Maybe I won’t become a vet.

I had my full Saturday as a veterinary GP today and it was just one of those days - every 2nd animal I saw seemed to want to bite me. There was the enormous gentle-looking Dogue de Bordeaux-Porter (who looked very much like the dog in Turner and Hooch)and who stood very patiently for his yearly booster, but when it came to clipping his extremely long claws, he used his full strength on me, my nurse and his owner to stop us. I eventually had to give up as I could not risk one of us getting hurt by his enormous bulk. The owner purchased some clippers and as he left, said he would try to clip one nail at a time whilst Porter slept on the sofa. I imagined him lying there with one eye open!

No sooner had he left than a tiny blind and very old Yorkie came in also to be vaccinated. I did my health check and opened a little mouth that just revealed gums - no teeth (very common for old Yorkies). When I gave him his injection, being blind, it took him by surprise and I was shocked by his speed to bite but knowing he had no teeth, I did not pull my hand away. Amazingly, I felt a sharp sting and looked at my thumb to see blood pumping out - he had managed to get his one and only back molar through my thumb!

After that I was on guard but they just kept coming - an adorable tiny russian hamster that the owner never handled that thankfully never managed to get me, a rabbit on a harness that did try to bite me, an aggressive Westie with a growth on its lip - impossible to see it without losing a finger! My 2nd last client was an elderly crossbreed dog that looked exactly like a black fox. She had been bitten by a Rottweiler over her head. She was extremely lucky as the bite wound just missed her eyeball. When I tried to gently clean her wounds and saw her lips curl, I decided maybe just antibiotics would be fine!
By my last consultation - a check up on a rabbit that was as sweet as pie, I surprised the clients by not charging them at all as she was the only animal who had not tried to bite me!

When I was home making the dinner, my 6 year old daughter wanted to know what animals I had seen as she loves hearing what their names are and how sweet they are. When I told her about all the animals that just wanted to bite, she looked at me and said ‘Maybe I won’t become a vet’.

This entry was posted on 22/09/2007 at 10:37 pm and is filed under A veterinary day. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.