Pawcurious Vet Blog: Pet help, stories, and information with Dr. V

Woo hoo! I am so excited to have my fancy schmancy awesome new website live! My website designer is probably excited too since this means I am done pestering and asking questions that make it apparent how very little I know about web development.

In honor of this exciting occasion, how about a prize? Comment below with:

1. A story about your pet

2. The coolest feature of this new design

or 3. A good joke (We can always use good jokes.)

I’ll toss all the names in a hat and let the kids draw one at random and I’ll send the Lucky Winner a $25 PetSmart gift card to celebrate this most auspicious occasion!

Jon and Kate got you down? Need some good news to look forward to? I’ve got you covered.

Stay tuned to pawcurious- I’ve been working with the fabulous Joelle at Moxie Design Studios, and the New and Vastly Improved site will be up and running shortly! I can’t wait. It looks fan-tastic.

Comments are disabled while the entries are being migrated to the new server, though my e-mail will still work if you have a pressing need to contact me, which I imagine you won’t. If you need something else to keep you entertained in the meantime, may I suggest I Can Haz Cheeseburger:

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Sorry kitteh, I love salads too.

Like most (all?) medical professionals in our state, veterinarians have a continuing education requirement. I’m not against it at all. It’s actually pretty staggering how much changes in the field from year to year. I’ve been out of school less than 10 years and I already feel like a grumpy old geezer when I go to these things- “Whaddya mean you’re not supposed to use steroids for trauma? In MYYYYY day, we slugged those guys with 2 bottles of solu delt! And they LIKED it!” (needs to be said in a Dana Carvey voice.)

On the other hand, it’s also kind of intimidating to sit there with your notebook and realize that all the stuff you spend sleepless nights committing to memory for 4 years is now invalid. I learned lots of great things about new anti-seizure medications; picked up a few techniques for dealing with fractious cats; spent an hour bemusedly watching a practice consultant unsuccessfully attempt to convince a room of 50 year olds that if they wanted to bring in the young uns, they need to stop paying for yellow page ads and start a Facebook page. He’s right, of course. I would venture probably 2 out of the 100 people in the room had a Facebook page, and maybe half of them knew what Facebook was, period.

I sat in on a surgery session, even though I hate surgery and try to avoid it as much as possible. I figure that is all the more reason to go and try and learn it a little better. The speaker was fabulous. He convinced me, personally, as though he were speaking DIRECTLY to me, that I could do a stenotic nares repair. I’m ready. It’s not a challenging surgery- au contraire, it’s actually pretty simple- but I worry about anything like the nose where your results will be staring you in the face every day if it is less than perfect. I am a huge surgery wuss. Learn by doing, they say. Next stertorous pug that comes through is All Mine.

I kept my ear open all weekend hoping to catch a hint of some debauchery- didn’t anyone go out drinking with the drug reps and end up naked in the hotel pool? I thought that’s what people did at conferences. Maybe that’s just in sales, though. The worst transgression I heard was a person who skipped out on the 3 pm lecture to go to Disneyland with her kid. What can I say? We’re a dull bunch. I was even worse- I holed up in my room at 6, ordered room service, and watched the So You Think You Can Dance results show. (Max got robbed, by the way.)

Lack of poor behavior aside, it was a very positive experience. It’s easy to get into a routine in this job, just like any other, and going to a weekend of learning is really re-energizing if you allow it to be. Of course, those who weren’t in the same state of zen snoozed in the back, and that’s OK too. Maybe they were hungover.

I’ve been wanting to take Emmett to dog beach in the worst way, but life keeps getting in the way. Emmett gets Very Excited at dog beach. The first time I took him was not two weeks after I brought Mulan home; I didn’t know her too well so I was focused on her while we were there. Emmett went nuts. He was having the time of his life. So much so, in fact, that he followed his new doggie friend out of the beach, down the sidewalk and onto a busy road. The whole time I am running after, dragging Mulan by the collar because I didn’t want to stop long enough to put her leash on and lose sight of him. The people he was following eventually heard me screaming and stopped long enough for me to catch up.

That was 6 years ago. It traumatized me for a bit. We took a break from unsecured dog beaches for a spell, and stuck to fenced in dog parks. We went a few more times after that, after both dogs were a little better trained, but only when I had my husband with me so we each got one dog to watch.

Then I had the kids, and we were outnumbered again in terms of creatures to supervise. Back to dog park it was.

When he was diagnosed with lymphoma, I made a Doggie Bucket List of things I knew Emmett would want to do. Dog Beach is on there, as is “eat filet mignon,” “eat chocolate,” and “joyride in Dad’s car (check)”. Dog beach is easy at this point- only one dog to watch, and the kids are pretty independent now. The only problem is, I’m nervous to take Emmett to a place with dogs running amuk since he is fairly immunosuppressed from his chemotherapy, so it needs to wait until he is on a less frequent regimen.

In the meantime, we decided to go to the lake and feed the ducks. It will do for now.

First, find a pleasant spot with eager ducks eyeing you for food.

Next, convince your dog that the ducks are in fact the main attraction.

Bread is an alluring attraction for both mammals and avians. You get bonus points if you manage to scare passers-by who mistake the Gentle Leader for a muzzle and clutch their children to their breast as they scurry by, loudly proclaiming that no, they may NOT pet the dog.

Our maneater also doubles as an effective shepherd, pausing in his exploration to give the ones with the shortest legs a chance to catch up.

I know it’s not Dog Beach, Emmett, but it was a nice day nonetheless. I promise you, we will go soon.

How funny that I just posted last week about Southwest’s new “pet friendly” policy, and one of the comments was to the effect of how nice it would be to have an airline where all the pets were welcome in the cabin.

Ask, and ye shall receive! Voila- Pet Airways!

Their prices seem pretty inexpensive to me (in the mid $100 range each way), especially considering the alternatives. Flying a pet in cargo certainly isn’t cheap, nor is hiring someone to drive your pet if you cannot yourself. It looks like the pets go in a twin turboprop and hop across the nation in shorter segments. There are no pictures of the cabin on the website, but the YouTube video shows a stack of carriers restrained within the cabin much like a row of kennels.

The number one thing this has going for it, in my opinion, is the presence of an attendant to monitor the pets during flight, as well as what I would assume is better tracking than your typical pet cargo route. The most dangerous moments for a pet in the air are the times on the ground, ironically enough, when pets are on the tarmac.

I would love to hear from someone who has any experience with this airline, or any airline, actually, for comparison. The last time I personally flew with a pet was in 1983, so my personal anecdotes on the topic are a little sparse. That being said, this is definitely something I would consider should I need to get a pet across country, especially with a pet too large to go in a commercial cabin. If you had, say, a 40 pound English bulldog with a compromised airway, this would be WELL worth the money.

I just looked at their endorsements- what the heck, Pet Airways? All your endorsements come from men. Who, I wonder, is most likely to spring for this kind of thing? If you want to convince people to open their pockets for such a luxe experience, I recommend a few glamorous female endorsements- maybe a celebrity or two, or an- ahem- female veterinarian. I’m just saying.

Because there’s always an interesting misconception to clear up here at the vet clinic.

Every pet that has an anesthetic procedure at our clinic also has an intravenous catheter placed in one of their front legs. We leave it in until the patient is recovered, in case we need quick access for additional injections. We remove the catheter before the owner arrives, and place a small bandage on the arm which the owner is to remove at home. This is our standard discharge procedure.

I spayed a very cute little terrier today, who is owned by a very cute older couple. When their puppy was brought out to them, the lady asked, “What’s with the bandage?”

My tech reiterated the information that it was from the IV catheter and could be removed at home.

The lady looked at the bandage, then at the tech. “Don’t catheters go in the vagina?” she asked, in front of the entire waiting area.

Upon reflection, perhaps she was thinking of a urinary catheter- and in the world of dog anatomy, one does access the urethra through the vulva, so this is not entirely out of left field, I suppose. It would really make anesthetic induction a bitch, though. Get it? Haha! Yes, that one never gets old.