000627Singapore pet health and welfare educational for animal lovers, excerpts from The Glamorous Vets, Singapore, sponsored by  AsiaHomes Internet. The chief executive traps a butterfly in a plastic bag. Mr Lee was in charge of a startup operation for a big multi-international oil company.   He had the best of both worlds: oil programming knowledge and business experience and had been promoted to a very high position by his 10th year with the same company unusual for Singaporean informationa technology professionals who are well known for job hopping. Endless meetings after meetings with various people to build the offices and to recruit one hundred employees for the office just took up a lot of his time. Travelling to Indonesia and China to discuss with marine engineers and oil people.  He would spend whatever time he had bathing his Labrador with the best dog shampoo and rinser.   Weeding his carpet grassed garden, checking on the koi fishes in the pond and gold fishes in the aquarium.  His seventy-five year old father was still strong enough and took the Labrador for walks in the morning and evening. The dog was too strong for his father.  Sometimes it just rushed out of the side gate which might be opened for visitors.  There was a visit by a Primary  Production Officer saying that he had committed an offence in not leashing his dog when it went out for walks.  There were photos to prove it.  Photos sent by someone.    Somebody who disliked dogs.   On one such exit, a big Doberman, being exercised set upon it.  Big lacerations on the neck but fortunately, the jugular veins were spared.  Mr Lee's father and the Doberman's owner could not separate the two big dogs.  Finally, the stick thrown at the Doberman stopped its attack. The hot and humid climate of Singapore was an ideal condition for the bacteria to infect the big exposed bitten skin.  "Would this Labrador die?" Mr Lee's father asked. "Not likely. It is four years old and in the prime of its life. No chest wounds, no fractures." I said. "It had a fever but this could be resolved with antibiotics. It was strong.  Would the Doberman owner pay the veterinary bills which were more than one hundred dollars? The Doberman owner would not as he said the dog was not treated by his veterinarian.   His Doberman must have got fed up of the Labrador barking at it from inside the safety of the gate and in this instance when the Labrador was out, it took its revenge.  This dogs had more than one enemy. The Labrador did recover.  Its back area had been itchy and it had been biting its back for some time.  What caused this back and lower body itch?  Could it be contact with the fertilizers for the carpet grass and palm trees?  Despite bathing, the bad rancid smell of skin infections came back after a few days.  With antibiotics over several days, the smell disappeared.  It was not practical to restrict the dog's movement. What would be its quality of life then?  What should I do?  A small dose of an anti-itch tablet controlled the itch. It was not the ideal solution. If left untreated, the skin became blackened and the smell of rotting skin was enough to make one lose appetite. The smell of dead meat.  "Lately, my dog had been weak in its hind legs and had not been eating," Mr Lee said to me.  The dog was now 8 years old.  It had a bad habit of eating anything outside the house since it was young.  Not that it did not have the best dog food.   It just was his incorrigible habit.   It quickly swallowed any object especially if it knew Mr Lee's father would attempt to stop him.  Just one year ago, he was rushed to the veterinary hospital as it was foaming in its mouth and vomiting.   He had swallowed a sponge contaminated by chemicals.  But he recovered. I made a house call. Something was not right with this beloved pet of Mr Lee as he seldom called me unless it was something not right with his dog.  The dog had lost a lot of weight and its back muscles were wasted. Its back area was blackened. It did not jump at me but just came to the gate and went back to sit down.   As if it was exhausted.  An eight-year-old dog would have more energy than that. It was not its normal temperament.  I told Mr Lee. Mr Lee really had no time to check out his dog.  His father was the one who spent most time with this naughty dynamo.  Its appetite recovered slightly. Three days later, it suddenly foamed at its mouth, went into fits and just died. It did vomit two days earlier. It was a shock to me that it had died as I was not informed.  Could he have been poisoned by the two-legged enemy who had complained anonymously  to the Primary Production Department officers?  The one who sent photos of the Labrador outside the house unleashed?  "In time of stress, I checked out the yellow pages and look for the bigger advertisements. The first one quoted me $350 to cremate the dog. The second one asked $150 to dispose of the dog.  It was a man called Ken who said he knew you.  He diagnosed kidney failure based on a big pool of yellow urine on the patio when the dog died."  "It sounded like a heart attack to me," I said when I made a house call to check out the dog.  "What would be the likely cause of death since no post mortem to confirm a definitive diagnosis would be done?"  "It could be the anti-itch medication given over the years. Its love for scavenging outside the house, swallowing foreign objects and becoming  poisoned." Mr Lim said sadly as he used a plastic bag to trap a bright yellow  butterfly hovering above the leaves of his expensive dwarf palm imported from Taiwan.  "Many of these plants had not survived in my garden before. The cause was the butterfly laying eggs on the plant.  The eggs hatch into caterpillars which devour the leaves, killing the plant. The nursery would not tell me how to grow this plant, that's their trade secret." "They can't sell you more plants if you know the secret of growing such expensive Taiwanese palm trees," I speculated. What was he going to do with this butterfly I wondered. Would it be suffocated or squashed to death inside this plastic bag?  I did not query him as I expected him to kill this helpless butterfly pest. Ants get killed when they get into the house. Aren't they pest too, causing inconvenience to the human beings? Singaporeans spray a large amount of insecticide that contaminate our environment and poison our children in years to come.  Small amounts of insecticide given every month in various condos and housing development add up to kill any insect alive. I should expect more cancers in our children twenty years hence as condos get fogged every two months to get rid of Dengue fever causing mosquitoes.          "I will release this butterfly when I reach my office, far away from my plant," Mr Lim explained to me as we got into his Mercedes to go for an early morning breakfast.   I certainly did not expect him to be kind to butterflies too. Butterflies are a rare creature in Singapore in the late 1990s, given the widespread and regular use of insecticide fogging to kill mosquitoes.  Seeing one in a housing estate was a rare sight nowadays. © 1996-01 · Asiahomes Internet · Blk 1002, Toa Payoh Lor 8, #01-1477 · Singapore · 319074 Tel: +65 9668 6468, 254 2728, 254 3326, 9668 6469, 978 53 978, 9760 6466. Judy@asiahomes.com Asia USA Realty | Asia USA Realtors | AsiaHomes Internet