Tales from a Wild Vet

by Jo Hardy

  I promised to ring in a few days’ time to see how Bailey was getting on. I wanted to be sure that his condition had been neurological and not clinical.

  Old age isn’t easy, whether you’re human or canine. All three of my older patients remained on my mind, but one of the nice things about being at Dacre House for several weeks was that I could follow up on patients and see how they were doing.

  Douglas came back the following week, his cough much better and his owners delighted that they weren’t going to lose him quite yet. Sparky came back, too, his eyes much more comfortable. His patient owner was happy to put drops in his eyes several times a day and just relieved that he wasn’t in discomfort.

  As for Bailey, when I phoned his owners they said that he was like a new dog, his energy restored and his joy in life undimmed. ‘I’m not sure exactly what you gave him,’ his owner said. ‘But is there any chance that we could have some?’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  People and their Pets

  ‘This is Dexter. Our little darling is not well.’

  I looked down at the large pet box. Was Dexter a small dog? Or a cat? Clearly he was very precious to the smartly dressed young couple looking anxiously at me from across the table.

  Many people become deeply attached to their pets, so I was used to owners being very affectionate towards their animals as well as full of loving concern and anxiety about their animal’s condition.

  I opened the lid of the box and looked inside. Dexter was a large brown-and-white rabbit.

  ‘Hello, Dexter,’ I said. ‘Let’s put the box on the floor and I’ll examine him there. Rabbits can hurt their backs very easily, so I always prefer to get down on the floor with them, rather than risk a fall from the table.’

  Once we’d eased Dexter from the box he sat on the consulting-room floor, nose twitching, ears alert. I could see that he had a large swelling on his back.

  ‘It looks as though he has an abscess. They’re fairly common in rabbits. It needs draining.’

  ‘But why did he get it? We take such good care of him.’ The woman, her blonde bob tucked elegantly behind her ears, looked distressed.

  ‘Well, it could be from a wound – does he share a hutch with another rabbit?’

  ‘Share a hutch?’ the woman asked, looking incredulous. ‘He doesn’t live in a hutch; he lives in our flat with us. Dexter is a house rabbit – he’s fully house-trained and very well behaved. And what’s more, he doesn’t bark and annoy people, like a dog, or disappear at night, like a cat, and he loves a cuddle.’ He smiled down at Dexter. ‘He’s the perfect pet.’

  ‘Oh yes, of course, sorry. I know that rabbits can make lovely pets. It’s just that most of the rabbits we see are kept outside in hutches.’

  I shouldn’t have been surprised. House rabbits are on the rise, an increasingly popular choice of pet.

  ‘As he’s in the house with you, and I take it you don’t have other pets, I’m not sure how he got the abscess, but don’t worry, we can sort it out.’

  Actually, draining a rabbit abscess isn’t that easy, because the pus inside them is thick, a bit like toothpaste or cottage cheese. And because the abscesses are hard to clear out, there’s a higher chance of them returning.

  I asked Dexter’s owners, who introduced themselves as Callie and Josh, to leave him with us for the day – since he was such a lively rabbit and keeping him still for long enough was going to be impossible, as he’d need to be anaesthetised while the abscess was cleared out and flushed with antiseptic solution. After cuddling Dexter, telling him to be good and promising to be back soon with his favourite carrot treats, they left.

  A few hours later Dexter was ready to go home with some antibiotics, none the worse for his ordeal and no doubt looking forward to his treats. Unfortunately he was back again a week later. The abscess wasn’t healing and Callie and Josh were not happy.

  ‘It must be hurting him,’ Callie said, kissing Dexter’s nose, which made him sneeze. ‘Is there anything else you can do?’

  I decided to have a word with Bradley, so I told Dexter’s owners I was going to take him to a senior vet for a second opinion.

  ‘I’ve seen another one like this fairly recently,’ Bradley said, after emerging from the operating theatre. ‘I changed the antibiotics and also opened up some antibiotic capsules to put the powder directly onto the abscess, so he’s being treated with a combination of antibiotics in a variety of ways. That might do it.’

  I explained the change of plan to Callie and Josh, who seemed relieved.

  ‘I should tell you that it’s quite expensive treating it this way. The bill could be around £150.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ Josh said. ‘He’s worth it to us, we don’t mind paying.’

  Rabbits can cost as much as dogs or cats to keep; they need to be vaccinated, neutered and regularly given health checks. Arguably they have less personality than dogs and cats, though many rabbit owners might disagree, and they don’t live as long. But owners like Josh and Callie, who keep rabbits instead of a dog or cat, don’t seem to mind.

  Dexter wasn’t the only house rabbit I saw at Dacre House. A few days later a giant English lop arrived in the consulting room. A soft, pale grey giant – bigger than many small dogs – and with huge floppy ears, it was a very cuddly rabbit.

  Once again I got down on my knees to examine it, wary of injury to its back should it suddenly hop off the table. I approached it carefully – rabbits don’t particularly like being handled and are capable of scratching or kicking if they aren’t enjoying being touched.

  ‘What seems to be the problem?’ I asked the owner, a young woman of about 20.

  ‘Maggie’s feet are sore,’ she said. ‘Her heels look red and painful and she’s not moving around much because they must hurt. But I don’t know why. I look after her really well and keep all the floors clean. I keep her inside most of the time, but occasionally I let her out in the garden on a sunny day, and I’ve converted my garden shed into a rabbit paradise for her, too.’

  I took a look at Maggie’s feet and sure enough the area at the tip of her heels, which should be pink, was red and inflamed.

  ‘She does have sore hocks, but they don’t look infected,’ I said. ‘It’s nothing that you’ve done wrong. Rabbits in the wild hop about on earth and grass, which is soft, so their toes get a grip. Hard flooring pushes the rabbit back on its heels, so they’re prone to getting sore. And with a big rabbit like this there’s a lot of weight to carry.

  ‘Actually she’s a little bit overweight; you need to cut back on her food until she loses a pound or two. Don’t feed the mixed muesli type, as most rabbits pick out the yummy bits and leave the healthy bits. A complete pellet is better, with plenty of fibrous hay. I can clip her nails and give her painkillers, which will help. And if you can let her out into the garden as much as possible, and give her a big box full of straw indoors, that will be more comfortable for her.’

  Maggie’s owner held her tightly while I clipped her over-long nails, but I still ended up with a nasty scratch. Getting injured is an occupational hazard for vets. Cats and dogs can bite, so can small furry animals – I once had a nasty nip from a hamster – while bigger animals like horses and cows can kick and trample.

  How can we let animals know that we’re trying to help and that if they will only let us, the pain and discomfort they’re feeling will almost certainly get better? The short answer is, we can’t. All the kindness and care in the world won’t prevent an animal from suddenly snapping, kicking or scratching. Which is why most vets, at some time during their careers, have time off due to animal injuries.

  My next visitor was a very cute-looking toy poodle called Jiffy who had the worst ears I’d ever seen. She was a fluffy little white thing but you could see the pink inflammation through her ears from the other side. And when I tried to touch them she snapped and snarled at me and tried to bite my face.

  Her owner, a glamorous-looking woman in her thirties, was apologetic.
I told her I’d need to muzzle Jiffy to look at her ears, but even with a muzzle on she twisted and squirmed as I lifted her ear flaps. I sympathised – I knew they were very painful, but I needed to be able to help her. When I did finally manage to look into her ears, the canal was swollen completely closed, so that I couldn’t see down them to make sure her eardrum was intact.

  I explained to her owner that I would start with an aural anti-inflammatory to reduce the swelling and that if they came back in a few days’ time I’d be able to look into the ear and prescribe drops to treat the infection, as drops would work better than antibiotic tablets. However, if they looked really bad, the only way to get on top of it properly would be to have Jiffy in for an anaesthetic to flush out the infection in the ear.

  Ears can be an awful problem for dogs; yeast, mites and bacterial infections can all cause issues and the poor dogs can only let their owners know they’re in pain by shaking their heads and pawing at their ears, so a lot of owners don’t realise there’s a problem until it’s quite advanced.

  Teeth can also be problematic for dogs. Yorkies are one of the breeds prone to bad teeth; by middle-age they almost all have a few rotten ones, so while I was at Dacre House I decided to bring Paddy in to have a scale and polish. Sue kindly offered to do his teeth, which weren’t too awful. I didn’t want him to wake up in a cage because he’s a terrible worrier and would be frightened, so while he was still under the anaesthetic I put him in a basket next to me. It was after the end of morning consults so I was doing paperwork and phone calls, and once he began to wake I carried him around with me for a couple of hours.

  The following weekend was my birthday. It’s close to Guy Fawkes Night, so we had a family party with fireworks, all very laid-back and good fun. Twenty-five suddenly felt old. I had the feeling that time was flying by and I still had so much I wanted to do and see. I decided to write a bucket list of things I wanted to do before I turned 30. Once I got going I got a bit carried away and by the time I’d reached number 89 on my list I was beginning to realise that I might just be over-stretching things a bit!

  I’d put down everything I’d ever wanted to do, from ‘spend a night in a tree house’ and ‘volunteer in a homeless shelter’ to ‘explore a shipwreck’, ‘run a marathon’, ‘travel first class’, ‘see the Northern Lights’ and ‘watch baby turtles hatch’. It was definitely going to be a busy few years!

  By mid-November it had been four months since I graduated and I was keen to find out what my old housemates were up to. One of them, Andrew, lived not far from me, so we arranged to meet for a drink.

  I spent four of my five years at the RVC sharing a house with four boys – Andrew, James, Kevin and John. We had all been in the same student house during our first year and when we found a house to share it seemed like a good idea to move in together. Although we were all very different personalities, we got on well and when, in our third year, we moved from the RVC’s Camden centre to their bigger Hertfordshire campus, we were lucky enough to find a house we could all share for the next three years.

  James liked the good life. He was our gourmet cook and the weekend would find him creating exotic dishes for his girlfriend Hannah. No student grub for him, he had the foresight to put a casserole in a slow-cooker before leaving for classes in the morning so that he would come back to a real meal, while I, like so many others, got by on pasta and omelettes – things that were quick to make and cheap to buy.

  Kevin and John were both from the States, but that was all they had in common. Kevin was from South Carolina and was an outdoor, baseball and hiking kind of guy who loved his steaks, burgers and fries. He missed the wide-open spaces of home and planned to go back after graduation. But John loved Britain and all things British. Clean, neat and organised, he loved traditions like afternoon tea and had shipped his Mini Cooper from the States because he missed it so much.

  Andrew was always steady and reliable; an even-tempered, hard-working and talented vet who was stick-thin but could pile away more food than anyone had the right to be able to eat.

  Andrew and I met in a pub halfway between his house and mine and spent a great evening catching up on news of our old housemates. James was working in a small-animal practice on the Welsh border, John had decided to stay in the UK and had landed a small-animal job in Scotland, while Kevin was working back in the States and had got engaged to his girlfriend Gabby, a vet who was in the same year as us.

  As for Andrew, he’d taken the summer off to recharge after the rigours of our final year and had been doing the odd volunteering job to keep his skills up. Now he was job-hunting, but unlike some of our fellow students, who knew exactly what they wanted to do, Andrew was still unsure. Dacre House was still looking for a vet, so I asked him whether he might be interested.

  He said he was, so I put him in touch with them and a few days later he arrived to spend an afternoon with Jane, the senior vet. She thought he was great, and told Sue and Bradley that she thought he’d fit into the Dacre family well and do a good job because he was very clever and a good vet, so they offered him a six-month contract, to begin just before I left.

  I was really pleased for him, though Andrew, with his customary understatement, refused to be drawn on whether he was excited. I was sure he and Dacre House would be good for one another and when he arrived, during my last week, he slipped effortlessly into the practice, developing a particular interest in radiology and getting on well with all the staff. He took a share in a house nearby and went back to Dartford on days off to play football and to see his family and his beloved Yorkie, Mac.

  In late November, along with thousands of other vets, including Andrew, Sue and Bradley, I went to the two-day London Vet Show – a vast jamboree of goodies, lectures, get-togethers and news about innovations. I caught up with lots of friends from the RVC and went to a lecture on the latest advances in treating itchy horses (Tammy had a condition known as ‘sweet itch’, an allergy to midges that I was keen to help her with) and another on goats. Many of the experts in the veterinary world are concentrated in one place during the show, so it’s a great opportunity to go and hear them speak. And at the end I went home with two big jute bags full of doggie samples, including eye drops, toothpaste and food.

  The following weekend I was on call. This involved doing consultations on the Saturday and then being on the end of a phone for the rest of the weekend, plus checking on the inpatients. Some weekends were very quiet, but this was not one of them. The casualties came thick and fast.

  The first call was from a young woman who arrived with a small black cat, covered in the remains of what appeared to be white paint.

  ‘My neighbours threw a bucket of paint over her,’ she explained, clearly furious and also very worried. ‘She kept going into their garden and they didn’t want her there. What an awful thing to do. I gave her a bath immediately but being a cat she’s been trying to lick off the residue and clean herself and I’m worried because paint is toxic. Plus she stinks, so I know there must still be something on her.’

  The smell of the paint was strong, and the little cat, Tilly, must have ingested a fair bit of it; she was still licking at herself. I phoned the Veterinary Poisons Information Service, a very useful 24-hour service, and they told me that as long as the clinical examination showed Tilly was fine, the only thing to do was to clean her up and then monitor her for potential side-effects such as vomiting or seizures.

  I gave her owner the choice of leaving Tilly with us overnight or taking her home and watching her closely. She opted to take her home and phoned the following day to say Tilly seemed fine, despite what must have been a frightening and nasty ordeal.

  It’s always hard to understand people who mistreat animals. Cats wander, there’s no way to stop them, and a cat straying into a garden is not likely to do much harm. Shoo it off, by all means, but to throw paint at it is very cruel.

  I was still feeling indignant at poor Tilly’s ordeal when a burly chap came through the door coaxin
g a whimpering young whippet behind him. Casey had pulled off her dew claw so that the quick was exposed. Whippets race around and she had probably got caught on a fence or bush when she was running past. The dew claw grows a bit higher up the leg, so it is never in contact with the ground, but it does have its uses, for instance in helping the dog to grip bones. Dogs can manage fine without one, though, so I gave Casey some painkillers and bandaged her leg. I was grateful that not many people were around, because for the entire 15 minutes that it took to treat her she screamed the place down – anyone listening might have thought I was torturing her. Whippets are not the most stoic of dogs and her owner, who turned out to be a local fire fighter, was amused by her wimpy histrionics. ‘Come on, Casey,’ he chided her, stroking her head. ‘You’re showing me up, making such a fuss.’

  Once I’d finished dressing the wound Casey stopped shrieking and settled for non-stop whining, which was at least easier on the ear. I asked him to bring her back in a few days’ time so that I could check the wound was healing properly, then saw them out and headed home again, hoping to have time to visit my horses. But half an hour later there was another call, from a woman who thought her cat had been injured.

  I headed back to the practice and two minutes later she came through the door lugging a cat carrier.

  ‘I’m worried that Pepper might have been in a fight,’ she said. ‘He was out all last night and today he just hasn’t been himself; he’s been hiding in the corner behind a chair, he wouldn’t come out and he didn’t want to eat. I feel bad because I didn’t realise he was injured at first, but then I saw that there was blood on his leg.’