We were about half full in the kennel, many of which were going home today. Plus I had three dogs coming in. Two dogs were here just for the day and for one of those it was his first time. "Willie' is a huge white German Shepherd Dog that is a Canadian champion with severe separation anxiety disorder. Actually I think he just has anxieties but, regardless, it made the day with him difficult. He had to be kept in his plastic crate when inside because he would climb out of my indoor run. Also his owner had put a dog bed in the crate, knowing he would rip it up, which he did. After a late lunch, I put him in the outside covered run along side other dogs. He actually was fine out there. The owner was sure he'd freak out and start biting the wire and break teeth (which I have had other dogs do) but Willie was quite happy out there. He stayed there until his owner came and picked him up. Score Lori!
I was appointment today but there weren't too many fortunately. Too busy with the kennel, boxing up pig tissue to send to the University of MN Diagnostic Lab, getting hours done so we can get paid, answering the phone, doing lab work....Lots of things going on.
I know my readers don't like 'gross' stuff, but after all, this IS what I do. Lab work is always interesting to me. Along with checking slides for ear mites, and heating slides, staining them and checking for yeast and bacteria (two animals had to have that done) while the doctor waits, there's also fecals to be run. One fecal from a calf, had to have a special test done to check for crypto. This causes diarrhea and can be transferred to humans. SOooo Megan didn't want to do it. On go the gloves, and I mixed and stained a slide and checked it. Eventually I called Mike to check because I couldn't find anything. Luckily, he couldn't either.
Of course, my slide isn't this pretty color but the oocytes ARE extremely tiny. I have to use a purple stain and it's negative staining, meaning everything stains but the crypto. We don't get to run this test very often but it is something we have to be very careful about. Mike has told me he's picked up crypto before from calves and it's not fun. You have to stay very close to a bathroom!
All right, enough bathroom stuff. Today Emily got freaked out (word of the day) because she oped the walk-in cooler and there were 3 dead 200# pigs. No one knew anything until we tracked down Dennis. A farmer had brought them in Saturday afternoon and Tom needed to do a necropsy to find out why they died. Thus the pig tissues I had to send to St. Paul. Even when you come to expect certain strange things, you still get surprised occasionally. Friday I helped Mike operate on a pig in the barn and we put him in a wire dog crate to wake up (the owners). Again, it was Emily who opened the door into the barn and there was a pig standing in front of her peeing! She kind of screamed.....We had to hurry and get him back in the crate because horses were due to come anytime. They would have been upset at a loose pig running around the barn.
Mike called right before we closed up today. He had gone out on a cow o.b. - or a cow having a calf for the layman. When he called, he said he never did catch the cow. The owner had the cow in a one acre field and not penned up. Mike said he'd catch the cow but after 45 minutes he had to give up. In his words " the cow's as wild as swamp grass"....not sure how swamp grass can be compared to a wild cow but there it is! After chasing this cow around the one acre (and remember, she's trying to push a calf out...), the cow busts through into a 10 acre field. That's when Mike decided he was done for the day.. All in a days work for a country vet!
