Due to popular demand, and a very helpful collaborator, we've finally got video of us capturing and sampling dogs. Sadly, we only had one video of us muzzling a dog so we didn't have much to choose from. It's a little amateur hour, but it gives a decent idea of the process for muzzling dogs that do not want to be muzzled. This is video from a hospital for mentally disabled people where some of the patients kept dogs, so we had additional concerns in keeping people back which made it a little more difficult, but the patients there were very sweet and helpful generally.
While this guy freaks out a bit, he was not hurt at all, just scared of the leash. We're tapping him on the head because we didn't want him chewing through the lead, as we're down to three leads now, and still have to finish sampling in India. We'll post more videos of actually taking blood and such in a bit.
[Guest post by Ryan, with bits by Cori, heh]
Showing posts with label "adventures". Show all posts
Showing posts with label "adventures". Show all posts
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Monday, July 27, 2009
Wtf, Australia?
Actually, more "WTF, Air Niugini?" the airline that canceled our 7 am flight to Port Moresby without emailing us or contacting us in any way. We showed up a full seven hours before their one flight today, which leaves at noon. Clearly I haven't spent enough time in airports in the past 48 hours, so the universe is sharing with me, again, the joys of mediocre overpriced food, uncomfortable chairs and severe sleep deprivation. Oy. We're hoping to use the extra couple hours of airport time to get some internet things sorted out--maybe those posts will show up after all. All and all, a less than auspicious start to our journey to PNG.
In the mean time, I bring you these random notes from Australian bathrooms: The toilet paper at the hostel we stayed at in Cairns was a brand called "Eloquence." I think I'll just let that speak for itself. Also, the airport bathrooms are labeled "Female toilet" and "Male toilet" as though the toilets themselves are women and men. I'm letting these little quirks amuse me, because the alternative is curling up in an exhausted ball on the airport floor and whining at a loud volume, which is still, somehow, below my dignity.
In the mean time, I bring you these random notes from Australian bathrooms: The toilet paper at the hostel we stayed at in Cairns was a brand called "Eloquence." I think I'll just let that speak for itself. Also, the airport bathrooms are labeled "Female toilet" and "Male toilet" as though the toilets themselves are women and men. I'm letting these little quirks amuse me, because the alternative is curling up in an exhausted ball on the airport floor and whining at a loud volume, which is still, somehow, below my dignity.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
The promised awesome pictures are up on the previous post. We've arrived safely in Istanbul, which is beautiful. We can see the Blue Mosque from the roof of our hotel.
Also, big props to Turkish airlines for fitting us in on a later flight for free when we overslept our alarm for their 340am flight. Thank god that worked out.
Also, big props to Turkish airlines for fitting us in on a later flight for free when we overslept our alarm for their 340am flight. Thank god that worked out.
Monday, June 29, 2009
So you want to sample a village dog's blood....
Actually, likely you really, really don't. But I do, and so I'm going to explain how you actually do it here. It's one of those grunt work type parts of science (that is, it's data collection) but relatively pleasant and interesting, since it's often pretty challenging. Plus, the perks (international travel to places way, way off the beaten track) are excellent.
So, here's how we actually do it.
First, we put all of the following into a large duffel bag, and throw that into the back of a 4x4:
Step 2: Find dogs. If people keep them as pets or guards, this means driving around the countryside with translators (sometimes more than one) to explain your pressing need for blood from rural dogs. After many strange looks, most people are willing to help if only out of curiosity. I've often thought that it's probably particularly helpful that I'm female, as I get some especially strange looks diving onto riled up dogs with thick bite proof gloves. Novelty gets you a lot of interest.
If people don't keep dogs, we usually rely on shelters. Shelters are awesome because they usually have very calm, well-socialized dogs and enthusiastic staff. Also, it's great to be able to compensate people by donating to a dog shelter and helping the animals too.
We've also tried driving around looking for dogs, but this usually doesn't work as well.
Step 3: Restrain the dog. Get the owner or any other foolishly helpful soul (ie, me or Ryan or our collaborators) to put a lead on the dog. If it freaks out, let it do so until it runs low on energy. Then cautiously put a muzzle on the dog from behind:
If the dog is chill, that last bit is less necessary, which saves loads of time.
Step 4: Measure the dog. For breed dogs there are more than 30 of these measurments. We take six: body length, height, chest girth, chest width, face width, and snout length. Usually I call out these measurements to Ryan, who writes them down along with a number of other types of physical descriptions and takes pictures.
Step 5: Get the blood! Get someone strong and confident to hold the dog still and hold a forelimb so that the cephalic vein is obvious after an alcohol swab. Insert butterfly needle attached to tube holder and needle. When there's blood in the butterfly needle's tube, attach the vacuum tube. Wait, trying desperately to instill patience in a figity dog, for the tube to fill with five cc's of blood. Fiddle gently with the needle and pump the dogs paw to increase the speed of the flow.
Step 6: Weigh the dog (if it's under 50 lbs) using a fish scale and goat sling. Ignore the local people's laughter as the dog slips out of the sling for the third time before you can suspend the sling from the scale.
Step 7: Carefully release the dog, making sure no one lets go of the lead or muzzle before everyone's clear and they've really been removed from the dog. Losing one of four leads to a dog running away is not fun in the middle of a busy sampling day.
Apparently, with loads of helpers, tons of chill dogs, and an efficient system, you can take blood using this method (ie, steps 3-7) at a rate of about one dog every three minutes or so. At least, that's what we did today--seventy dogs in less than four hours.
Step 8: Mail blood home. Talk to people repeatedly about the lack of danger from healthy domestic dog blood and attach loads of letters making it clear that there is no value nor any troubling regulations on shipping this stuff.
And then we move onto the next country! That's how I'm spending my summer, and while it's exhausting and not fabulously intellectual, we're having a blast.
So, here's how we actually do it.
First, we put all of the following into a large duffel bag, and throw that into the back of a 4x4:
- butterfly needles (needles with wing shaped handles and tubing attached)
- Vacuum sealed test tubes
- Tube holders and needles (plastic holders and needles to puncture vacuum sealed tubes)
- alcohol swabs
- measuring tape
- data sheets
- sharpies
- pens
- leads (the kind you slip over a dog's neck)
- muzzles (in about eight sizes)
- camera
- a cooler with ice
- fish scale (suspensory scale)
- goat sling (a mesh sling for holding dogs from the scale)
Step 2: Find dogs. If people keep them as pets or guards, this means driving around the countryside with translators (sometimes more than one) to explain your pressing need for blood from rural dogs. After many strange looks, most people are willing to help if only out of curiosity. I've often thought that it's probably particularly helpful that I'm female, as I get some especially strange looks diving onto riled up dogs with thick bite proof gloves. Novelty gets you a lot of interest.
If people don't keep dogs, we usually rely on shelters. Shelters are awesome because they usually have very calm, well-socialized dogs and enthusiastic staff. Also, it's great to be able to compensate people by donating to a dog shelter and helping the animals too.
We've also tried driving around looking for dogs, but this usually doesn't work as well.
Step 3: Restrain the dog. Get the owner or any other foolishly helpful soul (ie, me or Ryan or our collaborators) to put a lead on the dog. If it freaks out, let it do so until it runs low on energy. Then cautiously put a muzzle on the dog from behind:
If the dog is chill, that last bit is less necessary, which saves loads of time.
Step 4: Measure the dog. For breed dogs there are more than 30 of these measurments. We take six: body length, height, chest girth, chest width, face width, and snout length. Usually I call out these measurements to Ryan, who writes them down along with a number of other types of physical descriptions and takes pictures.
Step 5: Get the blood! Get someone strong and confident to hold the dog still and hold a forelimb so that the cephalic vein is obvious after an alcohol swab. Insert butterfly needle attached to tube holder and needle. When there's blood in the butterfly needle's tube, attach the vacuum tube. Wait, trying desperately to instill patience in a figity dog, for the tube to fill with five cc's of blood. Fiddle gently with the needle and pump the dogs paw to increase the speed of the flow.
Step 6: Weigh the dog (if it's under 50 lbs) using a fish scale and goat sling. Ignore the local people's laughter as the dog slips out of the sling for the third time before you can suspend the sling from the scale.
Step 7: Carefully release the dog, making sure no one lets go of the lead or muzzle before everyone's clear and they've really been removed from the dog. Losing one of four leads to a dog running away is not fun in the middle of a busy sampling day.
Apparently, with loads of helpers, tons of chill dogs, and an efficient system, you can take blood using this method (ie, steps 3-7) at a rate of about one dog every three minutes or so. At least, that's what we did today--seventy dogs in less than four hours.
Step 8: Mail blood home. Talk to people repeatedly about the lack of danger from healthy domestic dog blood and attach loads of letters making it clear that there is no value nor any troubling regulations on shipping this stuff.
And then we move onto the next country! That's how I'm spending my summer, and while it's exhausting and not fabulously intellectual, we're having a blast.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
In Doha
This is a guest post by Ryan.
Apologies for the delay in posting; jet lag, sampling and exploring have taken all our time lately. I've finally found some time to write this post---at 3AM!
First things first, we've now collected nearly two dozen dog samples in Qatar, with more sampling arranged for Monday and Tuesday. Sampling your first few dogs is a very nice feeling; at least we know the trip will be at least a partial success! The street dogs here generally look and act much like salukis, an ancient desert-dwelling breed whose spindly body fits the climate here (humid, 115 degrees F and sunny every day with lows somewhere in the 90s during the summer). It will be interesting to compare these dogs to other Middle Eastern street dogs and to American salukis. We will write much more about the dog project and the science behind it as time goes on, but for the moment I think I'll use my time to talk a bit more about the travel.
The trip over here was a gruelling 24-hour (32 with the time differnece) affair during which we saw the sun set twice from plane seats high above two different continents. To make a long story short, a clerical error forced us to fly this leg on less-convenient and much less comfortable American carriers (Gulf carriers know how to treat their passengers). The lack of free alcohol, the poor entertainment system and the uncomfortable seats limited my sleep, though it arguably increased my productivity. I started out trying to watch Coraline but for some reason it was not working on that flight so I tried the next-best Bride Wars next (sad but true). After twenty minutes I couldn't take it anymore and got to completing a review for a journal that was due within a couple days. It was one of those papers that clearly involved a lot of long-term data but was plagued by problems in its theoretical development and data interpretation. It's the kind of paper that is all too often written, and all too often published, in primatology. Hopefully my review can help produce a stronger, more meaningful contribution.
Apologies for the delay in posting; jet lag, sampling and exploring have taken all our time lately. I've finally found some time to write this post---at 3AM!
First things first, we've now collected nearly two dozen dog samples in Qatar, with more sampling arranged for Monday and Tuesday. Sampling your first few dogs is a very nice feeling; at least we know the trip will be at least a partial success! The street dogs here generally look and act much like salukis, an ancient desert-dwelling breed whose spindly body fits the climate here (humid, 115 degrees F and sunny every day with lows somewhere in the 90s during the summer). It will be interesting to compare these dogs to other Middle Eastern street dogs and to American salukis. We will write much more about the dog project and the science behind it as time goes on, but for the moment I think I'll use my time to talk a bit more about the travel.
The trip over here was a gruelling 24-hour (32 with the time differnece) affair during which we saw the sun set twice from plane seats high above two different continents. To make a long story short, a clerical error forced us to fly this leg on less-convenient and much less comfortable American carriers (Gulf carriers know how to treat their passengers). The lack of free alcohol, the poor entertainment system and the uncomfortable seats limited my sleep, though it arguably increased my productivity. I started out trying to watch Coraline but for some reason it was not working on that flight so I tried the next-best Bride Wars next (sad but true). After twenty minutes I couldn't take it anymore and got to completing a review for a journal that was due within a couple days. It was one of those papers that clearly involved a lot of long-term data but was plagued by problems in its theoretical development and data interpretation. It's the kind of paper that is all too often written, and all too often published, in primatology. Hopefully my review can help produce a stronger, more meaningful contribution.
On the flight from Frankfurt to Doha via Riyadh we were on Lufthansa which meant free drinks and more entertainment options---Meerkat Manor and Discovery Channel specials all the way!
Instead of giving a play-by-play for our trip to Doha, I think I'll just list some of the highlights so I can get to bed soon.
- The first morning we walked at 7am for an hour and wound up drenched in sweat even at that hour.
- Doha is nice in a bustling-but-not-overly-so, rapidly-expanding-but-with-some-forethought way. The city is clearly alive (but not overwhelmingly so, like Cairo) and is incredibly multicultural: more than half of the people in Qatar are not local Qataris (this results in some amazing ethnic food being available). People dressed in traditional robes freely mingle with Westerners, Indians and other Muslims from around the world. While conservative dress is expected and the sexes are frequently segregated (e.g. many restaurants will not serve women, or will only serve them in special “Family” rooms), it usually doesn't feel oppressive. Women can and do hold jobs, drive (since 1995) and there is a vibrant free press (it is, for example, the headquarters of Al Jazeera). It's also a fully welfare state with very high per capita income and decent income distribution parity.
- Our first rental car's air conditioning died, so we had to use windows and frequent rehydration for one day before we could trade the car for a new one.
- Shortly after getting our second rental car, on our way to sample dogs, we were involved in an accident. Another car left its lane in the middle of traffic circle and hit directly into us (we were in its blind spot and the driver never looked). On the bright side it was a fairly minor accident; we both drove away to the traffic police, spent an hour filling out paperwork, swiped our credit card to pay a processing fee and we were back on our way, albeit having lost half of our sampling time because the shelter is only open from 4-6pm.
- We drove all the way to the tip of the Qatari peninsula---nearly an hour's drive! One can cross the whole country north-south in about 1.5-2 hours and east-west in about 45 minutes. The scenery doesn't change much though; a lot of beige with the scattered small tree every now and then. It did give us a chance to take our 4x4 off-road on the beach and see our first Qatari wildlife, a recently deceased large lizard.
- All the bulidings here are the same shade of sand beige (except one very pink house we saw).
- If you should ever want to adopt a dog (or cat, donkey, chicken, guinea fowl or just about any kind of animal imaginable) in Qatar, QAWS is the place to do it. They have a very nice volunteer staff and do wonders to help unwanted and maltreated animals here. In general, Qatar has very few dogs as most Muslims do not like to keep dogs.
- The Islamic Art Museum in Doha is awesome and free. They even give you a golf cart ride from your car to the entrance and back. The architecture (like many buildings in Doha, including Cornell's medical school) is interesting and, in this case, gorgeous. The museum is very under-utilized resulting in a very pleasant, unrushed experience. The art is amazing; intricately designed vessels, rugs, Qarans and other artifacts from across the Muslim world, stretching from Spain and Morocco to India and spanning 1400 years.
Well, there's much I could say, but I think I should go to sleep now. Just one more thing: go USA! We've miraculously made it to the semi-finals of the Confederations Cup---we watched the last game versus Egypt in a sheesha restaurant here.
Cumulative stats:
6 flights
6 time zones
36 traveling hours
10,469 miles
4 countries (counting all landings and time spent on the ground at all)
2 countries (counting only those countries we left the airport)
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Cause for celebration...
...they revised the high forecasted for Doha, Qatar for while we're there--instead of a high of 115 degrees F every day, it should only be 110 degrees F. Woo hoo!
Monday, June 15, 2009
In which the adventure begins.
Ryan and I took our first flight segments of the summer (of the year?) on Friday, flying from Sacramento to Salt Lake City to St. Louis. That alliterative journey logged us two flight segments, three time zones (on the ground), about twelve traveling hours (counting from when we left for the airport and then arrived home), and 1,975 miles. Thus begins this summer's journey. We'll keep track of similar stats at the end of posts from now on.
Moving out of our cute house in California was an adventure on its own, in no small part because, with an inspection scheduled for Thursday morning, I woke up one week ago with the worst case of strep throat I've ever had. Because you know, moving with one-year-old Oisin was't gonna be crazy enough. My throat was so swollen I was worried about breathing (yes, probably an overreaction), I had a 103 degree F fever (chills and hallucinations oh my), and I could barely swallow liquids. Because of that last factor, I let myself get so dehydrated the gave me IV fluids, which, shockingly, are a great pick me up when you can't drink. After those, getting the fever under control, and some hefty meds for the pain, I was at least able to sleep, but I spent much of Tuesday out of commission while Ryan tried to pack the house and the incredibly gracious Ant 1 TA's finished my grading. Wednesday and Thursday were nutty, but thanks to wonderful friends and family helping us, we managed not to lose our whole deposit, get most of our stuff into a VERY full storage locker and pack the things we'd need (albeit rather chaotically) into bags for the flights Friday.
As for those flights, I gotta tell you, if I didn't love Oisin before, I would now. He's at an incredibly sweet age right now and I'm really having to work hard to supress the realization of how much I will miss him this summer. He slept the whole first flight after watching us take off, then peacefully and mostly quietly played the whole second one. Gearing up to be a great world traveller someday.
Now we're at our first base camp, Ryan's folks' place in southern Illinois. I'm sitting in a guest bedroom surrounded by field clothes, vaccutainers, backpacks, muzzles, toiletries, cameras, power adapters for the whole world, travel guides, and compression sacks. I'm packing most things first thing tomorrow morning, then making a trip to the mall for Oisin's one year portraits and a few last minute necessities. Ryan and I are both at the point where we're antsy. The last 48 hours before a the field are the weirdest mix of tempos--everything goes rushing by, but it still takes ages to get out the door...
'till next time.
Cumulative stats:
2 flights
3 time zones
12 traveling hours
1975 miles
1 country
Moving out of our cute house in California was an adventure on its own, in no small part because, with an inspection scheduled for Thursday morning, I woke up one week ago with the worst case of strep throat I've ever had. Because you know, moving with one-year-old Oisin was't gonna be crazy enough. My throat was so swollen I was worried about breathing (yes, probably an overreaction), I had a 103 degree F fever (chills and hallucinations oh my), and I could barely swallow liquids. Because of that last factor, I let myself get so dehydrated the gave me IV fluids, which, shockingly, are a great pick me up when you can't drink. After those, getting the fever under control, and some hefty meds for the pain, I was at least able to sleep, but I spent much of Tuesday out of commission while Ryan tried to pack the house and the incredibly gracious Ant 1 TA's finished my grading. Wednesday and Thursday were nutty, but thanks to wonderful friends and family helping us, we managed not to lose our whole deposit, get most of our stuff into a VERY full storage locker and pack the things we'd need (albeit rather chaotically) into bags for the flights Friday.
As for those flights, I gotta tell you, if I didn't love Oisin before, I would now. He's at an incredibly sweet age right now and I'm really having to work hard to supress the realization of how much I will miss him this summer. He slept the whole first flight after watching us take off, then peacefully and mostly quietly played the whole second one. Gearing up to be a great world traveller someday.
Now we're at our first base camp, Ryan's folks' place in southern Illinois. I'm sitting in a guest bedroom surrounded by field clothes, vaccutainers, backpacks, muzzles, toiletries, cameras, power adapters for the whole world, travel guides, and compression sacks. I'm packing most things first thing tomorrow morning, then making a trip to the mall for Oisin's one year portraits and a few last minute necessities. Ryan and I are both at the point where we're antsy. The last 48 hours before a the field are the weirdest mix of tempos--everything goes rushing by, but it still takes ages to get out the door...
'till next time.
Cumulative stats:
2 flights
3 time zones
12 traveling hours
1975 miles
1 country
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