Corncob, messy feet, poop

Wow, yesterday was very busy at work! The past few workdays have been a blur. We have two people leaving, one of which is my manager, so it is sad. Another two or three employees are sick, so it's quite crazy! Despite the rain, we had millions of clients, it seemed. But it was a good thing, because then I got to do some things (which I had to learn), whether I wanted to or not, so it was good for me.

Corncob?? Of course, the victim was a labrador puppy. Who else? They swallow things that should be chewed, and chew things that should not be chewed (i.e. shoes). So, this little puppy, Jake, had somehow swallowed an entire corncob. I'm sure that this was discovered through x-ray, when they found an odd-looking object in his intestines. I'd be confused, too! So, he was sent to emergency foreign body exploratory surgery, and they found it in his intestines. It had been there for a while, so part of the tissue was actually dead and not getting oxygen, so they had to cut that section of his bowel out and remove it. So this was unfortunate for the little guy, but when he was recovering from his anesthesia, he was a sweet little dog and wagged his tail at me. I was glad that he was recovering fine when I left, and eating some of his canned food meatballs with moderate relish.

Brownies! :) During one of the busiest times of the day, we had a small white dog (puppy, of course) who was handed in directly from the front by one of the receptionists. She gave him to me because I was the only one listnening, and told me that he had just eaten a bunch of brownies half an hour ago. I quickly (yay for me, haha) deducted that chocolate is poisonous for dogs, so he had to vomit it up (the receptionist told me this part), and so I had to be tough with the doctors to get to him quickly. So they did, and administered some of the medicine into his vein. It goes through the bloodstream, so it quickly made him vomit. As I was waiting, I knew there wasn't much time before it happened, so I ran for the newspaper to set it on the ground in front of him. It's a lot more fun to clean up the vomit when you can just wrap it in newspaper and throw it away! So I was in time, thankfully. I just stood by him and he immediately retched and threw up, and seemed confused. He was sniffing the brown, stinky vomit and seemed pleased with himself. He wagged his tail and vomited again. After all of it was gone, he was free to go home, since the chocolate was unable to absorb into him and cause him poisoning problems. He was a cutie!

Messy Feet Poor dog, he was a lovely looking springer spaniel, and he had an awful ear infection which has been present, off and on, for 3 years. The people had been treating it with some medication from here, but it wasn't helping. There is a corrective surgery (bilateral ear canal, it's called) to be done, but they didn't want to do it originally because it was expensive. Finally, it took the nurse being frank: she basically said, "Do the surgery or call the Humane Society. Those are your options.". So, they listened, and they did it! I was leaving when they were starting it, so I didn't get to see how it ended. He also had some problems with his feet, paw pads and toes and the like. They were kind of bacteria-filled, it looked like, red and inflamed and infected in places. So I was clipping the hair off the toes-- it's harder than it sounds! The toes are all curvy and bony, and I had to get as much hair off as I could. Thankfully, he was already under anesthesia for this. I learned to get the fur wet before clipping, in any case, which saves the animal some of the discomfort of shaving the fur dry.

Poop. I learned more labwork! I learned how to run the fecal samples. They are in a little plastic tube, and I add this sticky sugary stuff to it until it's full with a meniscus on it (the little bubble on the top) and put a slide cover on top, the square one. Then I put it into the fecal centrifuge, the awesome machine which does magical things to the poop slurry, and when it is done then the nurse can examine it. Fancy!