Pulse - August 2022 - 9

JIM BELL
SCVMA PROFILE
OC Vet Helps Ukrainian Refugees
in Poland and Brings Home a Pet
D
r. Julie Ryan Johnson, associate director of Boehringer
Ingelheim's shelter program, worked as a
volunteer during the first week in April, helping Ukrainian
refugees with their pets as they fled to Poland to
avoid Russia's invasion of their homeland.
She calls her time near the war zone a " mission trip. " Before her
trip to Poland, she had gone to Hawaii and Puerto Rico to work
in spay and neuter clinics or to perform other veterinary tasks as
a volunteer through Greater Good Charities. She plans more mission
trips when she has vacation time in the future.
The work is rewarding, she said. " It's wonderful. You're with a
lot of like-minded people who just want to contribute any way
they can. You just go and help. "
The trip to Poland had a lot more urgency than her previous
mission trips, however. She worked in a tent some 50 yards from
the Ukraine-Poland border. " Our job was to make sure the animals
were safe and healthy so they could go on to the next part of
their journey, " Dr. Ryan Johnson said. " We were part of a tent village.
Each tent provided a different type of support. For example,
there was a cellphone tent where people were given sim cards so
their cellphones would work in Poland.
" We had everything from pet food to harnesses and leashes in
our tent [sponsored by the International Foundation of Animal
Welfare]. Some cats came to us in shopping bags. Some came in
taped-up litter boxes. We were a quiet spot where owners could
leave their animals so we could monitor them while they got
some food and rest, " she said.
" There were three veterinarians who worked in our tent, rotating
through the day. I had the afternoon and evening shift. We
were pretty busy. Thousands of people came through the border
gates every day, many of them pet owners. "
She said that the gate near where she worked was for people
on foot. " There were different gates where people could drive
through, but our gate was used by people who didn't have cars or
whose cars ran out of gas or broke down. "
Dr. Ryan Johnson arrived in Poland about six weeks after the
Russians invaded. " I was there more than a week. We worked
24-7. There was always a veterinarian, translator and support staff
in the tent. "
She had great admiration for the translators. " They were high
school students from Ukraine. Their service was invaluable, " she
said. " Ukrainian and Polish are similar languages. But, if you
speak Ukrainian, it doesn't mean you speak Polish and, if you
speak Polish, it doesn't mean you speak Ukrainian. " They also, of
course, spoke English.
" The translators were on a scholarship program, hoping to get
into colleges in the U.S., " she said. " Most of them return home
after college and work for the Ukrainian government or businesses.
They always had smiles on their faces. Many of their parents
were in Ukraine fighting for their country. "
PULSE
AUGUST 2022
Dr. Ryan Johnson brought a
" souvenir " home with her. It was
a 4-year-old Norwegian Forest Cat
that had been owned by a refugee.
The woman gave up six of the
seven cats she carried into Poland
because " the place she was going
would only allow her to bring one. "
The woman and her daughter
crossed the border after a trying
ordeal the day before Dr. Ryan
Johnson began working there.
" The daughter was having difficulty
getting her mother to leave
her home, " she said. That changed
during a Russian attack when the
building next to them was bombed
and her mother's home caught fire.
" The daughter's car broke down
before they reached the border so
she and her mother walked the rest of the way with the cats. "
Volunteers who worked in the veterinary tent decided to take
the six cats to their hotel rooms, she said. But the hotel caught fire
because of an electrical malfunction.
" Firemen were trying to put out the fire in the room where my
cat was staying. We moved the cat and the volunteer to a trailer. I
didn't actually see my cat until the day I left. "
Dr. Ryan Johnson had little difficulty taking her new pet out of
Poland. " He already had been vaccinated and had an EU passport
so he could get on the flight with me. I had to sneak him into the
Marriott near the Warsaw airport, though. I had worked about a
shift and a half that last day - and hadn't slept in a day and a half.
So I got into bed and he climbed in with me and we slept about
12 hours " - beginning a strong bond between them.
" We left the next morning. On the flight to L.A., he was in a
carrier under the seat in front of me. "
Dr. Gary Johnson, her husband, named the cat after a Van Morrison
song called " Madam George, " about a beautiful street walker.
She calls the cat George. " He's male but he's very pretty, " she said.
" I'm George's person but he loves my husband, " she said. " My
dogs have accepted him and my Bengal cat has slowly accepted
him. He was so skinny when I got him! But now I call him the
eastern European weight-lifter. He eats anything. He ate a whole
cucumber the other day. "
Dr. Ryan Johnson grew up in San Juan Capistrano. She earned
her veterinary degree at the University of Wisconsin, then did an
internship at Virginia Tech before returning to Southern California.
Her husband, who founded Dana Niguel Veterinary Hospital
in 1982, is an Ohio State veterinary grad. He sold the practice
about two years ago and is now working at an urgent care/specialty
hospital. P
9
Pulse - August 2022

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