01/10/2008 by Arielle.

If you followed the previous entry about Harvey belonging to the old man (Where identichipping a cat was possibly the wrong thing) - it has a happy ending! The original owners were contacted and as Harvey had been missing for so long, they had acquired 2 new cats. They felt that he would be very put out to return home to 2 extra cats and were just happy to hear that he was alive and being well looked after.

The old man was thrilled and will probably have many more happy years ahead of him (even at the age of 94) with his pampered companion.

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26/09/2008 by Arielle.

This did not happen to me today. One of the other vets I work with came into my consulting room looking very stressed. A 94 year old man had brought in a cat for vaccinating. He explained how much he loved the cat. He had called him Harvey and Harvey had ‘chosen him’  he said and had appeared in his garden 5 months ago.

As we always have to scan any stray cat to see if it has been chipped or not, my colleague did the right thing and scanned Harvey, only to find a microchip (to her horror).  After a quick phone call to the national idchip company, she found out that Harvey is actually Elvis and has been missing from a house not that far away from the elderly man, for the last year!

She felt awful telling the 94 year old man. He was there with his daughter and she gently explained to him that there were plenty of cats around in the rehoming centres and they would look for another cat that afternoon.

He reacted like the man in Little Britain by saying ‘ No, I want that one. Now I have nothing to live for!’ What a dilemma. I will find out tomorrow what happened to the cat and poor old man.

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21/07/2008 by Arielle.

I have only ever seen one Sphinx cat before as a patient and that was many years ago; so when Hades was my next client to see today for his vaccinations, I was intrigued.

Sphinx cats are completely lacking in hair follicles except for a small bit of fur on their nose (well Hades had some on his nose). The owners were obviously enamoured with him and he appeared to have a lovely gentle nature but I could not help feeling quietly quite repulsed by the cat before me.

He looked like a reptile with pink wrinkled skin and a thin tail. I felt as though I was giving an injection to a human as usually we inject through a clump of soft fur into the skin. Hades had to have sunblock on every time he went out - yes, not my choice of a pet, but each to his own!

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15/07/2008 by Arielle.

Amber is a gorgeous massive 70kg brown Newfoundland. She has epilepsy and her enormously patient owner has been in to see me a number of times. We could not keep her seizures under control so I referred her to the Animal Health Trust neurology unit.

She is on a cocktail of medication. The treatment for epilepsy in dogs is the same as that in humans and the side effects of the drugs are the same. They tend to make the animal put on weight. Poor Amber is now so large from all her dosing that she struggles to pull herself up on her backlegs.

We heaved her large fluffy body onto the scales today and the owners and I were thrilled for her when the scales read 70kgs - she had lost 3 kgs!

I however had a quiet fleeting thought which I did not share with the owner. Amber looks so huge with all her thick coat and I weigh more than she does!! I really need to get my head around sticking to a diet before our summer holidays - wish me luck!

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03/07/2008 by Arielle.

How guilty I felt last night when I got in from treating animals all day at 8pm and my husband asked if I had remembered an antibiotic injection for our own cat Buttons. I had forgotten and felt so bad for him. He had been involved in his first cat fight and not all cat bites need treatment, but this one did as his leg had swelled with the infection.

I was due to go back to work for another few days and the practice I work at is 45 minutes from where we live so I had no choice but to go to a local practice.

What a humbling experience it is. I think every professional should become a patient. I felt the same frustration getting Buttons into his carrier, then listened to him cry mournfully the whole way there. I felt very anxious waiting in the waiting room and struggled to hold Buttons for the young vet as he tried to shave and examine his sore leg.

I then had to feel the same stress of paying for his treatment (which I have obviously never had to worry about before either). So all in all, Buttons’ cat fight was a good lesson for me being on the other side of the table and luckily he is now on the mend.

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26/06/2008 by Arielle.

I had a very distraught owner rush in today with her convulsing young Schnauzer Holly. Holly had gone blind and was shaking uncontrollably in her owner’s arms. All the owner could think of that was different was that she had put down slug pellets that morning and Holly had been sniffing around them in the garden.

I admitted her straight away and we gave her some intravenous fluids and intravenous valium to control her fitting. She continued to shake violently so we gave her a full anaesthetic and then put a tube into her stomach and washed out the remains of her stomach contents.

A large amount of slug pellets came out that looked exactly like the ones in the picture above.

It is slug season and my warning to pet owners is NOT to use slug pellets (no matter how much you hate slugs as I do). Dogs and some cat find them very appealing and the metaldehyde poison in them  can kill your pet. We kept Holly in but she made a full recovery much to her very guilty owner’s relief!

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20/06/2008 by Arielle.

Honey is a gorgeous fluffy apricot-coloured mixture between a Cocker Spaniel and a Poodle. She had been too inquisitive and came between a mother goose and its gosling.

She seemed blissfully unaware of her injury - a large open cut from the goose’s large bill right between her eyes. How lucky she was not to have injuries to her eyes. I am not sure that her open cut taught her a lesson though to leave geese alone!

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07/06/2008 by Arielle.

I felt quite moved by the story behind my one patient today. Rocky is a 19 year old Cockatiel (!). He came in for a simple nail clip which I did very carefully for such an old bird as I was very scared of him dying of shock in my hands.

The owner brought him in with her 2 grand-daughters. She told me how her husband had died on father’s day of cancer exactly 16 years ago. The doctor was at her house declaring her husband dead when she noticed 3 year old Rocky flying out the window. She could not do anything and her heart sank as she noticed him go with all the chaos of that day.

Amazingly her sister went into a pet shop that afternoon to get her mind off the family sadness and she noticed a cage with a cockatiel in it selling for £12. She was sure it was Rocky and encouraged her grieving sister to have a look.

When the owner walked into the shop, she called Rocky and they let him out the cage and he flew straight onto her head. Apparently he had been brought in by a woman with exactly the same hair colour as the owner as Rocky had flown and landed on her head when he spotted someone with her similar style and hair colour!

The pet shop owner reluctantly let Rocky go to his rightful owner. I found this story very touching. What memories Rocky holds and how incredible that he has gone on to live (and is still going strong) for so many years!

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24/05/2008 by Arielle.

Tommy came in today for his routine vaccinations. He is such a lovely dog and appeared healthy but was a bit too fat. I ended the vaccinations (injection and Kennel Cough sprayed in his nose) by weighing him. The scales revealed that he had put on 4 kgs in only about 4 months.

I was concerned as he is so healthy otherwise and gave his owner my usual advice about restricting the amount he eats, cutting out titbits and increasing his exercise.

She looked at me quietly and said that yes she knew all that and would try her best but her problem she suspected was her husband. He had been diagnosed with throat cancer and her suspicions were now clear. He had been feeding Tommy his food to avoid worrying his wife about not eating it himself. Tommy was obviously only too obliging.

This consultation left me thinking for a while as I felt very moved by the client and her ill husband and Tommy caught in the middle of it.

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19/05/2008 by Arielle.

The little kitten on my consulting room table did look very pretty and stripey. The ‘new parents’ had recently acquired her from a pet shop and given her the pretty name of Lilly.
After careful inspection and a health check, I could confirm that Lilly was in fact a little male kitten.
It happens to us very often and may happen to you as a pet sitter, so I have written an article on how to sex kittens
I wonder what name Lilly will have when she next returns to us.

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