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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31/05/2008 by Arielle.

Like the rest of the British public, my sons and I have been hooked on ‘Has Britain Got Talent’. Our favourite (and she makes me cry each Time I watch her) has been Gin and Kate.I think Gin is just incredible and the bond between her and Kate is wonderful to watch. What a stress being Gin’s vet if anything was to happen to her!! Good luck Gin!

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28/05/2008 by Arielle.

It is half term and we are looking after my friends guinea pigs while they are away (Harry and Cucumber). They belong to her 2 young children. My daughters are thrilled and it has made their half term.

I find it quite stressful as their last guinea pigs were eaten by a fox - thankfully not in our care!

We received a postcard today from the Isle of Wight saying - ‘We hop you are loking after the ginee pigs and they are not ded’ - pressure!!

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10/05/2008 by Arielle.

I have performed hundreds of euthanasias in my many years as a vet and they each touch me differently.

When a brother and sister brought in Max, their 15 year old Staffy to be put to sleep today, I seemed to feel their grief more than ever and I could not help but cry with them. Is that unprofessional?

I had a 6 hour long consulting session with no break today as a patient needed blood tests during my break and maybe I am just getting old, but I really felt the owner’s pain seeing their old pet that they had grown up with lifeless on the table.

Thankfully he had gone so peacefully and even licked the owners tears off his nose as I gave the lethal injection into his vein. It is exactly as they had wanted it. He was falling down stairs and they wanted him to go peacefully and be unaware of it all but the reality of it  made them both cry uncontrollably and I could not help myself but cried quietly too.

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14/04/2008 by Arielle.

Quincy came in for his routine vaccinations today. He is an 8 year old Greyhound. When I went through to the waiting room to call him as it was his turn next; he was asleep on the waiting room floor and his owner was quietly reading a book with her glasses perched on her nose. They made such a happy picture - they could have been in their own relaxed home.

He slowly roused himself when he heard his name and his owner put her book away. Normally, dogs will sit and shiver in the waiting room with fear of what is to come, but not Quincy.

He stood quietly as I examined him and did not even flinch when I vaccinated him (unusual for a greyhound as they have a low pain threshold with their thin skin).

As I spoke to his owner, Quincy again made himself comfortable and stretched out on the consulting room floor to sleep. Apparently this wonderful laid back attitude to life is what made his doting owner choose him.

She went to a Greyhound Rescue 4 years ago. The kennel housed about 10 ex-racer Greyhounds that were all barking and jumping up. Quincy stood out as he had squeezed himself into a tiny basket and he just looked at her through all the chaos and noise with a gentle, pleading look. That was that, they have been devoted to each other ever since.

On hearing his history, I told the owner that my 10 year old son had left me his reading book on my bed as he thought I would enjoy it. It is Born to Run by Michael Morpurgo and is all about a Greyhound. I admitted to her that even though it was a children’s book, I had so enjoyed it but it had made me cry so much as it is written so poignantly. She laughed as her 10 year old son had left it for her too to read and she had also cried!

Greyhounds certainly are one of my favourite breeds.

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17/03/2008 by Arielle.

The RSPCA brought in a stray cornsnake in a pillow case. The RSPCA inspector explained that she wanted it put to sleep as it had been found in the streets of Nottingham and they had no facilities for keeping snakes.I removed the most beautiful orange cornsnake from the pillowcase. It was obviously very cold but appeared in good condition and I could not go ahead with the euthanasia on such a healthy creature, so I took it home!

My children were delighted but my husband was not happy. I took my daughter Emily to town to buy some food for her (we christened her Tango). This was an eye-opener for me. The pet shop owner opened a freezer which was full of containers with various sized mice and rats. I bought the smallest frozen mouse and left the shop with my 4 year old daughter fascinated by what she had seen in their freezer.

Having never owned a snake before, I phoned a friend for some advice. She is a snake enthusiast and rushed over to look at Tango. When she offerred to take Tango, I did not hesitate. I was not relishing the thought of feeding it the little pink mouse.

I am more of a lover of ‘furry creatures’ but we all learnt so much from our beautiful stray cornsnake!

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10/03/2008 by Arielle.

I took my 4 children plus a friend to Crufts today. We were all so excited and joined the throngs of animal lovers at the NEC. The section with dogs from all over the world was our favourite.

What a wonderful selection of loving, happy dogs that were still full of wags for the us all when we must have been the thousandth hands that were stroking them that day! My children were fascinated by all the different breeds and I was so impressed by how healthy and happy all the dogs were.

I lost my 4 year old daughter Emily at one point. My son noticed that she was not with us and when I turned around all I saw were masses of people and my heart skipped a beat. It didn’t take long to find her at the dogs for the disabled stand. She had stopped to pick up a coupon that had fallen out of a Eukanuba booklet (one of the many free booklets we were all handed). When she looked up to hand it to me I had gone. I felt very guilty when she told me this!

We also managed to get very lost on the way home as I took one wrong turning, so it was a long drive home but certainly worth it as we loved our day.

It is a reminder to me how much we all value our pets and again how valuable a career as a pet sitter is.

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21/02/2008 by Arielle.

I am full of cold and cough. My youngest daughter very kindly shared all her germs from nursery with me and inevitably (with all the good night kisses); I was going to catch it. I hate being ill - as we all do and to all Mums out there; we cannot take a day off when we just feel like crawling into bed and sleeping. There is always so much to do and little people to take to school, collect, cook for, bath etc etc.

I made my son take the dog out for her run this morning. She sits at the bottom of the stairs crying for me to appear dressed in my jogging clothes. She was equally happy when Christopher appeared to take her out.

I also have to work today and like most of us, I do not like to let people down. My husband has said that I am being selfish and will sneeze in front of all the clients and spread my germs while my son seems to think that I may sneeze on their pets and the iwner will fall ill when they are hugging their pets later at home!

The practice I work at is great and I know that they will find cover for me if I am really feeling bad but for now I am dosing up on Lemsip Max and about to go and consult. This is me feeling very sorry for myself!!

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18/02/2008 by Arielle.

I had one case today that stood out from the others. A mother came in with her little 5 year old daughter, their pet cat Molly and rat called Erica. Molly needed her 6 monthly program injection and the little girl watched me with great interest as I listened to her cat’s heart and then gave it the injection. Her mother mentioned that it was the first time she had been to a vet.

She then showed me their 3 year old pet rat that just sat miserably over its food bowl. She had stopped eating, was terribly thin and had grown lifeless over the last week. She was so dehydrated and I sadly had to make a diagnosis of a possible kidney or womb infection. The young mother had previously nursed a seizuring rat and she felt it would be kinder (which I wholeheartedly supported) if she was put to sleep.

She turned to her daughter and explained that I was going to take Erica away and give her an injection to make her die. The little girl burst into tears of genuine grief and looked at me with a mixture of hatred and confusion. I tried to explain to her that Erica would die if we left her or tried to treat her and she would suffer, but she was crying too much.

Erica passed away very quietly with a bit of gas and an injection in the hospital. One of the nurses was hand-feeding a 3 week Chihuahua puppy called Finnigan. I quickly borrowed him and rushed out with Finnigan wrapped in a pink towel to show him to the little girl who had touched my heart. I hope that she will grow up to understand that vets are not terrible people!

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09/02/2008 by Arielle.

Buttons did not come in this morning. Both he and his sister Shadow (our sweet little rescue cats) always come rushing in first thing in the morning for their food. It had been a windy night and I despaired and immediately imagined the worst - had a branch fallen on him or had he been blown off a roof?

I called and called and looked all over when I went out with Slick our dog for her jog. It was my husband who spotted Buttons as he climbed into his car parke next to mine. I had returned late last night from work and had unpacked my Tesco bags from the car, leaving it open as I did so.

Buttons had obviously climbed in and ended up locked in the car overnight. I felt complete relief that he was fine but horror that our faithful old family car now smells like a litter tray!

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