Pawcurious: With Veterinarian and Author Dr. V

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That was a *close* one

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I don’t do birds. I just don’t. I vaguely remember the stuff I learned in vet school, about air sacs and weird one way diagrams of their lungs and bumblefoot, but mostly I view them with the same untrusting wary eye I use for furtive men in trenchcoats skulking down the street.

When someone calls wanting to come in with a bird, I refer them to our local veterinary exotics specialist, who actually likes birds. He can have them. The last time I saw a bird, I was in the emergency hospital and my boss insisted I try and do something for a gasping little parakeet. I asked him what, exactly, I should do. “Give it some fluids!” he said, so I did, and while I was injecting a small amount of fluid in the appropriate space the bird up and died in my hands. Oh, the techs had a field day with that one. The amazing Dr V, who can euthanize a bird with a subcutaneous fluid injection! She turns water into euthasol!

thebirds

There are few things I understand less than birds, but bird owners are right up there. I’m sure there are many perfectly normal bird owners out there, but the ones I seem to come across are always dressed extensively in beads, fringe, and crazy. I apologize to the normal bird owners in advance. I’m not talking about you. But you know exactly who I’m talking about, don’t you?

Anyway, I have a point, and it is this. I got lucky:

My daughter’s kindergarten teacher has a Great Pyrenees. Her son just adopted a Boxer from rescue. When I drop my daughter off, she whips out her iPhone and shows me all sorts of pictures, which I of course gush appreciatively over; then she asks me veterinary questions, which I answer, because I need to be on this person’s good side. She likes me, and she likes Brody, and she never gives me a hard time for bringing him to school to pick up my kid (and yes, I do have poop bags aplenty now.) She thought my art project story was funny. She is a dog person.

There are 2 other kindergarten teachers at this school. I found out that the teacher in room two, a tall, toned, tan woman, rides horses. Horse people usually start talking to me in lingo, then stop when I’m staring at them blankly, and turn away with a disgusted snort. She would hate me. I know nothing. Horses have big guts that flip around a lot, there is something about 4 on the floor but I don’t remember what or why I should care, and if you mix up fetlock and forelock, they kick you in the head. That’s all I got.

I hadn’t met the teacher in room 3, but she was on the playground this morning with my daughter’s teacher, who introduced us. “She’s a vet!” the teacher gushed to her co-worker, who adjusted the fringe on her shawl, peered at me brightly over her wire rimmed glasses, and chirped, “Oh! Do you see birds?”

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Comments

  1. wow you really lucked out with teacher #1 and not teacher #2 or #3. 🙂 I feel that the bird owners in my vet class are a little bit “off” as well.

  2. I was going to object, being a bird lover, but then realized I don’t own any birds because I can’t deal with that level of commitment . And while I love birds and working on birds… yeah, the psittacine owners in particular tend to be a little weird. I think it’s the personality type needed to care for such a long-lived, high-attention, delicate animal.

  3. I’ve never understood the bird thing, either. My mom had 2 budgies for the longest time, they actually just recently died. I thought they were annoying as hell. You ever try to watch the Lost season finale with 2 budgies squawking in the background? Eff that noise.

    I got nothing against birds, I’d just never own them. The only bird I ever cared about was a house sparrow my big sister and I rescued when we were little. It was a baby who got thrown from its nest by a starling, we named him Hopper and he lived for 10 years. I don’t miss cleaning the cage, though. I much prefer to scoop kitty litter and pick up dog poop in bags.

  4. I don’t think it’s fair to cage an animal that has the ability to defy gravity just because you want to pet it. No thanks.

  5. I am a self-proclaimed animal lover, but birds flat out scare me. I fill my feeders with seed, and appreciate the wild ones from afar. Apart from that, I just don’t get it. The knowing glare of a cockatoo. The possible loss of an appendage from a parrot. To each their own, but I’m just not interested. Dr. V, I believe we are not the exception — Hitchcock plucked the string of a deep-seated fear in our psyche.

  6. i happen to love birds but like georgia jewel, don’t think they should be in cages and as a result, would never be showing up to my vet with one. i have a good friend who is a big animal lover but is completely freaked out by birds. surely there must be a word for it since it seems to be common – avianphobia? 🙂

    regardless, your post got a chuckle out of me. horses, while i think they are magnificent creatures, do end up having people who love them who speak a foreign language.

  7. aww, c’mon Dr. V! I’d rather see a gasping parakeet over a blocked tom any day of the week. At least a gasping parakeet isn’t going to attempt to rip your face off… He’s breathing too hard. What I tell owners of birds who look like they’re going to die is pretty easy: Most of them do die, despite what you try to do for them. I don’t know how many times someone’s brought me in a very sick bird, where all we can do for the first 5 hours is put it on oxygen and stare at it until it calms down. Then we still may kill it handling it to give fluids and antibiotics. The owners know that beforehand. That’s the trick 😉

    And on a subnote, bunny people are a lot like horse people. I guess that’s because bunnies are a lot like horses, without all the rectal palpation. And I guess they don’t make tiny little saddles so peoples’ pet monkies can ride their bunnies. I get a giggle just thinking about that 😉

  8. One of my coworkers comes to work with bird poop on her clothes. She is completely infatuated with her bird, which has attacked her other bird repeatedly and killed another. I don’t get it.

  11. Woo! I see now that I am not the only one terrified of birds! They give me the heebie-jeebies. I once saved a baby robin from the sidewalk, and nursed it to health and it flew away. That was great. But. The visit to the “Bird Man” with the aviary was traumatizing. He had birds everyfreakingwhere. African greys that stared at me, and growled (YES GROWLED) at me menacingly, sharp beaks and talons at every turn… eek.

    It gives me the shivers just thinking about it! I’ve finally warmed up to hummingbirds, even though they sound like giant bees >.< And I would never harm a bird, but I certainly do give them a wide berth.

      • I’m a wildlife person myself, and let me tell you – the raptors may look scary with those talons, but they typically can only do a limited amount of damage. It’s the herons you gotta watch with those eye-and-brain pokin’ beaks.

    • For dinner? 😉

      Flighless birds don’t scare me. I think I can trace this all back to a field trip to the zoo in junior high where I was attacked by a random bird and I thought it was part of some show so I let it go on for a good 30 seconds. True story.

  13. Always had bad, bad feelings about anybody who thought it cool to cage a wild/exotic bird. They’re very sadistic, if you ask me.

    I’ve seen these so-called “expensive & valuable” creatures flying in their natural habitat in South America such as flocks of parrots. Spotting a toucan as my first sighting there was an incredible and life changing experience as was watching swallows shoot in & out of the Iguazu Falls (they live in the rocks behind the water).

    Yes, bird people are sadistic.