Yo, Redditors!

Noticed a little uptick in our traffic coming from Reddit, and found Redditor essentialparadoxes had thrown a link into one of her comments there. Or possibly his comments, you never know, although those who claim we lack diversity will say you do know, and that that's a huge problem. Whatever. Although I'd like to point out that I know of at least one North American veterinary school whose class president about 10 years ago was a gay Puerto Rican man. Hard to get a lot more diverse than that really. I've also met a few international Japanese students studying at North American veterinary schools in the past ten years. But I digress. Thanks for the shoutout, intrepid future colleague! Stay golden.

I'll add a breeder story so I can tag this so folks from Reddit find it when they click essentialparadoxes' link.

About 3 or 4 weeks ago a breeder called completely out of the blue wanting to know if she could bring a dog by for a pregnancy check. The receptionist said she'd be glad to book an appointment with Dr. VBB - but then the breeder said she didn't want an appointment. The receptionist was confused and asked the breeder what she wanted, and the breeder said "I just want to drop by and have the doctor palpate and see if she's pregnant." When told that this would require an appointment, the breeder asked "but what if I don't want to pay? I just want to stop by informally, you know?" 

There's a dent in my desk the size of my head from just that ONE phone call, people.

Magic parvo shot

I had a discussion with a breeder yesterday. This client of mine had a puppy she'd just obtained from this breeder. The breeder had told my client that although the puppy had previously been diagnosed with parvovirus 10 days before leaving the breeder's premises, she had been successfully treated by way of a long-acting antibiotic shot called Convenia, after which injection the puppy's diarrhea and vomiting had immediately stopped. The puppy had not required any fluid therapy, special food, or other medications.

Now, I'm no virologist - but I'm pretty sure that a repository cephalosporin isn't some kind of magic cure for canine parvovirus infection. So, I said to my client, as I looked at an apparently perfectly healthy 10-week-old Rockwelder Rottweiler puppy, "I don't think that this puppy had parvovirus. Maybe you misunderstood the breeder?" and the client said "definitely not. She said they did a special test to prove it was parvovirus, and that parvovirus can kill dogs, especially Rockwelders, so we got lucky with this one."

This, I had to hear for myself. So, I called up the breeder.

<ring, ring>
Breeder: yo, hold up a second, hold up. [pause]. OK yo, wassup?
Me: Hi, is this World's Best Rottweilers of Outer Dumbassia?
Breeder: yo, that's us, you wanna puppy, man?
Me: No thank you. My name is Dr. VBB, and I'm calling about the male puppy you sold to Mr. Gull Ibble on February 4th.
Breeder: which puppy is that?
Me: Well, the paperwork you gave him says "male puppy #4 parvo" on it. Does that mean anything to you?
Breeder: oh, yeah, man, that the puppy that had the parvo, man.
Me: so, about that - did this puppy see a veterinarian at any point?
Breeder: oh, yeah - I got one who comes by and writes the certificates. You got his certificate there, right?
Me: well, I have a "puppy passport" that lists all the vaccines and dewormings you gave.
Breeder: yeah, that's it! see the stamp there? That's the vet stamp.
Me: You mean the stamp in the corner that says "PASSED INSPECTION" ??
Breeder: yeah! that the one!
Me: So, nothing with the doctor's name or contact information?
Breeder: no, he don't work like that, you know. It's kind of on the down low.
Me: the down low?
Breeder: yeah. Cause his boss prolly don't want him working side jobs.
Me: Oh. I see. So, who gave this puppy the Convenia?
Breeder: Oh, I got that at the house. I gave that myself. I buy it off ebay, yo.
Me: I see. OK, well, I think I have all the information I need. I really want to recommend to you that you hire a veterinarian in the future to oversee your operation, because I think you are either working with someone who isn't a vet at all, or something else is going on here, because you seem to have a lot of misinformation.
Breeder: naw, it's all good, man. I got this down. Been doing this two years now. Only lost five puppies, man!
Me: OK, well, thanks anyway. Bye.
<click>

When I encounter this type of situation, I find myself wondering - why is there no way to stop this type of situation from happening? Why isn't there some phone number I can call to report these people? But let's face it - his operation is too small for USDA oversight. There probably isn't any actual actionable cruelty here. Is there some type of fraud going on? Sure, but I don't have the name of the alleged veterinarian. I don't even know if there is one. Maybe the breeder is pretending a vet came in. I have no idea why this guy would want to say one of his puppies had parvo if it didn't. The whole situation is just basically completely beyond my understanding. I just wish I could shut this type of place down.

The good part of it is the puppy I saw was adorable and apparently healthy, though somewhat wormy. He'll probably end up being a perfectly fine pet for his affable, if moderately ignorant, owner. Hopefully after coming through our office a few times for all the puppy visits, the owner won't be ignorant any more, either.

I went home after work and opened a nice bottle of red wine. I had a couple of pieces of Trader Joe's 100 calorie chocolate bars, and tried to fuggedaboutit. Obviously I failed in that!

When everyone is special, no one is special

These days, everyone is special, right? Awards ceremonies for children's activities have become nearly meaningless, because EVERYONE gets an award. Even my own kids have told me they think it's a complete waste of time and stupid, and that no one ever gets to feel special, because the people in charge are always saying how special everyone is. But for some reason, some people really like that feeling of being somehow special, so much that they project it onto their pet. Not just their pet, actually - their entire breed.

Now, don't get me wrong. It's true that each breed of dog or cat or horse or sheep or whatever has its own set of interesting qualities that set it apart from the other breeds of dogs or cats or horses or sheep or whatever - otherwise, they wouldn't be separate breeds. And obviously, some people will prefer one type over another type, and that's great. What really drives me nuts though is the people who make this big fuss over how SPECIAL their breed is when it comes to: anesthesia, vaccines, antibiotics, parasites, or other medical issues. Because 99% of the time, it's complete bullshit. Seriously.

When is it NOT complete bullshit? Well, ok, Greyhounds. Greyhounds sometimes develop perioperative hyperthermia, possibly related to anxiety. Greyhounds and similarly very lean sighthounds used to have bigger issues with general anesthesia when the main drugs used were injectable barbiturates. So, if you walk into my clinic and you have a greyhound who needs general anesthesia, and you say "Oh, doctor, I just can't allow that, Greyhounds are special and they can't be anesthetized, how could you not know?" I am going to mentally *headdesk* while I bite my tongue, and then I will take a deep breath and smile and explain the GREAT NEWS that we have actually advanced quite a bit beyond the injectable barbiturates that used to be such a problem, and that we have new and better balanced anesthesia protocols these days, and we can use anxiolytics to manage the perioperative stress, and honestly, you don't need to panic. Hopefully, you'll be pleased to have learned this, and we can proceed.

There are also a few other breed-related laboratory idiosyncrasies that sometimes come up, and of course there are different inherited disease and so forth, but honestly, this "special" business is something else.

Examples of some of the complete bullshit I have heard:

1. "My puppy can NOT have a leptospirosis vaccine. My breeder has been breeding MaltiFlufferPoos for 25 years, and she knows. Lepto vaccine will KILL my puppy and I refuse to allow it. This breed is just very sensitive to the vaccine and when you give it to them they swell up and get bloody diarrhea and die." I will mentally translate this to "my breeder once had a puppy experience anaphylaxis, freaked out, and refused to ever give the vaccine again. Hey, maybe if she's really high volume, it happened twice." I will try to explain to you that there is no one particular breed that DIES from lepto vaccines more than any other, but most of the time people with this idea drummed into their heads won't listen to me. Also, FYI: MaltiFlufferPoo is not a breed.

2. "I refuse to allow you to give any deworming medication to my puppy. The breeder told me that Garbage Hounds are very special in that they react badly to all dewormers, and we need to let him develop his own immunity to the worms." I have no reasonable explanation for this. Maybe the breeder had a bad experience deworming a group of puppies one time? I have a hard time believing that, most common dewormers have a wide safety margin. I find it extremely frustrating, especially when there are children in the home who might be at risk for developing a larval migrans syndrome.

3. "My dog is not just a small dog like all the other small dogs you see routinely. He is a very special nano-teacup miniature micro yorkie. He has to get only 1/4 the dose of all vaccines." No, sorry. The immune system does not work that way. The dose of vaccine is not up for debate. We are giving the entire vaccine, or we are not vaccinating your dog here today. Also, there is no such thing as a nano-teacup miniature micro yorkie. I don't care if you paid $3500 for it, it's not a real thing. By the way, since we're on the subject, I know you said the breeder told you it's normal, but - hydrocephalus is actually not normal and your puppy looks like a conehead.

4. "Doctor, my kitten is a Bengal. You may not know this but they are very special cats. They require a 70% as fed protein diet made up of mostly raw meats." Hate to break it to you, but no, the nutritional requirements of the Bengal is not markedly different from the nutritional requirements of other domestic feline housepets.

5. "My Devon Rex is non-allergenic." No it isn't. While there is some variation in amount of dander that a pet leaves lying around and of course the volume of hair falling off it will play a role, an allergic individual may still react to your cat, because it is a cat, and it has a salivary protein called FelD1, and it grooms itself, and that stuff dries on there, and then flakes off into the environment. FelD1 levels can vary per individual cat and on a population level some breeds may make more than others but there are no standard breeds of cats that do not have any. Sorry.

What kinds of "special" breed stories have you heard?

Castration - STAT!

I performed a STAT castration this week. A nice family had purchased two rabbits, and were told they were both the same gender. But—over the weekend a litter of baby bunnies mysteriously appeared in the cage. So I castrated Daddy, and hopefully we’ll be spaying Mommy soon.

It’s pretty common that we’ll see kittens, rabbits, guinea pigs, etc. that are supposed to be one gender but turn out to be the other. This leads to some embarrassing and amusing exam room moments. I have one patient, a 10-year-old neutered male cat named “Belle,” whose owners still refer to him as “her” because they were told that “she” was female as a kitten.

It’s rather harder to mistake a male dog for a female, but it happens. We recently saw a new puppy, a German shepherd named “Sarah.”
Vet: “Um, Sarah’s a boy.”
Client: “Really? The breeder said she was a girl.”
Vet: “Yes, that’s his penis right here.”
Client: “Oh, I wondered what that was.”

The moral of the story is: Gender should be verified by a professional.

You might be a crazy breeder if.....

My compliments to Jeff Foxworthy.

You might be a 'crazy breeder' if
...You feel the need to tell the vet how to do their job
...You'll sell your pups to anyone with the money
>>>>>>You do not screen the buyers for if they'll likely be good owners or should own your breed
...No way in hell would you let the puppy buyer actually see the sire, bitch and your whole set up
...You think because you let the animals breed you are as knowledgable as a vet in every way
...You have not had the sire and bitch proven -
>>>>>>You haven't had them shown or otherwise officially compete for a title which is consistent with breed standards
>>>>>>Or there is no breed standard, since your just breeding mutts and coming up with a cute name
>>>>>>You haven't had the sires and bitches checked for known health issues such as hip dysplasia, elbow displasia, eye problems, heart murmurs, etc.
>>>>>>You ask the vet to change their protocol for OFA radiographs to help the dog pass
...You overlook the pet's genetic/hereditary defects including cryptorchidism, malocclusions (outside of breed standard), hip dysplasia, elbow displasia, food allergies, atopy, TEMPERMENT, liver shunts, luxating patellas and on and on and on
...You have a male and female so you breed them. You gave no consideration of how the attributes each involved could lead to healthier puppies (or kittens)
...You'll still want to breed a bitch after she's developed mammary gland tumors
...You didn't control the bitches parasites and properly vaccinate her before you let her breed
...You watched your dog in active labor for more than 45 minutes and didn't seek veterinary help
...You let another breeder give your dog some injection that you have know idea what it will do
...You think $350 is the proper price for a C-Section
...You didn't prepare for the $1000-3000 cost for C-Section and your pet's complication because you waited too damn long
...You claim poverty so you can't pay for the C-Section, while calling your friends and family on your iphone, while holding your cigarettes and smelling of liquor
...You have a crappy set up so the pups are not kept very clean and have significant parasitism
...You tried to overcome the parasitism by inappropriately using worming med from the feed store
...You have too many pups to start their housetraining and regularly groom and handle them
...You use vaccines you got at the feedstore or online
...You hope those vaccines will compensate for your crappy husbandry
...You do not have the pups health checked by a conscientious veterinarian before releasing them
...You give information about the health needs that are not scientifically proven
>>>>>>Don't go to the vet to have the pup checked for X # of weeks
>>>>>>Only follow some unknown, unbalanced vaccine protocol
>>>>>>Only allow 1/2 dose of vaccines
>>>>>>Only allow a specific manufacturer of the vaccines
>>>>>>Say that a rabies vaccine cannot be given till 6 months old
>>>>>>You can only have the vet use X type of anesthesia
>>>>>>Cannot be spayed or neutered till X age
>>>>>>Must be spayed or neutered before Y age

Disclaimer - not all breeders are crazy or unreasonable. I totally respect many.

Anyone else?...