another busy day at work in the life of a vet

I knew it was going to be another busy day when I arrived to find 3 patients waiting for me. The first patient was a dog already in heart failure now drinking excessively, I took bloods and sure enough it had elevated urea and creatine, most likey renal failure but the owner was keen to start treatment , so we placed the little dog on fluids. that was only the beginging of the day, we had to euthanasie a dog that was a long term client, we had treated the dog for everything from cushing, diabetes, vestibular syndrome, arthritis and many other condtions. it always especially sad when you know the dog. we had a 4 week old kitten suffering from neurological signs, apperently they had taken it to a pet shop and they had placed a spot flea treatment onto a small kitten, the next day the kitten was showing neurological signs. unfortunealty the the people had no money to treat the kitten at all, euthanaisa was the only option they where heart broken. I have noticed there is no warning to not treat very young kittens, just advice not to. Next we had two puppies with vomiting and diarrohea, one tested positive for parvo and the other negative, the puppies where 6 months old and never vaccinated, also full of fleas. again after much discussion they euthanasised the sick puppy and took the other one home, again much tears and angusih. ahh the life of a vet!

Parvo Puppy

Another Day, Another Drama, Again at about 5.30pm in comes a vomiting puppy, The owners had only purchased the puppy three days ago from the local pet store. It was a replacement puppy after the last puppy had to be euthanasied because of advanced hip dyplasia. We did a parvovirus test and it came back positive, well the owners where now in tears, they had already become attached to the puppy but could not think of outlaying at least another $500 to start treating the Parvo virus. We rang the pet store owner who could not believe that it was parvo virus despite the positive test. After much discussion he decided he refund the money and ask us to euthanize the puppy, after more tears and more phone calls there was a change of heart and he said he would take the puppy back to his own vet who doubted the parvo virus test. we left about 7.30pm. Two hours of heart break, being a vet is often about understanding the emotions of the human animal bond and balancing that with rational, economic thoughts.
PS the dog fight dog is doing okay, but late this afternoon he started to vomit and his temp was 41.0c