Home on Tuesday

Kerry working on hind feet of Brandy

Yea! I get t o sleep in, until the alarm goes off at 7. Today is farrier day, when all the horses get their toenails done. This happens every 8-9 weeks so it's about time. I have 7 horses and Kerry usually doesn't do all of them at a time because of his fantastic trimming style - "Natural Balance". Trimming  a natural way enables the horses to go for long periods of time without trims. I put the ponies inside last night so I could catch them, and Jacky put the horses up this morning before he left for work. All I had to do was walk the ponies over to the horse barn so everyone would be in one place.
Rudy took a while since he has foundered and has been having a relapse. It means his hooves have grown too much and needs attention. Piper was not the best behaved (surprise, surprise) since she's always cranky in the morning. But she was the second most important one since she has a big horse event on Saturday. Her mother, SueBee who's a clutz, almost fell over on top of Kerry (she has trouble standing on 3 feet). Other than that everything went well although it took all of 4 hours!

Kerry and SueBee

After Kerry leaves, I go in to have lunch with Jacky. Unfortunately I haven't had time to make my chicken and rice so we both have to scrounge for something. Leftover pizza anyone? Then it's back outside to clean stalls while I still smell like horse. It was a little cool and we did have rain showers but there were things to do. I finally pushed the geese outside. They've been sitting on slowly rotting eggs (not fertile) for about 2 months so I figured it was time to get them out. Armed with a broom and lots of help (???) from the dogs, I managed to push all 4 out of the bin they stay in. Only one egg in the nest - I threw it against the barn wall where it exploded with a horrendous stench. One way or another it would have exploded.

Later on I realized the smell of rotten egg was following me around the farm. Lo and behold, Gertie had been over cleaning up that awful stuff and gotten it on her. To the shower we go! Really, she looks too cute to get in this kind of trouble...

Just so you see what it looks like at my front door, I'm including a picture I took today before I went inside. Of course there's a bunch more animals out of sight just waiting for me to call them inside...

And one last look at the allium blooming by the front door. I have so few flowers that bloom that I have to capture each one so I can remember.

Monday Blahs

The weekend went too fast. Our last Vaccination Clinic was Saturday, plus I had to do the kennels Saturday night. Sometimes I feel I live at the clinic and just come home to visit my family occasionally. Sophie is a very obnoxious Standard Poodle who's boarding right now. Saturday I just had it with her and started trying to teach her a few manners. But a lifetime of getting away with everything is hard to turn around in a few minutes. I planned " Good Manner" dog classes all the way home. I may still do that at the clinic one day. The bad manners at the Vaccination Clinic make it hard to watch. It includes pulling (like crazy), barking non stop, jumping on people (that they don't know), peeing on everything, sticking their dog noses in cat crates (much to the terror of the cats inside)....all without their owners doing or saying ANYTHING! These people raise their children the same way. I had one little boy come up and started grabbing my rabies tags. When I told him no, he tried taking my handheld calculator. REALLY! I'll put a leash on the boy and teach him a thing or two....
Not the best attitude to start an obedience class with. I'll have to cool off first.

This dog looks just like Sophie

Today I was appointment tech. Not too many for a Monday. We started out with allergy testing a dog. This was a second opinion from Austin. The dog, a lab, is 3 years old and has bad allergies. The cost to do this is about $150 and we only have to take blood and send the serum in to a special lab. As tech, once the blood is drawn it's my job to spin it, collect the serum and package it up. This one had to go by way of Fed Ex so I have to call and have them stop and pick up.
Allergies are extremely common in dogs and cats. Their symptoms include itching, rash, hair loss, redness, ear infections, licking, chewing, vomiting, diarrhea...The list goes on and on. I have dogs and cats with allergies. Mostly it's grains, specifically corn which makes up most of commercial dog and cat foods. Chicken is also a problem.
I also got to help take radio-graphs (x rays) of a horse's knee. I get to hold the film at the angle the doctor needs as he snaps a picture with hand held machine. The horse,obviously, doesn't lay down for this and often doesn't stand still for it either! With all the rain we've had, the flies were bothering him. But we did get some 'pictures' that showed arthritis in that knee. I do the processing of the films in a darkroom. Once I turn the lights out, it's all by feel. You literally can't see your hand in front of your face. I like to take schoolchildren in to show them how dark it gets. Scary! Actually I quite enjoy it. Sometimes it seems like the only quiet place in the clinic (there's no phone in this tiny 3x4 foot room...)

This looks just like me except that a doctor is holding the x ray equipment
instead of a machine

 

Home again to do a little weeding and feed the birds. Jacky mowed, Emma cleaned her lamb pen...always something to do. This past weekend was Bird weekend. The Orchard and Baltimore Orioles fed on the grape jelly I put out, A hummingbird visited his feeder, a red-breasted grosbeak stopped by and my red-headed woodpecker is back who raised a brood last summer in the bottom pasture. Now if I could convince the starlings to leave...

   

Thursday

Usually my Thursday surgery day is chaos. Not this week. I had a total of two surgeries...a tiny 3# miniature poodle spay and a shave cat. It did make for a more relaxed day however.  There was still a lot of answering phones and helping clients of course.
The shave cat was "Rockstar", a tabby and white that I've shaved before. The owner said she was getting him shaved earlier this time, when he was just starting to get mats. Last year he was one big mat over his whole body so I was pleased she was not waiting as long this time. However, once I started shaving, I couldn't believe what I found...

Beth and Pam helped show off this weird mat that was connected at each end but not in the middle. And the hair under the loop was long...how could the owner not notice this???? It looked exactly like another tail but on the side of the body and attached. "Rockstar" got the lion cut - like my cat Juju did. He looks better than Juju though.

Here is the finished  cat with his extra "tail". And yes, Rockstar is sleeping. Cats don't cooperate very well unless they are!
One unusual appointment was a trim nails for Ruby the Rabbit. We don't see very many rabbits, once a great while a rat...we're not the exotic vets here. Since my only doctor in the clinic was doing surgery on a cat's ear, I took Pam with me and we took care of Ruby who actually was "Rudy" if you get my drift.... The nails on this poor rabbit were so long, Pam compared them to the Guiness Book of World Records nail growing men from India. Here's a picture of some of the. Honestly, I don't know how the rabbit got around!

Ok, I guess you need a picture of a rabbit too...
                               
Of course this is NOT the rabbit I cut the nails on....
Lots of storms in the area. I love a good thunderstorm but missed out last night. Another town received a lot of hail,so much so that they had to use snowplows to clear the roads of hail. I took a few pictures of the clouds on the way home....Hope you like this one.

Wednesday's Float

Well, today was not a very exciting day although it was busy. Start at 7:00 a.m.with kennels. Only 4 dogs so it went pretty quickly. Max, the black lab, has to be  hand walked since he refuses to potty on the concrete. Smart dog! Anyway, on his walk Monday he scared up a rabbit and he's been looking for it ever since! The morning was quite nice to take a dog for a stroll - one of the perks to working in the kennel.
Being float tech today I wore many hats. Lots of check ins for boarders coming in Friday - 8 dogs, 4 of which are from one family. It is surprising how much paper work I have to do as manager of the kennels. Oh, other techs could do it , and have tried. But I'm very particular about how things are done in the kennel and everyone's figured out it's better to just let me do it. Well...if they could just do it the way I've done it on previous sheets...Job security I guess.
It's already the second of May and I haven't done the schedule for the kennel either. It took me most of the day but I did finally finish that. There's still too many shifts with my name but Abby will be home from college soon and things will (I hope) get better. Samantha graduates this month from high school. She'll work for me this summer but then she goes off to college to try to be a vet! I will really miss her. I dread hiring someone new. It's rare that I find someone intelligent with a good work ethic. Wish me luck!
Oh yes, this is supposed to be about animals, isn't it. No pigs today, I didn't help with appointments or surgeries. Didn't help with the horses today. I told you, no excitement. BUT I helped a whole lot of clients and that's important too.
Here's a little surgery from last week I helped with. Don't tell anyone but I took pictures! This cat had a tumor on her leg - weird, huh? I had to shave it (hard area to shave) and scrub it up. After Jen took it off, I had to make a tissue smear slide and stain it. The tumor was also sent in to the University of Minnesota Diagnostic Lab for identification.

Here's the lab area with the stains I have to use with the cut open tumor:

Finally the cat gets a pretty bandage to wear for 48 hours. Sutures have to come out in 10 days. Now she looks like a Halloween cat - black and orange!

Tomorrow's surgery day won't be as interesting. One cat to shave in the lion cut and one miniature poodle to spay.
Tonight we brought the horses and llamas inside since there was a chance of storms. It's muggy though and not sure what's best for the animals. Rudy had to have his previcox for his founder. Founder is a condition common in ponies that is inflammation in the feet. Because there's a hard wall of the hoof, the swelling can't go anywhere and it produces extreme pain. Ponies get it more than regular horses but they tend to have flare ups. It is often caused by eating new grass, or wet grass, both of which are common in spring. Rudy's been battling it for 2 months but it seems to be helped by this previcox.

Rudy last summer (sweating)

One last little observation: The Spring Peepers Are Calling!!!!!!

Monday Blues

Monday already. I was lucky getting Tony to take my two kennel shifts this weekend, otherwise I would have had to work every day. April and May are hard because the kennel is busy but my helpers also get busy! Good for business though.
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!
                                   

Vaccination Clinic Time!

Today's a busy day. I'm surgery tech which, on Thursday's has kept me very busy. Then tonight we have our second vaccination clinic. However it's already late so I'm going to post a few pictures Samantha was kind enough to take so I can go to bed tonight. Up at 5:15  to start a busy day again. I'll try to write more this weekend...

That's me, second from the left, seated at the table. I'm one of two of us that takes money for the products and shots people need today. Many people have multiple animals so it can take a while. Each animal has a slip filled out for it. I often have to fill out checks for people or hold dogs while owners write checks. Pulling dogs do not make for neat handwriting!

This is a picture of the outside of our clinic with the line going out to the road. We have people go in one door of our barn, and out the other door.

More people in line. Surprising there's not too many dog problems in line. I am constantly amazed though how many people carry their cats in their arms through this activity. They may be standing in line next to cat-eating dogs!!!!

Dr. Jennifer Bauer (in pink) is waiting for the next victim. Dr. Dennis Nelson is in the background. Tonight we had all 4 doctors working which makes the line move faster. There were some screamers though, and it really echos in the barn. Screamers are dogs that literally scream when the doctor vaccinates them, or draws blood. It tends to make clients give little nervous laughs as they worry that their dog will react the same way.

Just to show the cars lined up on the road as our parking lot isn't big enough. I never get to see this sight as I'm on duty inside... One more clinic in a week and a half. Can't wait until it's over.

Back to the writing board

It's been a while since I've written. It isn't because nothing's been going on. Au contraire...I've been putting in lots of extra hours. Routinely it's been 10 or 11 hours a day, sometimes 12! Mainly it's because the vet clinic cut hours. Doesn't make sense? Well, it means there's less people to do the same amount of work. And some things just have to be done before the close of the day. Also one of my two kennel assistants went to only being able to work weekends because she's doing an internship at a vet clinic. All this means I often have to do kennels at 5:00  which can take a couple of hours. Needless to say I'm quite exhausted at night at simply fall asleep on the sofa...
What's funny is I'm often writing the days blog in my head while at work...just can't stay awake long enough to put it in the computer. Oh well, I'll try to be better.
Today was actually fairly boring by the usual standards. EVERYONE decided to take the day off so Megan and I opened up at 7:00. Between 7 and 8 I had 2 surgery dogs to walk, eye ointment to put in the boston terrier's eye that had a melting ulcer, antibiotics to put in his food, charges to put in the computer for the exploratory/foreign body surgery I got to help with yesterday, meds to get ready for that dog, instructions for Tony my kennel guy, biplates with cultures set up to look at, checkins to do for the day,sterilize more surgery packs from yesterday, answer the phone...Whew! Makes me tired again.
I'll tell you a little about the surgery yesterday. This border collie cross, "Lyric" had disappeared Tuesday with her buddy lab. They came home at 11:00 at night but Lyric soon started throwing up. The owner, a practicing nurse, got upset the next day when Lyric vomited up thread.When the owner tried to pull the thread out of her mouth it wouldn't come. She left to get some scissors, and while gone, the dog swallowed the thread again. That's a clear danger sign that thread is caught in the stomach or intestinal area. We put Lyric on fluids for the day on Wednesday to rehydrate her and watch her. Thursday then we did exploratory surgery and ended up removing a clump of plastic or rubber with threads and grass all wrapped up from her stomach. Mike also cut into her intestines in 4 places and eventually found this 2 foot long piece of black thread. The intestine had already started 'telescoping' in on itself and the dog would have been in serious trouble within days.


The dog was doing really well this morning and I sent her home with a list of instructions and a very happy and grateful owner. The Boston Terrier "Snuffy" went home with his owner too. His eye had been sewed shut by Mike yesterday to allow the ulcer to heal. I really hope the owner can figure out how to insert the tip of the ointment tubes into the corner of his eye  three times a day. Snuffy wasn't real thrilled when I showed  his owner what to do.
Coco the wirehaired pointer went home from the boarding kennel, thank goodness. That dog spends the whole time jumping and barking. It's nerve wracking for the people who go back there, but its worse for the other dogs who have to listen to it.
I said good by to Bridget, the black and white pitbull boarding with us from the Humane Society. I'm hoping Krista will pick her up tomorrow and take her to the shelter. No one can see her here where she's been since February. The shelter's been full and Bridget's the last of the three that stayed with us for a while. We spayed her yesterday (it was obvious she had already had puppies). Bridget's a good girl but she IS a pitbull and a powerful little thing. We've taught her to sit and tried to teach her a little self control. Pitbulls are nothing if not enthusiastic and that's how Bridget views life. When I went in her kennel to give final hugs, she kept pushing her big broad head against me, wriggling her whole body. I hate to see her live in a small kennel but I can't take a dog like her home. Chances are good that she'd eventually kill one of my cats or even one of my small dogs. And there's no way I could tempt her like that. When I took her to Dennis yesterday to put her under though, I had to muzzle her so she wouldn't bit Dennis. She growled at him and I know she scared Megan, Pam, Emily, Dennis. But she really likes me and is so grateful for the slightest attention. Please help her to find a good loving home...