30/10/2007 by Arielle.

I so enjoyed my day consulting today. I am used to being at home during the week and locumming at the weekend (when I do not have to worry about childcare as my husband is home), but they were short staffed at work so I filled in.
I consulted the whole day. I am not just used to being at home, but I am used to eating all day and after 4 hours of consulting, I realised that I felt very weak and shaky - I desperately needed a sugar top-up but I had an incredibly brave Greyhound in that had to have its booster, Rabies injection and microchipping. Greyhounds will normally cry out in pain when touched but he stood quietly as I gave him his assortment of injections before his adventure began. He was off to Canada to start his racing career there.

My most memorable client of the day was a dear old lady carrying a huge cage with a very noisy Cockatiel in it. She told me that she was 83 as I helped her lift the cage onto the table and that her cockatiel was 21 years old. I clipped his beak and claws as gently as I could as I was really scared that he may have a heart attack with the stress. I was relieved to get him back into the cage squawking wildly when I let him go.

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29/10/2007 by Arielle.

I had to get to work very early this morning as the practice I locum for was very short staffed. It meant getting all the children and me out the house by 7.45 to avoid the traffic on the M1. My friend very kindly offered to take my children to school and nursery for me. She has 3 of her own, a neighbour’s daughter and my 3 to walk to school. She managed it with a double buggy and a buggy board and they were so excited to walk on a beautiful autumnal morning with her children.
I imagined her walking (quite capably) with 7 children to school; and it made me think of all you pet sitters and dog walkers out there. You are only allowed to walk 4 dogs at any one time.
I would imagine just too many tangled leads and stops to poop scoop if you had more than 4!

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26/10/2007 by Arielle.

As it is still half term, I invited a friend I have made recently to my home for the first time. She is a speech and hearing therapist and is from Malaysia. She arrived with her 2 children of the same age as mine and everyone was happy until Slick our Labrador came bounding in from outside to greet our visitors.
She is a Labrador and naturally loves children. The little daughter was so obviously unused to any animals and dived onto the nearest chair and cried. I quickly put Slick outside and started serving the lunch. I had chosen to cook a traditional South African/ Malaysian dish called Bobotie which is curried mince.
My poor friend took one look at it and said - what meat is it. When I replied ‘beef’, I immediately realised that as she is Hindu, cows are sacred and never eaten. I quickly rustled up some grilled cheese (the quickest meal I could think of for my hungry guests).

Slick had been sent outside and one of my children let her in. In true dog style, she had rebelled at being closed out by rolling in poo all over her neck! I had no choice but to wash her.
I’m not sure if my new friend will want to return to our house!

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25/10/2007 by Arielle.

As it is half term this week, we chose to have a family break in the Peak District (sharing a ‘barn’ with my cousin and her family - it was cold but the Peaks are beautiful). We left Slick our Labrador with Sam nextdoor.

She is a wonderful pet sitter and Slick just loves her ‘holidays’ nextdoor when we are away. Sam is a trained personal fitness instructor and fits in pet sitting in her busy schedule as she loves doing it. She also advertises dog ‘jogging’ which is vital in todays obese world, but that is another story…..

This is where I feel pet sitting is such a versatile choice of career. You are able to continue with other interests and continue working as a pet sitter at the same time’ making it as busy or as quiet as you want.

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19/10/2007 by Arielle.

Our neighbour’s mother came running over frantically this morning as I was eating breakfast with the family as her daughter was out jogging with the dogs and had come across an injured boy in a bush and she wanted me to go and fetch the dogs whilst her daughter went to find the boy’s Mum.

A young chap in the village (only 11 years old) was waiting for the schoolbus when a complete freak accident on a normally quiet country lane was to occur. A tree surgeon was driving past and his trailer on his van flew off; hitting the boy in his face. The boy is critically ill and we are all praying for him. What a tragedy. It is such a quiet road and he stood in the only spot to catch the full impact. The tree surgeon was obviously devastated and the police later closed the entire road.
I raced out to put the dogs in my car and help my friend, only to see the car windscreen thick with frost and realised that it would be quicker to run there. I raced to collect them which was a better solution as my neighbour (a pet sitter and dog walker); had gone out with 2 enormous Rhodesian Ridgebacks and her Weimerpoodle. They were a handful to walk home again, but I enjoyed the time walking them quietly back to think about the horror that had just happened. Pets have this wonderful therapeutic effect that bring us back to reality.

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18/10/2007 by Arielle.

Bessie came in yesterday morning with a wag in her whole body yesterday morning; as Staffys do. Her owner had bred her in the beginning of the year and had a healthy litter. She had been mated by the owner’s dog (also a Staffy) and she obviously did not want puppies again so soon. I explained how dogs will scale walls to get to a bitch in season and a female in standing heat is sometimes capable of the same to get to the male. Bessie was fortunate in that the male lived with her!

The owner had come in for a Mesalin injection which we give when there is a case of a mismating. Mesalin is an injection that has to be given by us if your bitch has just been mated and you do not want her to have any puppies. We call this misalliance.
As Bessie had had a proper tie on Tuesday, I had to advise that she goes home and comes back on day 3 after the mating for the injection and then another injection is given on day 5.

Mesalin is made up of oestradiol benzoate which is an oestrogen - a hormone. This hormone may be toxic to bone marrow which I had to advise the owner. It is also not 100% effective and the owner said that she wanted Bessie neutered after her season anyway which I recommended too if she did not want to breed with her again. We cannot spay bitches that are in season for risk of bleeding.

The owner sighed when I mentioned that another side-effect is that it prolongs the season for up to another 2 weeks. She would have a desperate male for longer!

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12/10/2007 by Arielle.

I was asked to give a veterinary talk to my daughter’s nursery today as it is their theme of the week. How I admired the staff running the little nursery. What a handful 3 year olds are. 1 child is autistic and the patience of his carer is amazing.

I brought a bagful of veterinary goodies to quiz them as well as a number of stuffed toys. With my work coat on, a stethoscope around my neck and my daughter’s very realistic-looking fluffy Lhasa Apso on my lap; I started the talk with, “Who can tell me what job I do?”

A very enthusiastic little girl shot her hand in the air and said, ” You are Emily’s Mummy”. Yes, she was right, probably the most important ‘job’ there is.

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06/10/2007 by Arielle.

What a huge relief. I took our 1 year old Shadow in to work with me as being vets, my husband and I were so worried that she had one of the nasty cat viruses. She cried miserably in the car and vomitted all the way - poor little thing. The nurses ran the blood tests for me while I consulted and left her results behind the reception desk.

When I went to get some medication for a patient, I spotted her results before me and was thrilled to see feline leukaemia and feline aids negative and all her organs were functioning fine. I rushed out at lunch to buy the nurses a big box of Mingles chocolates to celebrate! Katie the nurse on duty, then fed Shadow almost a whole tin of tuna as she appeared hungry and in need of a treat too. I imagined tuna odours all the way home, but thankfully she kept it all in.

There was a mad grooming session when she got home. Her brother Buttons missed her terribly and they curled up together after cleaning all scent of the surgery off her and settled down for a well earned rest.

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05/10/2007 by Arielle.

The usual onslaught of viruses has hit our family. My 9 year old son has recently gone completely deaf from an ear infection. As we as vets are so aware of; I know that doctors are reluctant to give antibiotics but when my son said he could not hear his teacher; I felt maybe he needed antibiotics.

While we waited in the waiting room first thing this morning, a boy of about 8 years old arrived. He was in obvious pain with his very concerned mother holding him up. Just before the doctor called us in, the nurse came out to talk to the mother as it appeared to be an emergency and I listened with horror.

Her son had been involved in a fight at school and had been stabbed with a stick and it had split open his testicle. Listening to this and hearing his whimpers of pain just brought tears to my eyes. As the doctor called us through, my first words to her were - ‘Thank goodness I am a vet as I could not cope with what you deal with’. She looked at me and replied ‘Well I could never do what you do to animals!’. Thank goodness we each have our callings!

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02/10/2007 by Arielle.

Little Shadow (our very loved kitten who will only be 1 year old next month), is showing signs of possibly carrying a nasty virus. She has never grown fully like her brother and her left eye has suddenly become cloudy and discoloured. My husband and I (both being vets and maybe knowing too much), feel it could be Feline Leukaemia, Feline Aids or Feline Infectious Peritonitis. She is obviously fully vaccinated, but could still be a carrier of one of these nasty diseases. I am putting off having her tested but will take her in to work on Saturday to blood test her.

Shadow and her brother Buttons came over from Northern Ireland with us only 3 months ago to live an idyllic life in the English countryside. They had been feral kittens born in the street and their mother had been killed by a car when they were only 10 days old. In the cold of the winter, they mewed pitifully for her for 2 days until a kind person living on the estate where they were hiding, contacted the receptionist at the practice I was working at. They came in lifeless, starving and freezing with their eyes gummed up. The vet I worked for wanted them put to sleep but I decided to give them a chance and took them home.

They went from hell to heaven and spent their first few months in the warm arms of one of my besotted children. I tried to rehome them as we are an army family and I do feel it is not fair to move with cats, but we all grew so attached to them that when it came time to find them homes, we just couldn’t.

I will have a better idea of Shadow’s condition on Saturday, but it would break our hearts if it was something serious.

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