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Yeah Fluffy Bunnies is just on ignore for most of us, I think. I used to work as a vet assistant and I get the suicide rates thing. I quit because the veterinarian I worked for was a toxic shithead, but if he hadn't done it in I know that being worn down by the clients and by all of the euths I would have eventually quit on my own. Thankfully the vet I used to work for is retired and his clinic is now owned by a vet who seems to have empathy and know her poo poo. I wish the best for everyone who works in this type of profession. It's a pretty thankless job. The animals are scared so they bite you and scream. The clients are scared or assholes or idiots so they threaten and scream. And I'm pretty sure I saw more animal abuse and evidence of abuse working as an assistant than I would have ever hoped to have seen in my life. And that was only three years of work at a very small place! Here's a good story from when I worked. So one sunny summer day we get a call, and the client is concerned about his dog having the shits. We ask him to come on in and we'll see how we can help. The owner is an older gentleman and the dog is an English bulldog who seems unconcerned about the condition of his poops. We run an exam on him and outside of his intestines being noisy, we don't really detect anything about him. We offer to run a stool sample and test it to see if he has parasites and in the mean time give him Pro Pectalin and tell him we'll let him know how we'll treat it once we get the results back. We're small enough that we don't have in-house lab stuff, so we prep the sample to ship it out that night and expect results the next day. The next morning we get a phone call from the owner, saying that he thinks he solved the problem. The guy is laughing his rear end off, so it was a little difficult to understand him at first, but he said that his dog 'shat it out, so it's fine now'. When I asked him to clarify, he goes on to describe that his dog pooped out a mostly undigested rat that morning. Thankfully, that was pretty much all there was to it. There was some follow-up care but that was it. Dog somehow ate a rat that wasn't poisoned and got the shits. Edit: What is it with old business owners playing solitaire in their office? That's what my old boss did. It completely baffled me. As for low-cost, I worked in a relatively wealthy city, so the only deals like that were through the shelter. If you were a foster you could bring your animal to us and we would bill the shelter but that was about it. Chaosfeather fucked around with this message at 08:17 on Dec 7, 2019 |
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Dec 7, 2019 08:14
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Reik posted:Our senior boy Rodney had a lot of blood in his mouth last night, got him to the vet and they're pretty sure it's a squamous cell carcinoma under his tongue. They're doing a biopsy today to confirm. Looks like it's an aggressive cancer, but I'm hoping that since he's getting diagnosed when he has no trouble eating/drinking we can give him some quality time. Has anyone here dealt with this before? If so, how did it go? I don't have the medical record since I was a teenager at the time, but a childhood cat of mine had a cancerous growth we couldn't treat that developed in his jaw. He was always a grumpy old man but mellowed out significantly over the course of time it developed. I want to say he lived for several months or a year after the initial diagnosis (which was when we took him in for similar - bleeding from his mouth). Apparently it didn't cause him any pain, just made him have trouble eating. We'd give him soft food (and eventually tuna juice and other soupy-food) and he'd get to the point where he'd lick it for nutrients but he was still having plenty of good days after that. Please be prepared for significant amounts of drool and blood cleanup on the floor or wherever a good place to nap is. It looks much more alarming than it was. He also would drink a lot more water, I think because he let his mouth hang open more often. When he got to hiding and suddenly stopped eating that was when we decided it was time. I wish you and Rodney the best and hope that you at least have some good days together to look forward to. TheBigAristotle posted:My best friend Reggie had a splenectomy today after the discovery of a ruptured hemangiosarcoma. Hoping he makes it through recovery, he had lost a fair amount of blood and was anemic prior to surgery. Most people can't afford chemo for their pets, please don't feel bad about it. I'm sorry about Reggie but I hope you also have some good days to spend with your buddy. He will let you know when it's time, sometimes critters don't go by whatever the average is. Chaosfeather fucked around with this message at 03:15 on Mar 19, 2020 |
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Mar 19, 2020 01:04
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The Sean posted:Over the past few days my cat has started to constantly lick his arm in the same area and now this has progressed to him being without hair on a few inches of his arm. We're trying to constantly keep him under watch but if he's awake he's trying to lick it. I think this is referred to as a hot spot. We called vets in our area but they're not accepting pets for days. Can anyone please offer some advice? I want to wrap his arm or something but he's too stubborn and smart to keep a wrap on him. Consider giving him a cool water bath (drizzle water on him from a faucet or something, don't dip him in a bucket of water or a sink) and make sure it isn't cold cold. You want it to be soothing - imagine you have a sunburn. Whatever temp you would want your bath to be with that or a rash. It's the time of year he could be having an allergic reaction and a lot of animals have a skin reaction instead of the sniffles that humans get. If you don't feel comfortable giving him a bath see if you can put a shirt on him to keep him from aggrivating the spot. They look goofy but on some animals it really helps them not to get at the wound. Of course this is all to buy you time until you can get him to the vet.
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Mar 24, 2020 05:59
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Vernii posted:My girlfriend and I are bottle raising an orphaned kitten. His mother was a young and tiny stray that was having a lot of difficulty, had an emergency c-section, she didnt make it and the rest of the litter was stillborn. He's currently 6 days old and has been doing mostly well (just over 4 oz weight, good appetite, no problems feeding), but we've run into some problems today. I'm sure this thread has people who give good advice, but the foster thread has some excellent resources re: tiny kittens and their care as well. Go ahead and give them a shot. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3768887 Thanks for taking in tiny kitten
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Aug 29, 2020 04:17
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Harold Fjord posted:I put new seresto and regular collars on my cats a couple weeks ago. Now one of them has a bit of a crescent shaped bald spot on her neck. It doesn't seem burned or especially sensitive. I think the two collars got a little tangled/bunched together awkwardly and the flea collar was pressed/rubbing on this spot. I've removed the second collar and check from time to time to make sure the seresto is resting on her fur and not rubbing on that spot further. Is it necessary I remove the soresto? In my years of owning cats and working with them as an assistant, I can say with 100% certainty that flea collars succeed in getting fleas to move away from the collar, but only rarely off of your cat. Because of that they really don't work for what you're trying to do (get rid of fleas/prevent them from getting on your cat). I am of the opinion that if your cat frequently has trouble with fleas you should invest in a good topical flea medication. I have had success with cat flea pills and flea-killing shampoos as well, but I understand that most people do not want to put their cats in the stresses of pilling/bathing them regularly. Not a doctor of course, if the sore gets worse you should probably take it to the vet and make sure it doesn't get infected and cause a bigger problem. Edit: I want to add, do not put the topical medication on if the back of the neck is a sore at all. You will likely need to wait until that heals over if it's scabbing or open in some way. Please ask a vet! A LOVELY LAD posted:Hey, If your vet is guessing at this point I don't think it would hurt to get a second opinion. I have yet to see bloody stools as something less than concerning, but perhaps one of the actual vets has seen something that I haven't. In the meantime, can you feed your cats separately? It might be a bit of a pain but if one is responding to the food well and the other responds poorly to it (if I am reading that correctly) that may be the way you need to go to have some healthy cats. I would recommend ensuring there's at least a shut door between them if you're going to try this. It also is a good way to help monitor cat weights and regulate it, if that's something that were to come up at all. Please remember cats are obligate carnivores, so no 'vegan', 'vegetarian' or non-meat diet is going to give them all of the nutrients they need. The pet nutrition thread may be the one to help you find a diet to try? https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3920678 Chaosfeather fucked around with this message at 00:23 on Mar 21, 2021 |
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Mar 21, 2021 00:15
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Ballz posted:My cat drinks a ton of water which — not surprisingly — results in her peeing a lot. Shot in the dark, but is your house really, really dry right now? A lot of homes are a bit dry due to it being the middle of winter in a lot of places and thus if the heater is on all the time it's probably going to dry your place out. I know when the heater (or a/c) has been running a long time my mouth gets dry and I drink more water even if I don't strictly need it. Maybe that's it? Or your cat is just a huge fan of water. Or some other unknown.
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Feb 11, 2022 02:01
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Plank Walker posted:My mom's cat Desmond, who is about 10, has been pulling out his fur on his legs. She's spent the year with the vet trying different treatments for allergies mainly diet change and a course of prednisone with no effect on his condition. I have a friend who has had Prozac prescribed for her cats' stress issues, but can't get my mom to get her vet to prescribe it since he seems set on it being a skin issue. I would say definitely get a second opinion, and to try to prevent repeat treatment options have the patient history transferred to the second opinion vet. That way you have definitive proof of what has been attempted, the effects on the cat (or lack of) and can go from there. I brought my Drake posted:A friend recommended I should talk to my vet about CBD for my arthritic elderly cat. Am I going to get laughed out of the building if I actually bring this up with my vet? If this is something that would actually help or even possibly help, I want to do it, but it just feels too much like woo and placebo. I agree you won't get laughed out of there, but I also don't think there's enough studies on it to conclusively say 'oh yes it definitely treats x very well'. Hopefully that will change in the future as more people give it a shot and it's more accepted.
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Jan 2, 2023 18:03
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Yeah we would do spays on shelter cats who were pregnant. Helps save the would-be-momma the trouble and possible problems and keeps the strays and shelters situation from being that much worse.
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Feb 17, 2023 18:02
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Kidney failure is pretty common, and one that most people dont recognize as an issue until complete failure is in effect. It's very easy to make this mistake because cats are cats, and will pee outside of the litter box in protest, or go off of their diet because they decided to be picky, or various other things. I think you are being overly harsh on yourself. There are many people I have met who simply think it is a waste of funds to take a cat to a vet, or that a cat at 12 is elderly and won't change their ways with any amount of evidence nor convincing. In the future: catching this early you can prolong their life with dietary changes and other treatment. A good vet will talk to you about your options and what's best for your companion. 15 is a good run. 20+ is spectacular. Just focus on now and being with your bud. Do your best to make sure your friend is as comfortable as possible and enjoy what moments you have.
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Jun 21, 2023 19:48
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