Every animal disaster is a little different than the one before. The infrastructure may be fairly intact, or devastated. Local roads to receive supplies may or may not be accessible. The presence of local organizations and their willingness to help plays a major role in what constitutes an appropriate response. That is a field that is hard to navigate each and every time since the landscape is constantly changing from one disaster to another. What doesn't change? Who needs help. Why we do ... Read more »
Blog
Don’t Fitch the Homeless
I've never bought a piece of Abercrombie and Fitch clothing in my life, so to say I'm not going to in the future wasn't a big loss for me. I'm with everyone else who was disgusted with CEO Mike Jeffries' recent statement about their painfully shallow approach to marketing: "Because good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people," he said. "We don't market to anyone other than that." And so on and so forth we only sell small sizes and ... Read more »
Spiders till proven otherwise.
Deep in tender recesses of our cranium lies a small chunk of neural tissue that, should I prove its existence, will explain a lot about human behavior. I believe we all have this structure, though it may lie dormant for many years, perhaps forever. It's the arachnobellum. It's a small, primitive bit of grey matter tucked right in the center of the brainstem, that area that controls our deepest, most primal instincts. It's the part of the brain that blames all maladies, no matter how big ... Read more »
Hi, I love you, yep
Yesterday, I went on a field trip with my daughter's class as a chaperone. I was reminded, yet again, of why I became a veterinarian. The teacher is an angel on earth and I do not, for one second, think I could do what she does. I watched one nine year old dissolve into an inconsolable heap of tears because she lost during a game of Red Rover. I watched another child, who was walking barefoot on the park grass, get called over by her mother and told to apply hand sanitizer to her feet at ... Read more »
Be Kind to Animal People Week
May 5-11 is the American Humane Association's Be Kind to Animals Week. Hopefully, we're kind to animals every week, but it's good to have a reminder every now and then, and maybe a reason to go out of your way to do that thing you've been putting off. In last year's post I listed 5 ways to go about this, such as the shelter drive-by (still love this idea! I'm due for another trip!) But for today's post, I would like to discuss something that's been nagging at the back of my brain for a long ... Read more »
It’s not what it looks like
Someone said this to me the other day: "You have such a glamorous life." And I laughed, because I assumed it was sarcasm, but she said it with such sincerity that I paused and said, "Really?" And she said, "Oh, you know, maybe exciting is a better word- all the travel and....well, the trips and stuff you talk about." She paused, tilted her head to the side, and realized she was talking to a person holding a grocery bag full of mops and Zero Odor. I was, in fact, on a trip as we spoke. To ... Read more »
Apollo Chaplin Wishes you a Happy Hairball Awareness Day
If there's one thing that's harder to get a good picture of than a black dog, it's a black cat. At least Kekoa was easily bribed. Apollo- well, let's just say this was an all-hands on deck sort of mission. For National Hairball Awareness Day- which is today, by the by- we were invited by Furminator to participate in their Cats with Moustaches Campaign. The concept was simple: Furminate your cat (cakewalk), glue the hair onto a cardboard moustache (Messy, but elementary), then get a photograph ... Read more »
There goes the neighborhood (again)
After several months of leading the kids around our new and blessedly quiet neighborhood hoping to find some children running about, the spring temperatures have brought them out of hiding like little hibernating bears. We have both two little girls and a little boy within the block, and now the kids self-eject from the house as soon as their little feet can take them in the morning to go bike riding. As an added bonus, the little girls have a 12 week old Golden Retriever who comes by on his ... Read more »
Run Towards
I take the emergency exit row on a plane whenever I can get it. Who doesn't, right? When the attendants come around and ask if you are willing and able to assist in the event of an emergency, I nod, but think to myself "My job ends once that door's open then I'm outta here." I'd like to think I would stick around and help carry out the elderly or infirm, but there is a deep and guilty part of me that thinks I wouldn't. I would run away. Running away is an easy way to deal with life. I run ... Read more »
Mountain biking is a lot like veterinary medicine
When I first began practice as a veterinarian, it took all of about three months before I got tossed out on my own. This was not by choice, mind you. My clinic had opened up a satellite office and sent my ‘mentor’ over to staff the place, leaving me at the main clinic with a couple other part time vets. To be frank, I was glad to have a break from the guy. He was a nightmare. Within one week the entire staff at the new clinic threatened mutiny if they were forced to work with the vet in question ... Read more »
