Client Conversations #11

“I’m sorry to say it but Bailey is starting to get a little bit chunky, I think it would be worth getting a little bit of weight off him”

“It’s Trump’s fault”

Client Conversations #10

Working in an affluent area sometimes turns up some unexpected responses.

Discharging a patient from the hospital, this was the conversation with our tweed wearing client:

“ He’s really starting to struggle now, his blood protein is very low. We need to get some nice, easy to digest, good quality protein into him – cottage cheese, egg or chicken are all good ways of doing that.”

“Pheasant?”

Willum's cleansing

     I was up at Willum’s farm doing some routine dairy work, the main job that morning was a cleansing. This is a particularly foul task. Once a cow has calved and the calf is up and about, she then pushes out the placenta, which has become detached. This normally happens less than 8 hours after calving, although it can be up to 24hours. Usually she will then eat the lot. It’s a useful evolutionary device – less smelly bloody mess about for the wolves to track you, and it’s a lot of good nutrition that would be a shame to waste. Sometimes after calving, the placenta does not come away and remains attached to the womb, especially if the birth was difficult or the cow has a metabolic issue. This is called retained foetal membranes. It leaves the cow with a load of tissue without a blood supply hanging from her vulva. Over the next few days, it starts to decompose, and the smell is pretty horrific. 

     At the time, the recommendation was to allow the tissue to rot for a few days to soften it up, then remove as much as possible without actively tugging or causing trauma to the uterus, and following it up with a hearty dose of antibiotics. This has been a staple of the rural vet’s workload for a hundred years and more. The recommendation now is that manual removal of the retained membranes is contraindicated – don’t do it, just snip off the worst of it, leave the rest alone and it will sort itself out in time. Unless the cow is sick, she doesn’t even get antibiotics. 

     But this was back then, when we were still removing the rotting membranes from inside cows, and that was what Willum had summoned me to do this morning. He greeted me enthusiastically, grinning and giggling from the start.

“I’ve got a right ripe one for you here, kept it special for you like”

“Aye, thanks for that, you’re a pal”

     He walked a quiet Holstein Friesian into the handling area. She was a bonny cow, classic black and white markings, soft eyes, slavery nose and chin, and a deep lowing moo when you talked to her. There was a long twisted rope of flesh hanging out of her back end, flapping around her hocks. It smelled pretty bad from a distance.

“I’ve been letting it cook for a few days, get it good an ready!”

     I donned two shoulder length plastic gloves on my right arm to protect me from both the bacteria and the smell. Rubbing some lubricant on my gloved arm, I handed Willum the manky tail to hold and pushed my hand in through the vagina and up into the uterus. Immediately a hot splash of foetid liquid poured out, spattering on my boots as I gagged and retched. Willum fell about laughing.

“You know Willum, you could do this yourself, you don’t need to be paying me to do it.”

“Are you joking, man? This is the best laugh ah get aal week, it’s priceless watching you an ya wee screwed up face hurling all ower the place. I wouldna miss it for the world!”

“You’re a real bastard, you know that?” I was assaulted by another wave of hot putrid decomposing flesh, and it was all I could do to hang on to my breakfast whilst clutching the handful of membrane I had secured. I eased it off the uterine wall, removed it, flung it on the floor and went back for more. I was very high up the womb now and was reaching for something at my very fingertips, my face and body pressed up against her rump as I stretched for an extra inch when suddenly she farted and shot a full stream of faeces directly into the side of my face and down my neck, inside my waterproofs. Willum collapsed to the ground and let go of the tail, which whipped me around the face. He was laughing so hard he couldn’t even stand up to help me. My lips were clamped shut, desperately trying to keep the muck out of my mouth. My ear was full of hot cowshit. I brought my left hand up and used the side of my finger to scrape everything clear of my mouth so I could breathe. Willum, dying of mirth managed to pass me a handful of paper towel, tears rolling down his cheeks, gasping for air between guffaws of laughter. I rubbed the worst off my face, still inside the cow up to my shoulder.

     “You Bastard.” I was not impressed, which made it even funnier for him. He was trying to apologise, but still weak with laughter I could barely hear him wheezing out “Sorry, but…”

     I finished up as quickly as possible and stood dejectedly in the yard. It was only lunchtime and I was filthy. Willum’s mother came out from the house, over to where we were standing.

“You’d better come in for a clean up and a bit o dinner, you’ve earned your bait the day lass!”

     I kept a spare shirt in the car, so I put away my kit, stripped off as much as modesty allowed into a mucky pile on the ground behind the car, and headed into the house. The bathroom was basic and pretty ancient. There was brown shaggy carpet on the floor with a crusty path worn through it, a freestanding bath and a chipped pink sink boasting a sliver of gritty soap. I took off the rest of my filthy clothes and set to work trying to clean myself up as best I could. The soap was Cusson’s Imperial Leather, an old cracked impenetrable bar with sand wedged deep into the seams on the fissured surface. It was about 40% label, that rigid square they set into the branded bars. It wouldn’t lather in the hard water. I dried myself with a stiff, scratchy towel and put on my fresh shirt. I thought I looked okay given the circumstances. I gave my hand a quick test sniff and recoiled in horror. My whole arm was stinking. 

     I felt better after a proper cooked lunch; knowing how awful the job was going to be they had even made me some trifle. After a bit of joshing over the table, I made my way back to the surgery. 

     The nurses immediately threw me out the building; despite a full change of clothes and repeated scrubbings with surgical soap my warm skin was releasing the aroma of dead rotting flesh. I had muck stuck in the folds of my ear, and a smear of blood through my eyebrow that I had somehow missed. But I also wore a smile, because for all the hardships and mishaps, the gruelling work and truly awful smells, farm work has always filled me with joy.

Chainsaw Massacre

This is what it looks like when your patient decides to chew the IV drip line running into their paw, then tries to shake the bandage off. This is their in-patient record which was clipped to the front of the kennel. They also chewed the corner of the paper.

(The patient made a full recovery, despite their best efforts)

Client Conversations #9

"I'm not sure if it's a boy or a girl, I don't know how you sex them. I've always had older rescue cats before. I tried to find out, I went online and Googled "sex kittens". I won't do that again!"

Every pet deserves a chance

     “You know I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t desperate, but no-one will help him and his fish will die. Is there anything you could do?” 

     I took a long slow breath. “Okay, I can’t promise anything, it’s really not my area, but I can talk to him. Text me his number and I’ll call in the morning”. I hung up with a feeling of doom. I always worry when personal and work life collide. My soft hearted mate was lobbying on behalf of a friend of his who was a Koi carp enthusiast. He had spent all his spare time and money investing in special ponds and filtration systems to look after a handful of these friendly big fish. Now one of them was sick, and he couldn’t find a vet to treat them. His local vets all gave him the brush off saying they don’t treat fish. The fish vets out on the coast wanted to charge him an arm and a leg to do a full inspection including travel cost, full day consultation fee plus drugs, running to hundreds of pounds. They weren’t able to find that much cash at short notice having maxed out on setting up the facilities. He was getting desperate, and with every set back the infection was gaining ground, untreated for longer. 

     “Hello is that Paul? I’m Ranjit’s friend, Heather the Vet. He says you’ve got a problem you need a hand with? “

     Over the course of the next 10 minutes Paul told me all about his fish, not in abstract terms but as individual characters who had likes and dislikes, different personalities. He was clearly besotted. He had been caring for Koi for 8 years, learning as much as he could and giving them the best life possible. But now his favourite, Big Momma was sick. A minor scrape on her side had become infected and was spreading rapidly, killing off the scales on that side, affecting the muscle and causing pain and suffering. I didn’t want to get involved, but neither did anybody else and I wasn’t going to let this animal suffer just because it was inconvenient. His final sign off clinched the deal:

“She’s my favourite fish and we love her very much. Please help us?”

     In order to legally diagnose, treat and prescribe for Big Momma I had to officially register the fish as being under my care. We started by getting as many details as possible – the basics like name and address, then moving on to fish names, lengths, ages and weights. I needed as much information as possible. Next I wanted to see the lesions on Big Mommas side to assess the damage and also to chart progress. I asked for a set of photographs to be taken. Whilst I waited for Paul to email me with all the information I needed I did a little research about the best treatment for problems like this. I was delighted to discover that the most effective (and crucially, licensed) treatment is a relatively common drug that I had sitting on the shelf. All I had to do was dispense a five day course of antibiotic at 14milligrams per kilo of fish, and supply the equipment to inject the fish once daily.

     My phone pinged; Paul’s email had arrived and I could see the problem myself for the first time. The poor girl had an extensive infection causing necrosis of the skin and loss of scales. The raw flesh underneath was poking out. Based on the measurements I worked out the appropriate dose and ran to the post office – this fish needed the drugs by tomorrow or it might be too late. 

The infection spreading

     Over the following week I checked in regularly to see how Big Momma was getting on, and for days she seemed to stay the same – no spreading infection but not getting better either. And then, suddenly, a shift. The dead scales were still getting pushed out but instead of raw flesh underneath there was healthy granulation tissue. She was fighting back, making a scar.

The infection stopped, dead tissue sloughing and nice white scars forming

     It took two weeks of daily care, cleaning the wound , removing all the dead tissue and giving an injection of antibiotics, but I was delighted to receive an email telling me that Big Momma was back to normal, the scar was healing and she was eating and wanting tickled again. It was an odd one for me, but very rewarding, and for Paul and Big Momma it meant the world. 

A Sticky Situation (photos)

Those who throw sticks for dogs have never had to stitch up the throat of a dog with stick trauma injuries.

Tongue ripped right up to the tonsil. Wound caused by stick

Splinters and blood removed, wound flushed clean

A zillion tiny stitches in a space my fingers struggle to access

Rodeo Adventures

     “Wey hinny, it’s Darren up at Shielings, me Dad’s away on holiday an I’m looking after the beasts an there were this calving and it was reet difficult mind, an I think I might hae brocken it’s leg when it came oot an oh ahm gonna be sick lass, an I’m so sorry but ah dunno what to do. Me Dad’ll be ower upset. What am ah ganna dae? Can you come?”

      I’d visited Bobby’s farm a few times, up at the far North reach of the practice, well off the beaten track. The nearest village had one of those names that you can only pronounce if you’ve lived there all your days. I always timed my visits to coincide with lunchtime, partly due to the distance and timing to get back for afternoon surgery, partly due to Carol’s spectacular lunches. She was a quiet, serious woman in stark contrast to Bobby’s gregarious nature– especially when there were ladies to charm. A visit from us usually involved some pretty heavy banter and leg pulling whilst we got the job done. He liked to tell dirty jokes that would leave me lost for words, and watch my reaction. I never went into the house if Carol wasn’t home. 

     This time, Bobby and Carol were away off to the sunshine, leaving their son to run the place. I didn’t really know him, but the word at the mart was that he was great with machinery, but not much of a stockman. This morning he crossed the yard to meet me, visibly distressed. 

“Ah didn’t mean it an ah don’t know what happened, yon big calf got stuck and I had to jack it oota her. But now it winna stand an ah think it’s leg’s brocken…”

     I got him to lead me to the calf, still damp from birth, held in a pen on the concrete whilst the cow looked on through the gate, waiting in the deep straw. On clinical exam, three legs seemed okay but the front left was definitely out of sorts. The bones of the foot were not sitting in the correct place – the fetlock was dislocated. Darren had turned away and looked like he was about to throw up as I wiggled the hoof. I realised I knew what had happened, and thought I’d better fix the cause before it happened again. There was no point in giving him a hard time, it was an honest mistake made from ignorance rather than malice. 

     A calving jack is a clever little bit of engineering designed to help you manually pull a calf from a cow. It’s a long ribbed metal bar with a bracket at the top at right angles to make a capital letter T, the bracket sitting against the cows rump. Ropes are attached to the feet of the calf, and hooked on to a travelling section which gets cranked up the length of the long rod, easing the calf out a tiny bit at a time, pulling first the right leg then left as you work the jack handle. It wiggles the calf out, and has made calving an awful lot easier. There are a few pitfalls though, one of which is that attaching the ropes below the knuckle of the fetlock means that that the weak joint is put under a lot of strain, and it is relatively easy to pull it apart, dislocating the foot. 

“When you put the ropes on the feet for the jack, it’s a bit more secure and a wee bit safer to make your slip knot above that knuckle joint. You get a better grip and the bones are stronger there” He nodded vigorously.

“Ah’ll nivver dae that again. Will we have to shoot him? He’s a reet grand muckle calf an all. Ah cannut believe it.”

“Well, he’s still pretty fresh and bendy, I’d like to give something a try rather than just give up on him”

     I went to the car and brought out what I needed to make a “stookie” or plastercast. My plan was to get the bones back in the right place and hold them there for a couple of weeks. A bit of manipulation and the foot made it back into the right place, ready to be held firm. I soaked the plaster impregnated bandages in warm water and wrapped the leg up snugly, making sure to extend up beyond the next normal joint for support. It wasn’t the best looking plastercast I’ve ever done, I just prayed it would be enough. 

     I heard no more from the farm, but I was so caught up in other work that I didn’t have a chance to devote much thought to the calf. It was several weeks later when Bill came into the surgery and announced that Bobby had called and would like me to go out and take off the cast. I set off on the hour long drive up to the farm on the moor. 

     Bobby was in hearty mode when I arrived, full of the joys of spring. I was greeted with hug and much thanks for taking care of things whilst they were gone. Never one to accept compliments easily, I deflected it somewhat whilst we got on the quad bike and drove off across the fields. 

     The tiny baby calf was now a strapping fit beast, out and about in the field with it’s pals. The plan was to get alongside, hold it by the head, lay it down on the grass and remove the cast – we had brought some blades and a hacksaw with us. There were no handling facilities anywhere near where the cows were grazing. Bobby got close, stopped the bike and ambled up to the calf, hirpling with the classic farmer’s limp that comes from wrecked hips. As he drew level with the calf, its eyes flared and suddenly it shot off. Bobby lunged after it but it was long gone, leaving him to sail through the air and land on the soft ground with a thud. The calf had raised its tail up in the air and was belting along, clearly not troubled by the foot any more. A new plan was needed. We took to the quad bike. 

     Our new plan was ambitious - Bobby was to get as close as possible with the bike, whilst I hung off the side. When we got within touching distance, I was to leap off the back and catch the calf by the head. Bobby had misgivings about letting me do that, but I reassured him I was fairly hardy and would be just fine. So off we went. 

     It took a fair while to get close enough to the alarmed calf to even attempt to catch him. The first couple of tries I was almost ready to leap when he would suddenly change course and disappear at right angles. Then I had a go where I jumped a little too early and ended up sprinting along in my wellies to try and outrun him– I lost. I realised I was going to have to really go for it. We got close, I leapt and secured my arms in a big bearhug cum headlock around his neck. But he didn’t stop. He kept running, full tilt across the field with me attached, digging my trailing toes in, trying to use my weight as a brake. There was mud and cowshit everywhere as I skated across the pasture. I looked back and Bobby was trying to catch up on foot, wheezing like a rickety old horse. 

“GET THE BIKE!!!” I yelled across the field. 

     I managed to get my feet out in front of me, really dug in ith my heels and felt the pace slow. Gradually he started to wobble. I took my chance, changed my grip, turned his head towards me and with judicious use of leverage, cowped him onto his side on the grass. Grabbing a foreleg so he couldn’t get up and run off again, I shifted my weight onto his neck and waited for reinforcements. 

     The bike came roaring up behind me, Bobby wheezing and laughing and shouting all at once. 

“Bloody hell, where did you learn to do that! You really are a tough little bugger, aren’t you?!”

I didn’t have any spare breath to reply for a while. Eventually I coughed out the answer– I was the full back for the ladies rugby team at Uni and pulled in a pro tug of war team. 

     Whilst Bobby held the back legs to stop me from getting a kicking as well for my troubles, I removed the cast. It was a long and slow process, not helped by the conditions or the fact that I was now totally shattered, but little by little the plaster started to fold away from the cut I was making, and reveal a skinny but healthy leg underneath. There were a few places where the cast had rubbed at the skin, but they would heal quickly now that they were out in the open air. The joint itself felt pretty stable, and more or less flexed the way it should. 

     Swiping back the hair that was sweat-plastered to my forehead, I sat back on the balls of my feet. 

“Let’s let him up slowly and see what happens”

     He wasn’t interested in slowly. As soon as his feet were released he rocketed forward, nearly flattening me in the process, and galloped across the field. 

“100% cure! You know that costs extra, right?” I grinned. For once, I had the upper hand at Bobby’s.

Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat

     During the course of morning surgery a new client came in. They were a wholesome looking family, quietly spoken cheerful Dad, three well behaved kids sporting wrist bands for various causes and an admission bracelet for a recent festival, the eldest daughter wearing a hoodie with the Greek fish logo. They were talking about having been on retreat over the weekend – the very image of a modern Christian family – a little bit socks and sandals. 

     We took down their details and made up a new file. They had come in to register their cat. After a bit of a chat they told me that the cat had just turned up one day and moved in. It walked in quite calmly, found an armchair, and stayed. It was clearly enjoying its new surroundings and was even purring in its basket at the surgery, a happy wee cat. They had no idea where he had come from, they lived in the Station House down by the river and there weren't really any other homes or farms around. The father was feeling a bit guilty about not coming in sooner, the cat had been with them for around 3 weeks, and having decided to keep him they would like to start vaccinations, worming and flea treatment. Also might it be a good idea to scan him for a microchip? I reached for the scanner and started to sweep across his back whilst talking them through what they might need to know about keeping a cat. I was stopped in my tracks by a sharp beep from the machine – it had found a chip. This was a definite fly in the ointment – this cat belonged to somebody else and they cared enough about him to fit a chip so that if they were ever parted he would find his way back to them. I took down the number and broke the news – in all likelihood this cat had an owner and would have to go back home. 

     It took the best part of the afternoon for the nursing team to contact the microchipping database, get the personal details registered against the number and contact the owners. But Natalie worked her magic and we soon discovered that the cat came from a major town a good 12 miles away, an unattractive walk for any cat. It didn't make sense. I thought perhaps that he might have climbed into someone’s warm car engine and been trapped until the car stopped again until we looked up the addresses – both were beside railway stations. The cat had gone for a walk, hopped on the train, jumped off after a wee while and found itself in a brand new place! The only thing to do was seek out the nearest warm armchair. 

     There was a happy ending at least: the cat and his owner were reunited and the family decided that they had enjoyed being pet owners so much that they bought a kitten. All's well that ends well.

Gory photos at the end.

     It was my last night on call, the night before leaving my job and house to return to Scotland. Weeknights tended to be pretty quiet and I had an evening of packing ahead of me, cardboard boxes liberally scattered across the living room. I had decided that when I moved home, Millie the cat was not coming with me – she loved it here. She could go out if she wanted to, sit on the windowsill watching people walking past, have stairs to run up and down at 3am, all the things a cat should do. Taking her back to a second story flat in Glasgow just wasn’t fair. Jill next door had fallen in love with her over the course of a weekend when I was away and she was chief Whiskas disher-outer, and it seemed the perfect solution. She would move in with Jill and enjoy being an only cat with the undivided attention of a single lady lavished upon her. A single lady with a sun room where a lazycat could bask all day

     I packed up all her effects and took her round to Jill’s. We stopped for a cup of tea and chat as usual, putting off the packing as long as possible before I surrendered to the inevitable and headed home for a jolly time of labeling boxes. I hadn’t got my foot through the door before Bill called.

“Where are you? Got a stitch up for you, said you’d be there in 15 minutes. A dog that ripped itself out lamping rabbits. Just needs a few stitches. They don’t have much money” I grabbed my keys and headed out.

     They were waiting for me at the surgery in a rough looking van, two young guys and a wee black dog. I opened up the surgery and got them inside. The whippet was wrapped in a jumper soaked with blood. “Is that all his?” I asked them.

“Aye, it was pissin all ower an all I could think like to do was put pressure on – I’ve had my fist in there all the way.” I peeled the hoodie back to reveal a substantial gash with a fist rammed in it..

“What’s his name?” I asked, just as the second lad went in for a closer look, turned green and staggered out of the consult room to throw up in the car park. His mate took over. “It’s Ronnie. Sorry about him like, it was dark an we couldn’t see and we ran all the way back carryin him an..” “Don’t worry pal, go get your mate some water and I’ll take a look at this.” The wound was deep, the muscles were ripped all down the front of his chest. There was a clear entry wound where he had run on to a stick at full pelt. I flicked some splinters off the edge. “Right guys, you’re going to have to leave him with me, I’ll see what I can do. I’ll call you when I’m done.”

“Will he be able to work again?”

“Let’s worry about that later, right now we need to save his life. This is really serious. I’ll call you.” 

I sedated him immediately and gave him some hefty pain relief. The poor dog hadn’t made a noise yet, despite me prodding at a gaping hole in his chest. I left him to get sleepy whilst I gathered a few things I thought I would need – an operating kit with drapes, suture materials, swabs, a tray to keep everything sterile, gloves and anything else I could think of. But first I had to clean it up. With Ronnie asleep I was able to examine the wound properly. I pushed the general anaesthetic into his bloodstream and turned him on his back into a cradle to keep him propped with his legs in the air. For the first time I appreciated the full horror of his wound. The stick had pierced the skin, plunged into the muscle and been deflected by the breastbone so it ran parallel to the ribcage, cleaving the muscle off the bone and leaving a large tear. When the dog tried to reverse off the stick, the tip it had caught on the muscle fibres, and the rip had made a right angled flap. You couldn’t see the extent of his injuries at first, but making a slit in the hollow skin above revealed something akin to a butchers shop window. I took a couple of pictures so I could show his owners the extent of the damage.

     Using warmed saline I flushed the wound time and time again, removing as many splinters as I could with my fine forceps, chanting “Dilution is the solution to pollution”. It was a painstaking job, I knew that any foreign material left in there could potentially cause an abscess and stop the wound healing, or worse, set up life threatening infection. When I thought I had removed everything I could, I started the repair job.

     I was on my own at the surgery so I had to try to think ahead to everything I might need, then have it ready and laid out as once I was scrubbed up I couldn’t break sterility by touching anything and risking further contamination of the wound. Satisfied that I had everything within easy reach, I started to reconstruct his chest. It was cold in the building, midnight in the North in January, but I was sweating. First I had to establish which bit went where, which muscle belonged to which ripped end, then try to stick them back together as seamlessly as possible without leaving any little air pockets. It took a couple of hours and dozens of little stitches, but I was making good progress when his paws started to twitch. He was waking up. I was alone, unable to tend to anaesthetic gas and was doing the surgery under a ketamine general anaesthetic – very effective and cheap, but with a time limit. I stopped stitching, drew up some more drugs and tried to get a vein, but he had been laying on his back with his feet in the air for and hour and a half by this time, and the veins in his forelegs were collapsed. I started to scrabble about in desperation as he came ever more awake. With the certain knowledge that it was medically a very bad idea, but the only hope I had, I stuck the needle into the femoral vein and pushed the plunger. He settled and slid back into deep anaesthesia. I took a second to breathe, sort myself out, scrub my hands again and reapply myself to the gory jigsaw. Eventually I reached the point where I thought I had done the best I could, and put my instruments down. The dog was starting to come round and fight against the anaesthetic. It was 2.30am.

     I took him back to my house and slept beside him all night, waking briefly to top up his pain relief.

     When morning came, I opened my eyes and was greeted by the sight of a pair of soft dark eyes staring back at me. When I groaned and sat up, his tail tip flipped.

     He went home later that morning, his young owner so pleased and grateful that he brought me a present.

“Some pork chops for you missus, I 'ad a pig.”

I laid the chops on top of my already rammed car, and set off for Scotland.

     I phoned down to the surgery a week later for an update, and was delighted to hear that he made a full recovery. In time he returned to work to live out the life of the poachers dog, wild and happy.

The chops were delicious.

**DISCLAIMER** 

If this were to happen today I would handle it very differently, but I did the best with what I had at the time.

Nursing her wrath to keep it warm

“I’m sorry but this canna gan on, you’re no getting anywhere and the dog is suffering and I canna cope any more and I divven want to but I think we are gonna have to pit her doon and it’s a shame anna but we canna gan on like this and I canna keep payin’ these bills it’s not that I divven want to pay for the dog like but its not making nowt of a difference, is it.”

     A large, clearly frustrated and quite angry woman was crowding out the consult room, a tall long haired German Shepherd dog at her side, markedly underweight.
“Okay, lets back up a bit and take this a bit slower – you said I’m not getting anywhere – I’ve never met your dog, so let’s start at the start, what exactly is the problem?”

“What do you mean you’ve never met the dog like? My husband’s been bringing her doon fer weeks to try and sort oot the diarrhoea man, it’s running oot o’ her! Look at the state o’ her, aal scrawny, mekkin me look bad! All them jabs haven’t made a bit o’ difference.”

“I understand, that must be very frustrating for you and difficult to watch her like that, but the thing is, we’ve really never seen your dog here before. You registered her by phone a couple of months ago, but this is the first time she’s actually come in. Might she have been seen somewhere else?”

The woman stopped, stared at me, blinked twice then shouted

“BASTARD!!” 

She wasn’t finished. “I told him to take her and gan to the vet. He’s been tekkin her away oot every week and asking for the money for the vets bills. But that useless bloody bastard husband of mine has gone to the bloody pub again! Spending my money on beer and those waster mates of his. Well I’ll bloody show him!”

“Okay, meantime, maybe we can see about helping your dog?”

     I examined the bewildered dog gave it a jab, a combination of a couple of drugs I thought might help. The owner left with some special sensitive food, a few tablets, a set of instructions and a murderous rage.

One week later they were back for a follow up.

“It’s amazin, hinny. She cleared right up and has been fine evva since. That’s a few months she’s had this, and it couldda been fixed, but that useless bastard drank the money for hissel. I nearly had the poor dog put down!”

I was just pleased we got a result, I wouldn’t like to have faced that lady’s wrath!

Mrs Walker's Pussy

     One of the things they don’t tell you about much in vet school is that you are going to end up having to deal with your clients mental health issues. Some times that’s easier than others. Sometimes we end up doing a version of care in the community, for free. I regard that as a privilege.

     Mrs Walker was a long standing client, with an outrageously obese cat. She would always say with a twinkle in her eye, “He’s a very hungry pussy!”. He was such a hungry boy that he ended up with diabetes. There was no chance of managing him with insulin, so we did our best to get on top of his issues with a combination of diet and oral medication. As Mrs Walker was increasingly frail, rather than giving her large bags of heavy cat food she would come in and buy one or two small packs every couple of days. A sparrow like wee woman with stick legs and a cheery nature, we were very fond of her and always took a little time to speak with her, knowing that her family had all moved away and could only visit at weekends, which they did. In the wintertime she would come in with freezing hands, and we would always try to stall her and share some tea together so we could get her warmed up again before heading out into the harsh Scottish winter.

     Over time, it became increasingly noticeable that Mrs Walker was losing her marbles. Whilst this was very sad and a source of some worry for all of us, she bore it with such good cheer that we couldn’t feel too awful about it. Her visits became more frequent, at least every day and sometimes more often. We noticed that she was asking for more and more cat food, insisting that she had none. She knew she was right because she had written it down. The staff were uncomfortable about this, so one of the team offered to go round and check on her food supplies. When they arrived in her kitchen they discovered a litter tray full of kibble, and a food dish with cat litter. We started labeling the packets. 

     It was around coffee break one morning on a freezing day and I was at the reception, chatting. Mrs Walker came up to the desk and smiled at me.

“Good Morning Mrs Walker, what can I do for you today?”
“Well now, I need a comb, and my feet”
“Your feet?”
“Yes, I have an appointment. I wrote it down, see?” I looked at the proffered note.
“I think that might be an appointment for you at the hospital with the nurse?”
“Oh. Where is this?”
“The vets. I’m the vet who looks after Oscar”
She looked crestfallen for half a second, then the impish grin started to reappear.
“Of course! Never mind, I’ll just take the hot water bottle and a comb please.”