15/07/2008 by Arielle.

Amber is a gorgeous massive 70kg brown Newfoundland. She has epilepsy and her enormously patient owner has been in to see me a number of times. We could not keep her seizures under control so I referred her to the Animal Health Trust neurology unit.

She is on a cocktail of medication. The treatment for epilepsy in dogs is the same as that in humans and the side effects of the drugs are the same. They tend to make the animal put on weight. Poor Amber is now so large from all her dosing that she struggles to pull herself up on her backlegs.

We heaved her large fluffy body onto the scales today and the owners and I were thrilled for her when the scales read 70kgs - she had lost 3 kgs!

I however had a quiet fleeting thought which I did not share with the owner. Amber looks so huge with all her thick coat and I weigh more than she does!! I really need to get my head around sticking to a diet before our summer holidays - wish me luck!

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11/07/2008 by Arielle.

It was much easier for the Doctor to look at my daughter’s one swollen eye and make her diagnosis, than it is for me when a dog or cat is brought in with a large swollen lid. They tend to wriggle and possibly even bite or scratch!

When the Doctor told me to use the eyedrops and if there was no improvement, then I was to return within a day or 2 for oral antibiotics as eye infections can be very serious; I just smiled to myself.

These words echoed what I would have said to a client about their pet with a sore eye and even the Choramphenicol eyedrops were exactly the same as the ones I would prescribe.

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03/07/2008 by Arielle.

How guilty I felt last night when I got in from treating animals all day at 8pm and my husband asked if I had remembered an antibiotic injection for our own cat Buttons. I had forgotten and felt so bad for him. He had been involved in his first cat fight and not all cat bites need treatment, but this one did as his leg had swelled with the infection.

I was due to go back to work for another few days and the practice I work at is 45 minutes from where we live so I had no choice but to go to a local practice.

What a humbling experience it is. I think every professional should become a patient. I felt the same frustration getting Buttons into his carrier, then listened to him cry mournfully the whole way there. I felt very anxious waiting in the waiting room and struggled to hold Buttons for the young vet as he tried to shave and examine his sore leg.

I then had to feel the same stress of paying for his treatment (which I have obviously never had to worry about before either). So all in all, Buttons’ cat fight was a good lesson for me being on the other side of the table and luckily he is now on the mend.

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02/07/2008 by Arielle.

This has nothing to do with pets or fleas but I thought I’d share it with you!

Hot Chocolate

Now consider this: Life is the hot chocolate; your job, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain life. The cup you have does not define, nor change the quality of life you have.

Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the hot chocolate God has provided us. God makes the hot chocolate, man chooses the cups. The happiest people don’t have the best of everything. They just make the best of everything that they have.

Live simply.
Love generously.
Care deeply.
Speak kindly.
And enjoy your hot chocolate!!

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26/06/2008 by Arielle.

I had a very distraught owner rush in today with her convulsing young Schnauzer Holly. Holly had gone blind and was shaking uncontrollably in her owner’s arms. All the owner could think of that was different was that she had put down slug pellets that morning and Holly had been sniffing around them in the garden.

I admitted her straight away and we gave her some intravenous fluids and intravenous valium to control her fitting. She continued to shake violently so we gave her a full anaesthetic and then put a tube into her stomach and washed out the remains of her stomach contents.

A large amount of slug pellets came out that looked exactly like the ones in the picture above.

It is slug season and my warning to pet owners is NOT to use slug pellets (no matter how much you hate slugs as I do). Dogs and some cat find them very appealing and the metaldehyde poison in them  can kill your pet. We kept Holly in but she made a full recovery much to her very guilty owner’s relief!

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20/06/2008 by Arielle.

 Honey is a gorgeous fluffy apricot-coloured mixture between a Cocker Spaniel and a Poodle. She had been too inquisitive and came between a mother goose and its gosling.

She seemed blissfully unaware of her injury - a large open cut from the goose’s large bill right between her eyes. How lucky she was not to have injuries to her eyes. I am not sure that her open cut taught her a lesson though to leave geese alone!

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12/06/2008 by Arielle.

I am seeing so many itchy pets coming into the surgery (not to mention itchy, sneezing staff with hayfever). It is that time of the year when clients are being so diligent about their flea control, but there is another cause of itching in pets.

I have written a whole article about atopy and its treatment as we see so much of it. http://www.kill-fleas.co.uk/atopic.htm

Posted in Allergic skin, Veterinary pet advice | No Comments »

07/06/2008 by Arielle.

I felt quite moved by the story behind my one patient today. Rocky is a 19 year old Cockatiel (!). He came in for a simple nail clip which I did very carefully for such an old bird as I was very scared of him dying of shock in my hands.

The owner brought him in with her 2 grand-daughters. She told me how her husband had died on father’s day of cancer exactly 16 years ago. The doctor was at her house declaring her husband dead when she noticed 3 year old Rocky flying out the window. She could not do anything and her heart sank as she noticed him go with all the chaos of that day.

Amazingly her sister went into a pet shop that afternoon to get her mind off the family sadness and she noticed a cage with a cockatiel in it selling for £12. She was sure it was Rocky and encouraged her grieving sister to have a look.

When the owner walked into the shop, she called Rocky and they let him out the cage and he flew straight onto her head. Apparently he had been brought in by a woman with exactly the same hair colour as the owner as Rocky had flown and landed on her head when he spotted someone with her similar style and hair colour!

The pet shop owner reluctantly let Rocky go to his rightful owner. I found this story very touching. What memories Rocky holds and how incredible that he has gone on to live (and is still going strong) for so many years!

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31/05/2008 by Arielle.

Like the rest of the British public, my sons and I have been hooked on ‘Has Britain Got Talent’. Our favourite (and she makes me cry each time I watch her) has been Gin and Kate.

I think Gin is just incredible and the bond between her and Kate is wonderful to watch. What a stress being Gin’s vet if anything was to happen to her!! Good luck Gin!

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28/05/2008 by Arielle.

It is half term and we are looking after my friends guinea pigs while they are away (Harry and Cucumber). They belong to her 2 young children. My daughters are thrilled and it has made their half term.

I find it quite stressful as their last guinea pigs were eaten by a fox - thankfully not in our care!

We received a postcard today from the Isle of Wight saying - ‘We hop you are loking after the ginee pigs and they are not ded’ - pressure!!

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