To all the pet moms out there: We ply them with food and treats and toys, spend hours grooming them and rubbing their bellies. We may not get any handmade cards or macaroni necklaces in return, but we do get this: pure, unadulterated, unconditional love. It's the best gift they can give, and the primary joy of having a pet. Have a Happy Mother's Day! ... Read more »
Blog
That sound you hear is my heart breaking
I was a very sensitive kid. So much, in fact, that my mother only got through "Rock a Bye Baby" one time because I cried so hard at the idea of "down will come baby cradle and all." What a mean lullaby. I couldn't watch Road Runner cartoons because I was so sympathetic to the coyote- he wasn't evil, he was just a carnivore. He just wanted to eat. And Tom and Jerry? Awful. Poor Tom. I'd cry every time I had to watch him get disemboweled, electrocuted, or decapitated. Man, that was a sadistic ... Read more »
Least favorite things
I could lie and tell you of all the things I do at work, I like them all equally well. Sadly, I'm a crummy liar. I have definite preferences, as do most vets I know. If you figured those preferences out early on and don't mind putting yourself through the wringer to be able to do just that for the rest of your career, then congratulations, you're a specialist. The rest of us have to muddle through the stuff we don't like in order to do the things we do. If you're really lucky, you end up working ... Read more »
The cat food experiment, Part 2- or, uh oh
So the last you heard of me and my cat food experimenting, I had to give all the freeze dried food to Emmett and was tackling my bag of raw food patties. The Nature's Variety brand makes feeding raw food very convenient, if you're not into preparing all that stuff yourself. It appealed to me for several reasons: 1. You can buy it in little 1 ounce medallions, or larger 3 ounce patties. 2. The meat is ground up, so you don't have big bone chunks floating around in the stuff. 3. They actually ... Read more »
A new reality
I am very fortunate to be in the position that I am, as a veterinarian, with a sick pet. I know I have more access than most to specialized care. I am very grateful to my colleague and boss, one of my clinic's owners, who also works at an internal medicine facility and is both a very confident diagnostician and very good to his friends and colleagues. On Friday at 4:30 pm, the lab faxed over the pathology results: DIAGNOSIS: LYMPHOSARCOMA. There's never a good time to get that result, but of ... Read more »
An unplanned entry
When Mulan was sick last year, the simple act of petting her was a stressful event. There was always a new lump, some sore spot, something to make me nervous and want to do tests and see what was going on. It was always such a relief to pet Emmett, so sturdy and unproblematic, to scratch him under the chin and not feel enlarged nodes, to thump him the way you thump big dogs in greeting and not worry about hurting him. And after Mulan died, under the grief and sorrow there was also a weight ... Read more »
So, about this whole swine flu thing…
Am I the only person not freaking out about this? No? Must be a slow news week, because hoo boy, are the media outlets going crazy over this or what? It's the flu, it is unpleasant, but so far it doesn't seem to be any worse than any other kind of flu we have seen lately. A lot of the naysayers are ominously talking about the winter, and the Great Pandemic of 1918, but there's a lot of months between now and then for us to be run over by buses, electrocuted, hit by errant meteors, and all ... Read more »
Weird things happen in threes
It's the oddest thing. I can go 3 months without seeing a blocked cat or a glaucoma, and all of a sudden I will see three in one day. It always comes in waves. In yesterday's case, we marked the start of foxtail season. In our area, foxtails are one of the banes of a dog's existence. They aren't found everywhere, but in my neck of the woods they are ubiquitous. Foxtails are, essentially, grass awns. When they dry out, they turn into nasty little sticky bayonets that stick to a dog's fur, and ... Read more »
Phone call of the day
Conversation my receptionist had this afternoon with a caller: "Oh, hi, um, well, I think my dogs had, um, sex..." "OK...." "And, um, well, they're...sticky. Is that normal?" "Um, sure. They can get sticky, I suppose." "Well, my wife says they are really sticky....hold on a minute...what, Gerturde?" talking in deep Eastern European accent "She says the dog's entire back is really sticky. Like sap." "Well, sir, honestly, I'm not entirely sure what to think about that. Would you like to ... Read more »
Well, that was fun
I had the unfortunate need to go to the emergency room this weekend with my 4 year old, thanks to a protracted Saturday night of vomiting that didn't respond to any of the things I normally do to help at home. My husband took her at 4 am, which is usually a pretty quiet time in the ER. Imagine his surprise to find the waiting area full- totally full- of groaning zombielike walking dead, all convinced they are dying of swine influenza. Granted, this is a real possibility, especially in our area, ... Read more »