Hardened criminal. Swimsuit model. New media revolutionary. NPR host. Animator. What do they all have in common? Their lives have been made better by having a pet. And we're not talking oh, I have a cute cat and I sometimes feed it and it makes me chuckle, I'm talking about people whose lives have been profoundly affected by the animals in their lives. I assume if you're here reading this blog, you feel it too. Something about the bond between ourselves and our pets goes way beyond the ... Read more »
Musings
Thank you, even for that.
This week my Facebook newsfeed has been filled with friends listing, day by day, those things they are thankful for. Health. Family. Security. All good and wonderful things, and what a lovely sentiment to take a moment out to acknowledge how fortunate we are to have what we do. I like that. I think it's safe for people to assume I am thankful for my family and their health and the nice things I am lucky to have, absolutely. But I think a more interesting question is this: What are you ... Read more »
The day of our dead
It's one of my earliest memories: kneeling on the soil next to my grandmother in her lush front yard just to the left of her Mary on the half shell, her hair tied back with her ever present babushka. She clips a dead marigold and hands it to me. I look at it, brown and crinkly in my hand, then look up at her in askance. "Look," she says, and peels back the dead leaves. Inside, a pocket of seeds spills into my hands. Mary- I called her Babcia, because in her native Polish that is how you say ... Read more »
How to talk to your vet about death
I'm getting Apollo's ashes back this week. I still haven't quite processed it yet, because his death lacked that months long painful preparation/ agonizing over a pet in the process of dying: The Infinite Hovering of the Big Hanging Clock. He woke up Wednesday morning, meowed for his food like always, and was dead 12 hours later. Whenever you learn of a terminal diagnosis, that invisible countdown clock that all living beings share suddenly appears. And we know that it's winding down, sooner ... Read more »
Headless dog cakes and other sundry sacrifices
Before I get into the details of this weekend, it's important to understand the massive pile of guilt from under which I was trying to emerge. One year ago this month, the chaos began. The endless lines of people rifling through our home in an endless stream had already been going on for seven months, but one year ago was when we agreed, from exhaustion more than anything else, to sell the home. All for the promise of a better education for the kids, which necessitated a move out of the ... Read more »
my sweaty self, my gym bag, my cat
One of the things they always tell you in vet school is "don't go on gut instinct alone." And this is a good point, because you can't really practice sound medicine based solely on intuition. You get a hunch, then you follow through with science to prove or disprove your hypothesis. Most of the time, though, you're right, even if you don't want to be. Like the time I was patting Nuke on his side and felt a mass pushing back on my hand. "Splenic hemangiosarcoma," my mind spit out, and an ... Read more »
Do dogs get headaches?
Humans For Sure Get Headaches A week ago, I decided I was going to stop drinking caffeine. Now if you know me at all, you know I adore coffee, more than almost anything else in life. If you cut my arm, skinny vanilla latte would pour out. The decision to give up my biggest vice was not an easy one by any means, but at the end of the day, health trumps pleasure, and I figured there's always decaf. I did what everyone tells you not to do, and just stopped cold turkey. Big mistake, ... Read more »
The most seriously awesome thing ever: Part 1
Short Version About that champagne thing. Let me tell you what has been going on the last few months. Dr V is writing book in little less than half a year. So all I have to do is write the book, edit it, keep Brody alive, work, and add 4 hours to every day. After I plot the dethroning of the Evil Count AwfulSuperintendent here in my school district. Long Version When I was seven, my mother once punished me by sending me to my room for an hour. Three hours later, she came upstairs and ... Read more »
Fear Me: Fear Free Practice and You
My resting blood pressure, I assure you, is completely normal. I have to state this fact again and again every time I wind up at the doctor's office, when the nurse places the cuff and then pulls it off with a thoughtful wrinkle in her forehead. "It's not normally 200/140!" I plead, hoping she doesn't direct me to the closest ER. "I just get this way when I'm in the doctor's office." She nods, and we get on with our day. I have no idea why it happens, but apparently it's A Thing. I blame it on ... Read more »
The Veterinary Film Marketing Team Needs a Little Work
The American Veterinary Medical Association is not known for being on the cutting edge of pop culture or media relations. Like its cousin the American Medical Association, professional organizations like this all tend to err on the side of conservatism. That is just the nature of the beast, and I get that. So it is with some degree of bemusement that I noted the AVMA has recently released a 30 second movie trailer in honor of its 150th anniversary. And why, might you ask, does the profession ... Read more »
Birdsong
Hands "You have surgeon's hands," said Mr. Veri, and I believed him. It was one of the few things my Jon Lovitz-esque physics teacher had said to me all year, and I had no idea what prompted it or what level of experience he had with hand divination, but it sounded like a kickass thing to have, and I held onto it. He saw my hands, but he didn't know my heart. I didn't either, so I can't blame him for setting me up for crushed dreams down the road. I went into veterinary school sure of two ... Read more »
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 »
I think I need to break up with Disneyland and its 999 Happy Haunts
I spend a lot of time thinking about customer service, and how we as veterinarians are sometimes so focused on being amazing clinicians we neglect to remember the fact that we are in a customer service industry. You can be the most astute diagnostician in the universe, but if your front desk staff or technician (or you!) is rude, ambivalent or just generally unpleasant, it ruins the whole client experience. It doesn't take much to be minimally pleasant, but I'm amazed how uncommon that has ... Read more »
Death Match: Social Media vs. Rotary
Two weeks ago, I had the honor of speaking at the AAHA National Convention as a part of the BlogPaws veterinary social media track. In a fit of what I can only imagine was perhaps a hypothermia-induced lapse in judgment, Bill Schroeder invited me to co-present for the day. For those of you who don't know, Bill helms In Touch Vet, a veterinary marketing company that works with 8,000 vet clinics across the country with website design and social media. And I, well, I manage one site, which ... Read more »
Minimizing the Stress of Euthanasia
I can't believe Koa's been gone over a month. Sometimes I still look for her around the corner or find some black fur stuck to a sock buried in the laundry pile. We are still adjusting. I did a quick Google Hangout video talking about some of the lessons I've taken from my own dogs as well as my experience in the clinic. I hope it has some information people find useful, especially to those who have never been through the process before. ... Read more »
I want to go where they went
I do not profess to know what happens to us after we die. Even those who have strong faith in what will happen to us after we go are sometimes unsure of what happens to our beloved pets. And to them, I quote the great Will Rogers: "If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went." When someone close to me passes on, be it person or pet, I have a dream about them a week or so later. I don't know why, if it is a quirk of my subconscious or an actual visit or who the ... Read more »
