Things you "learn" from clients...

Re: Things you "learn" from clients...

Laurence Webb — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 18:52:38 GMT

I've just examined a cat that was showing signs of tenesmus (though may have been dysuria). On exam it was neither constipated, blocked or showed any tenderness around the bladder. The improvement was explained to me by the owner. "Of course I've done all the usual, given him cod Liver Oil and green beans".

Must let the FAB know about this new first line treatment for FLUTD.

Re: Things you "learn" from clients...

Rob Smith — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 15:41:14 GMT

[quote user="robloxley"]

[quote user="alex gough"]2. T****** M*****f's natural diet is fermented yak's milk.[/quote]

Strictly, a yak is the male (a dri is a female 'yak') - so the mind boggles

[/quote]

A dri is still a yack, just as a drake is a duck and a bitch is a dog.

Re: Things you "learn" from clients...

Evelyn Barbour-Hill — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 19:17:17 GMT

This from the mad cat woman who kidnaps cats that hang around the waste bins in Morrison's car park because obviously the poor things must be stray and starving. Anyway, she had a couple of ancient cats that were more or less genuinely hers, with chronic renal failure. I put them on Hill's kd, explaining about the low protein and all the rest of it.

Two weeks later she phoned to say she wouldn't buy any more of that expensive food because she had read the labels and found that Kit E Kat had much lower protein.

You work it out.

Re: Things you "learn" from clients...

Alex Gough — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 17:04:18 GMT

Hi Steve! I couldn't possible comment on which client it is, you will have to draw your own conclusion!

alex

Re: Things you "learn" from clients...

steven sleep — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 16:22:39 GMT

Also I may be wrong but i think the toxic dose is quite close to the amount needed for hallucinogenic effects - so be careful with the nugmeg guys & girls

Re: Things you "learn" from clients...

steven sleep — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 16:03:10 GMT

I though that particular dog was descended from Bears acording to the owner if its who I think it is!

Re: Things you "learn" from clients...

scarlet — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 17:40:02 GMT

ok heres my all time favourite. in the early 80's i was called out on an emergency visit to a dog that had ...wait for it.....you'll never believe this......rising damp!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i kid you not.

the owners, a faily young couple, lived in a council flat in Barking, (no pun intended but appropriate) London and had bare plaster walls with obvious damp problems. they were now hysterical because the dog had contracted it . how did they know? because of the powder on its coat like the walls!!!!!!!!.

i gently explained that the powder was due to the very large boisterous GSD dog brushing against the walls and it coming off onto his coat. i demonstrated by brushing it off.

owners amazed but not entirely convinced the dog wasnt going to die of it and said they were feeding it 10 whole oranges every day as that worked to stop colds in people. at that point i started looking for Noel Edmonds and a camera crew. depressingly , it wasn't a set up........................................

Re: Things you "learn" from clients...

Rob Reid — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 16:59:10 GMT

[quote user="Paul Dowie"]

One client telephoned after hours in the evening and informed me that his guinea pigs had just had babies and he was suprised as it lived with a rabbit.I informed him the rabbit could not be the sire but he insisted he was.I told him we must phone the local newspaper as this was of scientific significance but offered to exam the rabbit.

It turned out to be a female.The guinea pig had of course been given to him about 7 weeks before.

[/quote]

Haha that makes me chuckle and reminds of a good one when I was a new grad. 2 weeks into my first job in South Wales, I was asked to give a client some advice over the phone.

Client - What it is see, my rabbit is getting a bit jiggy with my new kitten. Are they going to start producing Cabbits?!

Do I laugh or cry?!

Re: Things you "learn" from clients...

Alex Gough — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 15:35:06 GMT

We are off topic of things you learn from clients, but what the heck. I had a call once to go and see a garden bird that had been injured by the client's cat. I asked if she could bring it in, and she said no because the cat had taken it up a tree. She said she thought of asking her boyfriend to go and get it, but she didn't want him to hurt himself. She seriously expected me to do a house visit and climb a tree to rescue a bird. I told her to call the RSPCA! (RSPCA tell people to call their vets often enough).

Re: Things you "learn" from clients...

Paul Carwardine — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 15:24:36 GMT

Another client story - on a different slant.

Back in the early 60's I was working in farm practice in North Devon. Some of the older farmers still had somewhat old fashioned ideas bordering on witchcraft. Ring worm and warts having traditional cures involving cross roads and midnight. Self cure providing evidence for the apparent success of such procedures.

One client in particular held such beliefs - black spot on cow's teats being attributable to 'the little folk 'using them for target practice with their bows and arrows. Practice policy was to go along with such information and humour him.

On one afternoon I called at his farm to see a lame cow and was awaiting his arrival in the cow shed. When he joined me he remarked that he had noticed I had company with me that day. I off course agreed.

"Does he come with you regulary ?" I was asked

"Oh yes"

"Nice to have a bit of company"

"Indeed"

"Don't suppose he says much"

"Not really"

Our conversation continued along these lines until I had completed my examination of the patient. Imagine my embarrassment when upon returning to my car to get a penicillin injection I found that a robin had flown in through the open car window and was perched on the back of the passenger seat !

Re: Things you "learn" from clients...

Gillian Mostyn — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 14:32:17 GMT

I had a similar phone call to the one about the dead hamster. The client's tortoise hadn't moved for 3 days and was really smelly - asked me if it needed to see the vet. The fact that it might be dead (which it was) hadn't occurred to them. Apparently it didn't move round that much before.....

Re: Things you "learn" from clients...

Vikki Moran — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 22:00:18 GMT

i have also once had a client tell me it was ok to mate his "irish" staffordshire bull terrier with her full brother, because:

a) they weren't the same litter, they were repeat mating siblings

and

b) she'd had 2 litters already with a different dog, so she was diluted out and therefore it was ok.

I did point out that he probably wouldn't think it was ok to have a child with his sister, if she'd had kids with other men already, to which he told me that would be perverted. i told him i had made my point!

Re: Things you "learn" from clients...

Vikki Moran — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 21:57:15 GMT

OOH call:

client - should i be able to see my daughters haster breathing?

vet - yes, usually hamster breathe and it should be obvious.

client - well I can't. do you think it's ok?

vet - if it's not breathing it probably isn't ok (vet's spouse looks up from newspaper)

client - you don't think it might be dead do you?

vet - well, it might be, what's it doing?

client - nothing, my daughter has had it wrapped up in a blanket, so it can't do anything then can it?

vet - ummmm, how long has it been wrapped up for?

client - well she got it out of it's cage this morning and said it was still sleeping, but was cold, so she wrapped it in a blanket and left it on the radiator for the afternoon to warm up. she has it on her knee now.

vet - has it moved at all? i mean since this morning? (newspaper is folded up and spouse shows unusual level of interest into veterinary matters)

client - no. you do think it might be dead don't you? can you come round to check?

vet - i think it might be a very expensive thing to do to make a house call just to check if the hamster is dead. (spouse lies on floor legs in air muttering," i'm not breathing but i'm not dead")

client - oh right, well how do i know if it's dead then? it can't be it's eyes are open.

vet - no, they don't always close their eye when they are dead (spouse hands over piece of paper on which the words "it is an ex-hamster, it is a hamster no more" are written - vet looks away). if you touch near it's eye what happens?

client - nothing, are you SURE it's dead? It's not just hibernating, i read on the internet they can hibernate.

vet - well it certainly sounds like it might be dead. what happens if you try and stretch out it's leg?

client - oh you can't move it's legs, it won't let you, it's holding them all straight.

vet - you mean it's stiff?

client - well, err yes. it is dead isn't it? can you explain that to my daughter now please?

ARGH!

Re: Things you "learn" from clients...

Paul Dowie — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 21:39:20 GMT

It turned out to be a female.The guinea pig had of course been given to him about 7 weeks before.

Re: Things you "learn" from clients...

Glen McIntosh — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 15:36:28 GMT

Recent call taken by one of our vets:

Client concerned as her cat has been sitting on a branch of a tree (about head height) in her back garden, intently watching birds apparently, for the past 3 days. No amount of calling the cat, offering it it's food etc will budge the cat from its intense study of local fauna.

Vet advises to try to lift the cat off the branch and take inside.

Client asks the vet to stay on the line while she attempts to put this advice into action. The vet waits and in a minute or so hears screaming and sobbing in the distance at the other end of the line.

Client comes back on the line and tells the vet that as soon as she touched the cat, it fell straight off the branch, dead as a door nail.

Re: Things you "learn" from clients...

Derek Lyon — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 14:23:00 GMT

I recall an incident a few years before going to Vet School when I was "seeing practice"

The Vet in question had just qualified and doing his first vaccination. The puppy left only to collapse and die in the car outside. The following day the same Vet went to visit his first horse case. Horse was lame and during his examination the horse trod on one of his fingers and squashed it. What a first week he had in practice

Re: Things you "learn" from clients...

Alex Gough — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 14:15:44 GMT

I recall a colleague who was vaccinating two puppies. He vaccinated the first one, and as he was about to vaccinate the second, it died abruptly. If he had done them in the other order, it would undoubtedly have been the vaccine to blame.

Re: Things you "learn" from clients...

Mark Frost — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 10:56:48 GMT

A year or so ago I was presented with a dog for vaccination as the owner was going on holiday the next day and it needed doing for kennels... the dog itself seemed to have significant health problems so I refused to vaccinate and started to discuss investigations and treatment, and also euthanasia due to severity of signs and state of the dog. As the owner was arguing re: the vaccination the dog promptly died.. Shockingly the owner was quite happy as it saved him having to worry about kennels! Very glad I didn't cave and vaccinate it otherwise it would have been one of those 'vaccination killed my dog stories'...

Re: Things you "learn" from clients...

Julian Earl — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 23:07:17 GMT

Many years ago when in Burnley a lady brought her all-white tom-cat "Omo" to me to be checked over because he had been missing for six months. A removals firm from Glasgow had returned to the area and released this cat that they had found in their lorry but they had not had a chance to bring him back any sooner. The paper had been front page news in the local evening paper, with photos of the happy smiling owner and happy smiling cat. Clearly, Omo had walked in to their lorry and gone for an unexpected trip and then found his way back home when released in the general area six months on.

You know where this tale is going don't you?

Anyway, during his check-up, I suggested that Omo might wander less if he was castrated, what with him being a tom.

"Oh no", replied the owner, "I had Omo castrated years ago when he was a kitten!"

So there was now someone else, in Glasgow or who knows where, also missing an all-white cat.

As far as I am aware, she did not own up to the local evening paper...

Re: Things you "learn" from clients...

Laurence Webb — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 21:41:50 GMT

Well, I still remain confused as to why she brought it to me. Perhaps the Epiphen tablets I dispensed had an anti-poltergeist effect. Can't see it on the data sheet though.

Re: Things you "learn" from clients...

Simon Neuhoff — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 17:58:24 GMT

In that case - should they not have taken the dog to a priest for a quick excorcism?

Re: Things you "learn" from clients...

Laurence Webb — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 17:42:16 GMT

[quote user="Paul Carwardine"]...if human beings believed that they had an after life, it was a bit presumptive to assume that animals did not[/quote]Straying away a bit from the 'things you learn from client's' topic, but I was once presented with a dog that used to get a vacant look in its eyes and stare upwards before falling over on its side and paddling for 2-3 minutes.

Epileptic? No, of course not. It was being posessed by the spirit of the owner's dead mother.

Re: Things you "learn" from clients...

Sarah Drawbridge — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 17:00:17 GMT

"... (the boxer dog with no problems with his tail) needs his tail amputating because Boxers get their tails trapped in doors more frequently than other breeds of dog"!!

The owners were having none of it when I tried to tell them that I didn't think that would be the case, and even if it was, it still wasn't a good enough reason for me to hack their dogs tail off...instead they insisted that I got the director of the Practice to come along and give them a second opinion!

Re: Things you "learn" from clients...

Gillian Mostyn — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 16:41:22 GMT

what a tolerant dog!

Re: Things you "learn" from clients...

Mike Martin — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 11:49:21 GMT

A new preventative...!