Vet Stories

While I worked at my first job in Western Australia, I\’d have to do time for a day or two each week in the branch clinic. It was in a small town, somewhat inland. An old wooden building, with a flat out the back, in which the nurse lived. It was a funny, ugly little […]

\”Hello? Is that the home visit vet?\” – Her voice was a bit echoey, hard to make out. \”Yes it is – just let me pull over, it\’s a bit hard to hear you on this line…\” \”I\’ll walk outside, we don\’t have very good coverage here,\” and so we paused for a moment in

I turned up to my first long term locum job, all keen and eager to begin. The first day was madness, bedlam, chaos… And so was the next day, and the next. That’s just how the place was!  I would get up, and walk downstairs to work. We would all gather in the tea room, put

I\’ve been seeing a lovely Bassett Hound for a year or more. She has a few different problems, allergies being the worst when I first met her, though that one is under control now. About 6 months ago her mum rang me up, upset and worried. She had suddenly developed a head tilt, so her

Every dog I see, I assess for back pain. More than half of them – maybe 60-70%, have at least one spot in their backs that is painful, compromised, not moving properly… When this happens the nervous system is compromised, and the bodies communication system is out of whack. This causes all sorts of problems

I see so many people whose dogs have no respect at all for their (the humans, that is!) personal space. The dogs simply barrel in and jump on them whenever they want to. Now- when you look at a group of dogs, there will always be a leader. The leader, by the way, is not

Nearly 20 years as a vet, and still losing a patient cuts to the quick. A paper cut, stinging discomfort at the back of my mind, worrying away and wondering what I could have done, would have done, how things might have been different, and a lovely old dog still alive, if only I had

I pulled up in the early morning light, the palm fronds gently swaying in the breeze above the besser block angles of the vet hospital. The front door was already open, the nurse for the day bustling about, gathering up some errant bits of fluff shed by animals with a broom, punctuated by the busy,

I pulled up in the driveway, just another brick box in the endless dusty suburbia of Brownsville, steaming and shimmering under the merciless summer sun. The air con in my van was pumping, managing to keep me sort of cool. I steeled myself to open the door and step out into the thick, gluggy air.