An attempt to inspire, make you smile, and laugh!
Hi, Dr. Emily and I made a vlog about ticks! What ticks are and how they find you, why they are so dangerous, and what to do if/when you find one. Emily wanted to start creating content that entertains and educates people about all sorts of animal care. I hope you enjoy our first installment
If you have any suggestions for topics you would like to see us cover, please leave it in the comments below. And, as always, thanks for watching =)
I would say that for the most part, owners these days are much more aware of the benefits of altering their pet’s reproductive abilities, but we still run into the not-so-rare emergencies that come from not having a spayed or neutered pet. There continues to be more research as to when is the best time to have the procedures done, but overwhelmingly, the consensus is that it is safer, healthier, and dare I say, less expensive to go ahead and have that surgery done.
For the bitches: An obvious reason that it is recommended to spay a female and remove those hormones and organs from her body is the prevention of accidental litters of puppies. Despite the fact that nowadays, you can slap a cute breed remix name on a mixed breed puppy and get some attention, overwhelmingly, there are too many homeless pets in the shelters being euthanized every day to take the risk of finding forever homes for new lives. You won’t know until it’s too late whether you’ll have to find homes for just one puppy (which can be hard on the mother as that one puppy tends to be much larger than individual puppies in multiple puppy litters) or 17 puppies. And let’s say you secure homes for all these puppies, don’t pat yourself on the back yet, now these families will need to keep these puppies forever without dropping them off at the shelter when they start chewing up the couch or drywall before you can count yourself responsible. Obviously, I’m not talking about responsible breeders. There are absolutely some wonderfully thoughtful and detail oriented breeders out there trying to improve whatever breed they have chosen through intensive genetic testing and screenings and I salute them.
Other reasons it is healthier to spay your female: You will prevent an emergency, very expensive, very dangerous condition called pyometra – this is a condition where weeks to a few months after her heat cycle, her uterus, having been open to the world when she was in heat with an open cervix and the amount of mucus dogs tend to produce during heat cycles create an optimum environment for bacteria to enter and take over. So, a month or so after they’re in heat, they become lethargic, can become septicemic (systemic infection spread through the blood), sometimes vomit, and can die. They basically have a giant sac of pus sitting in their abdomen that can spread to the blood supply or the uterus can rupture and then fill the entire abdomen with disgusting infectious pus. This happens with enough occurrence that if vets see a female dog coming in for lethargy, vomiting, ADR (ain’t doin’ right) and she’s not spayed, it’s considered a pyometra until proven otherwise. This is a condition that is best dealt with by doing immediate surgery to remove said sack of pus. This surgery, especially in the middle of the night or during the weekend (when bad things tend to happen) may cost anywhere from $600 at your most rural practice to $2500-5000 depending on the severity of her condition when she presents at an emergency clinic. So, not only are you going to easily spend 6-10x what you would have to have a spay done, but now her life is in danger on top of anesthesia risk. There are non-surgical ways to treat (I know some were asking) but those are not at all guaranteed and can prolong your dog’s suffering and possible eventual death.
Lastly, medical complications like mammary cancer is greatly increased with the more heat cycles your dog has been through. Generally speaking, you’re bitch is safest if spayed before her first heat (prevalence of mammary cancer: 0.5%), then safer after her first heat (prevalence: 8%), and least safe after her second heat (prevalence of cancer: 25%)
Other excuses for not spaying:
Now for the boy’s side. To be fair, I don’t have nearly as many medically scary side effects of having testicles, but in short, being neutered will prevent unwanted puppies (yes, owner’s of males are also responsible for shelter euthanasias. I’ve heard too many times “well, I don’t have to worry about that because I have a boy”- just because you don’t see the litter born doesn’t mean it wasn’t your fault). Other medical reasons would be benign prostate issues when they’re older, testicular cancer, and preventing other emergencies such as being hit by a car when your dog runs down the road because he smells a female in estrus, dog fight wounds, etc.
Cancer: if you have the organ, it’s open to get cancer. Intact male dogs are more likely to not only have testicular cancer, but also prostate cancer, benign prostate hyperplasia (testosterone causes large prostate that presses on and blocks colon) and perianal (right next to the anus) cancer.
Other “excuses”:
Horses are well known for their impeccable ability to get injured even in a round room with padded walls. They’re 1000+ lbs of bulk that can move really fast and with momentum like that, any surface can be a sharp surface. Not to mention many injuries come from their incredible flight response in which they don’t even consider what or who is around them, they’re going “all in” and running away even if that means scaling or jumping a wall at the drop of a hat (sometimes literally). This can create some rather impeccable injuries and those injuries are the topic of this post. Some gruesome crazy injuries that I have encountered – all with happy endings, no worries.
No pictures of gruesome wounds. Only completely unrelated horse pictures.
************WARNING************ Detailed description of wounds/bleeding (as well as healing) to follow. Dad, you better sit this one out.
Let’s start with my own personal disaster, Orion. My first horse, ever, was a middle aged quarter horse mare named Jinjer. She was the best – she would go anywhere, do anything and never spooked at anything. She was a level-headed tank of a horse. Then, when I was a teenager, I got odd jobs and finally saved up enough money to breed her. I was silly and decided to breed her to a thoroughbred to get more height and athleticism than my little 14.3h ex-barrel racing mare. It gave me what I wanted physically, a long-legged, well-built athlete with unending potential as a sport horse. Somewhere in the genetic swap, though, we lost the brain and got a skittish, scared, highly reactive animal. I sometimes thought that he was like a guy on a bad acid trip and that when the wind was blowing, he thought spiders were crawling through the grass – you COULD NOT ride him if there was even a slight breeze, or if you were wearing anything that crinkled.
His first disaster incident, I went out to feed them and found him at the bottom of the pasture, not wanting to walk. I ran to see what was the matter, and his right hock was flayed open. I gasped and cried. He was only 4 years old and had been coming along in training so well. We were planning to take him to his first show (and my first show) ever. I had been so incredibly excited, and now here he was, crippled with a huge fleshy opening on the front of his hock. Another horse in the pasture had chased him into the fence (barbed wire – bad stuff). I called the vet, they gave me a poor prognosis for his future soundness as the slice covered the whole front of the hock and cross all the joints. Once the joints are damaged or opened, it can mean life long lameness or even death in a horse. I declined taking him to the vet school as I was an undergrad at the time and had no money. The vet couldn’t do much at that point except bandage him up and start pain medication and antibiotics. I spent months tending the wound every day and over $1000 in bandage material and rechecks by the vet before it finally closed up. But, unfortunately, he was lame the rest of his life – he would drag the toe when he trotted.
His next fun adventure was when I was an intern at UGA and he was 11 years old. I had him tied to a 4×4 post that was concreted in the ground and securely fastened to the roof of the barn. I was grooming him and don’t remember what set him off, it was very likely the end of his rope hit the dirt ground with a soft “pat”. He freaked out. He threw his whole 1100 lbs backwards against his rope halter and snapped the 4×4 post about 6″ from the concrete bottom and ripped it off the rafters. And then, he took off. With the jagged post attached to his face with the rope halter.
Now, having that rope, dragging the post next to him was even scarier than the initial fright and he just kept spooking more and more the more he ran, the post dragging, bouncing around, hitting him. All I could do was watch and wait for him to stop his shear panic run. Finally, about 10 minutes later, he stopped and stood. He was breathing very hard and was trembling. Then I saw what I had feared would happen while he ran around frantically. There was blood streaming from his abdomen and splashing onto the post that was on the ground next to him. I just knew this was it, I just knew he had sliced his abdomen open and soon, his intestines would fall out onto the ground.
Somehow, though, I got very lucky and the jagged post had not penetrated his abdomen, but just made a huge gash in the bottom of his flank that tunneled a hole under the skin all the way to his hip – about 24 inches of skin ripped from the muscular layer. This wound took about a month or so before the open dead space between the skin and muscle finally filled in and the draining of serous discharge (a yellow colored fluid from inflammation and granulation tissue) finally stopped running down his leg, causing massive hair loss despite constant cleaning.
So, now I’ll move on to other impressive wounds that did not include my own horse and did not end up on the show (large chunk of muscle missing from pregnant racehorse mare’s hind). One was an Amish farmer’s cart horse who, like most, got spooked and ran between two sheds where the tin roof was a little low and sliced himself from shoulder blade to hip all the way down to the ribs. I could see the intercostal muscles moving with every breath. The farmer had packed the wound with burdock leaves and called us out immediately. It took about 2 hours of multi-layer suturing, but finally got the wound completely closed. I talked to the owner a few months later and he showed me a picture (on his phone -?-) of the horse looking back to 100%.
One early morning, I got a call that a horse had jumped a fence and had a huge wound. When I arrived, you could see most of the muscle from the upper right foreleg hanging to his cannon bone by just tendons with the radius (upper arm bone) partially exposed. I attempted to fix it with him standing, but he was too painful and I knew I would never get the lacerated muscle back in contact with the muscle origin while trying to fight with gravity, so I gave the horse enough anesthesia to lay him down. By now, though, the muscle was contracted and swollen and it still didn’t look good for getting the muscle back together. I sutured what I could along the sides for extra support and placed some large sutures in the muscles, then wrapped the whole front leg in one giant bandage. The most dangerous part of anesthesia with horses is the recovery as they are incredibly drunk and huge and trying to stand on toothpicks for legs. We painstakingly got him to wake up slowly and stand three-legged in the middle of a field with nothing but us ( 4 women) and some ropes to support him as he stood and wobbled.
Unfortunately, the sutured muscle didn’t hold and with the loss of blood supply to the end of the severed muscle, I ended up cutting away a lot of muscle and tissue, leaving a 4-6″ gap between origin muscle and severed muscle. Through continued bandaging and debriding of tissue, the wound eventually closed and the horse went on to training to become a western pleasure horse.
One day I got a call from another Amish gentleman that told me that his horse had injured himself a week or so ago and it was healing fine, but today, when he lowers his head to eat or drink, blood gushes out of his neck like a water hose. None of this sounded right or fit with any wound healing I could think of, so I packed up and headed out. When I got there, there was definitely evidence of a heavy bleed as the horse’s face was crusted over with blacked, dried blood, but there was not an obvious bleeding area. There was a wound on the right side of the neck in the jugular groove that appeared to be healing quite well, beautiful pink granulation tissue, no signs of infection, and contracting very well.
Then the horse tossed his head and that’s when a huge gush of blood came shooting out of his neck in the direction of his head. This was not old blood, or bloody fluid, this was whole, frank blood – it looked like a horror film. But as soon as he settled, the bleeding stopped again. I cleaned the area, put on gloves, and explored where the blood was coming from and as soon as I moved some tissue around and then held off the jugular vein on the body side of the wound, the gush of blood came flooding out again. I stuck my gloved finger in the hole the blood was coming from to plug it, then sutured the area closed tight. That did it. The bleeding stopped. I cleaned up and he thanked me and I went on my way.
The next day, I saw that he had called me again and my first thought was “oh no, the sutures didn’t hold”. When I got to the farm, though, my sutures were still holding, but now the thing was bleeding from the other side (head side) of the wound. The same trajectory as the right jugular vein, but this time on the head side of the gap. This one was coming from a much deeper place and I had to plug the gushing hole while dissecting out the vein and pulling the friable dead tissue away and then placed suture around that vein. Finally, both sides of the gaping jugular were closed and the horse could heal.
He ended up recovering and returning to his job as ranch horse. The only thing I could figure was that when the horse had initially injured himself (caught his neck on a jagged piece of fencing while drinking), he had miraculously twisted off his right jugular vein and didn’t bleed to death right then. Now that the wound was healing though, somehow the vein opened back up. I know what you’re thinking; “That just doesn’t make any sense” and you’re right. I still don’t know what was going on.
Horses are amazingly accident prone, but luckily, they’re also quite talented at healing. They are fantastic producers of a tissue called granulation tissue that looks like a bright pink, foamy tissue and, while very vascular and prone to heavy bleeding, will seal the wound from infection and fill the space for the skin to grow across. Sometimes, though, their amazing production of this tissue can get in the way when the wound is on a bony surface like the lower legs and will need to be gently shaved or trimmed away by your veterinarian to allow the skin to make it’s journey across. Luckily, granulation tissue does not have any nerves and the vet can sometimes trim away large amounts of the excessive tissue without hurting the horse – you sometimes don’t even need sedation – but the bleeding will look like a massacre. It’s okay, they have a lot, but PLEASE call a vet to do this or show you the proper way to or both you and your horse could end up seriously injured.
I told everybody I was trying to talk Emily into doing a video q&a blog. Well, she’s agreed, and she’s pretty excited about it. We are trying to figure out how to go about it and the logistics of a vlog, but I think we’ll figure it out. We don’t have any specialized equipment, so we’ll be recording on our phone and trying to edit on our computer. It will be a learning experience, but it will also be fun. I can’t wait to get this out to you guys. My hope is that we’ll get the video on the website by Sunday. Anyway, just thought I would give you guys an update, and wish us luck. And, as always, thanks for reading.
-Tony
I’ve only been in the veterinary business (including schooling) about 14 years, but I’ve seen some stuff that made my heart stop and took my breath away. I will be talking about some of the people, clients, vets that I have worked with but will not be using names. Please don’t assume you know who I’m talking about. Just because you may have only seen me work for Dr Pol doesn’t mean there haven’t been numerous others (vets or clients) I have worked with.
I had a clinician I worked with who said “whether it’s something you do or don’t do, you will kill an animal one day”. I will start with a story about myself since that can only be fair. I was working on emergency one night when I got a call that a cat was unresponsive and rushed in to see it. It was a young cat, but obviously very sick as it was laying flat out, barely alive other than breathing and a heartbeat. It was severely dehydrated so I placed an IV catheter and drew some blood for testing. I was in such a hurry to get this cat rehydrated, I made the fatal error. I forgot to run fluids through the lines before hooking them up to the cat. So, the first thing she got was a big bolus of air straight to her heart. She immediately started agonal breathing and, having not realized my mistake yet, I put my stethoscope on her chest and heard what sounded like cellophane crackling with every heartbeat. Still not realizing what had happened, and armed with the results from my bloodwork showing severe kidney failure, I recommended euthanasia. The owner cried and agreed. I euthanized the poor kitty while it was likely already dying from my mistake. I later performed a necropsy (opened the body up to see what could have killed it) and found the heart full of air bubbles. I was perplexed and that’s when it dawned on me what I had done. My heart fell, I suddenly knew that I was a dark smear on the veterinary profession and I would never forgive myself. As a coping mechanism, I would eventually tell myself the cat was dying anyway and likely would not have survived whatever caused her kidneys to fail in the first place, but it still rides hard on my heart even years later.
I was working with one vet on a farm, collecting semen from stallions when the farmer told his farm hand to go and get this stallion who was stalled right next to the breeding dummy and had just witnessed another stallion getting collected. The horse in the stall was on fire! He was hot and blowing and throwing a tantrum in his stall, rearing, bucking, kicking the sides of the stall, raging with testosterone (stallions can be extremely dangerous and unpredictable). The poor farm hand got a little pale faced when he was asked to go into the stall to get this beast, but did as he was told. He went in, we heard a lot of swearing and wall kicking and squealing from the horse, when the man stepped out of the stall holding one of his hands in his other hand, in obvious pain. We went over to see what had transpired. The man was shaking and reluctantly showed us his injured hand that he had obviously not even had the courage to look at and we all gasped. The bones in his hand, the ones between the wrist and the fingers were snapped in half and completely sticking out of his skin. Picture a bony Wolverine. He asked us if we could fix it and we said no, he would need surgery, but we cleaned it and wrapped it for him to get him to the hospital. We later, at our next visit, heard that he had to have pins put in all the bones and, the farmer complained, “he was just being a big “baby” about it” (replace baby with that horrible “p” word).
I was called out to see a colic and upon arrival, I knew the horse was not going to make it. He had ingesta pouring out of his nose (a sure sign he was either choked or, in this case, ruptured his stomach – horses CANNOT vomit). I went ahead and performed my full exam, including passing a nasogastric tube to make sure it wasn’t choke and to help relieve some pressure. I palpated rectally and found that his intestines were all distended and blown up. I gave a grave prognosis and advised referral to surgery or euthanasia. That’s when he said he knew of a way to untwist intestines without having surgery. Being curious, and not one to fight with people, even though maybe I should have, but didn’t know what I was about to see, I stayed to watch. They took this enormous Belgium draft horse, placed a wide leather strap around his girth, tied his head to his girth and then placed this whole thing on a crane. They, then lifted the 2000+lb horse, who was not taking this well – was thrashing and kicking – eventually about 5 feet off the ground. I watched as men and young boys scrambled to make sure he didn’t hurt himself, but also nearly got struck by his giant thrashing legs in the meantime. I felt pain for the horse, but also extreme worry for the safety of the people trying to save this horse who was, in all likeliness, GOING to die. Once they finally got him back on his feet and got the straps off, he took a few steps and liters of ingesta started pouring out of his nose. I told them, again, he was going to die, but they just said “we’ll see” and led him back to the barn. That was the last I knew of that case – hope he made it. I love being wrong when it’s a good outcome for the patient.
I was called into see an emergency for a dog who was hit by a car. Typically, we would roll our eyes and ask (to ourselves) “and why was the dog out in the road?” but there are certainly cases of accidental escapes and this poor lady had experienced one. An older lady, close to 80 years old pulled up with this comatose boxer. I helped her get it out of the car and into the clinic. It was breathing, but not responsive and it’s pupils were dilated. I was working in a very small rural clinic and had limited capabilities for therapy on what I suspected was brain swelling. I gave it what I could. The lady stood over her, sobbing and telling me over and over that this was all her fault and she had forgotten to put the electronic collar on her before she went out and why did she forget? She has never forgotten! She bawled and kept telling this beautiful young dog how much she loved her and how sorry she was. Then, the dog stopped breathing. Just stopped. Her heart was still going, but she had stopped breathing. I suspect her brain had herniated into her brainstem (controls breathing). I had her intubated and oxygen flowing but we didn’t have a respirator. Then, I helplessly listened to the heart as it slowed, stuttered, and then stopped. I softly informed the client that her beloved dog had passed away. That’s when the poor lady started screaming, crying so loud that she quickly passed out and hit the floor. I was able to get her back to consciousness, but she was incredible weak and could not stand. I told her I was going to call an ambulance but she strongly declined. She had me call her sons who eventually showed up and we had to wheel her out of the clinic on a rolling chair. Then, the next day, after telling the story to my boss and tech, my boss angrily said “but why didn’t you collect money from her”. He was serious. My jaw hit the floor. She paid the next day *sticks tongue out to boss*
I got called into the clinic on an emergency for a bloated great dane. I quickly ascertained that the dog had a GDV – a stomach that has flipped over and bloats quickly, and is an extreme “right NOW” emergency as the stomach can start to die immediately. I had never performed the surgery and it is very involved, so I advised they take their dog to an emergency clinic right away to have the surgery performed. Due to financial concerns, the clients declined and begged me to do the surgery even though I told them I had never done it and our clinic was ill-equipped to do it. They would rather me try a new surgery than have to euthanize their dog. I told them I would call another vet at the clinic because they had done the surgery before. I called, the doctor agreed to come in. While we were waiting, I was able to pass an orogastric tube and partially debloat the stomach. When the other doctor arrived, I had everything set up to go, IV catheter was in, fluids flowing, surgery was completely set up, drugs were drawn for anesthesia. The doctor looked at the dog, said it wasn’t that bad and said the dog didn’t need surgery that we could just hospitalize it overnight (no one is there all night) on fluids. My jaw dropped in front of the clients and they saw my face. I tried to argue and said that since we are already set up for surgery, wouldn’t it be best to just go ahead and tack the stomach just in case. The doctor said “no, he’ll be fine”. We put him in a cage and shut the door. When I came to check on him in the morning, he was re-bloated, purple, and unresponsive. We quickly got him onto the surgery table where he promptly died. Though I partially blamed myself for that one, the owners were appreciative and let me know. They, then got another great dane puppy and made sure to ask for me every time. That made my heart feel a little better.
Hi everybody, this is Tony. I’m just sending out this email to all of Emily’s followers to let you know that I will be posting a story tomorrow. The story will be about how awesome Emily is and more specifically how she saved the lives of 3 out of 4 of our pets. Its been a rough couple of days for her (she has been working long hours recently) and I’m trying to cheer her up. I’m hoping you could help me with this by sharing some love her way through the post tomorrow.
Anyway, just thought I would send out a heads up, look for the post tomorrow, and, as always, thanks for reading
I was raised to feel lots of confusion over body image and weight. On one hand, I grew up thinking that if I gained weight or didn’t look just right, I would 1. Never get a boyfriend/husband or 2. My boyfriend/husband would leave me because I was no longer attractive. My parents divorced when I was in high school and once I heard that my father had said my mother was no longer attractive to him because she was over weight. My mother struggled with her body image as far back as I can remember – always dieting or trying a new exercise class, but she hated how much she weighed and even how tall she was. As a 5’11” woman in a world where she thought men wanted “cute and petite” girls, it was hard for her to feel pretty or sexy at all, but then when she started gaining weight after children, it was a downward spiral. My father, on the other hand, has been smallish from the start. He was is also 5’11” and has always been very active with playing tennis, running almost everyday, biking, swimming, whatever he can do to stay fit. It was his passion, obsession, even. He was very proud of his body.
So, on one side of the coin, I was sincerely sympathetic to my mother’s cause. I hated that she hated herself. I was always very careful to never mention or hint at anything around her that might hurt her feelings more than they have already been hurt. I was quite sensitized to the feelings, frustrations, and fragility of being overweight and trying to conquer it. For my dad, the answer was easy – just go out and exercise more. Everyone sees the world from a different perspective and has different things that drive them in everyday situations. For some people, like my dad, losing weight is easy, you just do it. When he was diagnosed with a health condition where his body does not process “good” fats properly and essentially all fats for him are bad, he just cut out fat. Done. The poor man now struggles with eating enough calories in sugar and protein to maintain his 4500 calorie/day (with his exercise habits) needs and he has to do that with FAT-FREE oreos and cheetos! He immediately dropped weight when he made this change and lost his “dad bod” belly.
On the other side of the coin, I’ve seen what media (movies/tv shows, etc) and my own family experiences tell me about men and how they perceive women: you need to be thin AND shapely AND endearing or you will not be desirable and will be left or, more likely, cheated on. I went through a really rough time when I was dating Tony where I lost all faith and trust in men and just knew that I was eventually GOING to be cheated on and hurt severely. That was, of course, centered around the divorce that my parents were going through and I eventually got over it, well, learned to deal with it better, but for awhile, I was pretty sure men were the worst. Yet, somehow, while blaming men for making me feel this way, I still felt this way and was still driven to stay cute and little and always be as engaging as possible. I exercised, I got depressed when I gained weight, I didn’t complain about it to anyone except Tony because I was not overweight and would be scoffed at, but I just knew that it was a slippery slope to Tony not loving me.
When I was in vet school, I gained about 20 lb and for the life of me, could not get it off. I lived on rice and beans, ran 3-10 miles or biked 30 miles a day, had air-popped popcorn and watermelon for dinner and could not drop a pound. At first I was convinced that it was all just muscle, but eventually, while pregnant with India and I reached 170 lb and the doctor said something to me about my weight, I knew it wasn’t just normal weight gain. I was crushed. I had tried for years to lose that 20 lbs and only seemed to be gaining (even before the pregnancy).
Eventually, I would be blessed with a revamped metabolism after breastfeeding coupled with a painful abdominal condition that doesn’t allow me to eat more than very small portions of food before feeling very uncomfortable to painful. Then, I was finally able to drop the weight and get back to a comfortable size for me. Yes, I’ve been to all the doctors, have had imaging done, had my gallbladder removed, and have been on every medicinal combination including natural remedies, and no, nothing helps. So, for the most part, my own body regulates my weight, but I do love to exercise or at least I love to be active and I love the feeling of being sore and tired.
What if we showed each other love and appreciation even if we all weren’t the magazine body type? What if when you saw someone who was out for a jog but was jogging slower than you could walk and instead laughing, we said “good job! You’re amazing!”? Yes, I can agree that being overweight can be unhealthy, but not all overweight people are unhealthy, and when was the last time telling someone they’re overweight helped? Let the medical professionals worry about their physical health. We should all worry about each other’s mental health. What if we just supported them and showed them the love every human deserves? If most people react to things like my husband, then telling them how you think they should change will only make them do the exact opposite (super fun in a marriage). Looking around, I’ve noticed that seemingly everyone has body image issues. So, it totally sucks that media makes women think that men only want a certain type of woman, but if you really ask honest men, you’ll find that different men like different types of women. Some men do NOT find thin, lanky women attractive, some love the softness of larger women. Same for women – no, we don’t all want to be able to complete a muscular anatomy exam on your body, some do, but we all have different things that make us tick. So, to single out one body type and make everyone else feel bad about themselves for things they cannot change – no, I will never have curvaceous hips (“birthing hips” – my mother in law warned me with my first pregnancy I would have trouble having babies – still pushed an 8.5lb baby out in less than an hour) with my body type. If I started gaining weight (even with doing 1000s of squats) I would simply take on the appearance of a candied apple.
Once my mom got away from all of that pressure and all of that loathing of her body, she found herself. She found activities that she loves. She walks or hikes almost everyday in the Rocky mountains and feels great about herself. I was thinking about this one time while I was running. I haven’t been able to just run 3-4 miles since I had Oscar. I found that my body and my mind do better when I run a “warm up” mile, then sprint/walk/jog the rest of the way as feels best for my body – when I can no longer breathe, I walk; when I catch my breathe, I run again. But it’s not a normal way to run. Sometimes I will skip or walk with lunges, or walk backwards or sideways, or dance or strut to the song in my earbuds, but I always have to make sure no one is looking. Why? God forbid someone sees me doing something that’s not seen as “normal” exercise. But, what if we were all in support of any activity, no matter how weird it looks to us? People wouldn’t be afraid to go out and find something they love that could also be considered exercise. Want to bear crawl across your lawn? Great! Good for the shoulders. Like to belly dance to Led Zepplin? Power to you!
I will never be able to shake the idea I got when I was 15 years old, studying the Victoria’s Secret catalogs, that this was how I was supposed to look. I didn’t yet know how I would go about adding 2-3 lumbar vertebra to my spine or develop D cup breasts and grow a second length of femur, or, most importantly, develop those perfect faces (though Tony says most of them look mad), but I knew that’s what I had to look like or I would never be loved. Yet, here I am; 35 years old, three kids later, scars up and down my belly, an umbilical hernia from the pregnancies, abdominal muscles that will never line up again, boobs that sag with age and three episodes of demanding nursing babies pulling on them while they summersault, a face that is tired, worn and pretty much needs make-up to be seen in public, but Tony doesn’t see all that. And none of that affects the way I see other people. You are beautiful.
I hear the statement all the time: “Nobody wants to be a large animal vet anymore! They all just want to work 9-5 and sit in an office.” Having been a large animal vet myself and having access to thousands of vet moms online, I have heard all the reasons for leaving and they’re all about the same. Are we lazy and just don’t like getting dirty? No! We love throwing on muck boots and being armpit deep in a cow (as odd as that sounds). Is it because we don’t like the odd hours of on call? Sometimes, but with enough vets to share the call and with responsible owners, it’s really not that bad – and, no, we don’t mind getting up at 3am for an emergency… as long as the emergency was first noticed at 3am (that same day). Is it that young folks these days don’t know an honest day’s work? Stop it, silly, we love working, we love helping people, we love getting dirty, but we also respect ourselves and know how to keep our job from becoming our entire life.
***Warning: all examples provided, as crazy as they sound, have actually been experienced by me or another vet***
*****Warning #2: some gruesome pictures at the very end. All animals pictured are alive and completely healed from the picture thanks to fast acting clients*****
1. Complain about the bill. I’ve already written a piece on how little money vets make so I won’t be long winded, but large animal vets already make less money than small animal vets as a general rule, but when you add in the number of extra hours, the drive time between calls (loss of production time), it can be even harder on their pockets and lives. Unfortunately for the vet and for the farmer, many times a 2am call 30 miles down the road costs the vet more to perform than the farmer is willing to pay. So, when the farmer gets the $400 bill for his cow, he may get upset at the cost – it’s just a cow and she only got 2 injections! Large animal vets know it’s a fine balance, but when you’re out for 3 hours in the middle of the night and have to show back up to work at 8 am and work another full day, it can also detract from your production for days to come. Not to mention the fact that most large animal clients are billed and when we sometimes don’t receive payments in a timely manner, we have to withhold paying our bills or even employees. – This is also the reason most vets won’t do payment plans even in small animal. I believe in my Disney movie loving heart that people ABSOLUTELY intend on paying every cent of that bill, but things come up, electric bills, hospital bills, and dare I say, some people never intend to pay. I would estimate we never see 80% of the payment plan money – thousands of dollars a month vets don’t get for believing in people has slowly soured us.
2. Only call us when you’ve tried everything else including what your neighbor’s cousin’s beet farmer friend suggested. You’ve been walking this colicky horse since 10Am, have given it 3 injections of banamine (in the muscle *cringe – see picture below*, have tried your neighbor’s recommendations of sticking an onion up the horse’s rectum, coating the tongue in a bottle of cayenne pepper, and now you and the horse are soaked in mineral oil you tried to get the horse to swallow and has perhaps aspirated. It’s now 11Pm and you call the vet – the one that you haven’t called since 4 years ago on Christmas morning when you had a foundering horse that you’d already bled 3 gallons of blood from because your friend said it would work – but it didn’t cause that’s not how any of this works. Or, you saw that your cow that was due to calve had her tail up and some membranes hanging out three days ago and now she’s down in the mud (likely rotting from the inside), or you and all your friends have already been inside the cow and despite only having a head and one leg for presentation, you went ahead and tied her head to a tree and chained the calf’s one leg and head to a tractor and had the cow suspended in the air before you gave up and called me (because now she’s down – likely a broken pelvis). As the entire veterinary community, we want you to know something – We would MUCH rather you call when you think there might be a problem and we can ask you questions and decide if it’s an emergency (and go see your colic at noon when there’s light out and the horse isn’t 90% dehydrated now from walking) than wait until the animal is practically unsalvageable. Also, your bill will be much more reasonable the earlier we see the problem. As much as you think we cost to use, we stay alive with regular visits, the “bread and butter” as one boss called it – vaccines, coggins, heard health, etc and we are much more likely to jump out of bed to help you if we have a good working relationship with you and your farm.
3. Try to save costs by compromising good husbandry and only calling us when you have an epidemic. We don’t like getting called out to clean up a disaster situation that could have been prevented with a little more money, forethought, and elbow grease. Why are all of your calves getting sick and dying?
3a. Are they kept in clean, dry bedding out of the wind, rain, snow, heat, sun? Access to clean water, non moldy/spoiled food? Pens cleaned and sanitized between animals? Animals kept far enough apart to not lick or touch each other (so they can’t spread diseases)? You would not believe how much of an impact good husbandry can have on the health and production of your animals.
3b. Are you vaccinating? No? Do it – vaccines are amazing tools we have that can be given as early as birth to EASILY prevent deadly diseases that *gasp* can’t be fixed with an antibiotic injection. Also, talk to your vet about a smart deworming protocol for your herd – deworming every 6 weeks is often not recommended anymore due to resistant worms (especially in goats/sheep).
3c. Are your animals being fed a diet that works best for their species? Spoiler: even though grain makes them gain weight faster, they need roughage (ie. hay) to keep their bellies happy (yes, even pigs). In fact most ruminants (cows, goats, sheep, etc) would have better health with little to no grain (think bloat, rumen acidosis leading to founder, liver abscesses, urinary blockages in male goats, etc) Good quality hay too, NOT straw or that hay that’s been sitting in the pasture for 5 years, is mostly black, and will likely cause respiratory issues for you and the animals when you break it open.
3d. Water, water everywhere! Clean water, water that doesn’t have 2 inches of ice on top of it – buy a deicer – water in multiple places if you have numerous animals and the bullies are guarding it, water that doesn’t have an electric current going through it (check that 10 year-old deicer)
4. Don’t have your animals caught when the vet arrives. I cannot tell you the number of times, after I ask them to get a halter on the cow and at least tie her to a truck or tractor before I get there and the farmer will absolutely INSIST the cow is down and “she ain’t going anywhere”. Then, as soon as my vet truck pulls up to the farm, that pet cow that was bottle raised and loves you and is so sick now she cannot even lift her head will reach down deep into her soul, grab what’s left of her water buffalo ancestry, jump up and scramble away. She will then lead an hour long chase across pastures, through woods, and briars before finally falling into a creek, losing her will to live and attempting to drown. Don’t expect us to rope or dart her. Unfortunately, they have dropped Rodeo Clown 101 and Rhino darting from the veterinary curriculum, at least since I went to school. Basically, if you have large animals, have the equipment needed to handle them – gates, corrals, chutes or head catches would be amazing, trailers that work. Make sure your horse will load in a trailer if needed. Have halters, ropes, etc. Don’t expect us to halter break your 2 yo stud colt when it has a laceration and you haven’t touched it since it was born. It’s stressful and inefficient if we get there and you’re chasing animals around when we already have 3 more emergencies waiting on us and you may get charged for the time.
5. Get annoyed when we can’t be to your place immediately. There is often only one vet working after hours calls and if we’re at someone’s farm, soaked in birthing fluids and wallowing around in the straw trying to pull a calf when you call and we don’t call you back for another 30-45 minutes and THEN won’t be to your place for another hour because you’re on the opposite pole of our practice range, please be understanding – we’re trying.
And, here are other requests from a group of 12,000 vet moms:
1) Just give me your address – GPS works great in most areas – no, I don’t know where the old Hamilton place used to be or that oak tree that was cut down a few weeks ago – also have easily visible, large reflective numbers or name on both sides of your mailbox.
2) Don’t leave the bull in the herd up until pregnancy checks. It’s much easier to estimate a breeding date when the cows are 30-90 days bred and there’s not a bull currently trying to breed the cow behind you in the chute.
3) Don’t call your vet after hours for non-emergency questions that can wait until regular business hours; scheduling appointments, etc. We have families and a life outside of vet medicine, please allow us to live as much of it as possible.
4) Please don’t call us after hours for advice on how to treat something you have no intention of having us come out for because we’re expensive. Also don’t ask us to teach you how to do something you see us doing like passing a nasogastric tube on a horse (please, for the love of God, don’t try to tube your own horse or stick a hose down their throat to “wash out the choke”) just to save money next time – bringing me to my next point
5) Animals are expensive. Please carefully consider this and basic husbandry for the animal you are about to buy or rescue. Rescue animals are often even more expensive because of all the health issues they come with. If you can’t provide it the care it needs, you haven’t rescued it, you’ve just relocated it – there, I said it.
6) Don’t call us out for an emergency that could wait until normal business hours just because it’s more convenient to you. A 5-day duration lameness in a horse at 11pm because you have to work tomorrow and don’t have time? Me too! No thanks.
7) Colicky horses (can sometimes looks like straining to urinate as well) – A) call as soon as you suspect – 5% dehydrated animal much easier to correct than 50% and with colic, hydration is 90% of the problem. B) Don’t walk the horse more than 30-60 minutes before calling – walking/trotting/even a short trailer ride can help immensely, but not to excess; the more they walk, the more tired and dehydrated they get. C) Let a laying horse lay. If they start rolling (and not getting up with a big ole’ shake off) then get concerned. Even a colicky horse can be allowed to lay quietly – think of how you would feel if you went to the doctor with a stomach ache and they put you on a treadmill for 4 hours.
8) Don’t comment on my size as a woman. You, sir, also cannot body slam a 1500lb steer, so lets let the drugs I brought do the talking.
9) Please admit to any and all treatments already given before I arrived. This goes for small animals as well – think he got into weed? just say it *big, tired sigh here*, we’re not calling the cops, but knowing that can save you $500 in bloodwork/diagnostics/referral to a neurologist.
10) Don’t ask us to look at your other horse who has had a weird, flakey skin condition for the past 2 years and also needs a coggins while we’re out treating a laceration on another animal at 2am.
Bonus: Please don’t pull a nail out of an animal’s hoof before we get the chance to shoot x-rays to see how deep it penetrated and whether it got the bone or joint.
We love our jobs and we want to help. Call as soon as you think you have an emergency. Please, the easier you make it on us and the more we can help you, the better our doctor/client relationship will be and the longer we will stay with the large animal work. Be nice to your vet. Please.
Warning: stream of conscience type writing to follow so if you’re not a fan of James Joyce – whom I was forced to read in high school as a “classic” and thought he was a little overrated. I mean, I feel like literary critics/buffs sit down to read these things, see that the grammar is not atrocious, but fall asleep in the middle of it, snort awake and shout “Classic!” so as not to lose face in front of their peers. Where was I going with this? oh, yeah – then you probably won’t like this post. Also; religion; racism; and homophobia.
One time, when I was on a farm call for a cow, I don’t even remember what for, but I remember at the end of it, the farmer was so impressed with my demeanor he said “You must have been raised in a church. I can tell” I was certainly flattered, I understood what he was trying to say, but he was wrong.
I was raised in the deep south where EVERYONE had a church, normally southern Baptist, but some heathens (according to the Baptists) that were Methodist. I was raised without God. My parents were considered “hippy parents” where hippy was a derogatory word in the south. I didn’t mind. Although everyone who has ever called me or my upbringing “hippy” have never been able to consistently tell me what that means, I still ask anyone who says it. I took it as a compliment because if being “hippy” means caring for EVERYONE, loving and respecting everyone no matter who they are or what they believe (kind of like Jesus), then I was okay with that. No. I was proud of that.
My only experiences with church when I was growing up was to go when we visited grandma and occasionally if I had a sleep over with a friend who went to church. Both sets of my grandparents lived in Abbeville, GA. Wilcox county. My parents were next door neighbors when they met. Just to give you a feel of this place, they made national news when they had their FIRST racially integrated prom in April of 2013 (NOT 100 years ago, 7, less than S.E.V.E.N. years). My father has an experience when he was a child where he was going to church and a small group of young black men came up to the church steps and were stopped. They asked, very peacefully, if they could come in and worship, but the deacons all lined up to block their way and they were turned away.
When my sister became pregnant with a black man’s child, she received a letter from my very dear grandmother. A woman who had dedicated her life to worshipping Jesus; had never missed a day of church unless tragedy struck; volunteered for any and all events to help others; spent her last years when she could no longer walk knitting hundreds of sweaters for children in need; had even been one of the first teachers to volunteer to teach at the first integrated school when my mother was a child. A woman, who sent my young, scared-senseless sister a letter stating how disappointed she was in her and how much shame and teasing my sister would bring her family, but what was worse than anything to her was how my grandmother’s church would never be able to accept the child.
Then, of course, there were the friends I had who were avid church goers but would state things like “but if I ever brought a black man home, my father would kill me!” or “they need to stop blaming the system and just go out and get a job” then turn around and ask the receptionist if the person calling asking about a job “sounded black” because he “didn’t care, but some of the clientele might” and yet somehow, these people still claim not only to be not racist, but also followers of Jesus (not white). I won’t even get started on the unmentionables such as homosexuality – I mean we all know that’s why God is destroying the earth through global warming – which is also a hoax. *insert sarcasm* – my sister (you know, the one that shamed our family with her mixed race child – the child who, by the way, is now 20 and excelling in a pre-med degree at CSU) is a meteorologist (not on TV) and dedicates her life to studying weather patterns.
So, you can see why, as a young person, church was not attractive to me. I was raised by parents to love everyone and treat everyone with respect and people who I would think should be the epitome of love and acceptance were some of the worst. I started attending a church when I started dating Tony as his family were avid goers. I was attending a Sunday school session with one of the deacons when there was a small argument/discussion about how Jesus would only accept those pure of heart and how homosexuals were evil (or whatever) and I finally spoke up and said “Jesus said to love everyone, Jesus IS love, we should love everyone as we love Jesus” and the older, very bald man wearing thick black rimmed glasses (think Judge Doom from Roger Rabbit ’88) stared down at me – a teenage girl daring to speak to a grown man – with a half smirk and said “I’m not talking about that HIPPY love!” and went on with his speech.
I eventually moved to Michigan and had children that I thought might benefit from some socialization. We picked a church rumored to have a fantastic youth/childcare program and started attending. I went there with a chip on my shoulder and lots of grains of salt, prepared to put up my mental dukes and a wall around me. It wasn’t as I expected. The message was about love and acceptance and I began to soften. We joined a small group trying to get more involved and to further socialize our young children as Tony was a stay-at-home dad back then. It was there that I was introduced to the most lovely group of people I have ever met associated with a church. They taught me so much, including how every sin is equal in God’s eyes, but that He loved us so much that all those are forgiven. So, let’s say for a moment that homosexuality is a sin – so is going out in public while I’m on my period or wearing clothes of two different materials or eating shellfish. We’re all sinners, so we should stop telling each other that; just let it go and love and support each other.
These people because some of our best friends and their kids became by kids’ best friends. It was so refreshing to attend a church and socialize with people where it was all about love and acceptance. I slowly started coming out of my shell. I had always been afraid for people to know I was Christian because I knew how I felt about Christians or ones proclaiming to be in what I had seen. I knew that if someone came up to me and asked me to talk with them about Jesus, I would have immediately written them off and gone about my day. I’ve been in several groups of Christians that admit to not having any non-Christian friends because they feel like it will soil them or their children.
I would say that most of my friends are NOT Christian and I love that. I don’t take every opportunity we have together to bring it up, not even close. Some of my friends may not even know how passionately I seek answers. I tend to be drawn to the emotional train wrecks the most. Some of them seem to turn around and have ended up happy. Most of them stay about where they are, some of them (okay – one of them) completely blocked me out of his life. I guess I’ll just keep trudging along like Forrest Gump running across the country; happy for companions, sad for the ones I’ve lost, but not dragging anyone along.
So, against my better judgement, but keeping in tune with my “what comes up comes out” description someone once gave me, I responded to that farmer who made a statement about my upbringing with “No, actually, I wasn’t. I was just raised by parents to be a decent human being and to love everyone no matter what.” He acted a bit put off, but then brushed it off and thanked me for helping him.
Now, for some pictures of God’s creations
This particular blog is set out to let you see us and hopefully answer some common misconceptions about us. Vets are people pleasers; they are hard workers who like to fix things. We will go out of our way to make sure you are getting the care your animal deserves. We hate to not know what is wrong with your animal and we hate more not being able to make it better. Sure, there will be bad eggs out there, vets that just want to shuffle you along in the line of patients they have, some that want to make the most money off of you that they can, but, for the vast majority of us, we just want to help. We all worked REALLY hard in vet school and are still working just as hard to better our techniques, better our medicine, learn what is working better. We have entire social networks dedicated to sharing information and sharing what works for us and asking for help with cases. Tens of thousands of veterinarians constantly reaching out for help from vets all over the country and even the world, with tens of thousands open to helping and giving advice. Even board certified surgeons, internists, etc are answering some of our questions on some of these hard cases. I’m no 100% certain, but have asked human doctors and, to my knowledge, they don’t have this.
“Vets are just in it for the money, if they cared about animals, they would do it for free/less.” – Other than world famous veterinarians, the vast majority of us make much less than you would think. Modern veterinary school tuition is anywhere from $20,000/year to $60,000/year (tuition and fees ONLY – not rent/living expenses/food) for 4 years. So, at best, we are paying approximately $150,000 for the degree alone, including undergrad (4 years). Then, you have to factor in at least 4 years of lost financial gain where you couldn’t work enough to pay for rent/food – we had class from 8am to 5pm then ate something non-nutritional, started our IV drip of cowboy coffee and studied from 6pm to 12am/6am depending on if there was an exam (or 3) the next day- so add another $50,000 (depending on the state you lived). So, graduate with $200,000 in the hole. Unless you or your parents are independently wealthy (and they don’t hate you), you will have to take out a loan for this. In our country, interest rates can vary between 5% and 8+%, meaning that some of us pay upwards of $1200/month just to cover interest. One vet I know has paid $50,000 over 5 years toward her loan, but owes $80,000 more than when she graduated. One tells me she earns an extra $41/day in interest. Per. Day.
So, fresh out of school, with a $200,000 hole in your bank account. You get your first job, like I did, making $42,000/yr. , then, after 3 years, upgrade to $65,000. Now, you have a family, a mortgage, and other expenses to pay such as daycare so you and your spouse can actually go to work. So, you make $4000/month after taxes. You have costs of ~ $4200/month to live (these are figures from a time in my own life including only mortgage in a really low cost area, car payment, electric, daycare, gas, health insurance for the family – mine was covered by the company – and food – does not cover medical bills, car repair, other random bills) plus your $1200 interest-only payment. Your monthly costs are now at a minimum of $5400 meaning you make -$1400/month (that’s negative $1400) for being a DOCTOR. For having studied for 8 years, for continuing to upgrade and improve your knowledge as fast as you can, for bending over backwards, staying extra hours to work on a case, personally taking animals home to make sure they get the right care, crying in frustration or tragedy if the animal is not improving or dies. For storing every single one of those losses in our memory, but never seeming to remember the successes.
Some older vets may throw their younger colleagues under the bus and say that vets charge too much these days. Vet school tuition in the 60s was approximately $350 PER. YEAR, in the 80s; $1600/yr and calculated with inflation that translates to 60s: $2800/yr and 80s: $3900/yr compared to $50,000/yr now (that’s almost an 1,800% increase). I’ve had people argue with me and say “well, if you can’t afford vet school, you shouldn’t attend it.” My question is “would you rather have the best and the brightest working on you or your animal, or do you just want the rare rich folks who actually want to be a vet doing it?” – just like a larger country or state is more likely to get good athletes, a larger field of people to pull from will get better vets.
So, we don’t make a ton. Let’s talk costs of veterinary medicine. Every piece of equipment we use in a vet hospital – blood analyzers, ultrasound, x-ray, surgical instruments, gloves, syringes – all of it – is the same equipment used in human medicine and they all cost a pretty penny. Granted, they probably cost a human hospital as much as they do us, but a human hospital can charge you 10-100x what we charge for the same procedure because of insurance (*cough* “SCAM” *cough*). These are the same procedures we do with the same amount of training that goes into performing and interpreting them, but often with less wait time.
Another difference between human medicine and veterinary medicine is the way we look at our patients. In a human hospital (I imagine for the most part), patients are priceless family members and the best treatment is often not a question. In veterinary medicine, there are two very different views of the patients and a full spectrum in between. On one side, we have the pets that are considered family members, that go everywhere and do everything with their owners. Some are the only children our clients will ever have. Some are the last remaining piece the owner has of a deceased child or spouse to whom the pet belonged. Even mentioning cost of care could be insulting to them, because, obviously, this is their child and money is not a concern (though, sometimes “money is not a problem” means they don’t have any money =) and OF COURSE they will do whatever is the absolute best.
On the other side of the spectrum (which is not wrong) is people who view animals as animals. As possessions with monetary value. Some may be farm animals or hunting dogs, or barn cats and the idea of spending any amount of money above the animal’s perceived economic value is completely absurd. So, you had better discuss costs with these people before doing anything because if they walk out with a $200 bill for a barn cat, they will have a conniption.
Without a client making it perfectly clear to us where on the spectrum they stand, we offer all the options from the most ideal to the most conservative. This can make people mad. If the client is on the “my dog is my child” side they may get offended that you would even offer something that’s not the absolute best and, therefore, question your credibility as a doctor. If they are on the “it’s just a dog” side they may feel that you are pushing them to feel guilty to spend more money because you are just money hungry. Even if a client agrees to the most economic route, even if you explain all the potential risks of not doing the ideal option (again, not necessarily to push guilt, but to cover our butts) and the client signs a waiver, this still does not guarantee they will not or cannot come back at you later and sue or go for your license.
So, yes, vets are in it for the money… but mostly the love of animals, science, and fixing things. We love animals, but we must make money to live, to support our children. I’ve never heard of someone telling a car mechanic they shouldn’t charge money and just fix the car because they love it. (but perhaps they have heard that) We want to help you and your animal. That’s all we want. Please consider all of this next time you are upset with a vet bill. Consider the area that you live. The same procedure in Boulder, CO is going to be much more expensive than in Clare, MI – the same size house is about 7x the cost.
Can’t wait to see you and your animal next time!!
Pictures of my pets: 3 out of 4 of them are hazards of the job that I love!
