019 once Suzy arrived with the music, had 2 operating tables and 1 prep\u2019g table.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The good news is that they were organised for us on our first morning …. with the TV crew waiting.\u00a0 This gave Doctor Helena White the chance to talk about the \u2018overpopulation problem,\u2019 whilst Ruth was shown clipping a cats tail for amputation (basically nothing to do with what we were actually therefore!!)\u00a0 Once they had left we got down to the \u2018Real Work\u2019.<\/p>\n We really didn\u2019t get to meet them properly, they just shouted abit if we got the cats in the wrong cages, but the \u2018cat catchers\u2019 in Israel are pretty damn good.\u00a0 These women arrive with 20 cat cages at a time, filled with \u2018well-feed, savage\u2019 cats.\u00a0 At the beginning of day 1, our anaesthetic doses weren\u2019t that good, because we weren\u2019t guessing the weights correctly.\u00a0 Universally the average stray cat weighs between 3 and 3.5kg\u2019s but not in Israel.\u00a0 Israeli strays weigh between 4 to 4.5kg\u2019s and like the people are \u2018fighters\u2019.<\/p>\n On day 1, without Suzy\u2019s charts, we operated on 42 cats and returned via bus to our hostel and a quick dip in the sea, facing the bright lights of Tel Aviv, to relieve our work stresses, bliss!!\u00a0 After the first day, whilst they looked at our work patterns, they explained they had permission to operate in the municipal kennels.\u00a0 Each city has a kennels, in which the stray dogs are put.\u00a0 They are kept for 30days before euthanasia, health permitting.\u00a0 Various cities were prepared to welcome us for a day or 2 to sterilise their animals and then rather than euthanizing\u00a0 them, they would be fostered out.<\/p>\n So Toni and I were taken from the bus to the station, loaded with our operating equipment and we went to Lod.\u00a0 There we met their really super municipal vet Dr Orr (which in Hebrew means light).\u00a0 We were shown around the cattery and the kennels, shown the coffee machine, the average operating room and given a box of chocolates…. always a good start!!\u00a0 5 bitches, 7 dogs, a train, a bus and we were on the beach by 5pm.<\/p>\n Katie, Helena and Ruth spend the day at the Tel Aviv clinic and another 37 cats were sterilised.<\/p>\n On 2\/10 it was Helena and Ruth\u2019s turn to go for a \u2018walk about\u2019 and they disappeared on their train to Prades Hanna, where despite a lack of help ferrying animals to and from their operating theatre a.k.a\u00a0 the office, they managed 9 dogs.\u00a0 Another complicating factor about working in the municipal kennels is the fact that the working day finishes at 3 to 3.30pm and there is NO staying late!! \u00a0 Katie and I stayed at the Tel Aviv Clinic and were delighted with our total of 48 cats.\u00a0 Suzy had arrived, so the conveyor belt was running efficiently, we now had music blasting and Toni even had the chance to learn how to castrate cats.<\/p>\n Day 4 and the last day of the week, in Israel, Friday and Saturday are the days off each week.\u00a0 Toni and I pleased with our outing to Lod, were allowed to return.\u00a0 Helena and Ruth returned equally to Prades Hanna, their operating room had now moved to an outside awning!\u00a0 Whilst Suzy and Katie remained at base.\u00a0 It was another successful day with a total of 52 animals getting sterilised.<\/p>\n Though we had only done 4 days of work we were all fairly tired, but as none of us knew if we\u2019d ever return , we had to make the most of our stay.\u00a0 The 7 seater\u00a0 MPV was hired, the French woman from the hostel (who had had both her legs amputated high thigh due to a house fire 18 years ago) whom we\u2019d befriended and her wheel chair were loaded into the car along with all of us\u00a0 and we set off for Jerusalem for the day.\u00a0 Hels was invaluable with her religious knowledge and Toni and Suzy, were also invaluable, due to their lack of!\u00a0 Basically, we were all invaluable because going on a guided tour through the narrow, cobbled, loads of steeps, streets of Jerusalem with a woman in a wheelchair is simply sport.<\/p>\n Their Sabbath our Sunday was spent at the ancient town of Caesaria, where finally we spent a few hours doing nothing…. even Katie slowed down momentarily.<\/p>\n That night we were off on a couple of trains to get out to \u2018the desert\u2019 Dimona, for their city pound and between 50-100dogs.\u00a0 They had us in a nice hotel with a wonderful buffet breakfast and NO, Toni never did dare eat cold fish for breakfast.<\/p>\n At 7.30am on Sunday we met Dimona\u2019s vet, a lovely lady called Natali.\u00a0 She was Russian and Helena spent time watching her and wondering how anybody vetting in the Uk could look like her.\u00a0 She had high heels, an off the shoulder fish net type top, beautiful fake nails and large cream rimmed sunnies, but she was lovely.\u00a0 As was Liana, who loved the dogs and ferried the dogs in and out of the kennels relentlessly.\u00a0 After 45 neutering operations of which 26 bitches and the rest dogs, we had had a productive day.\u00a0 Katie who had come onto our trip to gain confidence was definitely speeding up and now with Suzy\u2019s equipment was providing us with good music too.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n