Tiny Minds

All too often, we see examples of just how stupid humans are [at least the ones who choose to remain in the dark], but some days we have the opportunity to see the other side of the spectrum; a person with a heart so big, you can't help but feel all warm and tingly. Today, I met one of each.

Let's start with Rocky. Rocky is a 6 month old Bichon Frise puppy who came into the clinic last Thursday for a 'routine' neuter. His human dropped him off around 8am and was visibly upset with the idea of leaving him there all day. She was convinced that something awful was going to happen and she thought he might even die on the operating table. Of course she wasn't concerned enough to opt for the PreSurg bloodwork or ECG to make sure none of that transpired. You can just guess which was his neuter headed.....that's right, straight down. His heart rate dropped to below 50bpm, and wasn't bearthing on his own. As the only tech in the mornings, I alternated between bagging the little guy, monitoring his ever-decreasing heart rate and running for more atropine. Thankfully, it was just a neuter and the surgery was over quickly so we could focus on waking him up. Due to this little incident, we decided to keep him over night.

The next morning, I came in to find him wagging his tail so hard, I thought it would fly off his butt. He was given the green light to go home. Since the owner was so worried the previous day, i wrote down everything she could possibly do to speed up his recovery time [make him wear an e-collar or bite-not, keep him confined, don't let him jump up, make sure he's always on a leash when outside, etc.]. The weekend passes. What do we see when we arrive back to work Monday morning? A fax from the emergency clinic in town about Rocky. The owners didn't put an e-collar on him, nor did they monitor him. He had licked off all the glue and re-opened the surgery site. The ER clinic glued it again and gave them a an e-collar. They came back the next day with the same problem. ER gave them another e-collar and stapled the site shut. Rocky's owners brought him back into my clinic today with...you guessed it... THE SAME PROBLEM! I supposed being told 3 times isn't enough. We put a bite-not on him. Think that will do any good?