Stupid People

You know, I never cease to be amazed at the stupidity of the general population when it comes to the pets they "love".

A recent posting on the bulletin board asks for a new home for a 7 year old kitty. Kitty got along great with the older dogs they had/have, but the new, younger dogs that the owner's brought home are just stressin' poor kitty out wayyyy too much. Therefore, Kitty needs to go. It's not fair to poor Kitty to be upset all the time and therefore she needs a better home than the one she's known all of her 7 year life. Does it ever occur to people that the damn cat lived there first and to get rid of the damn new dogs that are causing the problem??? Apparently not or the sign wouldn't be on our bulletin board.

Then there's the baby kitty that got adopted out from the hospital and came back two weeks after moving to her new home. The owner suddenly realized that she's never seen the poor baby eat AT ALL!!! Mind you, this is after TWO WEEKS!!! A now 8-week old kitten that hasn't eaten in two weeks is an extremely pitiful and heart wrenching sight. The poor thing is literally skin, bones and fur.
Honestly, I will be truly surprised if the creature will live. If it does, it will be solely based on the love and dedication of one of our staff who takes her home every nite and force feeds her kitty formula every 4 hours. The kitty comes back in the morning to be weighed and evaluated and observed for the day.
Now mind you, if the owner never checked to see if the poor thing ate, who thinks the baby even got so much as a second glance while there? Imagine, taken from her mother and siblings to a strange home and then left alone, ignored and starved damn near to death.

Then there's the 9 year old dog that was never spayed, in a home with a male that was never neutered. The end result was three still born puppies, an emergency hysterectomy and a question about survival. Just counting cash alone, had the owner's originally paid the "lofty" price for a spay and neuter, they would have come out cheaper and with a more likely chance at survival for the female.

More and more I prefer to hang out with the furry friends than the humans entrusted with their care. I wonder if I'll ever get used to ridiculous things like this...probably not. And come to think of it, I hope I never do. In my opinion, it would be a sign that I no longer cared and I hope that never happens.

Sane owner of healthy critters.

I have attached a link to my gross photos and if you REALLY want to see this stuff, you can head over there yourself. I'll do that and if I decide later to actually put up the pics, I can.

So anyway, I've learned a lot of useful information about all sorts of really cool stuff that comes in handy here at my house of critters. Case in point, the night Red (my pit bull/bullmastiff mix) decided to snitch about 3 pounds of raw ground beef off the counter. I knew that it wasn't really the best idea and he'd probably end up sick at some point. Better under controlled circumstances than in the bed later that night. Luckily for us, that very day a dog had come in suspected of eating rat poison. Inducing vomiting was a priority, naturally and since you can't get them to stick their "finger" down their throats, the physician had something wonderful in his bag of tricks. I recalled the dosage of the stuff that most people keep in the house and realized that I somehow had to figure out how to get a pint of it down my dog's throat. Out we went to the driveway and started pouring. If you have the guts (no pun intended, well, ok, maybe) to go look at the results, you can take a look at the link to my pics. Needless to say, all 3 pounds of raw ground beef, his dinner and all the slime and slobber ended up on my driveway a shortwhile later.
Now it may or may not sound like a lot, but 3 pounds of ground beef (or anything, for that matter) is more than it seems. Hosing it down to the gutter wasn't really an option. The only thing I could think of was to get a dust pan and a garbage can.

Okay, so that was one of the nastier things that I have to deal with, either at home or at the office. But if you think about it, it's not much different than working with a bunch of lil kids, right? Except for the shedding, the drool and being attacked on occasion!

Another of my early photos (when I just got to hang out and watch). This is a tail docking of a 3 day old springer spaniel puppy. 

This is one of my first (of many) surgery photos taken from the animal hospital. This is from a declawed kitty. 

Question about photos

I'm trying to decide whether or not to post some of my more graphic surgery photos. Any ideas? I personally don't think they're that disgusting, but others vehemently disagree!! I've been called WEIRD, ODD, NOT RIGHT IN DA HEAD!!! hmph

What a day today!!!

First, I started this blog to chronicle the daily grind of being a "vet tech in training". I'm at an animal hospital in Jacksonville, FL. It's a small practice...2 veterinarians, 3 techs, 5 kennel staff (3 FT and 2 PT) . I started working there right after Thanksgiving 2004. I had NO prior experience other than the pets I'd had throughout my life. The owner of the practice decided to take a chance on me and hired me on as a kennel attendant. At first, I loved it. I was thrilled to be doing something I felt more suited for and looked forward to learning more and more of the world of veterinary medicine in general. It didn't take too long before I grew bored from the lack of intellectual challenges. Once the routine is learned, there's not too much else to being a kennel attendant. Granted, you need to have more than a few brain cells to be a kennel attendant because it's not exactly easy. I just became bored with the constant and unchanging schedule of bathing, cleaning and picking up poop. Granted, I still clean and pick up poop (along with other nasties), but it's interjected with lots of interesting, er....interjections!

I was always curious about the other things that went on in the hospital and when a spare moment presented itself, I'd find myself hanging out watching surgery, assisting the techs and vets with minor tasks when they needed an extra body or another set of hands. I found that I liked that aspect of the daily operations and made myself more and more available as opportunities presented themselves.

When the hospital ended up with a shortage of techs, down from five to a meager two, I naturally found myself being needed more and more often. I allowed them to realize that I was quite handy since the techs were working 7 days a week and were exhausted both physically and mentally/emotionally. It wasn't long before I was "promoted" to "Tech In Training" and relieved of my duties in the kennel.

It's grueling work some days, a breeze on others. Everyday I learn something new and I love it. Some days it seems like it will never end, the monotony of annual exams, itchy skin and diarrhea. Those are the days you wonder how you keep from going insane from the repetition.

Then there are days that are full of the interesting, bizarre, emotionally draining, physically demanding, and downright hilarious series of patients. Days that you are so busy that your mind doesn't leave the four walls surrounding you for hours on end. There are those days where everyone is working together like a well-oiled machine with a seemingly strange sort of ESP. It feels good to get through a huge schedule of patients plus the ones that just "show up" that you think would throw us off our game.

We also have the days that it seems NOTHING goes right, we're all running around like chickens with our heads cut off, bumping into each other, trying to get "our game on" and failing at every turn. The chaos is exhausting and draining.

Naturally, it's the former of the two that I naturally prefer. It feels good knowing that you survived (although it doesn't seem like it at first) and came out ahead.

Today was the day that for the most part ran smoothly (although heavily) despite some of the patients/problems that came in to the hospital. Two long time patients came in at the same time and neither left alive. Their medical condition basically demanded euthanasia since there was no further quality of life in their futures. You'd think that situations such as these would make any of us an emotional wreck, and it does, just not for the reasons most people think.

No, none of us are heartless humans that could care less if a patient dies, regardless of the road it takes to get there. If we were, wouldn't be doing what we do. Acknowledging that euthanasia can be the kindest treatment of all is easy when you see the patients as they decline and are no longer the pets they once were. The emotional gut wrencher comes from seeing the "parents" as they desperately beg the physician for any hope that their pet will again be the pet they knew. It's difficult when you KNOW it's not possible, no matter what heroic measures could be performed. Sometimes it's just the end and that's that.

Maintaining composure and professionalism can be difficult at times. Normally under those circumstances, most people would think that as long as you don't have to see or hear the owners during this time, then you'll be okay. That's very true. However, when you're the tech that has to stand by, unable to escape the owner's overwhelming emotions, it's very difficult. I was "lucky" today that I was only closely involved in one of the two situations.

My only consolation is knowing that next time, it just might be a little easier. As time goes by, you learn to cope.

But, after such a physically and emotionally draining day, I found myself asleep at my desk an hour after my last sentance. Which means that it's time to head for the bed.