Bruno's Blog – a complete animal at work

Just back from 2 weeks holiday in France with my family and dog. Couldn’t help noticing some of the dog-cultural differences between our nations.

French people are much more reluctant to let their dogs off the lead and when theirs were approached by our scruffy mutt, their first instinct was often to pick their dog up, fearful of…what exactly? I should point out that he weighs about 5kg and wags his tail continuously when meeting other dogs. Although he is, as we agreed, a little barkative. My impression is that Brit dogs are generally better socialised, probably as a result of running free off the lead much of the time and therefore having to sort out their social behaviour.

And then there is the flip side: in France you can take your dog into a restaurant. How civilised is that? Wander in, find a table, dog lies under it, we eat, he sleeps. Patron’s dog, a vast Great Dane wanders over, they sniff each other then both drop to the ground and fall asleep, centimeters apart.

Anyone want to start a Let Dogs Into Restaurants campaign? Aparently its nothing to do with Health & Safety regulations, just habit. Works well for them, would work absolutely fine here. Sign me up.

Not good news for President Smeagal. He is confirmed as suffering from the wet or effusive form of Feline Infectious Peritonitis, for which the outlook is not good at all. We have started him on a combination of Interferon and Prednisolone – hard core medication which is a far cry from our usual fare of natural / Integrative medicine, but needs must, and this is probably about the only chance we’ve really got for him.

We had a visit from a Small Animal Internal Medicine specialist on Friday who confirmed that many of them do respond to treatment but do not actually survive the disease. Sounds paradoxical? For us, its all about quality of life: if we can, with medication, get him back to a state where he can enjoy life, then that’s good enough, even though we know it’s going to get him in the end.

The slightly better news is that on the basis of the tests we hve so far, it looks as is the three other cats in the house might be mounting effective immune responses rather than actually succumbing to the disease. Fingers crossed.

On a lighter note, George came in with his Griffon Ruby who was in whelp. She had 4 little puppies who appear to be doing well so far. George’s bitches have had their fair share of problems raising full (and often huge) litters so we’re not out of the woods yet, but current news is good.

Out at dinner last night and found myself recounting a couple of tales of past client’s wild extravagance…. the lady flying back to Argentina who couldn’t bear the thought of her tiny dogs going in the cargo hold of the plane, so she chartered a private jet. To Buenos Aires. And why on earth not.

And the family who were going to be away for 3 months, leaving their cat behind in ther substantial townhouse. So they retained the housekeeper and the cook full time to tend to the cat’s needs, together with the driver, also full time, in case he should need to come to the vet. Did I think that was OK? 

And the lady who rang – in all seriousness – to say that her cat was very excited about the release of the new Star Wars film. Did I think it would be OK to take him to the cinema to see it? He also loves Daleks and mushroom soup, though probably not mixed up together.

Toodle pip

 

We get used to anaesthetising dogs and cats – routine surgeries, X-rays, examinations, injuries and so on. Most of them are very straightforward – we follow routine protocols so that we know exactly where we are, and all generally goes to plan.

Most people get nervous with surprises, and the one one place we really hate surprises is in the anaesthesia room, so we go to great lengths to avoid the unknown. We choose our patients carefully, carry out the pre-anaesthetic tests and pre-treat accordingly.

But this week seemed to conspire against us.

Old Curtis came in to have his teeth fixed. 290 years old, skinny as a rake, mouth like an old sewer, always shivers and shakes so much in the clinic, it’s hard to tell whats really going on inside. We took it very easy, gently does it and before he knew where he was he was waking up with – Hey what’s that strange taste in my mouth? Hmm, maybe it’s not 18 million trillion bazillion bacteria swarming around my teeth and hosing round my bloodstream every time I eat…

Gertie is an entire book in herself. Gertie is an elderly Peke with the single largest medical team in the known universe. She has her own personal cardiologist, a dermatologist, her specialist neurologist, an acupuncturist that she sees monthly, her eye specialist, osteopath, gastro-enterologist, an entire administrative division of the pet health insurance company whose financial reserves are running dangerously low and one very concerned owner.

Oh – and she had horrible, ghastly, stinky old teeth.

Some months ago, even the University anaesthesia team had politely declined to take her on, such were the nature of her then bizarre and inexplicable cardiovascular symptoms. But many of these issues had now resolved, so it was time to step up to the mark, take a deep breath and fix those teeth.

All went well – of course it did, and she went home looking slightly confused but ready for the next round of ‘What’s my symptom now?’

Third up is a much less happy story. President Smeagal is a young male Burmese cat who went missing from his central London home and was missing for several weeks. He was eventually found and reunited with his joyful family, but slowly it became apparent that all was not well. He was losing weight, not eating very well, and by the time he came to me was starting to have to put more effort into his breathing.

We ended up draining 200mls – thats nearly half a pint – of thick, gluey, protein-laden fluid from around his lungs just to keep him going. We’re now wating for the lab work to confirm the diagnosis, but are very concerned that this might be Feline Infectious Peritonitis, a particularly nasty virus disease that he is unlikely to survive. And there are 3 more beautiful cats at home who are at high risk if the diagnosis is confirmed. What a nightmare.