Kids vs Animals

What's better than getting called out to a farm to treat something you've never seen before? Getting called out to a farm to treat something you've never seen before and discovering that it's actually a high school running a small herd of cattle for the agricultural course and realising you're going to have an audience of teenagers watching you. All I can say is that I wish I had the opportunity to play with calves for 40 minutes a day when I was at school (though I probably would have been stuck doing Physics or Chemistry in order to get into vet school, go figure).

It was an 8 month old calf with a prolapsed rectum, which I've seen in small animals but not cattle but just decided to treat like a vaginal prolapse (which I have dealt with before). So I got to replace the prolapse, stick my arm up its bum and place a purse-string suture in the poor animal while 15 kids stood around staring and saying things like, "ew gross!" and "is it warm in there?" The funny thing was that their teacher used to be a vet, but is no longer practicing.

"Traded one type of animal for another?" I jokingly asked her.
She laughed and said, "Well, in this job I get thanked for what I do, there's no afterhours and I don't have to worry about the bills not being payed".

This almost sounded good, except that both my parents are teachers so I know about all the other stresses of the job (i.e. dealing with uninterested or worse, abusive, parents; discipline issues; marking homework and EXAMS).

So I think I'll stick with the animals I've got - at least I can sedate or muzzle them and stick them in a cage when they misbehave! Although I know of a few kids who could probably do with this treatment as well...

Big Game Hunting

I think I mentioned in my first blog that I try to avoid using our blow-darts and have decided to tell the story that will illustrate why.

At one of my clinics in NZ we had a pole syringe which consisted of a needle-tipped syringe attached to a pole. When the needle was briskly inserted into an animal's rump the plunger would depress, injecting the drug into the unsuspecting creature. The key word in that sentence was "briskly". The pole was used mainly on deer, but also proved quite useful for the odd aggressive dog.

Unfortunately my new clinic does not possess such a magical instrument. Instead my boss, using good old Aussie ingenuity (almost as good as Kiwi ingenuity), has fashioned his own blow-dart "pole" out of actual blow-darts and, wait for it, a curtain-rail! And it works! Rather well actually. He's even been driven around a paddock chasing a wild cow and managed to bring her down after five or six attempts. Mostly, however, we use it to dart aggressive dogs once they've been thrown into a cage by their owners (often without warning us beforehand that there would be no way for us to get said animal OUT of the cage again in order to sedate it). It's actually very humane as the animal doesn't realise what's happening until it's already done, and a lot less stressful than dragging an animal out of a cage with a pole catcher or wrestling an angry muzzled dog. He gave me a crash course though I never did get around to practicing with it and of course, the day came when I wished I had.

A grumpy dog was brought in on a Saturday morning and put in the cage before a vet (i.e. me) was available to sedate him. He then proceeded to growl and bare his teeth at anyone passing within 5m of the cage. Which didn't bode well for the poor sucker who had to get him out of the cage. The considerate owner had also removed the dog's lead so we had nothing to grab onto but his collar...which was situated a bit too close to his teeth for my liking. So out came the blow darts. I loaded up a syringe, attached the fluffy orange dart end thingy, took careful aim from about a foot away...and fired. A perfect hit right in the bum! I was doing a silent dance of triumph and feeling like a big game hunter after their first successful shot, when my nurse pointed out that the plunger hadn't actually depressed and now all I had was an angry aggressive dog in a cage with a massive needle and syringe full of drugs impaled in his rear. Not good. I didn't want to compound the situation by trying again and thought with longing of my pole syringe. I grabbed the dog catcher and with shaking hands slowly opened the cage door just wide enough to slip the noose into the cage & over the dog's head. Thankfully he was too concerned with the foreign body in his rump to barge out of the cage as I opened it. I then quietly and CALMLY opened the cage door and allowed him out, waiting for the explosion of twists and turns and head-high leaps that usually occur when a dog gets noosed. He came out quiet as a lamb and allowed the nurse to muzzle him, and then let me inject him the usual way without so much as a wriggle! I apologised to the dog for taking such extreme action, but still left a nice long lead attached to his collar as I put him back in the cage. Just in case.

So that was my one and only attempt to dart an animal so far. When I get the chance I will have to draw a target on a box and practice out the back. Then, when I get really good, I will try to convince my nurse to stand with an apple on her head so that I can become the next William Tell.

So when will he wake up?

Had to euthanise a couple of animals today which is never an easy job and it got me thinking about a few stories I've been told by various anonymous vets.

Always, always, ALWAYS make sure you have clarified the difference between "euthanasia" (will not wake up again) and "anaesthesia" (should wake up again) when a client books an appointment to have their animal "put to sleep". I've lost count of the number of times I've heard of vets on the verge of injecting (or worse, having just injected) an animal with a lethal dose of anaesthetic only to have the client ask, "So when will he be waking up?" Um, never? This is the main reason I like to have clients sign a consent form. Believe it or not, some clinics still have not made this a set protocol and are just asking for a lawsuit - why to people have to wait until after the proverbial excrement hits the circulating air device before they change their practices? This paid off recently when a woman came in wanting to have her dog "put to sleep" and, when handed the form, asked what it was all about. When the nurse explained that it was giving us permission to "put her animal down" and asked what she wanted us to do with the body, the woman looked horrified and exclaimed, "But I only wanted his nails clipped!"

Though apparently, if you accidentally inject 5mL of lethal injection into a cat's abdomen and realise immediately after the plunger is depressed that you have grabbed the wrong, though identical cat, a large dose of fluids into the belly and some judicious use of adrenalin (both to cat and vet)MAY just revive it...after a three day period of surgical anaesthesia and several more days of drunken cat. True story but thankfully not one of my own!

Some people!

Very glad I wasn't on call last night. The boss told me that he was called out at 10:30pm for a dog showing signs of tick paralysis. The clients were 30 minutes away so he arranged to meet them at 11pm at the clinic. He arrived, they didn't. By 11:30pm he called their mobile number which was on his cellphone and after a few missed calls they answered and apologised, saying that they couldn't get hold of a car (and yet hadn't bothered to call him in the intervening HOUR to cancel!). He knew that the clients lived in an area situated between our clinic & a Pet ER clinic, so out of interest he rang the ER centre.

"Oh," said the night nurse, "Do you mean the people who just left 20 minutes ago?"
Apparently their phone had rung several times during the consult and the vet had wondered who on earth was ringing at that time of night!

What type of person calls a vet out, has them go to the clinic in good faith, and then decides to go to another clinic, doesn't bother to ring to let the first vet know what they are doing, and then lies about it?! Remember they had 30 minutes in which to call him when he hadn't even left for the clinic yet. Needless to say he was NOT happy about it and managed to get their details from the phonebook to ensure that they will never be admitted to our clinic and to attempt to bill them for his wasted time. Good on him though I doubt we will ever see a red cent.

At least he thought of ringing the ER. I would never have thought of that. And that's why my alternative career will never be "a detective".

Sulking

So in keeping with the photo theme I decided to post this:

This is my dog sulking after an attempted home nail clip. My parents always wait for me to come home as the dog has black nails, and I, as the "professional" nail clipper in the family, am supposed to be able to handle this. My formerly friendly lab who would be more likely to lick an intruder to death turned into a growling, teeth-baring monster that required three people to hold down after the first crunch of the nail clippers. She also has a great trick of rolling onto her back and frantically paddling all four feet in the air while snapping her jaws manically at any hand attempting to grab her collar. And, of course, I proved her point that it was a terrible ordeal to be avoided at all costs when I managed to make one of her nails bleed...and bleed...and bleed...

In NZ we had great little silver nitrate sticks that instantly cauterised any bleeding nail, but I have as yet been unable to find these in Aussie and still don't know what vets over here use. When I arrived I got the nurses to order some kind of cautery stick in and I ended up with what looked like a lip-balm stick that had been left in the freezer for three weeks - the label said something about "minor cuts & abrasions & shaving cuts". It was useless. I had to put pressure on the offending nail with a tissue while the dog growled and swore at me from under the strangle-hold my father had her in. After five minutes I thought it had clotted & shoved her outside where she spent the next hour doing her lifeguard duty around the pool while mum swam, leaving little spots of blood all over the white paving stones lining the pool. A little later my sister yelled from in the lounge, "She's still bleeding!" and so she was. Thank goodness we had recently replaced the carpets with tiles.

So I had to resort to bandaging her foot, which resulted in her sulking in one spot for the next few hours and refusing to eat dinner. I took the bandage off but she is still not talking to me.

Next time I'm taking some sedatives home. On second thought, next time they can take her to the local vet clinic and let them deal with her, where she will probably be perfectly behaved and the vet will wonder why on earth I didn't clip her nails in the first place!

A picture is worth a thousand words

My sister complained that I don't have enough photos on this blog, which will be soon rectified by my recent purchase of a waterproof, shockproof, animalproof digital camera. The best thing about it, apart from the fact that it was on special, is that I am planning on claiming it back on my taxes as a "work related item" required for taking photos of cases. Of course, it also means that I can take more photos like this:

And this:

Yet another reason I am not a human doctor...I don't think I could get away with taking these sorts of photos of my patients (and would I even want to?!).

It's for the birds

Thinking about birds brings back memories of my first pet, a vicious antisocial budgie with the highly imaginative name of Tweety. Our neighbour found her on the roof of her house and, assuming she was lost, gave her to us. In hindsight I think her original owner had enough of her screeching and sulking and "set her free". I spent the next six years trying to tame her. She remained a very talkative but strictly not to be handled bird and seemed not to age, until the day I found her flopped on the floor of her cage, still alive but too weak to attack me as I opened the door of the cage.

I managed to convince my dad to take her to the vet, though he had already realised what I refused to acknowledge, that Tweety was just bloody old and was probably on her way out. The vet, who obviously wasn't quick enough to hide in the toilet before we arrived, did a cursory physical exam and resorted to holding her up to his ear to listen to her heart (at least I use a stethoscope!) before telling us that her chest muscles were probably too weak to hold her on her perch. He advised we should find a forked branch and rest her in the fork, but clearly chickened out of telling the ten year old worried owner that her extremely old bird probably did not have much time left on this earth.

The next morning she was on the ground again, but this time was as stiff as a board. I hadn't seen it coming but apparently wasn't particularly upset (I don't really remember this - not surprising since I sometimes struggle to recall what happened yesterday). Though, to this day, dad maintains that he is still glad we took her to the vet despite knowing it was a waste of time, as I would have no doubt blamed him for her death had we not. And even now, with my veterinary knowledge of bird health and expected life spans, I know he is right.