While some stories are amusing (yes, trying to catch a pot bellied pig mixed in with your dogs and slipping on dog poop cannot be anything but funny), many are alarming. Here are some fun ones gleaned from conversations with both clients and random strangers:
"Oh, you have been putting bleach in your dog's ears. And he doesn't like it?"
"What do you mean you sutured up your dog with an upholstery needle and dental floss? And your dog let you? Oh, comatose. I see. Yes, your dog's leg is infected. Yes, this is going to cost a lot of money."
"What happened to your hand? So, you didn't want to pay for a neuter so you just put a rubber band around the testicles? And you got bitten?"
"Oh, you didn't want to euthanize your dog so you just let her go off to die 'naturally?' That's nice (and shitty)."
"So, the local farrier is doing chiropractic work now? I love it when I hear about someone practicing veterinary medicine without a license."
"Is my office cheap? No, it is not cheap. Maybe you should see Dr. Doesn't bother with sterile packs down the road. He keeps things cheap. Not going to CE and using drugs that expired 10 years ago will do that."
"God, no, I don't want to see your tick bite."
However, I do really like to hear what people like to say when they don't know I am a vet. That is fun. Especially when I hear someone in a feed store tell someone else how that a tube of equine ivermectin is "just the same" as strongid and you can give the whole syringe to your dog.
>>>no it is not and that will kill your dog<<<
Or how the groomer in a local pet store offered to vaccinate my pets for "really cheap" and asked if I knew that all cat vaccines were given in the nose. Even the rabies.
>>>No, they are not all given in the nose. And in most states, the only person that can give a rabies vaccine is a vet. <<<
Or when I hear someone tell someone else that their dog doesn't need heart worm prevention because he drinks bleach water out of the pool.
>>>I concede this: dogs that die from ingestion of bleach water don't generally die from heart worm disease<<<
Anybody else have any good ones?
"Well, the feed truck driver got out his stethoscope and said he thought it was colic, but he's had a temperature of around 104 for about 4 days now so we thought we better get a second opinion."
ReplyDelete"He looked hypoglycemic so I gave him an enema" -Rescue foster. She also thinks it's appropriate to give prednisone to tiny baby kittens for diarrhea. "He's blind. I know because he moves his head around a lot because he can't see." - Neighbor who adopted a new kitten. Newsflash: cats aren't Stevie Wonder. Ever think that maybe he's moving his head around a lot because he's LOOKING at things and not cuz he's blind? Never seemed blind at my house. Just sayin'.
ReplyDeleteI needed to replace one of my cage muzzles in a pinch, and while I was at Petsmart that day asked an employee if they carried them. She showed me to the standard nylon muzzles. I explained to her I needed a cage muzzle, designed for longer term use. I then received a lecture as to how dangerous it was to leave any muzzle on a dog longer than a few minutes, and what a terrible person I must be. I then introduced myself, including the DVM, and repeated in more detail the concept of a cage muzzle to a now mighty uncomfortable teenager!
ReplyDelete"He can't have a rabies vaccine until he's a year old - my breeder said so".
ReplyDelete"Those vaccines cause seizures - my breeder said so".
"I can only feed this puppy raw lizard gizzards and sweet potatoes - that's what my breeder feeds, and she's been doing this for YEARS"!
"If I vaccinate my puppy with anything but nosocomials, my puppy warranty is voided".
"Here's a 10 page list of dietary and vaccine requirements I got from my breeder".
"Of course his hips are loose to the point of luxation - that's normal for all Bulldog puppies. He'll grow out of it. My breeder said so, and she's been breeding Bulldogs since Lincoln was president".
Me: "Has your puppy been wormed"? Client: "Oh, yes - the breeder wormed him daily for the first 8 weeks of his life, and then treated him with tobacco just to be safe"
"I absolutely won't let you prescribe Rimadyl for my dog - that stuff is evil. I read about it on the Interwebz".
Don't forget about all the crazy heartworm preventives like sardines (WTF?) and how all ear infections are earmites and earmites are always treated with olive oil.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite is our local shelter who keeps using tresaderm to treat earmites. Admittedly, I doubt they actually diagnose the ear mites with microscopic exam so they may well be treating some ear infections that way.
ReplyDeleteWell in general practice it typically wouldn't be the first thing I reach for, but Tresaderm does treat ear mites, and especially in a shelter situation where they may have limited access to drugs, I don't see anything wrong with this.
DeleteI am currently deployed to Afghanistan where soldiers are not supposed to play with the animals...cuz none of them are vaccinated for rabies. Anyway, I meet this Navy guy with one of the Provincial Reconstruction Teams who finds out that I'm a vet. He proceeds to tell me about his cousin that got bitten by a stray cat and contracted rabies. Me: Did she die? Him: No. Me: Well, then she did not contract rabies...because if you contract rabies, 99.99% of the time, you DIE...the other 0.01% of the time, you wish you had. He tried to argue the point with me. Him: I swear, she got rabies. She got these really painful shots for it. Me: Yes, she got rabies SHOTS that prevented her from getting rabies and DYING...she did not get rabies. Moron. Love soldiers, but some of them are not terribly bright.
ReplyDeletelocal breeder maintains you can worm your puppy by feeding them milk every day, cue the influx of v+ and d+ pups with an overwhelming worm burden just after christmas. the joys!!
ReplyDeleteI'm apart of a FB group with Vets/techs from around the world....
ReplyDeleteOne of our fav saying's (from a tech)
"Getting veterinary advice from a breeder is like getting gynecology advice from a pimp."
I HATE breeders...
I have that same bumper sticker from said group hung on my fridge!
Deleteooo where do they sell that one! I'd put it on my damn car!
DeleteA client called to complain that her dog was not handling the 'slow kill' method of treating heartworm (because we are out of immiticide dammit) and wanted to know if I knew anything about the homeopathic slow kill method they read about online. You feed your dog beef heart to repair their heart muscles ( i wasn't aware that specific muscle proteins could be ingested, broken down, then remade into heart muscle protein...must have missed that lecture), and feed them peach pits, because they are slowly digested in the stomach and slowly release cyanide into the blood stream that kills the heartworms. Which is way better than the slow kill method she's currently using, and way way better than immiticide, because, did you know Dr, it's really injectible arsenic! Umm... sure, cyanide will kill your dog as well as the heartworms, not to mention the GI obstruction feeding those 'non digestible' pits will cause...
ReplyDeleteAaaahhh, Dr. Kat, we share clients! Feeding heart to treat an infection IN the heart is an ancient treatment--like eating an animal's penis to enlarge one's penis tissue and eating one's enemy's heart to have the strength of one's enemy. Since these are ancient, they are proven effective and by that logic western medicine is still too young to be of any value.
Delete"I concede this: dogs that die from ingestion of bleach water don't generally die from heart worm disease"
ReplyDeleteBWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! I am so glad I found this blog, it is quite cathartic!
Or how about Doctorin' Animals only for Animal Doctors?! I love this MD, of the Vitamin D Council, recommending that people give their cats fatal doses of Vitamin D3. You would think that someone involved with every aspect of Vitamin D would know that rat poison, cholecalciferol, is just vitamin D3 and that it is just as willing to kill cats and dogs as it is rats. blog.vitamindcouncil.org/.../successful-treatment-for-feline-distempe...
ReplyDeleteJeez, people, talk to your vet BEFORE doing anything you find on the web, I don't care WHO recommends it. Stupidity hits all of us at least once in our lives.
Client brings a dog in with a pretty deep laceration across its foot pad. I do an exam, recommend anesthesia to close the wound, antibiotics, pain meds. Client: "Well, I'm very concerned that your recommendation is so different from my breeders. She said I could just let him lick it and it will heal on its own." Me: "There's a very good chance that this will become infected if you just let him lick it." Client: "I'm still concerned how different your advice is from my breeders. And this is so expensive. I think I'd rather take him home." Why did you even bother to pay for an exam?
ReplyDelete