Tuesday 1 April 2014

Dog Stick & TBE update

Following on from yesterday's post, one of the ways I might die (very unlikely) or be attacked (highly probable) is by dogs. So I have fashioned a dog stick to bash and poke them with, mounted by thick rubber band (old inner tube) to the front fork for easy and fast draw on the move.  I have just had a practice run at this out in the street which did attract some funny looks from the neighbours.  I'm probably not yet as fast as Billy the Kid or Bob Munden so will keep practising.

There has been an amusing conclusion to the Europe-wide search for a Tick-Born Encephalitis (TBE) vaccination next week to top up my immunity to this common and widespread disease which people are most exposed to in spring and summer in the woods, ie. me.  This was the reply that had me concerned from an ideally situated clinic in Berlin:
Dear Mr. Evans, we have not the vaccination of tick-borne encephalitis, only Japanese encephalitis and FSME. Mit freundlichen Grüßen, Institut für Tropenmedizin und Internationale Gesundheit, Spandauer Damm 130, 14050 Berlin.
 I had no luck yesterday finding another clinic on www.istm.org to do this jab.  So I decided to enlist the help of a good friend in Germany who could ring round for me and find me a clinic.  To help him I did a google translate of TBE... in German it is FSME.  Hurrah!

Neither of the above is date-related, but my tweet this morning about changing plans and doing RTW by motorbike was an April Fool, did I get anyone with that?

2 comments:

  1. I'm liking the big stick idea. I was thinking of taking a bag of stones with me, and I know from experience that water sprayed directly into a dog's face works (most of the time).

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  2. Hi Richard, I think you're right to take the dog threat seriously, but I'm not sure you've found the right solution. In my humble experience (bitten twice in seven years since I moved to the Eurasian continent), you're fine on the bike, because you can out-accelerate any dog, and they soon give up the chase disheartened. The problem is off the bike, when you impinge upon an apparently friendly dog's sense of its own territory. Your dog stick won't be much use unless you actually have it in your hand at this moment, and that's not a very friendly way to advance in a foreign land.
    Anyway, good luck with your trip!

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