Pawcurious Vet Blog: With Pet Blogger and Veterinarian Dr. V

Trolled by travel

Veterinary work is an emotionally charged field. Rarely are people in an ambivalent, steady state sort of mind the way they are, say, at the gas station, or buying bananas at the grocery store. They are either happy because they have a cute young pet getting routine care, or stressed because their pet is ill/expensive/having surgery/waiting too long in the exam room. You get the picture.

So I’m used to dealing with stressed and angry people. You have to be. There are ways to defuse situations, and ways to escalate them.

Now I know that I am, personally, sometimes but not always, a bit of a hothead. Shocking, I know. I’ve never yelled at clients, never gotten loud, never thrown things or berated coworkers or any of that. Not because I’ve never felt the urge, but because that’s not what you do. Being pleasant and polite in the face of stress is what professionals are paid to do, so you do it. That aside, getting into it with clients or customers never serves any purpose, right? Help them solve their problem and move on.

Now on the flip side, when I’m out and about living life, I get irked not uncommonly. I try really hard not to, but it happens. And when it’s accompanied by jet lag, lack of sleep, and dehydration it only gets worse.

It was in this state that I arrived back home on Wednesday. I was already mad because I had to gate check my bag, which I HATE doing, and despite my attempts to make the bag handler-proof as it was being whisked away I realized my car keys were still in it. Greeeeeeat.

And because I am lucky when I travel and we had the extra pleasure of a TSA agent at the gate doing a triple level of screening, he took my nervous fidgeting as I watched my car keys being handed off to some stranger on the tarmac as signs of impending terrorism. He pulled me out of line for additional harassment, which consisted of him looking at my drivers license, up at me, back at my license, back at me for a good three minutes while asking me my name and my destination about three times. But he wanted to be thorough, so then he asked my middle name just for funsies, I guess, and, convinced of my benevolent intents, finally let me on the plane. (more…)

Them cookies are serious business, people.

One of the reasons many vets give for choosing their profession is, “I like animals better than people.” It’s not a good reason, mind you, and those with misanthropic tendencies learn to cover it up pretty quickly or else have a rotten career, but I will tell you from experience that well, it’s true.

I’ve been working on it. I actually get along pretty well with people, as far as I can tell. But every once in a while I experience one of those penultimate human experiences that I’m supposed to relish, and all I can do is run away screaming and bury my face in the dog and not want to talk to another person for at least eight hours, possibly ten. I had one of those this week.

In an attempt to raise a good citizen, I enrolled my daughter in Girl Scouts. I did it when I was a kid. I tried to find my picture of me in my Brownies uniform to prove it, but I think it’s in the storage facility somewhere, at least that is my excuse. Anyway, as far as I could recall, it was fun: we made some ribbon barrettes, colored, got to wear those badass brown sashes to school and strut around every Tuesday, and I think one time I sold some Thin Mints. It was low key.

And I look around at the second graders these days dressing like Miley Cyrus and singing all the words to “I’m Sexy and I Know It”, and I realized something with horror: I’m apparently an old school prude. And I’m really not, but compared to what’s out there, I kind of am. And I had two main choices for after school activities for my daughter: Girl Scouts or the local dance studio, and if you saw what the eight year olds were wearing at the last recital you would understand why I went with the scouts.

Because the Scouts are the answer to all the things we bemoan about being a woman today, right? It’s about teamwork and solidarity. It’s about empowerment. Equality. Buoying your fellow woman instead of throwing her under the bus. Girl power and all of that, embrace your brain, etc.

Well. (more…)

A pet’s worth

We didn’t get a whole lot of education on the topic of the law while we were in school. Too much other stuff to cram into four short years to spend much time on something that changes with some regularity. But at the time, the general consensus was this: from a legal standpoint, pets are property, and as such, your liability in terms of the law is limited to the replacement value of the pet.

That has changed with some rapidity.

A Texas court is just one of the most recent cases in which a judge has ruled that owners can recover damages for “sentimental or intrinsic value” after the loss of a pet. In New York, a woman is suing a pet shop for the pet’s medical ailments, claiming damages for not herself, but the pet’s own pain and suffering- in essence challenging the legal upholding that pets are merely property. These are just the latest cases, but they are not the only ones.

This sort of legal wrangling makes me shudder as a vet, and I’ll tell you why. Well, to quote the great Mandy Patinkin from The Princess Bride, there is too much. Let me sum up.

From an ethical standpoint, we already know that pets are more than just pieces of wood we can do with as we will, which is why there are animal welfare statutes and prosecutions for neglect. But from a legal standpoint, the “property” definition has kept the damages in the courtroom to manageable amounts. It’s the reason an anesthesiologist may pay up to half their salary in malpractice premiums, but vets- unless you work with high value pets like racehorses- have pretty small premiums.

If that changes, and despite the efforts of organized veterinary medicine to the contrary I think it will, be ready. Because if veterinarians have to start facing skyrocketing pain and suffering damage claims not only for the legitimate cases of wrongdoing, but the many more numerous specious claims that will arise, the ones who are going to suffer the most are pets. If you think the cost of veterinary medicine is high now, wait until that happens.

I love this guy. But I’ve never viewed him the same way I do a person.

It’s a conundrum. On the one end of the spectrum we have a lot of people who are entirely oblivious to the pain they cause these living beings, through neglect and ambivalence and things like fighting rings and puppy mills. As a society we still have a ways to go on that account, though I will say having been to multiple third world countries we are still light years ahead of the game.

On the other hand, there are those who want pets to have the same legal and ethical footing as we give ourselves. There has to be some sort of happy medium here. But I don’t feel- and obviously I have a biased view on the topic- that this legal sort of challenge is the best venue in which to force those changes. At best, it will make some lawyers rich, though I still think the root causes of our attitudes towards animals are best dealt with elsewhere.

Education. Teach children from a young age about how to treat other living beings with respect. Teach owners about the proper way to research, obtain, and care for an animal. If the woman in the New York case had spent 10 seconds researching how to obtain a pet, she wouldn’t have been at a pet store in the first place. So who exactly is culpable here?

I once had a veterinarian more experienced and wiser than me pat me on the back during a really horrible experience involving a lawyer and say, “That’s just part of being a vet in this day and age.” That experience changed me, and not for the better. And I have a feeling it’s only going to get worse.

This is a tip of the iceberg sort of thing, but what do you think? Will changing the legal standpoint of the animals really help them in the long run? Are you ok with paying double in order to reserve the right to sue for pain and suffering? Or are we barking up the wrong tree?

Bostons, Breeders and the surreptitious obtaining of important phone numbers

I think it’s interesting that the newest competition at the AKC/Eukanuba show in December was called the “Breeder’s Stakes”. I know they meant it one way, but really, there is a lot at stake, and I’m not talking about the cash prizes. It’s defining ‘good breeder’.

There is a circular conversation going on in the world of animal lovers about what constitutes a “responsible breeder.” Most people who breed their dogs call themselves a responsible breeder, even if they’re not. Even if they are utterly clueless about the fact that their seven month old chihuahua maybe shouldn’t be bred at this first heat, or that Craigslist isn’t the best place to find a stud, or that they aren’t going to make a fortune off breeding this dog once they factor in all the expenses, the possible C-section, all that fun stuff.

I see a lot of clueless people in my day to day life who want to breed their dog just because. I can do what I can to dissuade them, to convince them to contact their local breed clubs and educate themselves on the right way to do it, but at the end of the day they continue to do it because there are other people out there who are willing to buy these dogs because they are there, and available. “At least it’s not from a pet store,” they say, and I guess there is that.

Or people will go to a rescue or shelter in search of that breed they are interested in. And don’t get me wrong, I think that is a wonderful idea and something I do myself, but that is what you do because you want to rescue a pet and you’re OK with the possibility of unknown health or behavior issues that comes from a random background. I don’t think people should be guilted into rescuing a dog, unless that is something they want to do. But that’s only half the equation. People are continuing to get dogs on a whim, for the wrong reasons, and based on what is quick and easy as opposed to what is right.

Putting puppy mills and backyard breeders out of business won’t happen until we do a better job of convincing people that it’s worth the effort and research to find a good breeder and pick the right dog. They are out there, but it takes more effort than some of the other options. It’s work. Getting a dog should be work, because having a dog is work. That is not an unreasonable prerequisite. (more…)

Epic Bad

We had a great New Year’s Eve. Well, some of us did, at least.

My parents offered to watch the kids so that my husband and I could go out for the first time in a decade. Being well past the expiration date for things like heading downtown with the hordes, we decided to check out a new restaurant in our area that was opening on New Year’s Eve instead.

So we got there, only to find that it was technically a private event for family and friends. No matter, said my husband, and somehow talked us in anyway. Which is how we found ourselves in the midst of a Hipster New Years Eve party, where a roomful of twenty-somethings in demure black sat quietly drinking some craft brew and staring over their black-rimmed glasses at my husband and I, resplendent in New Year’s hats from Party City, partying like it’s 1999, which they don’t remember since they were in junior high back then. We’re old enough now that we don’t care, though.

We came home shortly after midnight, me bracing myself for the now common refrain of “What did you destroy this time, Brody?” And I was so pleasantly surprised. Everything was intact. He had a bit of a bout of colitis over the last few days, no doubt in response to all the garbage he’s been chewing up, and there was nary a shredded paper bit or pile of excrement to be found. I was delighted.

My reverie was to be short-lived. (more…)

Merry Christmas

I love Christmas. But I hated Christmas working emergency as a veterinarian.

I euthanized more pets in the two weeks surrounding Christmas than I did in the surrounding three months combined. This is a consistent, repeatable phenomenon common to all clinics- a combination of holiday stress, low funds, and the uncanny knack of pets to get very sick at the most inconvenient of times.

Yesterday, in a clinic in the Pacific Northwest, a woman went into the emergency clinic with her beloved dog, who hadn’t been feeling well. The dog developed a pyometra, which is a terrible, life-threatening condition if not treated immediately with surgery. The vet presented the woman with the estimate: $2,000.

And the woman just did not have that much money. She just didn’t. So she sat in the waiting area, sobbing over the reality that this Christmas, she was going to have to euthanize her pet. I’d like to say that this is an uncommon thing, but this is the reality that plays over and over in veterinary hospitals everywhere on this holiday.

Another couple was in the waiting area with their cat, who also needed to be euthanized. This is Christmas in the ER. It stinks. Not a happy place to be.

But this couple saw this stranger, and said to themselves, how sad that we both must be in this sad situation on this joyous day. And they said, well, we can’t save our cat.

But we can save her dog. And these anonymous strangers gave their credit card to the receptionist and paid for this woman’s dog to be saved, asking not a thing in return.

I have worked in the field for ten years, and I have heard of these stories, but I’ve never seen it happen myself. But I know this woman, and I know her dog, and this did, in fact happen.

The kindness of strangers, the love we have for our pets, transcends so very much. Every time I think I’ve just about had it with people, I hear a story like this, and my faith in humanity is restored. That kind of gift is something that boggles the mind.

I was sitting in the middle of a pile of wrapping paper when I heard this, my dogs licking my feet, the kids running around, and my curmudgeonly mind was utterly blown. A very Merry Christmas to you all, and I hope every day to have in my heart the kind of compassion these strangers showed to a woman and her dog (who is now at home, safe and sound.)

May your days be merry and bright!

Low Cost Spay Neuter Myths and Facts

I’m here, I’m loving Orlando, and I’m sick as a dog. Which stinks, to put it mildly. So, I’m focusing my energy on things like standing up and walking, but the posts will come. Make sure to check out Facebook and Twitter as well, where I’ll be posting lots of candids. In the meantime, I have a post about a topic we got into a big discussion about a couple of weeks ago:

I loved Dr. Becker’s recent article about whether or not vets should offer spays for below cost. His answer, in a nutshell, is “no”. Mine is too. The responses ran the usual gamut of those who agreed and those who did not, but it got me thinking about the whole idea and how veterinarians are often caught in the middle when trying to explain to owners why prices are the way they are.

Myth: If a low cost facility can spay a dog for $50, you should be able to do it too.

Fact: To understand how a facility can afford to offer a procedure for such a low cost, you need to know what they do in order to make that economically feasible. Do the vets volunteer their time? Do they skip items like intravenous catheters, inhalant anesthesia, or post operative pain medications? If it’s the choice between having it done and not having it done, many people are fine with that. But in my clinic, if I’m taking a pet under my care, I feel obligated to do the procedure as safely as I can, and that involves pricier things like blood pressure monitoring and post-operative opiods. That’s expensive.

Not to say some low cost clinics don’t offer those things- they might. But many don’t, and it’s good to know what you’re signing up for.

Myth: Low cost = poor care.

Fact: Not necessarily. In fact, most of the low cost places I know in our area staff their clinics with the best vets. You have to be a good surgeon to complete that volume of surgery in a short amount of time. Less experienced vets are slower in surgery. They just are.

Many of these places subsidize their cost through fundraising and grants. I worked at a clinic that accepted county vouchers for $80 spays, and also performed spays for clients for the real cost of $250. The pets received the exact same high quality care with gas anesthesia, IV catheters, and dedicated monitoring, but one group received a subsidized cost. It was a 24 hour clinic that utilized the downtime by having the vet do those subsidized procedures at 2 am when nothing else was going on.

Myth: Complication rates are higher at low cost facilites.

Fact: Not necessarily. I don’t know of any specific data to show this one way or the other. It’s not about the rate of complications so much as what happens if there is a complication. If a pet has an adverse reaction to anesthesia- something that can’t be predicted- does the facility have the staff and resources to provide emergency care?

When your pet goes home that night and chews out the sutures, who do you call? If your pet licks the incision and it gets infected, who covers the cost of the antibiotics? Much of the time, owners are on their own.

The truth is, low-cost facilities perform an important service for people who cannot afford the more traditional costs associated with such a complicated procedure. They do this in a variety of ways, and for that I am glad. But that doesn’t mean a traditional clinic can take advantage of those same cost cutting measures and still stay solvent. It’s comparing apples and oranges.

So who should pay?

The one continuing refrain I always hear in these arguments, and this is the one that really gets to me, is “vets owe it to the community to take a bath on pricing, because they love pets/overpopulation is a big problem/the economy stinks.”

Now, it’s nice when vets offer their services at a discount- and trust me, every vet I know eats costs left and right for things they really shouldn’t because we feel badly and want to help. But is it an obligation? Many children suffer from a lack of proper dental care, but no one seems to be beating up on their local dentist for not doing more (nor should they.) Grocery stores aren’t lambasted for not giving food away to needy families. It’s easy to point fingers at the obvious target when someone can’t afford what they need, but there is a limit to what any one person or business can do. If there are no profits, there is no clinic.

One emergency facility I worked at had a list in the office of places people could call to ask for financial assistance for their pet. As the vet in charge of the case, I was in charge of helping people fund their care. I spent hours helping people try to find funds, and nine times out of ten instead of being happy, those people would be angry that they weren’t getting more. I consider myself a compassionate person, but I have to be honest: over time this sort of thing can burn a person out. It just does.

Low cost spay/neuter clinics have their place, and they do good work. I am glad they are there. But I could do without the idea that the provision of veterinary care is a right to all owners upon request, and an obligation of the provider to give said care without expectation of being paid a fair wage. The burden of care, at the end of the day, must lie with the owner.

What do you think? Have you ever used (or those in the field, worked at) a low cost clinic? Think it’s equivalent to a standard clinic?

The Road to AKC/Eukanuba: Dress for Success

Here’s the thing about dog shows: They are a to-do.

I’m not the pro source about dog shows, as you know. I’m learning as I go, and the more I learn, the less I know. It’s fascinating, the work that goes into becoming a champion, the hours spent grooming and training and driving from place to place and competing in the hunt for titles. But at the end of the day, for me, it boils down to this: people who are really into showing dogs are absolutely, 100% nuts for canines.

And that I get. I took that love and channeled it in my own way, by learning how to take a sick dog and make him better, to cut out offending masses, make them happy, and keep them healthy. Others do it by funneling their time into rescuing abandoned dogs from shelters. And this group does it by taking their personal favorite breed and making them exceptional. But we’re all facets of the same die: people who believe that dogs are important, and worthy of our time and attention, and whatever path that means for you, I admire it. Because there is another option, and that is to be apathetic. And that, my friends, is the root of a lot of pain for our canine friends. (more…)

A Very Macabre Christmas to You and Yours

Among the many things I inherited a love of from my mother, such as books and weird medical cases, are Christmas ornaments and crafting. Every Christmas since I was little, we would get an ornament in our stocking, and when I moved out, I took my collection with me. It’s a lovely way to have a little nostalgia every December when we set up the tree. I have done the same for my kids, so when they are older they can survey their pile of Tow Mater and Barbie ornaments the way I look over my Garfield collection and have a smile.

I do the same for the pets, but they don’t get a new one every year. When I get a new pet, they get a stocking and an ornament that first Christmas. Each year I put it on the tree and I can be either reminded of how glad I am to have them in my life, or have a smile as I remember them fondly and reminisce about what Christmas decorations they destroyed.

Mulan died on New Year’s Eve, 2008, a couple of months before I started the blog. My mother, still coming down off her post-Christmas rush, spotted a Golden Retriever ornament at a post-Christmas sale and snatched it up, with a brilliant idea: I will glue feathers on it and make Jessica a Mulan-angel ornament. She painstakingly crafted this piece, then set it aside for the year.

As you know if you’re a regular reader, 2009 was a banner year for me in terms of “death, the gift that keeps on giving.” By the time the holiday season arrived, my mother retrieved the ornament from storage and realized geez, I had a whole lot of pets disapparate over the following months. Not wanting anyone to feel left out- glue and feathers are cheap, after all- she hit the stores.

So here is the scene: Christmas morning, 2009. Smiling expectantly, she hands me a beautifully wrapped box, which I assume to be my yearly ornament. I open it. (more…)

My Type: Strong, Silent and Hairy

I went to the gym this morning, although it’s not my favorite thing to do, because I know I need to accumulate a little exercise karma in advance of all the pigging out that’s going to be happening tomorrow. Such is life.

I joined the Y this year, giving up my 24 Hour membership for a variety of reasons:

• The Y has lots of stuff for kids
• The 24 Hour has been overrun by Pauly D wannbes who hog all the machines and are generally totally obnoxious

 
“SMILE!” he says, leaning over, which only makes me more nervous because then he might drip sweat on me, which will absolutely ruin my morning. “It can’t be that bad.”

Have you hugged a vet today?

Whenever someone makes a reference to vets, I have to step back for a minute and look at the context. Are they talking about veterinarians or veterans? I am a veterinarian living in a military town, so in my world, it’s 50/50. What an honor to share a name with this group, though, isn’t it?

This weekend is my big blogathon, my biggest fundraiser of the year. I’m going to spend the night at a big cat sanctuary and have fun and shenanigans and post a bunch of stuff and hopefully help out a really worthy cause. It will be fun. And despite all my fears about a zombie apocalypse, I think come Sunday night I will still be alive.

Photo from US Navy

And while I’m goofing off and having fun, there will be men and women in real danger in far-flung corners of the world. Their spouses and children wait at home, praying the doorbell doesn’t ring at 4 in the morning with a somber faced retinue on the doorstep. I think of my friend Amber, pregnant with her second child while her husband is in Japan; of my dad, a Navy veteran who makes sure his flag is neatly flying every morning at the house; of the men and women sleeping in a tent somewhere missing their families; and also, of course, of the animals who have given their lives willingly in service of the country. It’s so much more than the service men and women, it is their families and the sacrifices they make that I also want to honor and remember today, as I walk around in my safe and secure world.

In honor of the day, I want to draw attention to Pets for Patriots, a wonderful organization that brings the benefits of pet ownership to veterans and active duty military while also helping adult shelter animals find a good home. Beth Zimmerman has built the organization from the ground up and I am amazed at what she has accomplished in such a short amount of time. What a lovely way to honor both animals and veterans. I am so honored to have gotten the chance to get to know Beth.

Tomorrow I will be back in usual form, making a scene and blowing this place up with shenanigans, because that is what I do best. But today, while I rest and prepare, I want to take a breath, and honor those who work and sacrifice so much for their fellow citizens.

To my dad and my father-in-law;

To Ryan and Amber;

To Amanda and John;

and to all active duty and veterans, and their families, on this Veteran’s Day:

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. I am grateful every day for what you do.

Comments are open today for anyone who has someone in particular they would like to honor- I would love to hear your stories!

Insomniac

I have had the worst insomnia lately. I don’t know what the deal is. I lay awake, totally exhausted and ready to die, but my eyes betray me and snap open and there I lay, till 1, till 2, looking at the ceiling and thinking about nothing and everything.

I suppose this will bode well for me this weekend, this whole no sleeping thing, but for now, it stinks. Because I’m the zombie. Although I’m awake, I’m useless. I thought I would try to continue the Africa recaps for you but 1. I’m in St. Louis tonight and I left all my pictures at home, and 2. I started to write something but in my awake yet incoherent state it came out kind of like this:

I sure did like them chimps.

And that was as far as I got. But we have the assassination! And the hippos! And the flying the plane in the Serengeti! And the marauding elephants! And the leopards! And Graeme the disgruntled disillusioned imprisoned Scottish balloon pilot! So much to write and me so utterly useless. I was sure I had 4 or 5 other things I was supposed to be writing about this week but all I can think is “Oh man, I’m so tired. So, so tired. And my carcass will not drift off to sleep despite my best attempts.”

Normally, in these situations I have a plan. I have Brody. And when all else fails, I lay down on my dog, because nothing encourages rest and relaxation like laying on a Golden retriever, who will sit silent and perfectly still letting your head rise and fall on his chest all day. Usually that does the trick, and if not I still feel better for having buried my hands in Golden fur for an hour or so. But I couldn’t bring Brody to Missouri, so the best I can manage to snuggle with is the hotel bathrobe.

The worst part about it is, if I can’t figure out what I’m stressed about- things are going along just fine- then the fact that I can’t figure out what I’m stressing about, stresses me out and then I get more worked up and more awake than ever. And then it’s 6 am and the cat is drooling in my face begging for food.

Other than mind-altering approaches like alcohol, benadryl and/or Ambien, anyone have any good suggestions for getting rid of the insomnia? I’m beginning to wonder if it really is my subconscious warning me of the impending zombie attacks and trying to keep me awake. The very fact that my mind is going there has me concerned this sleep deprivation is really getting to me.