In the tourist beach town of Kuta Lombok in Indonesia, thousands of stray dogs fill the streets.
Local culture views dogs as unclean and ‘forbidden’ and the stray dogs in the beaches, streets and villages of our town lead difficult lives of survival having to fight for food, water, shelter and each other.
Females have litter after litter of unwanted puppies who sometimes get dumped, killed or run over by cars or motorbikes.
A group of veterinarians volunteer their time and travel to Lombok to work with local vets to sterilise stray dogs – which they view as the only humane and sustainable solution to the overpopulation problem.
One of these vets is young Greek Australian Dr Gianne Ficatas from the Boronia Vet Clinic & Hospital in Melbourne.
The 27-year-old told Neos Kosmos that she has travelled there every February for the last four years and is now seeing the significant affect they are having.
“Every year I feel like there’s less and less dogs around, the stray populations reduced significantly there,” she said.
“Every day we travel in different parts of Lombok and we set up a little makeshift clinic out in the middle of nowhere.
“We pretty much have a team that go out on motorbikes to find stray dogs that aren’t de-sexed.”
She added that once they’re done, they take the dogs back to where they were found to recover in the community that they’re from.
“The main reason is population control of the stray dogs, but also reducing the amount of dog fights, human bites, disease spread between humans and animals and between animals.”
“Now when you go there, there’s fewer stray dogs and you can actually walk the streets and feel comfortable.”
High stress industry
As well as her volunteer work in Indonesia, which includes helping train vet students, Ficatas sits on the Deakin University ethics committee volunteering her time for ethics and animal research.
She also recently became the resident veterinarian on 3AW radio and discusses pets with her listeners.
As mentioned earlier, Ficatas works full time at the Boronia Vet Clinic & Hospital, a position she found after studying at Melbourne University (which is the only place you can study veterinary in Victoria).
A job that even sees her on call after hours in case of any emergencies.
“I really like after hours, but you can imagine a lot of people hate it because you’re on call in the middle of the night and you’re by yourself and you might do surgery on your own at like 2am and you just have to do it,” she said.
“There’s no one else around. Sometimes that can be really stressful.”
She said doing the afterhours is hard in the beginning but it also helps you trust yourself as a vet because you’re making your own decisions and you’re the only person in the room.
“I think for me it was really important for my progression to make decisions and trust myself.”
“A lot of people in the vet world get really overwhelmed because of Imposter syndrome.
“They feel like, ‘why is it me doing this? It could be someone better than me doing it.’
“‘Why am I doing it? Why would I do this major surgery when there’s probably another out there that’s much better than me. I’m not good enough to do it.'”
But she stressed that you need to remember, if you weren’t there, the animal would probably die.
“It’s not like they can find a better option because other clinics are closed. So, you become very important in that scenario.”
Compared to human medicine, vets are doing surgery on their own from very early on, and also all sorts of different surgeries.
Human surgery you’ll have a dedicated knee specialist or someone eyes, whereas as a vet you sort of have to do a little bit of everything.
With that comes stress, and being a vet is one of the most stressful profession out there.
A recent study from Curtain University in WA shows that suicide rates amongst Australian vets are alarmingly high, with vets four times more likely to die by suicide compared to the general population.
Ficatas said the industry as a whole is becoming more aware of this, with events like Flynn’s Walk, where vets walk and talk to support each other.
One contributing factor is that they deal with both ending the lives of pets and the owners’ subsequent pain.
She said a big part of euthanasia is feeling comfortable with the decision and that you need to think of not just the animal but the person’s mental health.
“A lot of the time when people put down their pets, they’ll always ask you, ‘do you think this is the right decision?'”
“It’s so hard because you’ve literally got to pick a time when you think your pet’s quality of life is over.
She stressed it’s really hard to define what quality of life is because it’s not only the animal’s quality of life but also the owner’s quality of life.
For an animal it might be they’re no longer eating as much or too sore to move around, for the owner, it could be “they can’t go out for dinner with their friends” or “they are constantly cleaning up after their pets and so they feel like their quality of life is compromised.”
“I feel like you have to be really in tune with the owners as a vet.”
Staying connected to her culture
As a Greek Australian, whose family come from Crete and Thessaloniki, Ficatas’ is very connected to her culture.
She goes to Greece all the time, pretty much once every year and did Greek school all the way through to Year 12.
Growing up she also did a bit of Cretan dancing on the weekends and lots of weekends are filled with cooking Greek food with her yiayia.
But even in her travels to Greece, she can’t shake off her passion for animals.
“I’d love to go to Greece one day and do bit of vet work there, that would be my dream.”
“When I’m there, I can’t help but be fascinated with the animals, seeing all the cats and dogs especially.
“I am always thinking about going and working at a clinic for a few days when I go over there.”
With her work in Indonesia still going strong and seeing the positive impact its having, she takes notice of the stray animal numbers in Greece, which she has actually noticed.
Perhaps a trip to Greece for non-leisure activities might be on the card someday?