Richard turned up. Not only did the street lad we chased down the road and rescued a puppy off him that he was illegally selling arrive for his first big day of rehabilitation – but he was actually brilliant. Really good with the dogs (no massive surprise there I suppose) but he was an amazing help to me and it was hard graft. We treated about 300 dogs and Richard helped me with all of them. He was injecting by the end of the day with easy confidence and was good company. He proved himself and Sue has given him a job!! Brilliant!!

LAWS did amazingly today as well – the huge effort they had gone to in co-ordinating and organising their first field clinic day was really incredible. Michelle and Claudia to name but two of the LAWS committee working totally voluntarily to get today in the bag and of course Sue – driving the bus and getting everyone sorted out and motivated. Really impressive team. We must have done about 600 dogs as a group today and I was simply staggered by the receptiveness of the community we were working with (in a football stadium in downtown Lusaka).
 

The dogs themselves were in not too bad condition – a few were in trouble and we treated accordingly. One we simply had to confiscate – the kid had tied wire around the base of its tail as a slow method of improvised docking – poor thing. I think the tail can be saved but I’ll keep an eye on it over the next few days and see how it does.
 

Everyone in the crew is on a high – although totally shattered. The day had a real buzz about it and we all feel we achieved something. Once the cameras had done their thing, Adam, Bruce and Nick all got stuck into helping with the animals – really great crew. It was like having a full on WVS team by the end of the day – I reckon at the end of the series they’ll all be able to spay and stitch up without batting an eyelid!