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!
