Nights With a Difference

Well it has been a 4night shift of cases that we normally see in singles coming in in pairs or triples unconnected to each other.

2 cats in needing back legs amputated due to damage from cars, both damage to the right hind and both long haired dark tortoiseshell cats.
1 dog in that needed it’s front leg amputated. Running around in the woods it had somehow ripped the whole lower section of it’s front leg off. Apparently only 1 bit of skin held it on. When l got in the leg was all padded up prior to the op the next day once he was nice and stable. I am told that even the vets and nurses looked ill when they saw the damage, the dog was dark brindle. A doggie version of dark tortoiseshell in cats

3 dogs in attacked by other dogs and a lot of damage done to all of them. One of the dog attack dogs was a stray. Severe bite wounds to her front legs and shoulders. When she was under GA for clip and clean they pulled some scabs off and a fountain of pus erupted.
She was very flat for 2 nights, then at about 5am the third night had an “ok no more malingering” moment and started to eat and try to stand. It took till the end of the 4th night before she could walk without falling over.
Her tail never stopped wagging although we muzzled her to inject her as she was so sore and some of the injections sting, even then all she did was cry.
I had a word with the collection driver and he is going to arrange for her to go to a friend of his with an animal rescue to be rehomed. She is a very sweet dog and l am crossing fingers for her.

2 bitches in unable to urinate and blocked solid with bladder stones. Both needed operations, very unusual for bitches to get blocked.

2 animals brought in by police, made a change normally we have to send the collection van.
1 cat that 3 police brought in the back of their van after 2 cars had hit it [cat]. This cat needs to choose a lottery ticket. Apart from bruising it was unhurt.
The second was a dog whose owner had been arrested for being stupidly drunk and abusive. It was a very sweet dog the copper wanted to adopt it and was upset that it was owned.

2 dogs with ear damage that needed head dressings on. One was one of the dog attack dogs with neck and ear wounds. Usually we only get the odd head dressing animal through.

2 jaw cases one a stray dog. His mouth wouldn’t shut, thinking it was a broken jaw he was given a GA. Nope his teeth were so rotted he couldn’t shut his mouth. All teeth removed and about 8hours post op he tucked into a bowl of sloppy food. If anyone wants to rehome a grey grizzle lurcher about 6 or 7 years old let me know, he is great with other animals. This one will also go to rescue.
The other jaw case a young cat with facial damage including a fractured lower jaw according to the owners they have no carpet and the cat was having a mad half hour, couldn’t stop, slid and smacked into the wall.

1 hard talk with police control and badgered an inspector at "Someplace Police" into giving us a fwin for collection of a dangerous dog, and rspca giving a log to have it put down. The Inspector was reluctant as it was a put down at owners request and not police request but the owner couldn't get the dog to us.
I found out afterwards that the law has changed about a month ago and neither police, rspca or us knew. The collections driver did and told me when he brought the dog in and said we couldn't put it down and why.

Now if a dog bites someone and the police are informed it is not allowed to be put straight down, even at the owners request, the police have to prosecute. And they can not prosecute an owner if the dog is dead. So it goes to special holding kennels until post court case, then it is put down. A wonderful waste of police time and money and added stress for the dog.
So l could have trumped the inspectors reluctance without horse trading damm. At least l know for next time because the will be one, Inspectors are tight with their fwins.

This does not take into account the usual post op recovery cases, heart and kidney failure cases, isolation dogs with diahorea and vomiting, RTA pets, general medical cases, and bunny with gut stasis.
The bunny we had in was evil and although not eating normal food was partial to human fingers which made syringe feeding and giving bolus fluids fun.

Ahh well l have just agreed to another load of nights. I wish l could say l liked days as much as nights but for all my moaning about nights and the lack of sleep it is my favourite because you never know what will come through the door next.

Computers and Chocolate Biscuits

Well l have spent the last 2 weeks at a small practice and we have been wondering if the world, or the town we are in more precisely has gone mad. Every pet in the area seems to have had a need to come in and several times we have had to make appointments with one of the other branches to handle overflow.
Thankfully l was up to speed on the computers as l have been on late’s which end at 19:00 which means once ops and cleaning up is done l am on reception.

Monday l finally have an early finish as l was on mids which was a 9am start.
One of the reception computers was pulled out and looked like a computer version of rip. it had been playing up last week and looks like it finally died over the weekend.
I barely sat down on reception when l had to take the first payment of the day, l was unable to get the cash till open to get change. The computer/till system is meant to work independently so if one dies you do not have this problem, great start to the day. The client said just pop his change (pence only) into the charity box.
I had a word with the head nurse (hn) who was snarling at the back computer while trying to add histories for patients that had been to the emergency vets over the weekend. For payments l suggested we send invoices or ask for cards. She was past caring; l had enough computer problems without caring what was going on with hers.
This left me with a fist full of cash so l shoved it in an empty draw and hoped l would remember which office draw it was, the room is a bit of a tip.
Next minute the vet appears and tells me that her computer won’t print labels; quick test showed no computers would print labels. This meant hand writing labels. Money wise the clients were happy to card it or pop back to pay bills.
A practice rang up and wanted a history for a client that was leaving the area. Guess what won’t print. I read the very short history over the phone and tell them l will send the history at some point in several light years time if any of us survive the day.

The hn stomped through and rang head office told them that the reception computer seemed to have fully died after spending last week crashing all the time, this had caused overall chaos. HO said to ring the computer people they promised they would dial in and fix things. The hn and l did not query how they would do that when one of the computers was turned off at the wall. Life had enough for us to do without caring about some mythical dial in.

Finally the receptionist came in she was on late’s the hn and l fell on her like starving wolves telling of all our woes. The reply was as she knows nothing about computers except what she does what were we telling her for. Miffed and rebuffed the hn and l did what any sensible person would. Ran away down the back and got op’s ready for the vet’s, leaving the receptionist to sort the mess down the front.

Part way through the standard ops of spaying and castration the receptionist came through and said that she had sorted the computers; we must be incompetent as with no knowledge she had them all working.

I pulled the short straw with the dental. I have mentioned before one of the reasons l like nights is we do not have dentals. First get the dental machine working, these are designed by experts who do not use them. The vet cussed her way through tooth extraction, she used to do mixed work (farm animal and small pets). She hated dentals and would always swop a dental with a vet that preferred dentals to farm work and they were both happy.
Anyway the dog had lots of teeth out on both sides and a stitch a gum flap, this was needed to help extract one of the large molars.

At this point the receptionist came through again to dental/prep room. She had coffees and chocolate biscuits. I know l am trying to stop chocolate but l had to have a couple of biscuits as a stress aid. Apparently the vet from one of the other branches that was in charge of the computers was round and sorting things, l never got a chance to ask why? As she said she had fixed them.

Recovering post munch of biscuit and quick coffee hit, l took over again from the vet who was glaring at the dogs mouth, daring anything else to be wrong as she felt her part was finished and keeping an eye on the patient. The vet went to get her recovery aid and write the patient up.

I started to clean the teeth and the tooth scaler died. Water bottle full… check. Machine switched on… check. All knobs seem to be in right place…check. Dental machine kicked hard… check, nothing so look for hn. She is new and not used to the machine so repeats what l did to same effect. Then she had an idea and said hang on there is 2 bottles try and fill the other one. I did and it worked. Now what is the use of having a back up water bottle if both of them have to be full to work but the machine only takes water from one bottle at a time. To the normal mind when one bottle is empty you flick to the other and when that is empty THEN the machine stops. No not this devil you need both full even though one is back up and not in use.

Turn patient over and start to scale that side. “Errrrrmm” clear my throat trying to think how not to make the vet want to run away. Vet looks at my face and you can see her heart sinking, then perk up “Have you done something wrong”.
“Gee thanks for that, no but you need to do something with this canine”. Her face fell. I continued “I can feel a depression in the upper canine under the gum”
She came over and felt it. “No no that is fine no….” and with a deep sigh asked me to go and get M (the other vet) and more experienced at dentals so she can check see if it needs to come out. Although she knows it does, she is hoping it is one of those cases where there may be a lifeline. M comes through and has a feel, no words needed.
Canines are difficult to get out because they have such a deep root. So more gum flap incision and a new trick taught by M to extract canines involving drilling into the base of the tooth, a nice big hole in the gum for more stitching and 2 happy vets and vetnurse.

Patient back in recover and trotting through to get Wib’s so she could go out for a pee break l walked past a strange male scowling at a computer muttering in Irish under his breath. I assumed he was the vet/computer expert. Hope he was enjoying himself because anyone that wants to fix the stupid things must have a screw loose them selves.
He was still in the same position when we came back a few minutes later and l tied Wib’s back up in reception.

Back to clean up kits, theatre and prep/dental areas. Lunch by now a distant memory, not unusual with me, I seem to miss out on lots of breaks. I must start putting my foot down as most people do and insist on taking them. Except l can not be bothered to l just grab what l can when l can, l hate starting again after l have unwound.

At least on late consults we had all the computers working and 2 vets, which was just as well because it was a busy surgery, fit in patients kept coming through the doors. I ran out the door at 17:30 relieved to let someone else play with the computers.

Tuesday l was on early l was there but no one else so l couldn’t get in. 15minutes after hanging around l rang one of the local branches as they are friendly with the staff from my place and go out partying etc so l figured they would have phone numbers, except they were still on answer machine till 08:30. So l had to ring head office asking what was going on was anyone ill. Finally at 8:30 the missing student turned up using rude language about school run and traffic.
We were as busy as Monday but thankfully the computers all worked. And l escaped as afternoon consults were starting.

Only this week there then off to another practice next week. Wonder what surprises life will treat me to there. That is the beauty of locum work. So many new routines, computer systems and staff to learn then rush off onto the next one just as you get the hang of things. I love it.

The Maggoty Cat

It is not often we get a maggoty cat it happens about 2 or 3 times a year, usually maggots are rabbit based. In this case the cat “Monty” had gone missing and been found about 4 days later when he dragged himself back and was found in the garden.

Monty had been hit by a car there was head injuries and as it was hot enough for flies they had gone straight to the wounds. Monty had a fractured lower jaw so was unable to groom himself and anyway did not feel up to it.

I am not up on how long different maggot species take to hatch but apart from the tiny yellow dots attached to Monty’s coat a lot had hatched and made their way into the wounds to start eating. It was all the more upsetting because cat’s are generally fastidious in how clean they keep themselves.

Monty needed a general anaesthetic so that we could x-ray him. It is never easy to get decent x-rays of an animal due to their shape unless it is a lateral (lying on their side) it requires troughs to support them on their backs, ties to straighten or hold their legs, foam pads to support under their legs and often tape to hold the legs in more difficult positions.

Under anaesthetic we were able to pick the maggots out of the wounds and clip off all the eggs. Maggots are pretty difficult to kill. If there are not many l tend to squash them, if lot’s l put them into a bowl with some Ivomec in.

Monty had a fractured femur, he got away quite lightly usually cats who have been hit by a car suffer from a fractured pelvis as well as other bones. The surgeon placed an external fixator on/into the leg. These are well tolerated by animals.

Monty had another common cat problem a fractured mandibular symphysis (join in his lower jaw) and this was wired post his x-rays. The lower jaw of cat is not one solid piece but 2 parts joined in the middle with a bit of cartilage. Trauma can break this bond. Wire is fed under the tongue and around the jaw. I found some photos on the net that explain the procedure.
Usually unless there is other facial trauma cats are back eating within a day or 2 of the procedure. In about 4 weeks the the cat is given another ga and the wire removed.
Monty was fairly good about eating but did need syringe feeding to supplement his own intake.





He was discharged after 4 days to attend outpatients for checks, dressing’s changes and a couple of admits for anaesthetics to have various bits of iron removed until he was back to normal. He was scared of going out of the garden but appeared otherwise happy with life.

The "Smallies"

I do not like rabbits or hamsters well dislike is probably to strong a word for rabbits they just do not rock my boat. Hamsters are just happy not to be bugged. I love guinea pigs.

Guinea Pigs are happy little souls. They live in groups, squeak chat to each other, are pleased to see you and whistle greetings when you go over to join in or cuddle and chat to them and generally they do not get ill.

Hamsters are evil little sods, my fingers have bled to much from their chisel teeth taking chunks from them to have any love of them. I had them as a kid and they were never friendly, came out at night and just wanted to be left alone. I know someone that used to breed and sell hamsters. She would put a male and female in with each other and stand there with 2 plastic mugs. If they were not ready to mate or as soon as they ended mating she would "wap" the mugs over them or they would try and kill each other.

Rabbits are neurotic. The only noise they make is the odd scream if scared or hurt and then they have to have extreme stress to make a noise.
They get gut stasis at the drop of a hat, if you look sideways at them, if the dog 3 doors down farted 2 days before, any excuse really they get gut stasis.
Then you have to try and syringe feed them every hour 24 hours a day give or take a couple of hours for you and them to recover. This goes over several days till they are eating and passing faeces again.
Most hate this and spit 99.9% of food out so you have to try and get extra in. Not helped as the very finely ground food insists in blocking in the syringe which you need to keep poking free with a needle. Most rabbits try and kick you and some take chunks out of your fingers.

They have catheters in their ears and you have to give them bolus of fluids as they are not drinking, again same as the food regime. The problem is the ear catheters are so fine even if flushed with hepflush (anti clot drug) they clog and so you have to swop ears every so often or when the ears buggar up totally give the bolus under the skin which can hurt.

Rabbits teeth are a nightmare, they are always growing and they do not get fed properly. The best food for rabbits is their more natural one, lot’s of hay and wild grasses and plants, a few brassicas and some pellets.
This is rarely the way they are fed, instead owners get the bags of yummy mixed rabbit feed, this rabbits pick at like kids taking their favourite sweets. Some people have started to feed rabbit pellets which is all the mixed food ground down and made into a brown pellet. Rabbits have 10,000 taste buds in their mouth so can be fussy.
This bad diet pellet or mix does not grind the teeth down. They are given fancy wood to chew and other gimmicks… just feed proper diet. However this is so boring against what is on offer in the pet shops…init!.

The teeth grow and push the jaw out of line causing pain, or spurs form on the back molars and cut into the gums so the rabbit stops eating in pain. They have their teeth burred down and then they often get gut stasis through stress. Some rabbits need the extreme dental of having their front teeth removed. This does not guarantee that no more teeth will come through.

The other problem in uk is that the stock that in the wild which would die as their teeth are misaligned so the animal can not eat in UK these have teeth burred and are used to breed these are sold on and you end up on a merry tooth wheel of trouble for the poor bunny.

And as for abscesses these are a speciality of rabbits, generally in the head area from teeth and are a nightmare to try and get rid of. Longest running one l know of was 16months and counting. As l was a locum at the practice, for all l know the abscess is still being treated. The vets kept advising it wasn’t fair but the owners refused to listen.

Give me a cute squeaky guinea pig rather than an obnoxious hamster or neurotic bunny any day. This out burst was caused from 3 nights of hands ripped to bits from 2 bunnies with gut stasis.

Dog Canine Tooth

The German Shepherd had been having a fight with his “tug a rope”, one end had been jammed and he got carried away. He came off worst as his canine tooth had done a 90deg turn and was sticking out sideways. The tooth had to come out.

Normally when we do dental's the teeth that come out are manky so l was pleased to be able to get a nice photo of a dog canine for once. I wanted to give an idea of the size and width of one and this is perfect. One dog’s loss was my gain as the saying goes

In photo 1 the first 3cms are buried in the gum like an iceberg. The slight rim of blood is where it erupts out into open air.



Photo 2 you can see the part that is buried in the gum showing a different colour, slightly creamier, from the tooth section that is normally seen, that is white and has a bit of tartar on. The widest part of the tooth is 1.5cm wide and is normally buried out of sight.

Doggie Smile

Teeth are an important part of animals that are neglected all to often. Dogs and cats come in with horrendous manky teeth, especially little dogs. And you just know that they have been licking “mummy and daddy’s” faces.
If people took a better look at their pets teeth l think they would think twice. I will do separate posts on teeth of animals l have known as it is so wide ranging a subject.

Animals can get damaged teeth as well in accidents or by chewing stones. With younger dogs the teeth are generally damaged by grinding or breaking by the above 2 routes, as opposed to humans who have rotted teeth and need fillings or caps.
Nowadays there is options to have your dogs teeth capped or filled. It is not cheap and is very specialised and only carried out on teeth that are healthy unlike us humans who tend to have it done due to bacterial problems and already weakened teeth.

I do a lot of work where there is consultant dentist a couple of days a week. A few months ago, knowing that l am always taking photos he asked me if l wanted to get some photos of his newest job.

He did not have to ask twice. I went off and got quite snap happy as it was the first time l have seen tooth caps for dogs. The dog had damaged teeth from a car crash and was getting a nice smile back.

Pre Fitting


Post Fitting