9/19/05 Look Out Fish of Grenada!

Do you remember that cutlass that I used to clear the roof in the last post? Well, anybody that does any sort of yard work has one and for many people the cutlass is the primary tool they use as a means of income. This creates a situation in which almost every household on this island has at least one huge, heavy, sharp knife! And as you might be able to imagine, every so often these are not always used solely for the intended purpose. Well, last Friday I examined a poor dog that saw the business end of a very finely honed cutlass. That is NOT the dog’s tongue hanging out of its mouth. That is the most forward part of her mandible with bone and several teeth hanging down. Two days prior to coming in, the owner had let her loose for several hours at night and she came back as pictured. We put her under general anesthesia, got everything cleaned up, and reassessed the situation. Fortunately, she had a 1.5 cm pedicle of skin and underlying soft tissue that was intact on the caudal portion of the flap. As I cleaned up the edges of the wound they started to bleed very well meaning that the skin of the entire flap had not been deprived of blood and was thus still living tissue. I then proceeded to remove her lower left canine tooth, all of the lower incisors, and the bone that was still attached to the skin flap. Removing a healthy canine tooth is no easy feat as they are like icebergs; all you see is the top ¼ of the tooth with the root firmly planted in the mandible below the gum line. Her canine had been partially sheared off (I told you these things are heavy and sharp) so part of the job was already done but it still wasn’t fun. I was able to get most of the tissue to sutured together fairly well with a ton of very small sub Q and skin sutures. Her modeling career is finished but Rodger (her owner) was extremely pleased with the results since I had prepared him for the worst when he brought her. We kept her over the weekend and she was eating hard food the next day! These pothounds are TOUGH!!

Last Sunday I was wandering around and went to Quarantine Point to explore the rocky coastline. As I was sitting admiring the sea a few fishermen came down. I watched them catch bait and use the live bait to catch a red snapper. So during the week I borrowed a rod from Alex and went to town to purchase some hooks and a bait line. On Friday I headed back to Quarantine Point to catch some dinner! Take a look at these jacks that I caught!!

Just kidding, that’s the bait. All I caught was three of these jacks but I guess you have to start somewhere.