What's the weirdest thing you have been asked to do?

Re: What's the weirdest thing you have been asked to do?

Sara Ramsey — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 21:58:06 GMT

I was asked to ring a zoo and get an antidote for the venomous white window spiders that had "bitten" a SBT, when I asked if he was drinking normally the very unstable client screamed "I can't give him water, it attracts the white widows!"

I was a new graduate and I think it was the first time I realised I'd be meeting some clients with quite serious mental illnesses

Re: What's the weirdest thing you have been asked to do?

Wren — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 16:59:10 GMT

Two spring to mind - boss did a toe amputation on a cat, cat went home and promptly died. The owners rang us the next day asking us to return the toe so that we could bury it with the cat. We had to ring Idexx and get them to send it back to us!

The second was a late night visit to PTS a dog on a less-than-salubrious council estate. Having already had some dealings with the owner, and also due to his apparent state of inebriation on the phone, I decided to take my husband with me as back up.

Found the right house, and as I suspected there were several empty cans of Tennant's Speshull on the coffee table. There was also the thickest fog of cannabis smoke I have ever encountered preventing me seeing across the room. Apparently the client had been trying to get the dog to smoke it so that it was out of its pain..... And to my disbelief the client pressed a bunch of crisp £20 notes into my hand on the way out. I felt a bit mean that I'd moaned all the way there 'we'll never get paid for this one....'. I am glad to this day that the police didn't stop me on the way home as my clothes stank of premium skunk for several days!

Re: What's the weirdest thing you have been asked to do?

Edward Jones — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 11:47:19 GMT

I was once called out on a Sunday afternoon by the Police to inspect a bag of butchered meat that had been found in a lay-by. They wanted to know if it was human or not!

Apparently a doctor (GP) had already had a look and couldn't say... Luckily the thorax was present so it was trivial to identify it as non-human - looked like the unwanted remains of a butchered deer to me. Apparently a girl had gone missing just recently so they were a bit twitchy... it seemed odd that they didn't have a more structured SOP for the situation, but ho-hum!

Re: What's the weirdest thing you have been asked to do?

Andre Escudeiro-Vieites — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 00:45:43 GMT

Reading previous posts...I Had a couple while practicing in North Wales.

A call from from the police in the middle of the night. A fire had bee declared and no-one was in the boat on fire parked in the garden but a poor Staffie. When I arrived the poor old bugger was agonising in the (human) ambulance being given oxygen by the paramedics with pritty much 100% body surface burns.

Talking about student's Rats in Wales, Evelyn.I had one euthanased there and sent for individual cremation. The owners requested that the name that would appear in the casket would be: "Bastard, 'cos he was"

Re: What's the weirdest thing you have been asked to do?

Kirsten Simpson — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 00:43:11 GMT

Just remembered one the nurse at work told me (as it happened on my half day, luckily). Client came in with their cat that they had taken home to bury but they were now moving house (2 months later) and had kept the cat wrapped up in a towel (or three) in the garage and had forgotten about it until now. They brought it in for Private Crem so one of the nurses had to unwrap it from the many layers and pop it into a bag. I don't think she managed to fully unwrap it as she said it was stinking (this was the end of last years hot summer).

I then came in the next day and they told me the story so I go look up the case notes...and discover the cat had been PTS a YEAR and 2 months ago!!!! It had been slowly decomposing in their garage until they had to move house and then rediscovered it :| Poor nurse, apparently the stench was horrible and the towels were soaking in..well...liquid. Boak. So glad I had a half day that day!

Re: What's the weirdest thing you have been asked to do?

Andre Escudeiro-Vieites — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 00:04:12 GMT

I had to dig a proper grave once. An old lady had a grave prepared and was going to bury her 15kg dog in a 30 cms deep hole, so I had to dig a proper hole in her garden for her

Re: What's the weirdest thing you have been asked to do?

Simon Neuhoff — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 21:33:17 GMT

In the last ten days (and for the first 2 times!) I have physically had to carry two large breed dogs to graves in the owners' back gardens - one we delivered from the practice (after a pts on the table)! Clealry I strongly advised against it but.....

Re: What's the weirdest thing you have been asked to do?

Arlo Guthrie — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 12:04:09 GMT

[quote user="Mark Holmes"]Whole new meaning to grooming the dog!![/quote]

Very witty.

Re: What's the weirdest thing you have been asked to do?

Mark Holmes — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 12:00:43 GMT

[quote user="Vikki Halliday"]

Was asked by a lady client once if I could examine her dog and test it for AIDS as she suspected her builder had been "intimate" with it.

[/quote]

Whole new meaning to grooming the dog!!

Re: What's the weirdest thing you have been asked to do?

Vikki Halliday LLB — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 11:45:40 GMT

Was asked by a lady client once if I could examine her dog and test it for AIDS as she suspected her builder had been "intimate" with it.

Re: What's the weirdest thing you have been asked to do?

HERETIC — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 21:01:03 GMT

Nice elderly couple. Could I cut the rabbit's claws as it kept scratching her husband's head in bed. You think they have problems in Wales!

Re: What's the weirdest thing you have been asked to do?

Alex Gough — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 13:53:08 GMT

Two weird out of hours calls. One was a young lady ringing me to tell me her cat had caught a bird and carried it up a tree, and could I climb the tree to get it out. She would ask her boyfriend, but it looked dangerous and she didn't want him to hurt himself. Having skipped my tree climbing lessons at college, I declined.

Another was a 1am callout to a 5 week old kitten that was clearly dehydrated and had been ill for some time. The owner confessed she would have called me earlier, but her husband wasn't prepared to pay the call out fee, and so she had to wait until he had gone to bed, and would I mind being quiet because he might wake up!

Alex

Re: What's the weirdest thing you have been asked to do?

Hannah Wynne Richards — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 09:35:42 GMT

At the risk of perpetuating assumptions:

2 competitors in a prestigous cycle race literally "crashed out " after swerving to avoid a sheep near Brynaman !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wynne

Re: What's the weirdest thing you have been asked to do?

Simon Neuhoff — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 17:46:38 GMT

[quote user="Evelyn Barbour-Hill"]

[quote user="Utlendigur"]There was also a dead mountain pony lying on a popular mounatin bike track for days - any biker not paying attention as they came round the bend would have ended up head first in the gaping hole in the abdomen.[/quote]

Serve 'em right.

[/quote]

That's a bit of a wierd thing to say. Mountain bikers on a mountain biking track deserve to end up covered in horse entrails?

Re: What's the weirdest thing you have been asked to do?

Niall Taylor — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 12:01:21 GMT

[quote user="Kate Richardson"]One of our clients rang in the middle of the night once because she thought her cat (which was indoors) had been shot from outside. The very patient receptionist on the phone got her to check for broken glass and after half an hour managed to persuade her that as there was no signs of a bullet hole in any of the windows this couldn't possibly have happened![/quote]

Maybe it was a laser?

Niall

Re: What's the weirdest thing you have been asked to do?

Kate Richardson — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 09:15:02 GMT

One of our clients rang in the middle of the night once because she thought her cat (which was indoors) had been shot from outside. The very patient receptionist on the phone got her to check for broken glass and after half an hour managed to persuade her that as there was no signs of a bullet hole in any of the windows this couldn't possibly have happened! The cat was asleep on the bed throughout the whole conversation.

Re: What's the weirdest thing you have been asked to do?

Rob Reid — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 07:44:51 GMT

[quote user="Charlotte Marshall"]I would assume this is some vague knowledge of liver fluke in sheep being associated with snails and the old bloke got a bit confused.[/quote]

You seem to credit the individual in question with some intellectual capability. Clearly you have never visited Bettws !!!

Re: What's the weirdest thing you have been asked to do?

Utlendigur — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 21:32:16 GMT

Just remembered another odd one. A hysterical client rang up demanding that the practice principal (nobody lower down the pecking order would do) go out on a house visit. The reason - to examine a tin of dog food She'd opened a tin to find it was mouldy inside and was worried it might have poisoned her dog IF she had fed it to the dog - which she hadn't! Does anyone else find the general public scary at times

Re: What's the weirdest thing you have been asked to do?

Gillian Mostyn — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 21:12:53 GMT

Phone call - a lady had come home from work and found her rabbit dead. The problem was that she said the rabbit's head had shrunk massively and now looked like a miniature head - she wanted to know what disease would cause this. We asked her to bring the rabbit in because we couldn't think of a reason - at which point she was happy to pay for a home visit as she couldn't possibly touch it. Eventually the lady was persuaded to lift the rabbit into a plastic bag, using a towel, at which point she found a perfectly normal rabbit head tucked underneath it - I still fail to imagine what she was seeing???

Re: What's the weirdest thing you have been asked to do?

bob lehner — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 20:28:26 GMT

[quote user="Martin Atkinson"]She then wanted to have the back half of the cat stuffed [/quote]

I had another dotty client who kept a pack of hunting beagles. When her favourite hound died she had the head stuffed and then mounted it on the wall of her sitting room, along with the usual array of fox/badger/hare/deer heads beloved by hunting folk. The first time I visited the house I saw this dog head mounted low on the sitting room wall - it looked for all the world as if the dog had charged through from the next-door room and got its head stuck....

Re: What's the weirdest thing you have been asked to do?

Charlotte Marshall — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 18:07:07 GMT

I would assume this is some vague knowledge of liver fluke in sheep being associated with snails and the old bloke got a bit confused.

Remembered another one - one of my colleagues was presented with a rabbit that the owner said was suffering from poltergeists. She also rang the surgery once complaining of the ghosts in the walls scaring the dog and making the parrot fall off it's perch. I think the nurse who took the call seriously thought of recommending she ask a priest for an exorcism but I'm not sure what she said in the end!

Re: What's the weirdest thing you have been asked to do?

Rob Reid — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 17:15:28 GMT

[quote user="Bob Russell"]Getting really worried about this Wales thing now! [/quote]

There seems to be a Welsh theme going on here - I worked there for 2 years as a new grad, really enjoyed it and met my wife there as well. And before you ask yes she is bit barmy (she'd have to be to marry me after all)

I do recall a good tale from when I worked there - colleague of mine was asked to examine a terrier by a slightly insane old man. Conversation was along these lines:

Vet: What's the problem today?

Insane old man: What it is see, it's my dog it is. He's eaten this slug see, and now it's living in his liver. Would it be possible to have some anti-slug tablets for him?

Vet prescribed a worming tablet for the completely healthy dog and told him to return in a week. Insane old man was never seen again.

I did wonder when I heard the tale if the old man thought his dog had worms, but apparently my colleague questioned him about this and he was adamant it was a liver slug. Weird these Welsh folk.

Re: What's the weirdest thing you have been asked to do?

Gillian Mostyn — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 16:56:56 GMT

Re: What's the weirdest thing you have been asked to do?

Rob Davis — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 16:34:48 GMT

A client told me recently how she was so attached to her cat that when he was put to sleep she was worried that she would not be able to sleep without him in her bed. Her solution, of course, was that she would continue to have the cat in bed with her. She said that her husband made her bury him when the maggots appeared (and she seemed decidedly put out at her husbands insensitivity...)

Re: What's the weirdest thing you have been asked to do?

Martin Atkinson — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 15:35:13 GMT

I've just remembered one better than my first post. A client who was a Persian 'breeder' requested that when her favourite cat died she wanted me to skin it and retain just the hind legs and tail. She then wanted to have the back half of the cat stuffed and sewn into a rug so it looked like it was forever chasing something under the rug. I muttered something non-committal and forgot about it. When I can back from a holiday a while later a colleague who ran the neighbouring practice phoned me somewhat miffed because the cat had died while I was away and when my locum told the client, no doubt in no uncertain terms, there was no way he was doing it, she took it to my colleague and not knowing that I would have refused anyway, he performed the necessary dissection out of loyalty to me. To make it worse the nutty owner had kept the body in her fridge for a week before she took it to him so it wasn't exactly fresh. I don't think he ever forgave me for that. But the same client habitually kept dead cats in her chest freezer for months at a time until she got round to burying them or bringing them in for disposal. There are some sick people out there.