Daiga Rozensteine
August 2009
The next vet to attend the International Veterinary Training Programme is Daiga Rozensteine, a final year veterinary medicine student from the University of Riga in Latvia. Daiga offers her time to an organisation called “Animals’ Friend Fund”, which is a member of RSPCA and WSPA. The welfare conditions they have at their shelter are some of the best in the country and are strictly enforced. She has been working as a volunteer at the animal shelter in Riga for 8 years. During this time she has learnt a lot about animal welfare and protection, especially about stray animals.
Animals’ Friend Fund (AFF) as an organization has been established in 1994. Animals’ Friend Fund is a non – governmental organisation. AFF is the largest animal protection organization in Latvia and the only one that does campaigns covering different issues like street animals, fur animals, farm animals, experimental animals, circus animals etc. Since 2001 it has also been working as an animal shelter for street cats and dogs in Latvia.
Latvia Animal Welfare
Daiga commented on the organisation she supports:
“As an NGO our animal shelter doesn’t get any financial support from our government so we have a list of people who annually donate a certain amount of money. And every time when someone adopts an animal from the shelter they have to leave some donation. Every time when someone adopts an animal the person has to fill in an adoption form. We liaise with the people who adopt to make sure that it is a good home and we have rights to go and check our animals in their new homes (which we do regularly). We never give animals to be chained or to those who want the animal for breeding or security.
We have also our own clinic that works for both - for their own clients and for the shelter animals. We have one vet who is responsible for our animals. All the animals are able to get veterinary help if needed any time of day. We only give for adoption vaccinated, sterilised, de–wormed and healthy animals.
We have a group of volunteers – who come and help us whenever they can (they have to be over 18, if not they have to have a written permission from their parents).
Our goals are to:
- collect the stray animals and re-home them - we have an animal shelter for 30 dogs and 50 cats. Through all these years since our shelter is working we have been able to find homes for about 4500 animals;
- prevent the cruelty and promote kindness to animals using informative campaigns and demonstrations using legal action;
- support projects, informative campaigns, school competitions on animal protection;
- promote public education on animal welfare;
- prepare information materials on protection of animals;
- to raise funds for animal welfare
- to run lectures and workshops on animal welfare for other shelters
My main job is to care about animals (feeding, cleaning, walking and basic medical care) but I also help with translating materials and doing campaigns. I am also a board member of our organisation. I really enjoy my work here in our organisation. Due to very intense studies at the vet college I am only able to come to the shelter once or twice a week but it is better in the summer time when I am able to spend quite a lot of time there. As a member of our organisation I have to cooperate with different animal welfare organizations and 3 – 4 times a year I have to attend different meetings and conferences in other countries. In cooperation with organisations like RSPCA, CIWF, ECFA I am able to organise different campaigns. The last one I did was about farm animal protection – it was called “Life in intensive farming”. We organised street stalls and photo exhibition in three main cities in Latvia. Outside the tent there was an exhibition with posters or photos of farm animals kept in intensive farming and free- range farming system. Under each poster there is a short description about the image seen in the photo. It was a really successful campaign. We had a chance to talk to people and get people’s attention on what we want to declare. In winter time we had the campaign against seal hunting.So every year we have certain amount of campaigns that we do and that are financially supported by larger animal welfare groups, although the work on companion animals particularly inspires me”.
The attitude to animal welfare from the public varies in Latvia – there are people who are very interested in this issue and are willing to educate others about animal welfare and promote better animal welfare. The majority of people, however, will rather think about humans than animals, especially in this difficult economical time when people are struggling to survive. At the moment animal welfare will definitely be not taken as priority issue and even less and less people can afford to have a cat or dog at home. Actually now we are working very hard as even more people are taking animals to the shelter not because they wouldn’t want them but because they just can’t afford to have them.
The situation with street cats is worse than with street dogs. We do not collect animals from street ourselves (except cases when there is an injured animal who seeks urgent veterinary aid) as that is a job of municipal (government supported) shelters. We have had some sterilisation programmes (that are either supported by government or through donations) which have also helped to improve the situation with stray animals. Unfortunately there are times (in spring particularly) when there are tens of kittens and puppies brought to our shelter every day but as we have limited space at the shelter we can only take a certain amount of them.
In order to educate the public about animal welfare we have made quite a lot of information materials like “Your new puppy”, “Your new kitten”, “Why should you sterilise your animal?” ‘Basic health care for your dog/cat”, “Feeding your dog/cat”, “House training for your dog”, “Socialisation for your animal” etc . These materials are mostly been taken from RSPCA resources.
About 8 years ago the situation with stray animals was dramatic, they were everywhere, despite the hard work of the municipal shelter (one in Riga). Thanks to endless work during the last few years the situation has significantly improved but there is still lots to do in this country. Unfortunately, the main problem that is needed to be improved in is animal welfare legislation. Most of the cases that go to court (about animal abuse or cruelty to them) ends up with financial fines (£100 – £200 at most), even if the animal is brutally killed. Daiga said: “It is a very emotional issue and it is always so sad to hear about or to see shot, knifed, burned or beaten animals. But I guess this happens all around the world apart from the fact that some countries have got very strict laws about animal abuse and people go to prison for it. It is just very disappointing that this does not yet happen here and I look forward to learning more about this in the UK”.
When asked about why she wants to attend the International Veterinary Training Programme and what she hopes to achieve in the future she said the following:
“I think that the work experience I will have at The Mayhew would not only improve my skills in my veterinary surgery but also further my knowledge in animal welfare management. As I have already had some work experience in the UK, I know how useful and interesting it can be. I think that Mayhew International will give me a great opportunity to work with professional veterinary people who know high standards on animal welfare and who can teach me more about it - so that I can bring this knowledge to my country or elsewhere I go in the future.
I have always been interested in animal welfare and rescue issues and that is my plan for future after graduating the college – to work in animal rescue centre as a vet, to educate people about animal welfare. Unfortunately, such subjects like animal welfare and rescuing is not included in our study plan at the vet college. And there is still a very old-fashioned opinion about vets – that they only treat animal and find solutions how to save their lives (which is of course very important) but I think that nowadays a vet is also the first person who is responsible for animal welfare as much as its health and is the one who protects animals and works with government for better legislation for animals.
After graduating from the veterinary college in Latvia I am planning to do some studies abroad. I would love to study more about animal welfare, animal behavior and animal psychology. I don’t have such an opportunity to study these subjects in Latvia, so I am going abroad. At the same time I would love to start working and practice myself in any of small animal vet clinic. I also would love to carry on working in animal protection organisations and carry on my cooperation with other organisations to work on campaigns like I have done so far. I absolutely enjoy this work. Ultimately, I want to take all I have learnt back to Latvia and make the country a model for animal welfare in the region”.
Feedback
Daiga gave the following feedback at the conclusion of the course:
"I would like to thank you all for the most wonderful time I spent here. Thank you for letting me be here and work with you. I must say that I've learnt so much and I definitely had the best experience I have ever had. I didn't believe I would have all the chances I had here. There is no doubt that you are the best teachers and you all have the ability to explain things in an easy and understandable way. I am very proud that I had the chance to see the fabulous way that you care for your animals".
We will continue to work closely with Daiga to ensure that our wish to improve welfare standards in Latvia occurs.
Update
We asked Daiga for an update on her progress and she told us the following:
"Thanks I am doing well! Having my final practical work experience here in Riga at our animal shelter "Animals Friend Fund". It is quite busy here - lots of work for the shelter animals! The end of last year and the beginning of this year has been VERY busy for me at the college - as you know this is my final year an I had to study a lot and do the revision. I have succesfully passed all the exams and now I am having the final three month practical work experience and on 19th of June 2010 I have my graduating day.
Of course it is not all about neutering - I also use other advice that I remember vets from Mayhew giving me - e.g. monitoring animals on the time of operation and after that, pre - op preperation - animals, vets, also intubation ( I hadn't done the intubation before, so actually I can say that I learnt to do it properly at Mayhew), and also IV injections, general first health check directly animals get in the shelter.) So all these things I can use now when I doing my practical work experience.
Well speaking about experience that I got at Mayhew - I have NO doubt that it was the best work experience I have ever had during my time of studies. During my final work experience here at the shelter and clinic I have had some opportunities to put the practical experience that I got at Mayhew into the practical work. But I must say that techniques and opinions about neutering animals DO differ from the ones I learned at Mayhew (for example the flank and midline incisions in cat spay - our vets dont accept the flank incison way, so I cannot really practise it here although I wanted to). And as I am still a student and still learning, I really cannot do my way and I have to accept the methods that are used here. However - in the future when I am qualified vet I will try and do the techniques I learnt at Mayhew.
But unfortunaltely I have to admit that work in the UK (at Mayhews and other places) and work in Latvia is not comparable. The quality of work and attitude towards the work DO differ and I really do not want to lose the inspiration of high quality work I remember from the UK.
However, like I said, the experience I got at The Mayhew is not forgettable and I still think about you.
You all are doing a fantastic job and i am only inspired by what you do and how you do it. The work at Mayhew is like my example of how I would like to work in the future."