The first week on clinics!

Well after my foray in outer Piketberg (there’s enough there for another email!) I’m back in Pretoria! And started back with brand new students, and I do mean brand new! The final years have left to go on study leave, and with any luck, progress on to become fully fledged members of the veterinary community, which leaves these students, well, in the deep end!!!  And although they have all the enthusiasm in the world, and quite a lot of the theory, they have none of the practical experience, as you will shortly find out!  So there I was faced, on Monday morning, with 12 bright eyed, bushy tailed, super keen students! The department is trying out a new system whereby the clinician on duty (ie. Me) is helped by a mentor + a second resident. The mentor is just supposed to be there in a supporting role if you need advice/help with procedures, but the actual day to day running of the clinic is down to, well, me. So now I have 12 students to literally look after...24/7 for 4 wks!

A typical microscope session would go something like, Me,”So, are these sperm alive or dead?” You’d think that was a pretty obvious answer?? All students studiously studying the eyepieces, not volunteering a word. Me,”Come on guys, it’s a 50:50 question?! What do you want to do? Phone a friend?? Ok, so they’re all dead... moving on!”

The first casualty happened on Wednesday... I left them alone for literally 5 minutes, with the words, “I’ll meet you at the bull!” When I arrived there was carnage; one student with a black eye + snot+ trane (snot & tears for those non-South Africans!); other students very subdued & in shock. “What the hell happened?” I asked very confused!  “Genevieve was run over by the bull.” “What??? Like literally run over?” “Yep.” As it turns out, the specially designed race & crush that we have at OP to try and minimise these sorts of things, was somewhat lost on the students, who chased the bull up the crush, with them also inside the race! So when he turned around + came straight back at them, they didn’t manage to get out in time and he ran over one of them! Luckily, he is rather a young, small bull, otherwise it would have been pretty awful. As it was, the student has some impressive hoofmarks on the back of her legs and a stunning black eye!! Don’t think that she will be doing that again!

Then the next casualty is a student that has clearly been sent by the gods to teach me about patience, because she... talks....so...slowly...and...is...very...irritating....in ....a....slightly.....misguided....enthusiastic....way.  As a bit of background, this is also the smallest student in the group, all of 4’2” of her! And, as luck would have it, she also had one of the biggest dogs, all of 75kg of him! Anyway, she decided that it was a great idea to take his temperature.... without anyone holding him!! So you can see where this is going, right?! Needless to say he turned around and bit her on the arm! From her account she was lucky to still have her arm, but when we examined it under the bandage, it was actually really superficial, more of a warning, “please don’t do that kinda thing” bite, so not too bad luckily! So we had a “what important, life saving points have I learnt today” session in rounds, that they a)must always try and pre-empt the next move when dealing with animals, for instance, not trapping yourself in a race with a bull unless there is no way he can turn around! And b)by getting someone to hold the dog before you stick a thermometer up his ass!

Then yesterday I was required to collect semen from a Saddler stallion that was going in for surgery on Thursday for a reproductively unrelated injury. The owner assured me that he had been used for breeding, and, in my haste, I took him at his word, which as most vets know, is a schoolboy error with most owners! You have to ask the right questions. Anyway, we manage to find a mare on heat, stallion limps over, and then proceeds to play silly buggers by rearing and rearing and rearing.  Then sniffing a bit, nuzzling the mare and then starting the rearing performance again. While I wait patiently, AV in hand!  Then he teases the mare, then rears again and this goes on and on for about 20 minutes until he finally, although I think it was more by luck than judgement, comes down on the mare and I was able to collect the sample! I then find out, after careful questioning of the owner (which I should have done first!) that he’s only ever bred to one mare, once!!! And even then it took him 2 hrs!! That would have been useful to know, beforehand!  Then I had to do the whole performance over again an hour later!!  Same story! He still hadn’t figured it out! Then we needed to freeze the semen + there was no one else available to help me and I was trying to remember the right sequence and find all the right tools and this all needed to happen quite quickly, as you can no doubt appreciate! Anyway, the dogbite student who...speaks...really...slowly...and ....asks....innane .... questions....all... of ...the...time...unfortunately had this case as well, and she was following me around the lab, talking all of the time. And I have to admit that i was a bit stressed and it had been a long day, and eventually I turned to her , put up my hand and said, “just stop talking to me please, just for a little bit. I just can’t think.” Anyway, this didn’t appear to dampen her enthusiasm at all, although she did stop talking, thank goodness! And when I was struggling to turn the centrifuge on, she continues to volunteer her opinion and starts pressing buttons!!!!  I was like, “don’t touch that!” Honestly! Managed to restrain myself and send her off on some long errand so I didn’t snap at her anymore! Oh dear, it’s going to be  a LONG 3 wks!!!

So that’s been the week so far! Thankfully the rearing stallion’s semen didn’t freeze well, so we won’t be collecting him again! And I haven’t had to deal with that student today, so I am still remarkably cheerful! Hope that you all have a good week!

Alcoholoc pigs, pig x-rays, pig c-sections....

Sorry there has been such a delay in emails - i feel like i'm running to catch up with life this past month, although it has been rather a lot of fun!  Let's see, i've been on clinics now for about a month, with another month to go and am getting quite au fait with shepherding students.  I'm developing the student "sixth sense" when i  get a feeling that they're about to potentially jeoprodise their own lives (and more often than not, a patients!) and have to make a few rapid suggestions, or whisk scalpel blades and other dangerous implements out of reach!

So I was on clinics the other week and Prof (yes, he of Pi and other amazing knowledge!) was handing over the weekend's cases to me.  And there was a pig, that unsurprisingly for our department, was having trouble giving birth.  He had managed to get about 4 piglets, but was concerned that there may be more. Now, this pig was not one of those cute (small-ish) pot bellied variety... no, she was one of the very large white variety - you know the type, about 1.5m long and weighing in at about 250kg.  So he suggests, completely straight faced, that we should do an x-ray on her to determine if there were any piglets left inside.  Now, my first instinct was to laugh, pat him on the back and go "nice one Prof! Haha."  But a quick sideways glance told me that he wasn't joking... not at all.  And then he wished me luck and went on his way. I looked at the other resident and she just raised her eyebrows as if to say, "what now?"  Now, i'm supposing that most of you have not x-rayed a pig...???  No, me neither!  So off I toodled to radiology to inform them that we had a pig to x-ray. Luckily when you drop Prof's name, they all go, "oh, I see!" and become very helpful.  So we organised to use the horse x-ray machine, now all we had to do was get the 250kg pig to the x-ray room!!  So I rounded up the animal handlers and after looking at me very skeptically when i informed them what we had to do, they sportingly fashioned a harness out of heavy duty tow rope, applied it to the pig and the game was on!!!  For those of you that don't know OP, we have the small stock pens which are perpendicular to the breezeway, which is a large corridor (large as in you can drive a combi down it) that links the small animal hospital to the large animal hospital and has various rooms leading off it, including the horse x-ray unit.  So we opened all the gates between the small stock pens and the breezeway, and the pig dutifully took off, with 3 strong men in tow, squealing with all her might!!  At the breezeway she took a quick left towards the outside and freedom, but the other resident and i were ready with boards to try and encourage her to go the other way (to be fair, that's about all you can do with a 250kg animal... encourage it to do your will!!) so we managed to get her heading in the right direction (*WEEEEEE* *WEEEEEEEE*) and another rapid shuffling of the boards got her to hang a left into the x-ray room, where she, amazingly, stood quite still and quietly while we took the x-rays. And after all that there weren’t any more piglets!!! Then we had to do the whole thing in reverse.... WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Talking of pigs, production animals had a real pot bellied pig in that had been rescued from a shebeen... he had liver failure because he’d been fed too much beer... what a crazy world we live in!

And talking of pigs, although not a happy ending i’m afraid... we were called out to see a pig with a dystocia (trouble giving birth) – the owner muttered something about intestines hanging out, which is NEVER a good thing, but thankfully he couldn’t tell the difference between intestines and a blood clot, so all was well and there was just some trauma.  Now pigs, as one knows, are rather long animals,  and there is NO WAY that one can reach all the way to get all the piglets out, even with the longest arms in the world because the uterus goes all the way to the chin... ok, not quite that far seeing as there are a few important structures in the way (eg. Heart, lungs!) but you get the drift?!  Ok, so the farmer requests that we leave a student behind to pull out piglets... nice try, buddy, this ain’t a dating service!  So we pull out all available piglets and tell him to keep an eye on her and call us if there are any other problems.  Which he duly did, but only the next morning... yes, not ideal.  So off we go again, and the pig is in rather a bad way. We can feel a piglet, but can’t get it out, so decide to do a caesarean section.  Now, i’ve never done a pig c-section before, but having quickly swatted up on it before we left, I was fairly confident we would manage... only problem was the anaesthetic... anyway, so we managed to sedate her, block the area where we’re going to cut with local anaesthetic, checked metres and metres of uterus to find 2 piglets, sewed her back together in record time, only for the students to go, “um, doctor?” as we’re closing up the skin... “she’s not breathing.” “WHAT???!!!! WHEN DID YOU NOTICE THIS?” I cried. “Um, a little while back.” “And you didn’t think that it was important to tell me????” So yes, piggy had shuffled off this mortal coil, which the students omitted to tell me until there was really nothing that could be done.  Not a great feeling.  The next one will be better though. Promise.

That same day we were called out to a calving which the owner swore blind that the cow had just started calving that day. Yeah, right.  I could smell the cow at about 50 paces, which is NOT A GOOD THING!  He also swore that she had had about 5 calves previously, and since i doubt that she was more than a year old, he should really write to the guiness book of world records!  Anyway, the cow (heifer) had obviously been struggling for a few days and the calf was very much dead... and swollen... and stinking... and emphysematous. Great.  So there are really only 2 options: 1)shoot the cow (trust me, this is sometimes the best option) or 2) cut the calf up to get it out.  And you just know at 5pm on a Wednesday afternoon that the owner will want you “to do anything to save the cow.” Bugger.  Now, believe this or not, this is not my favourite job in the whole world.  It’s stinking, messy and tiring and the outcome is usually bad.  So i wasn’t in my usual cheerful mindframe when i started issuing rapid fire instructions to students about what to fetch from the car.  So I mentally prepare myself for the task ahead, and ask that the students get the wire and handles ready... No handles. One student swears blind that she bought them out the combi, but do you think that we can find them anywhere?? No.  So we check everywhere, I get them to check their pockets, and send someone back to the car.  No sign of them.  So now i’m about to have a severe sense of humour failure... i know this is going to take me at least 2 hrs, none of it fun, and i can’t do anything without those bloody handles.  Then just as i’m about to completely lose my shit, which would have made the Cuban missile crisis look like small change, the first student miraculously finds them in her pocket!!! Crisis avoided.  So I then set about cutting up the calf, my nose inches from the most disgusting smell ever, covered in all kinds of fluids that i didn’t want to think about, in some tiny stable as it was getting dark.  Not that i needed light to see what i was doing! Anyway, managed to finish in record time. The cow even stood up after all that, so maybe she’ll live to see another day.

So yes, been an entertaining few wks. Will try and keep up better this time! Take care

Well Hung Mongeese, Electrofied Microscopes, Great Dane dating agencies, funny bones and GDV's!!

Well, it's been an entertaining few weeks - pretty darn busy, but it keeps me out of mischief!

Let's see, we went out to a farm the other day to do a bull breeding soundness exam, so we set up all our gear, including a microscope and various other kit.  There were a multitude of dogs running around, but i did do a double take at the little tame mongoose that was also pottering about, obviously believing himself to be a dog!  So all the dogs were sniffing around the kombi and the jack russel, unsurprisingly, cocked his leg against the back tyre, and then disappeared behind the back of the bus.  So the little mongoose saunters up to the tyre to take a sniff and then turns to face us, just, as luck would have it, everyone turned round to look at him.  So there he is, standing next to the tyre, with this stripe of pee extending about 4+1/2 times his height directly behind him, and there was a collective gasp at "how the HELL did he manage to pee so far up the tyre??!!!"  I didn't mention the fact that it was the jack russel - let the Legend of the Well Hung Mongoose live on!!!

So after all the excitement, we settled down to business, and managed to collected a semen sample from the bull.  So I attempted to examine it under the microscope, only to find that all the metal parts of the microscope (and trust me, there are alot of metal parts!!!) were electrified!!!  So there was alot of, "WTF!! OW, ow, OWWWWWWWWW, Bliksem Donder!" for a short while until I figured out what was going on (and yes, it was a short while!! ;-) )  Hmmm. So, what to do now? We're miles from campus, have 2 bulls to do, and there is only one lense that isn't metal.  Oh, and I can move the stage up and down...  So I proceeded, very carefully to examine the samples, only using one lense and being very careful not to touch anything else, although there were the odd slip ups, followed by a few muttered swear words.  The students, of course, thought that this was hilarious, and I didn't get anybody else volunteering for the job!!

Then, later in the week, I answered the phone because the sister was out of her office... boy, what a bad decision that was!  After a brief introduction, the lady on the other end of the line, informed be that she had a harlequin Great Dane bitch and she would like to mate her to a black Great Dane male, and she needs to be mated now, so can she come straight in.  Woah, woah, woah, back up a bit.  I was like, 'no problem, if you bring the two dogs in....'  'Oh no,' she says, she's been told that we have the males and that all she needs to do is pitch with the bitch.  Um.  Lady, this isn't some sort of Great Dane dating agency or sperm bank that we are running here! You can't just arrive and demand a tall, dark and handsome Great Dane, with a PhD in "How to bark just enough to piss the neighbours off" and nice eyes!!!!! What exactly were you thinking?!?  So eventually managed to convince her that she actually had to find her own male before we could help.  Honestly, some people!!!

Then we had to go back to the farm with the electric microscope the following week.  You would think I would have learnt by now, hey?!  We just needed to do a quick test, so hey, how hard could it be?! (you can see where this is going?!) But now I have a different group, and none of them are destined for farm animal practice. In fact, I think that this group, once they qualify, will NEVER touch a cow EVER again if they can possibly help it.  So we manage to get the bull into the race and upto the crush (with me fervently wishing that all the farm boys from the previous group were there to help!) Anyway, we do the test and let the bull out.  Now, when we arrived, I had noticed that the gate leading out of the pens had seen better days, but thought that it would be ok.  So then we try to get the second bull in the crush and he's a mean bastard of a bull and is giving us a few hassles.  So we eventually get him in (bear in mind this is being down by students who are simultaneously trying to keep their bodies as far away as is humanly possible from the bull, while vaguely waving their hands at him and making encouraging noises, like, "shew."  And then there's me, with a length of alkalyne pipe bringing up the rear and shouting all kinds of other words of encouragement!!!  So once we had him in the crush, I had my back to the dodgy gate, but all 6 students were facing that way, and I heard a few noises that could only mean that the other bull was in the process of jumping over the fence...  So I concentrate on the matter at hand, and get the grumpy bull into the crush, and then turn round. And, as expected, the other bull is making a quiet getaway towards the tall grass.  So I turn and nonchalantly ask if any of the students actually noticed an 800kg Bonsmara bull jumping over a 5 bar gate and in the process bending it off its hinges??  Not one of them had noticed.  Honestly!! Amazing.  Anyway, at that point the farmer arrived and said that was fine, he was just heading to his normal field.  So we turned our attention back to the bull at hand, and since these students were perhaps not the most observant, I just wanted to check that he was fully restrained before got our sample, so ran my arm down his tummy, only to be rewarded by a kick that caught me on the funny bone... not so f***ing funny, I can tell you!!!  To my credit, I didn't cry and just managed to bite back the pithy reply of, "what does it f***ing look like?!" when some kindly student enquired if I was ok? 

And then there have been some classics on Outpatients too.  We have an x-ray machine in outpatients, but quite a lot of the students on outpatients haven't actually taken x-rays before.  So one evening I was phoned by a local vet to say that their x-ray machine was out of order and would I mind just x-raying a dog with a suspect GDV.  He didn't think it was a GDV, but the clients were a bit neurotic and he just wanted to make sure.  Basically, a GDV for all of you who aren't vets and don't own a large breed dog like a GSD (Not to be confused... German Shepherd Dog) or Wolfhound (Michelle!) for instance, is a Gastric Dilatation and Volvulus.  So basically, the stomach fills with air like a balloon and then flips over, and sometimes, over again.  It usually takes the spleen along for the ride, and very effectively cuts off all it's blood supply, so slowly starts to die off.  So this is definitely what we would term an EMERGENCY !!!  The dogs become quite bloated and then rapidly become VERY sick.  So, I tell the vet to send the people straight over and go to check that the x-ray machine is on and that the developer etc. is all sorted.  So I explain to one of the students that we're expecting a possible GDV, but the vet doesn't really think so, so we're x-raying it just in case.  Then one of her friends wanders over to find out what we're doing, and I nonchalantly tell him that we're expecting a GDV.  And it was very funny to watch as the words slowly sank in, and then reached that critical synapse that medicine lecturers had been trying to drill into his head for the past 5 years.  "GDV." he muttered quietly, nodding like it was the most normal thing in the world. "Yes, a GDV," we replied.  "GDV." He repeated, looking a little bit unsure, like, you know something should be connecting, but it's not and then it hit him, "GGGGGGGGDDDDDDDDDDVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" he yelled and all but ran out of the x-ray room screaming and setting up for an emergency.  By now, his friend and I could barely talk we were laughing so much, and could only explain to him in bits and pieces, as we drew breath, that we weren't sure it was a realy GDV, but his reaction was admirable!

And then we had a dog come in with organophosphate poisoning a few week later.  And his owners bought NO money with them. Not one cent.  Now I don't mean to sound harsh and callus, but what in the word these days, is completely free and that you can just pitch up with no money and expect everything to be done for you?  So we have a duty of care to provide emergency help or put the dog to sleep.  So the owner promised that she would bring money tomorrow (famous last words) so I agreed to stabilise the dog, although I had a strong suspicion that he was on the way out.  So I rush him through to the back and ask the student to clip up the leg so that we could put him on a drip.  So the dog is lying on it's side, and the student chooses to clip the lower leg, you know, the one that the dog is lying on and it's almost impossible to reach, never mind actually find a vein and put a drip in a collapsed dog.  So, as calmly as I can muster, and because they are here to learn (and possibly to think about what they're doing), I ask why she clipped the bottom leg? "Oh," she says, "shall I clip the top one?"  Again, I bit back a pithy reply and simply answered, "yes."  Now the clippers at outpatients take a lot of abuse and they're used 24/7, 365 days of the year, so as she was trying to clip the leg, the clipped blades caught the skin and pulled it a bit.  So the dog, already hypersensitive from the poisoning, yelps and pulls back his leg, and then, as luck would have it, starts to gasp his last!  So the student also yelps and goes, "OMG! Did I kill it?!" and before I could stop myself I said,"No, of course not! When have you ever heard of something being killed by clipper blades to the front leg?"  I've seen a lot of ways to die, but clipper blades ain't one of them!

Chickens with their insides on the outside, cardboard x-rays and funisitis!

Well, we're already nearly at the end of January - can't believe it! It's been quite a busy time, what with working, and then helping out (for all those vets out there, I just know you're going to raise your eyebrows at the next bit!) at Outpatients!  Now for those of you who didn't have to work at Outpatients during your final clinic year, let me exam.  Outpatients is like hell on earth when you're a student - it's like the clinic that students are most afraid of, because you're unleashed on the general public, having been cossetted away with your books and your practicals for the last 5 years, and now, all of a sudden, you are expected to actually deal with clients and their animals (which, more often than not, are trying to bite you/scratch you/peck you), do full clinical exams and, most terrify of all, make an actual DIAGNOSIS and dispense treatment!! So basically, it's like a real vet.  But it's scary when you're a student!  And to make sure that the students make roughly the correct diagnosis and dispense the RIGHT medication (most specifically, the dose of said medication!), there is a clinician in charge, in this case, me!  To be honest, I'm not entirely sure why clients come to Outpatients because a consult will usually take about an hour with students, since they need to check out the patient, do various things like bloodsmears and stuff, discuss with the clinician about the case, go back and ask the client the questions that the clinician asked that they didn't know the answers to... etc etc. Then the clinician needs to check the animal and then discuss treatment options with the student... you see what i mean??!!!  Ok, I think that you get the gist!

I was on Outpatients a few weeks ago when another clinician phoned to warn me that some friends of hers were on their way with a chicken (!) and this was not just any chicken, this was a chicken that they had raised from an egg!  Ok, so the fact that the chicken was one day old seemed beside the point! They had raised it from an egg!!!  What she was trying to impress upon me, was the fact (apart from the fact that they had raised it from an egg... did I mention that?!) that these people did not have children. (which is vet lingo for - these people think of their animals as their children, and as such, may be very adverse to you doing ANYTHING to the aforementioned pet that may involve any perceived discomfort, such as taking the temperature or giving it an injection for instance.  And is also vet lingo for - this animal is probably very insecure because it doesn't realise it's a dog, it thinks it's a person and as such, WILL try and bite you if you so much as look at it askance, let along try and actaully examine it!) And the woman had dropped the chicken (never a good thing) and now all its guts were hanging out (also, never a good thing!).  Oh, and the owner was now hysterical. Well, forewarned is forearmed, but i wasn't expecting quite that level of hysteria!!!  They rushed in, clutching a small box containing, I presumed, the chicken, thrust it at me shouting, 'you must do something!!!! DO SOMETHING!!!!'  Ah.  So I carefully raised the lid of the box, confirmed what i had already been told, adjusted my face into its most sincere and apologetic visage, and started with,'I'm so sorry, but ' and the woman completely cut me off and said that I had to do something, anything!!!! She said I hadn't even examined it properly! (Lady, all your chicken's guts are hanging on the outside of it's body, and it'a a chicken and it's only 1 day old... I have examined it properly!)  I tried to explain just how bad it was to have your insides on the outside, infection, blah blah blah, but she wasn't having ANY of it!  Then the husband started telling me about never giving up and how he had rescued a dog that was on the brink of death, and had cared for it and looked after it for months while it recovered. etc etc.  So eventually, completely bemusedly, I found myself agreeing to anaethetise the chicken and have a proper look.  And yes, the students did all laugh when i told them we were going to anaethetise the chicken!!!  Which we did, and saw that there really was nothing that we could do.  By the time I went back out to the owner, she had calmed down somewhat and I managed to convince them that putting the little chicken to sleep was really the kindest thing to be done.

Then there was another case of a dog that had been hit by a car - so the students and I examined it and decided to take an x-ray.  So we work out the exposure factors, get an x-ray cassette out, position the animal; don protective gear, take the x-ray and I asked the students if they would be ok to develop the x-ray, which they assured me they were.  So off they went to the dark room, and the x-ray came out fine.  Now, while in the dark room, you have to reload the cassette with a new film, which the students had done and we decided to take another x-ray.  Same procedure and students, pottered off back to the dark room.   After about a minute, I hear this odd beep, which the automatic developer makes when it's not happy.  Then silence, then this beep again. Then the students muttering to eachother, then another beep.  So, unable to contain my curiosity anymore, I ask them if everything is ok?  So there is a short silence, and one of the students says that the developer won't take the x-ray?!!  Now, this is the first time that this has happened, so I think that i check this out for my self, so I asked them to reload the x-ray in the cassette, then i can go into the dark room and can see what's happening. So there is a lot of shuffling, another short, poignant silence and then one of the students says hang on, they've figured out the problem and they both emerge from the dark room.  Turns out that when they replaced the x-ray film after the first x-ray, they replaced it with the cardboard that is the box of films to provide support!!! So we had x-rayed a piece of cardboard, which was why the developer wanted none of it!!!! 

And finally, I was studying for my horse lectures the other day (pregnancy and birth in the mare) and I came across the word "funisitis".  Now isn't that one of the oddest types of infection you've ever heard of??  Turns out it's infection of the umbilical cord.  There you go, random fact for the day - try and squeeze that into a conversation or a game of scrabble!!!

Dead Buzzards, midwifery and dog's balls

Dear All,

 

Well, it's been a busy few weeks - there are signs of Spring peaking through everywhere... daffodils mainly!  And the clocks are supposed to go back (or is it forward??? Argh!) tomorrow and then it's officially "British Spring Time" (Seriously, that's what it says on the calendar - not sure about other countries! ;-) )  However, as I look out the window this morning, there is bright sunshine, with big flakes of snow coming down....  there are clouds, they just don't seem to be where it's actually snowing!  Oh, and it's 3 degrees with a "real feel temperature" of about -6 later... can't wait.

 

We had the police in last week - no no, they didn't come to arrest anyone, they'd bought in a dead buzzard.  Yup, you did read that right, a dead buzzard.  So there is this policeman standing at the front desk, in all his official uniform and he's holding a frozen, dead buzzard. No, i was not able to resuscitate the unfortunate bird - they just wanted it x-rayed to check if it had been shot!  Unfortuntately, the game keepers around here (not such a gross generalisation, I'm afraid) tend to view any animal that is not a grouse, pheasant or partridge (the last two being shipped in in their thousands as day old chicks to provide something sporting for the "guns" to take potshots at when the "Glorious 12th" of August comes round) as vermin, which needs to be eradicated at all costs... even if they are a protected species.  So the policeman had to check that there were no bullets/pellets in the buzzard.  There weren't any, so it was then being sent for toxicology to check if it had been poisoned... they take these things very seriously up here!  I know, everyone from SA is raising their eyebrows and going "they have time and resources to investigate bird poisonings????"

 

Was on call last weekend, and was kept very busy, mainly playing midwife to various animals!  My first call was to a calving, which went suprisingly smoothly!  I think the main reason for this was that the farmer had recently been run over by one of his own cows and had hurt his back, so he hadn't tried to do anything with this calving.  Paul, one of the other vets, had been up to see this farmer quite soon after he'd been hurt, and he said that the farmer would suddenly get a twinge of sharp pain, and start f-ing and blinding, then just as suddely stop, and apologise for his Tourette's episode!  Anyway, after getting the calf out, the farmer asked me to go and see a ewe that he thought had lambs in her that had died.  So we go upto the lambing shed, which is quite a decent setup, all the sheep in neat pens, walkway down the middle, hot water - pretty luxurious as lambing sheds go.  Anyway, set about checking out the ewe, and because I was concentrating pretty hard, I initially didn't notice the music that was reveberating around the shed, until Barry Manilow started crooning and I looked up to see the most enormous boombox positioned on the shed wall, connected to a loudspeaker!  I'm not sure what the sheep make of all that - I'm sure they need something soothing and restful... don't think whale sounds would quite do the trick, but maybe something similar???!!!! 

 

Then had an older lady come in with an ancient samoyed - big, fluffy white thing, not unlike a canine version of a sheep.  So I go through the pleasantries, and then ask what the problem was with the dog.  And the owner says that he's been "not quite right in himself" recently, hasn't been eating, and has been walking a bit oddly with his backlegs.  She also thinks there's a problem with his balls.  Now, it is a little bit disconcerting to hear a rather prim and proper old lady say there's a problem with a dog's balls - usually they just go, "there's a problem....you know, down there" and gesticulate vaguely at the back end of the dog!  So I got over my initial suprise and lift the dog's backleg, and my oh my hat was there a problem with this dog's balls!!!  Well, one ball in particular, which was the size of a grapefruit and rock hard!  No wonder the poor thing was having trouble walking!  With that thing hanging in the breeze!  Anyway, we mercifully castrated him and he walked out of the surgery a much happier bunny!

 

The Birds and the Bees!!!

Apologies for the time lapse between emails - life just somehow gets in the way.  We're steamrolling towards winter already up here... nights closing in, a bit of a chill on the wind, although, let's face it, it was never what i might call, "hot" this "summer!" The 1st of September came and went and I told everyone that I met on that day that it was the 1st day of Spring! And when they looked at me slightly bemusedly, I had to inform them that it was the 1st of Spring in the Southern Hemisphere!  Anyway, I'll get over it!

 

Have had a few "birds and the bees" moments these last few weeks; firstly there was a lady who came in with her two cats, and as she's hauling them out of the basket, she informs me that she wormed them just last week, and now they had become unbelievably fat... now, my brain was in hyperdrive trying to work out a possible correlation between worming and obesity, until I glanced down at the nearest cat... 'Mam, that cat's not fat, she's pregnant! Oh, and so is this one!'  And there were these two, heavily pregnant, rugby balled shaped kitties, waddling round the consult room. 'But how did that happen?' the client asked.  'Um, well, you see,' I started, thinking 'oh my goodness, tell me i don't have to explain all that to this grown woman,' at which point she hurriedly interrupted me and said that she did actually know how it happened. Phew, thank goodness for that!

 

A few weeks later I had a German Shepherd puppy in for his first vaccination, and the owner and his young (+/- 8 years old - i'm not very good at age estimation in children!) son brought the pup in.  So I did my whole routine check, and when I felt to check if the testicles had descended, there was only one little one there... so I had a good feel (hey, it's important vet stuff, ok?! ;-) ) and still only one.  So I said to the owner, 'I'm afraid he's only got one descended testicle,' at which point the son pipes up, 'What's a testicle?'  So I smiled at the dad and said, 'I'll leave that for you to explain, shall I?'

 

And then, just last week, a very nice Polish lady bought her collie in, and it was limping rather badly. Anyway, I lifted it onto the table, and was just asking a few questions about the history, when she says, 'I'm not sure if it's relevant, but she had sex recently.' Ah, now I have to say that i've heard sex called by many euphemisms in my brief history as a vet, but no one's just come out and said it!!!  So I nodded, and said that it was very relevant (but possibly didn't have anything to do with the limp!).

Ok, enough waffling for one day. 

Fancy a Shag anyone?!

No no, it's all above board for any of you who were wondering!  We were presented with a Shag (the seabird - you know, looks a bit like a cormorant, but with a white throat.  Honestly, these British bird names - Tits and Shags... I'm sure Freud would have rather alot to say about all that!), sorry, where was i, get sidetracked!  Oh yes, we were presented with a shag the other day, by a "concerned member of the public."  Now, I do think that I'm getting grumpier and less tolerant as I get older (must be the the 30-ies!) but who chases down a seabird, who was probably just minding it's own business and drying it's wings on a rock somewhere; bundles it up in a jacket and then brings it to the local vet, so that they now have to worry about it, while Joe Soap can just wonder off, warm and fuzzy in the knowledge that they're "saved" some wildlife.  Needless to say, the nurse who then had to clean guano off the kennel, was not impressed, and neither was the SSPCA inspector who then had to drive all the way from the North Coast to fetch the aforementioned shag.

 

Talking off "concerned members of the public" we had another one (a pair, in fact), a few months ago, who were clearly on holiday. Now, I don't say that disparagingly, but people up here are generally, on the whole, pretty sensible, and about as far from bunny huggers as you would be able to get on a scale of 1 to 10. So when someone phones up out of hours, completely hysterical about a myxie bunny (more about that in a sec) that they've found at the side of the road, and which they think has been hit by a car, you just know that they're not from around here!!!  My suspicions were confirmed when they arrived at the surgery in their little convertible sports car (no offense to anyone with a convertible, and in Africa, where there is actually some sun, i can see the point, but in Scotland, where 'scattered showers with outbreaks of sunshine is considered good weather' people who drive convertibles generally have more money than sense, and are not viewed in a particularly kind light by the locals) The wife had a headscarf wrapped around her head doing a Jackie O or Brigit Jones impression, you pick, and was cradling this bunny which clearly had myxomatosis (really nasty disease that was introduced to Britain to control the rabbit population - possibly from Australia, but I'm not entirely sure.  it makes their eyes swell shut, and is generally quite horrendous. There's no cure, and the kindest thing is euthanasia)  So had to explain to them the ins and outs and that the kindest thing for "bun bun's" was really euthanasia.  Hope it didn't ruin their holiday. 

 

And one more wildlife story - our local marine mammal medic got a call the other day to say that a very sick grey seal pup was been brought from Stornoway and needed a lift up to the North Coast.  Now, my geography is not great, but to give you some idea, Stornoway is on the Isle of Lewis, which is one of the "Western Isles" so called because they're off the west coast, and people like things to be simple and descriptive up here!  Ok, so for the seal to get to here, it would need to go on the ferry (yes, i know, sounds bizarre, hey?  This is a seal for goodness sake - they swim!) and then be driven to here, where it could then be taken up to the North Coast.  Just for the seal to get here from Stornoway was a trip of about 220 miles (+/- 500 km!!!!).   Anyway, the medic popped in to the vets on his way past, and I had a quick look at the seal, and it wasn't looking particularly lifelike to me!  "Seals can hold their breath for 20 minutes" was bandied about, but i still had my suspicions that mr seal had shuffled off this mortal coil at some point in his rather long journey!  Apparently the lady who had driven the first leg of the road journey had heard the seal 'let out a long sigh' shortly before handing it over. Ah, that would probably be that then.  So needless to say, the seal didn't make the epic journey from the back end of beyond.