Don't Treat MY Dog Badly

I was reading my post from June 7th, and it reminded me of this little gem.  And it is little.  Not the novel I usually write.

The other morning a lady dropped off her dog for surgery.  She was one of those very attached, emotional, worried owners.  As we took her dog back she says to us in a pleading voice, "Don't treat my dog badly."  Now, isn't there a better way to say that?  Because the way she said it really implies that we treat all the dogs badly, but could we make an exception this one time and treat her dog with a little kindness?  Well, I guess since you asked.  We'll put a big sign up on her kennel that says, "Be nice to this dog" so that we make sure not to drop her on the floor, or call her names or poke her just to see her cry.  Because usually that is how we treat all the dogs.  What good are the dogs if we can't take our frustrations out on them because their people are idiots?

P.S. We are actually nice to all the dogs, even when they try to bite us. And we don't drop any of them on the floor.

Dogs tongues are NOT the equivalent of Neosporin

Yesterday a man brought his female dog into our clinic for an incision check.  The dog was spayed five days ago at our clinic and he was worried that the incision might be getting infected.  The vet took a look at it, and sure enough, the incision was infected.  Most infections post-surgery are related to licking.  Now, normally female dogs incisions do not get infected from licking because the incision is too high for them to lick comfortably, so even if they try to lick, unless they are extremely flexible, they can't really get to it.  This is what we tell our clients when they take their pets home.  We also tell them that they shouldn't let their pet lick the incision, and if they are licking the incision, to get them an e-collar (or Elizabethan collar) so they can't lick anymore.  And, just in case we forget to mention any of this information, we send the clients home with a whole page of post-operative instructions, which also details this information. 

Okay, so back to the story.  My co-worker takes the dog out to the owner and asks him if the dog has been licking the incision at all.  He looks at her a little confused and says, "Well, yes, she has.  Is that a bad thing?  Because she has been trying to lick the incision quite a lot, but she couldn't really get to it very well so I was helping her as much as I could so she could lick it better."  Really?  REALLY?  Did you neglect to read any of the instructions that we gave you? Or listen to anything that we said?  Or to use common sense?  Did you lick it for her yourself as well or did you just hold her head up with your hands to give her a little bit of a boost?  Because contrary to some people's strange beliefs, licking incisions is not like putting neosporin on a cut.  Dog's mouths aren't naturally antibacterial or anything like that.  What exactly is it about a big slobbery tongue that most likely has also been licking it's private parts and sucking on rotten garbage, that made you think it would be good for the incision? 

So, this man's idiocy leads me to explore this strange belief.  I actually run across it frequently at work.  Many people seem to think that a dog's mouth is clean, and that licking is actually a helpful part of the healing process.  So, for my three readers our there, let me expand a little on this strange myth, so at least you can understand why this doesn't make any sense. 

I personally believe that this belief stems from two ideas.  The first is that dog's mouths are cleaner than human mouths and the second is that because dogs always lick their incisions, they must know what they are doing, so it must be a good thing. 

The truth of the first belief, that dogs' mouths are cleaner than humans' mouths can be left up to interpretation, but according to the popular TV series, "Myth Busters" it is in fact true.  Dogs mouths do in deed have less bacteria in them than human's mouths, as was demonstrated by a petre dish experiment.  But that doesn't mean they have no bacteria in them, does it?  Let's not jump to conclusions that don't make sense!  And then to go even more extreme, there is the strange conclusion that not only do they not have bacteria, but they are actually somehow healing, like a home-grown, naturally replenishing bottle of Neosporin.  Okay, think about that a bit.  Does that make sense?

The belief that dogs licking their incisions can somehow heal a wound leads me to the second idea I'd like to cover.  This is the idea that since dogs lick their incisions, they must know what they are doing, so it must be a good thing.  I can tell you, that the only time licking an incision would be good for a dog is to clean out actual debris.  Let's say that your dog jumped out of the back of a truck because you were an idiot and you put it in there without a crate (there are way too many idiots in this world, and this happens all the time, but that is another long rant that I won't get into right now because it is a HUGE pet peeve of mine) and your dog ends up with gashes full of rocks and sticks and dirt.  In this case, initial licking may help to clean out the debris from the wound, if your dog survived.  But sustained licking will most definitely cause severe infection and if your dog didn't die from your stupidity, it will die from the infection.  This is why we have vets.  And this is where any good that can come from licking ends.  Frequent licking inhibits healing by opening the wound more and constantly introduces bacteria. 

Now, to answer the question that I know is plaguing you about this whole equation.  If it doesn't help, then why do dogs lick their wounds?  (I know you are smart and you've probably already figured this out, but here goes the answer anyway, because too many people can't figure this out on their own, and this is my blog so I get to say what I want.) I'll answer that question with a series of question.  Why do you scratch an itch, like a mosquito bite, even though itching makes it worse?  Why do you suck on a papercut?  The answer?  Because it makes it feel better, even if only while you are completing the action.  And if when you stop, it hurts worse?  Well, just keep on doing it, right?  That's the way dogs look at it, anyway.

So, for the thousands of you people out there who will never read this blog, but who don't understand the reason for e-collars and bandages, this is for you.  Make good use of it.

Run Away!

Today we had a group in SLC transport several animals to our clinic to be spayed and neutered.  The girl who brought the animals down was really great. Except one small thing. The only dog that she kennelled for us she didn't latch the bottom latch. Dogs always know when you didn't latch one of the latches, and even if the other latch holds, a determined dog can slip out of the kennel regardless. Like this dog did. Even though he was a 65 pound lab, somehow he pushed his way out of the kennel, leaving the top latch locked. Houdini. Now, typically if a dog escapes from his kennel, it's not a big deal. You corner him in one area of the clinic and grab him. Done. But in this case, the escape happened so quickly that we had just finished unloading all of the dogs, cats and rabbits and the back door was still wide open. Of course the dog trots out of the back room where his kennel was, takes one look in our direction and one look at the open back door and books it out of there. He was not sticking around to see what the agenda was for the day (which I'm sure if he knew he would have ran away a lot faster). He knew what freedom looked like and he was not about to let that go. Immediately the employee from the clinic grabbed a noose-leash and headed out after the dog. I stuck around just long enough to check out the kennel and grab a control stick, threw it over my shoulder and took off after the two of them. About 30 seconds had passed and by the time I got outside the dog was already in the Maceys parking lot (I'm not good with distance, but it was several stores away from us), weaving in and out of cars, sniffing tires, peeing on light posts and really just having a great time. I think it helped his outlook a little that he had already received a pre-med, so he was probably just feeling great and relaxed about the whole thing. He really had no purpose to his little jaunt around the parking lot and he didn't particularly feel threatened by us. Because of this he wasn't actually running away from us, just purposely staying far enough away that we couldn't get a leash on him and end his pleasure stroll around the grounds.

It was a little embarrassing to be out there chasing him. First, there were a lot of people doing grocery shopping this morning.  Second, to anyone who knows the area and knows our clinic exists, it was completely obvious what happened. And if anyone had any doubt to the situation, the two girls wearing scrubs and chasing him with leashes pretty much sealed the deal as an explanation. And there were several bystanders who stopped and watched us as we failingly tried to catch the soundrel. There was one man out by the dumpster taking his smoke. I could feel his eyes and the smile in the corner of his mouth and purposefully did not make eye contact. It was bad enough that we could get nowhere near the dog without someone being so close laughing at our efforts. And the dog did take a jaunt over to the dumpster to pee on a bush near there, so I got pretty close to my audience. And the whole time (when I wasn't hatching a brilliant plan to trap this dog) I was thinking, "No eye contact. If you don't look at him directly, he doesn't actually exist." And it worked pretty well. At least by not looking at the man, I managed to avoid more blood rushing to my face to join the blood put there by running in circles through the parking lot.
This dog was in absolutely no hurry to go anywhere particular (except keep a safe distance from us, of course) and so circles were exactly what we ended up running in, with the two of us running like idiots behind him. And he was going no where fast. Now, those of you who have been in my situation will know that if you chase a dog, it runs. Even a friendly dog, and especially a dog that has been in a kennel for a couple of weeks and has finally gotten a chance to run free. So, I was really trying to find a way to not run after this dog, thinking it might slow him down a bit if he didn't feel pursued, but this dog was really determined to enjoy his freedom and smell as much ground as possible before he got caught. And we were forced to run just to keep an eye on the thing. As soon as he got bored of the Maceys parking lot he turned around and headed back the direction he came, back through our back alley and into the neighboring houses. (This whole situation reminded me of chasing the feral cat across 800 North, and seemed just as futile. The whole time I was praying that I wouldn't have to through myself into traffic on either busy road - 800 North or State Street - to stop this carefree dog from hurting itself.)

It turns out that the neighborhood was the best place it could have gone - for us anyway, definitely not for the dog. By the time I sprinted out of the alley (the dog booked it out of there, no circles in the alley) I couldn't see the dog anymore, but luckily there was another small loose dog (not from our clinic, we didn't lose two!) that was barking madly several houses down. Then a second later, our scoundrel appeared from behind a nearby car, stopped to pee on a tree, and took off down the side of the house, with the little dog barking behind him all the way. Thanks to the yip-yap who tipped me off to our dog's location, I booked it over there, control stick over my shoulder, and made it to the side of the house just to discover the scoundrel coming back out. Fortunately for me it was just what I wanted the side of the house to be. A fence halfway back blocking his exploration, a fence up the side and a me at the entrance blocking his escape. I planned on using the control stick to nab the sucker but the dang thing got all tangled in itself so I tackled the dog and threw it to the ground and lassoed it with some spare rope I carry with me everywhere I go, just for instances like this. Just kidding. The control stick got tangled so I grabbed the dog by the scruff and put the control stick on by hand, since I didn't have a leash. The other way just sounded cooler. The dog was really nice, so once he knew he was caught, he basically walked me back to the clinic himself. Case solved.

The Use of Coupons

The other day a man walked into my work with his cat on a leash and harness. I could tell by the look in the cat's eyes that he was as unenthused about walking into a lobby full of dogs as I was about him being on a leash. I much prefer him to be in a carrier, owing mostly to the number of scars that I bear from cats that have come in without a carrier. As I went to take him from his owner before he got really freaked out, the man tells me that his cat responds to voice commands, like a dog. He will sit and stay on command. I should try it while he's here at the clinic and see if he'll do it for me. I am momentarily impressed by the cat's training (and by momentarily, I mean about one second, like moment-ito in spanish, meaning "very little") but more extensively I am doubtful that he'll have any desire to obey. The cat looks much more interested in finding the easiest way out of that room than he is interested in sitting or staying. So, while the owner must have spent quite a bit of time and energy training his cat, he spent very little time thinking about what makes his cat happy (at this time it is not being eaten by dogs, ie: coming in a carrier).

So, as we always do with people who don't think these things through all the way, my co-worker strongly encouraged the owner to bring back a carrier for his cat to go home in, much to the owner's dismay. Apparently his cat being in a carrier is a much more horrifying idea than his cat being attacked by some wayward dog (disclaimer: that has never happened, to-date. Mostly the techs get eaten by cats and the dogs stay away.)

Later that afternoon, the concerned owner returns to pick up his cat, carrier in hand. Yeah! Score one for the clinic. But apparently our obvious misunderstanding of his cat's need to be free and roam the world on a leash instilled some doubts about our motives into this man's head. After he finished cooing at his cat in the carrier (saying things about how crushed he must be to be in such a small area, Don't worry, I'll get you out of there soon, yaddi, yaddi, yaddi. The man must have forgotten that worse things have happened to his cat today than the carrier. He did just get neutered...) he turns to the receptionist and asks her one of the most inane questions I have yet heard. He asks why we require all coupons in the morning at intake. Which is a simple enough question in and of it's self. But then he follows it up with this golden question, "Is it so that you can give less care and attention to the animals that come in on coupons? I feel like my cat was in danger because I used a $5 off coupon. That you wouldn't watch him as closely..." Cha-ching! You hit the nail on the head with that assumption! Not that we don't have enough things to watch and keep track of during the day with upwards of 40 surgeries to prepare for and perform in a seven hour period, but we want to keep track of all the people who used coupons in the morning so we can make sure that we give their pets less care and attention than the rest of the pets. We also make sure to drop those pets while they are asleep and give them less drugs so they feel more pain, and stick them in a room where no one goes so no one can watch as they wake up. Who cares if those pets die? Their owners saved $5 on the surgery.

And in case you thought that man had a valid concern, the real reason we ask for coupons in the morning is because the receptionist spends the day putting in people's paperwork so that when they pick up in the afternoon, they don't have to wait for it. Each paperwork can take up to five minutes to put in the computer, and we have a system that doesn't allow you to put in negative invoices, such as coupons, so you have to redo the whole thing when someone hands you a coupon. This fact was lovingly explained to the man who doesn't think things through and hopefully his concern over his sweet, free, command-obeying cat was resolved. We do treat every pet with the same care and compassion, regardless of whether or not the owner used a coupon that day.

Goldfish Plant Seedling

I have this seedling (pictured above) that is growing in my plumeria plant pot. At first just the leaves appeared and I thought for sure it was a Goldfish plant. (The mommy plant is pictured below.) And then it started growing more and now I'm not so sure it is a goldfish plant. They say the seeds do not grow true, meaning they don't look like the mother plant. But come on! How did a Goldfish become a cactus? This apple did fall far from the tree, didn't it?

Mommy Goldfish Plant with little goldfish flower.

What a real goldfish plant looks like. (Not a cactus.)

I'm interested to know if I am the only one who has grown a cactus from a Goldfish plant. Please, let me know if there is anyone out there who has had such luck. Or any other interesting plant growing experiences too.

We love our ferals

Ahh...sometimes the extent to which we love our ferals cats just amazes me. (Feral cats are wild cats, can't handle them any more than you can handle a wild racoon.) This story proves the point perfectly.

It was a typical day, with a typical lady who brought in a feral cat in a carrier to be spayed. The surgery went as usual, the cat was returned to its carrier and the lady picked the cat up later that afternoon. Unfortunately, it wasn't until the lady was in the parking lot, headed to her car that anyone realized that she had a faulty latch on her carrier and without a lot of pushing and maneuvering, it wouldn't shut all the way. So this lady's feral cat, who is still loopy with the drugs, gets out of the carrier in the parking lot. Normally, it's a lost cause. The cat is gone, never to be seen again. But this lady really loves her cat, so she runs inside and tells my manager what happened. My manager runs outside, finds the cat, runs back inside to grab a net and my other co-worker (I narrowly miss partaking in this adventure because I am gratefully on the phone) and they both go darting out the door to chase a poor, delirious wild cat around the parking lot with a net.

In terms of animal safety, our clinic is located in one of the worst locations. We are right off of 800 N and State St in Orem. Two of the busiest streets around. 800 N has recently been expanded to a 6 lane highway to accomodate the heavy traffic flow. And where does this delirious at run? You got it, right into the middle of 800 N. And my beloved co-workers follow right after it. Do they wait for traffic to clear before they cross the road? No. Because they have a wild cat to catch (which miraculously makes it to the other side without being squashed). Luckily my co-workers had a big net to wave around in the air, because when they darted into 800 N in pursuit of the cat, they actually had to stop traffic in order to get to the other side. Now picture this as if you are actually driving down 800 N and witnessing the whole thing. In the distance, you see a little black dot wobble drunkenly across the street, narrowly missing cars and you you think, "That's strange, I wonder what that was." And then here comes the answer. Two vet techs wearing scrubs come darting after it just seconds later, one is holding a net and waving it wildly around her head, and the other one is waving her arms. And just when you think that they wouldn't possibly be so crazy as to continue across this busy road, they step out into your lane, right in front of your car. Luckily, you were already so amused by the scene, you were slowing down, so you are able to stop and watch as the pair finishes spastically crossing the street on the tail of the cat. You just have enough time to realize that all three of them came from the clinic across the street and wonder at their determination before you continue with your daily commute home. And yes, that does make my co-workers just a little bit crazy. Because if you think about it, it's a wild cat that they risked their lives for. And perhaps that makes them noble as well as crazy. But I'd rather be alive than either. That's just me.

Anyway, back to the cat chase. Luckily, the cat runs into the used car lot which has a fence instead of to the nearby neighborhood where it would be lost forever. The chase draws the interest of a used-car salesman who comes out to watch. The cat gets cornered in the fence and finally gets trapped in the net. My triumphant co-workers cross back over 800 N (cautiously this time) and return the cat to its grateful caregiver. The cat is none to pleased with the whole event. In the meantime, I am standing with a lobby full of people who are there to pick up their pets for the day, but all of them are so interested in what is going on outside that none of them can form coherent sentences. So discharge is put on hold until the victors return with their prize.

Now if that doesn't show love for our feral cats, I don't know what does.

Like your mom said, you're an idiot.

I think it's story time again. The other day at work, this guy brings his cat in on a harness for surgery. Intake at my clinic is like the state fair, in all sorts of ways, but most specifically there are too many people in one space and lots of nervous animals (really just dogs and cats) making a lot of noise. So animals tend to get freaked out. Especially if that animal is a sweet (big) house cat who has never been outside until now. And your idiot owner thinks it's OK to bring you in on a leash. We tell that guy that he is going to need to bring back a carrier for his cat when he picks him up. Then as we proceed with the day, the cat, needless to say, is pretty freaked out and won't let anyone touch him. We have to put him in a net a tranquilize him like a wild animal in order to do surgery. So, since we can't touch the cat, a harness isn't going to suffice for him to wake up in. I call the number on the paperwork, to tell them that we either need a carrier now or they need to purchase it. The person on the other line happens to be the guy's mom. Leave it to your mom to be the most honest. Her comment to the situation is, "My son brought the cat in on a leash? Well of course the cat is freaked out! My son is such an idiot! I guess we'll buy a carrier..." I couldn't have put it better myself. Your son is an idiot. But at that point, I didn't realize how much of an idiot he was until later that day.

When the son came to pick up the cat, he brought the carrier. A little too late to be helpful, and he certainly wasn't in the mood to be helpful, either. He insists that we switch the cat to his carrier, even though it is wide awake and growling at everything that moves. I tell him it would be unwise to do so, since the cat is not happy. He says there is no way that he is going to pay money for our carrier when he has a carrier with him. I use this moment to emphasize the importance of having the carrier in the morning, like we told him to do. To which he stubbornly insists that his cat has always been more than pleasant when he took him to the vet in the past, even in a harness. And yes, I did ask him if that vet was full of barking dogs and lots of people. (OK, so perhaps it was unnecessary to prod him so far, but on a good day I have little patience for stupid people, and this guy just rubbed me the wrong way, and that day was not a good day.) But, at his insistence, I let the guy switch his cat to the other carrier. I have to take him into the back, behind the scenes, and he's cooing at the angry cat and trying to get him to go into his carrier, which the cat refuses to do, and finally the guy says he'll just walk the cat out in his arms. And you know, I can be stubborn too. I tell him that I can't let him do that because if the cat runs away in the parking lot then he can blame us and it's not a liability that we are comfortable with (which is technically a policy we do adhere to, though for some nice people we let them walk out with cats in their arms, but not for stupid people.) My co-worker, who is sick of watching this guy coo at his growling cat, backs me up and tells him to get his cat in the carrier now (more or less). In the process, the cat pees on him. Which I ignore and once the cat is settled and growling comfortably in its carrier, I take him up front to finish the discharge instructions. I barely even noticed that the guy went to the nearest sink to wash his hands. A sink which just happens to be right where we clean out the surgery packs, which are usually full of testicles and ovaries. Yum. The guy comes back into the lobby and basically storms out the front door with his cat. I yell back to him, "did you want the paperwork and pain medication?" (as sweetly as possibly, of course). He grudgingly turns around, grabs it and leaves as I yell a few quick post care instructions that I'm sure he didn't hear. I didn't care. I was just glad to be rid of him. But I wasn't rid of him.

Later that day, we had just finished discharging the last of the animals when I glance up and there's an officer of the law, standing in my front lobby. A little shocked, as I always am to see an unexpected officer of the law, I go up front and put on my most courteous voice. "We've had a complaint about your clinic. Do you mind if I take a look around the place?" "Not at all," I say "what kind of complaint did you get?" "Well," the officer says, "the complaint is that your clinic is filthy and shouldn't be allowed to function this way." "Sometimes it can get quite dirty in here, and smelly too. We do have a lot of animals here at the same time. But we do try to keep it as clean as we can. You know we do have to be here too, so we clean up the messes as quickly as possible." At this point the officer is standing right in the middle of the clinic so he has a good view of everything. "The man making the complaint says that you have blood and gore everywhere. That it looks like a butcher shop, but I don't see anything here that would resemble that." And just then it clicks. The idiot cat man. The sink. The blood and guts. Well, that's what he gets for using the sink without asking. We have to wash the blood off somewhere. I would have directed him to a much cleaner sink if he'd just asked. No need to go tattle-tale to the cops about it. But the cop was here now, so I explained the situation to him. He seemed to understand. I apologized for wasting his time and he seemed like it was no problem at all. He was just curious to see the situation for himself. It just made me wonder what this stubborn, immature man told the cop to get him to come all the way over to our clinic, just to check out a bloody sink.