24/02/2009 by Arielle.

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21/02/2009 by Arielle.

Humphrey was a lovely ginger cat whose owner brought him in as he just wasn’t himself. He lay purring on my table and I quickly discovered his problem. Humphrey had a huge bladder and must have been in an enormous amount of discomfort. Cats do sometimes purr when they are in pain as well as when they are happy (although the owner says he purrs all the time!)

Humphrey very sadly had to be put to sleep. His bladder was so full that once in the hospital and fully sedated; we gently attempted to pass a catheter to unblock his bladder and it burst. The owner was in shock and as Humphrey was 14 years old, she decided not to operate. Whatever had caused his blocked bladder had been very severe and very likely there was a tumour involved. What a sad day.

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14/02/2009 by Arielle.

We had so many kindly donated boxes of Roses, Quality Street and Heroes from loyal clients over Christmas; that I just associated the reception area at work with chocolate for a few weeks. Everytime I went to fetch some tablets over the festive season, I would peel open a tin and replenish my sugar levels!

Since January, we have all been on diet and the practice has been cleared of anything fattening. That is why, I grew very excited this morning after a busy few hours consulting when I heard a client walk in and say that she had brought in chocolate. My excitement quickly changed to disappointment when I realised that she had brought in her little Netherland Dwarf rabbit Chocolate for his 6 weekly teeth trim!

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05/02/2009 by Arielle.

I have written about Amber Rose before. She is a huge gorgeous chocolate Newfoundland who suffers from epilepsy. She is on 3 different forms of medication to control her seizures. The side effects of the medication are quite cruelly - weight gain!

Amber is therefore constantly on diet as her enormous weight causes her backlegs to buckle. I know just how she feels feeling constantly hungry when on diet; but today her owners brought her in as she found a whole bar of soap in its cardboard box and she chewed it up with delight and ate it.

She appeared calm and happy and the smell of clean soap in the consulting room made such a good change from the usual nasty smells we extract from clients’ pets! I have not had a case like this before and disappeared upstairs to look up the dangers of soap ingestion in the poisons book.

I was warned not to make her vomit as the soap could bubble and froth and she would then breath it in - a bigger danger. The treatment was simple - feed her milk to neutralise the soap. The owner was relieved and I imagine once she was home, Amber would have been thrilled with that treatment!

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