Tales from Treatment

Slices of life showing the realities of being a Licensed Vet Tech. I often post unaltered images of injured and ill animals. These are tagged as either animal illness or animal injury. My job is not all happy kittens and puppies. Welcome to the reality.

[talesfromtreatment]

Me: the morning has been hell. I'm in hell.

Universe: would you like to start of your afternoon with a new client who has a 7 year old Rottweiler?

Me: fuuuuuu-

Rottie: *is the nicest fucking dog on the planet and an absolute sweetheart*

Me: -uuuck YEAH!!!!

[talesfromtreatment]

Last appointment of the day: dog with hair loss

Suspiciously round areas of hair loss.

3 weeks after boarding.

Please don't be-

Nope. I'm still in hell.

Dof fucking lit up like a Christmas tree under the wood's lamp. The fungus is among us and I will be taking a long hot shower when I get home.

[talesfromtreatment]

Me to owner: is she on any medications, vitamins, or supplements? Is she on any flea and tick preventative?

Owner to me: No. Nothing.

Vet to owner: since she's going to the groomer soon, is she up to date on her flea and tick meds?

Owner to vet: oh yeah, absolutely!

Me, *thinking*: oh you are such a liar right now

[talesfromtreatment]

Me: the morning has been hell. I'm in hell.

Universe: would you like to start of your afternoon with a new client who has a 7 year old Rottweiler?

Me: fuuuuuu-

Rottie: *is the nicest fucking dog on the planet and an absolute sweetheart*

Me: -uuuck YEAH!!!!

[talesfromtreatment]

Might soon be taking on a coworker's leopard gecko that is having issues with her eyes, which from what I've been learning can be an early sign of vitamin a deficiency. Coworker is going to try artificial tears and supplementing but if that doesn't work I'll be taking her home. She's 5 years, has been apparently healthy up to this point. First point in my care would be vet exam, bloodwork, and a fecal test for crypto.

The last 2 pictures are as far as her eyes will open at this time, and that is with proparacaine

[wheremyscalesslither]

The look on this smol friend’s face 😂

[wheremyscalesslither]

[where-the-tumbleweed-plays]

He has been...

CONTAI-

Oh shit

OH NO

Fuck. Now I'm the one contained.

[talesfromtreatment]

New client: You can't keep my deposit! I never canceled my appointment!

Us: ma'am, you didn't show up to your appointment at all? It was at 10:30 and it's now 11.

New client: Exactly! I didn't come, that's not the same as a same day cancelation!

Us: well, firstly it's a same-day cancelation OR no-show fee and secondly, not showing up IS basically the same as canceling???

New client: it isn't! Refund me right now!

Us: No.

[talesfromtreatment]

Hey.... you ever pulled a urinary cath from a female dog and have it come out in a knot..... all of us were trying to figure out how it even happened.............

Well, first I'm cringing with my legs crossed, second I know that this is something that *can* happen with a red rubber cath and has always caused me anxiety, and third I've actually never seen a female dog get a u-cath.

[3liza]

what a party trick, though

[talesfromtreatment]

Bad trick! Do NOT!!!

[talesfromtreatment]

Hey.... you ever pulled a urinary cath from a female dog and have it come out in a knot..... all of us were trying to figure out how it even happened.............

Well, first I'm cringing with my legs crossed, second I know that this is something that *can* happen with a red rubber cath and has always caused me anxiety, and third I've actually never seen a female dog get a u-cath.

[talesfromtreatment]

*sobbing* the-they lo-love each oootheeerrrrr

[talesfromtreatment]

I do generally try very hard to not be judgmental of owners when they make certain choices. Finances are tough, people have traumas, etc etc. And I at least try extra hard to not be judgemental directly to the owner.

But Friday we're doing a repair on a huge umbilical hernia on a cat: it's big enough to stick your finger inside the cat and her intestines keep falling through it. But we're not spaying her. Even though we're already going to be in the abdomen.

Because the owner wants to breed her. Even after we told him this is a highly heritable condition. Nope. He wants to breed his blue point domestic shorthair that he found under a bush as a kitten.

[talesfromtreatment]

Hola! Hope it's ok to ask, recently I got told that there is no way to socialize kittens from a feral mom, that they will be irreversibly feral since birth. How true is that?

If your look through my "foster kitten" tag, 99% of those were born to feral moms. 99% of kittens you find up for adoption in any shelter are going to be from feral moms.

A very, VERY small sampling of kittens from feral moms. Hell, my own Sundew was a 3 week old feral kitten when I got him.

[talesfromtreatment]

When there is a note on the chart that the dog needs to be sedated for nail trims, but the owners schedule an ordinary tech appointment for you to "please just try"...

Now you have two notes. No attempts will be made to trim nails without sedation.

[talesfromtreatment]

I've got me a little trump bootlicker who is extremely upset that I'm not a fan of the trumpsterfire who keeps making side blogs to reblog that post and say that I'm a groomer and need to be raped. They're also harassing other people via reblogs too, so that's cute of them.

Guess I'm playing whack-a-mole/block-a-troll for a while.

[talesfromtreatment]

Former coworker torturing me with some puppies the shelter just transferred in. Don't have still photos so you get a screenshot:

It looks exactly like how is imagine a Brussels griffon/French bulldog cross would look

I CANNOT get over the beard!!!

[talesfromtreatment]

Mom was going through old photos and found some of our dogs that I don't have.

My beloved Aussie, a suspected catahoula mix. My ultimate heart dog. I miss him so much.

And Shelby, suspected golden/border collie mix. The sweetest, most wonderful dog you could ever ask for who also had flatulence of such potency that it could probably have been classed as a war crime.

These are all from probably around 1994-5 since Shelby doesn't have her graying muzzle yet. She had a lot more white on her chest than I remember her having.

[talesfromtreatment]

Gave an 8 year old dog a vaccine he's had yearly for his whole life with no issues. Went to go make an estimate for this dog for a surgery and not 5 minutes later the owner poked his head into treatment to say the dog had just vomited 3 times.

I go in and stare at the dog a moment: no facial swelling, no dyspnea, no lethargy. I clean up the vomit, then check his mucous membrane color: nice and pink with a good capillary refill time. I exit the room to finish the estimate and to inform doc when she finishes with her next exam.

A minute later: he's vomited 2 more times. I go back in, still no dyspnea but he's now lethargic. Lift up a lip and now his MMs are pale and muddy colored, with a CRT greater than 2 seconds. I go interrupt doc in the other exam to come look at the dog.

We give diphenhydramine IM. I go over the surgery estimate and linger in the room to monitor. Breathing is still good 10 minutes later but he's getting more lethargic. No improvement in MMs or CRT. Doc does a reasses, not a fan of heart rate/pulses. We give a steroid injection IM and some SQ fluids. I keep watching. 5 minutes later he's perking up, MMs are getting pinker. I kept him there another 15 minutes and by that time he was back to normal.

In my 26 years as a tech i can say that this is honestly the first time I've seen an older adult dog have an anaphylactic reaction to a vaccine it's gotten numerous times before. It's also maybe the 5th time I've seen an anaphylactic reaction *at all*. And you can imagine how many tens of thousands of animals I've either given vaccines to or have been working the day they got them after 26 years, including nearly a decade in a high volume shelter.

So anyways, that was my extremely anxiety inducing afternoon.

Me to the dog the whole time:

[talesfromtreatment]

Even though I knew the dog should be okay, I had anxiety dreams about him all night, so I called the owner around 9am today, and left a voicemail just asking for an update on how he's feeling.

We called again at noon, and this time it didn't even ring, just went straight to voicemail again. At this point I'm catastrophising "something happened to the dog after all. The owner hates us now." etc.

Thankfully they called back a few minutes ago to let us know the dog is doing absolutely fine. My coworkers just texted me while I'm on lunch to let me know.