b'They spent all night with them in the parking area, thenbrought them to our clinic the next day. Animals Need Me obtained access to an abandoned lab-oratory for our use, and wesetuptwosurgerysuiteswithfiveoperatingtables,ananesthesiainductionarea, and a post-op recoveryroom.Amazingly,withinjust a few hours of startingtheclinic,thegroupof15volunteerswithverydiversebackgrounds,coa-lescedintoanorganized,efficientspayandneuterteam.VolunteersfromAnimals Need Me and thePeace Corps helped us runtheclinicandstayorgan-izeda much appreciatedadditionofmanpower.While members of our team spoke at least five differentlanguages, none of the dialects were similar to Albanian(also known as Shqip). We were fortunate that the PeaceCorps volunteers received language training before startingtheir official tours and were tremendously helpful - as wasthe leader of Animals Need Me, Oli Pero. For three days we spayed and neutered dogs and cats,more than 200 in total. We also performed other surgeriessuch as tumor removals and wound treatment. Many of theanimals were owned, but there was little evidence of that.Fewhadcollarsofanysort,althoughonekittyhadanadorablehandmadenecklaceofwoodenbeads. Thedogswere treated for mange, fleas, ticks, while we had to removea few ticks from ourselves between surgeries. Following sur-gery, the animals all received appropriate vaccinations, de-worming, topical parasite control and antibiotics. All of themedical and surgical care was provided at no cost to the petowners or to the rescue group.(Continued on following page) gwww.TheNewBarker.com Winter 2016 THE NEW BARKER 65'