1204Singapore Japanese
Chin head with ticks, pet health and welfare educational for animal lovers, excerpts from The Glamorous Vets,
Singapore, sponsored by AsiaHomes Internet. A bright strawberry red patch of inflamed skin above the neck of
this Japanese Chin Cross. A dark yellow stain left behind after the Owner had clipped off
some of the hair. "Something very irritating must have been applied on it," I asked the Mr Kavitha, a 75-year-old gentlemen with receding hair. "You must have used kerosene to kill the ticks." There was no smell of kerosene now but I knew it was a practice of the older generation to use kerosene to eliminate ticks in mongrel dogs in the 1960s. Mr Kavitha was from such a generation who knew deprivation and the value of thrift, living in a community of zinc-roofed houses with pigs and chickens as company. Some tadpoles and frogs croaking in ponds during the wet season. He never spent much on food for himself as he raised a family on two jobs or he was naturally as thin as a rake. I did not ask him.  "Yes," Mr Kavitha admitted. "I pulled the ticks out and
poured kerosene to kill all." This was a handsome looking Japanese Chin.
It was painful to treat the wound or to clip its head. "How did he catch the ticks? Mr Kavitha asked. He stays in an apartment all day." "Did he go downstairs, to the grass area?" I enquired. Mr Kavitha did bring the dog to exercise downstairs and there were other dogs in the field at various times. How did the ticks get onto the dog's head? Can ticks fly? I don't know. He could have contacted other dogs with ticks. Ticks are present in grass as they drop off the body of dogs with ticks. Then they latch onto another dog, usually via the paw skin. I gave the dog a pain killer injection and antibiotics and asked Mr Kavitha to wash the wound with a mild antiseptic. My 15-year-old nephew came into the clinic. I introduced him to Mr Kavitha who had kicked out his 15-year-old son as a good for nothing person. His son had been disowned, Mr Kavitha said firmly but I could detect a sense of sadness. "What do you want to do when you grow up?" Mr Kavitha asked him. My nephew shook his head. He had no idea. I doubt this average Singaporean 15-year-old has any directions or vision for his career in the future, with so much extra curricular activities as a police cadet and television programs taking up so much of his time, leaving little time to read and relax. "You should be a doctor or lawyer," Mr Kavitha advised him. The older generation still want their children to be doctors and lawyers but I doubt my nephew can qualify for admission to the university. At Secondary Three, he had failed four out of nine subjects in the final examination and this was not the first time he failed. How could he compete with the cream of the cohort to become a doctor when he could not even excel in his class of forty students? "Children nowadays know only how to talk back to parents and how to spend and spend," Mr Kavitha said vehemently, probably thinking of his disowned son who had wasted his youth spending his time at shopping malls in the wrong company of friends. "Your nephew will later tell you that this "mama" (slang for a Indian person) has been talking through his head." "Mr Kavitha," I said assuringly. "My nephew will not do so. This is because kind words of advice and wisdom goes into one ear and out the other instantaneously!" The 15-year-old of the late 1990s does not bother to widen their knowledge or read books as computer gaming become a obsessive compulsive disorder. |