Illegal Party for the Parvovirus

Today was unofficially Parvo Day. We sometimes have one or two puppies with this deadly disease (that has a vaccine... *hint hint*....) in the Isolation ward, but today we had FOUR at once! It was bad. Yesterday there were already 3 there, and two others had died of it. These five puppies were abandoned by a dumb owner who is a "breeder", but definitely doesn't take any care of his puppies. I felt so bad for them. They are sweet little poodles, and when I left one was rapidly improving, one was moderate, and one didn't look so good. When I arrived, a basset hound puppy with the virus was being taken care of and set up for hospitalization. I was going to just watch, because I didn't want to touch her and become contaminated, but they needed help. So, me and one nurse became the committed parvo people for the evening. Once you are contaminated, you of course spray yourself down all over with disinfectant, but it's still better not to go near any dogs, especially puppies. It's very very very contagious. We had "fun" trying to place a catheter-- the nurse and doctor each tried several times to place one in the roly-poly vein before it worked. Parvo is an intestinal virus, so it leaves the dogs dehydrated. Drawing blood was fun, too. This was when the dog was already in the kennel for a while and we wanted to check on her, so I held her while the nurse drew blood. She got a little bit, but our awkward positions in the small room around the small cage just didn't cut it. It was tricky! Poor puppy started moaning at us to leave her alone and let her sleep. So, we did, and she was so cute when she curled up! What a sweet basset.

Mmmm, yummy! When a small dog, Olive, presented with an unknown diagnosis, they did the necessary tests and ran some labwork. I didn't know what was happening, until I peeked at her x-rays. She had eaten a screw! Thankfully it wasn't a long one, but it was a 1/3" or so long screw, similar in shape to a thumbtack, but thankfully not as sharp or thin. The doctor in charge was joking that she and Olive were best buddies, because she had previously operated on the dog for eating something random: two months ago. You'd think a dog would learn from the experience, but no. Of course not. It's just too yummy. So, the doctors were determined that she would pass the screw, so after a round of IV fluids, I got to help with an enema; yay for me. An enema is when some soapy water is inserted into her rectum and into her intestines, to soften up poop or whatever is in there. In this case, it was mostly to prompt her to poop so she would pass the screw. The doctor shoved many mL of enema into the dog, and then we ran outside in case Olive couldn't hold it and exploded. She was actually sniffing for a good five minutes or so, so the doctor handed me gloves and asked me to watch for the screw. So when the dog finally did explode some poop, I was probing around with my gloves. She was sniffing me, probably wondering why on earth I am doing this. And, lo and behold, I found it! Eureka! YAY! I took it back inside, and showed everyone my prize. They praised Olive, and we lived happily ever after. I also got to administer medication! The doctor told me how to give Cefazolin, an antibiotic, and I did it without any negative effects, yay! It was quite an adventure. I'm sure the owners were in awe when they saw the screw!

Eyeball Madness. Some small dogs-- chihuahuas and other dogs with big eyes, mainly-- sometimes have their eyeballs pop out of their sockets. It's kind of an emergency, because the sooner the doctor can pop it back in, the more likely it is to stay. So when this small terrier came in with the eyeball out of her head, we sprung into action. She was such a sweet dog, not biting us or freaking out even with all of the pain. She got some pain meds, and was soon sedated and the doctor worked on her. As she was examining it, both she and the nurses agreed that they had never seen an eyeball as far out as this one. It was probably about 80% out, to my best guess. I was wondering how in the world that would go back in. ---GROSS ALERT!--- When the dog was very much sedated, the doctor began the painful operation. She used her sutures to "sew" from one side of around the eye across the eye to the other side. When she had made two loose loops over the eye like this, she put the dull flat part of the blade holder between the loops and the eye front, and simply used force and all her might to try to force it back in. It finally went back in, with what I pictured in my mind as "pop", but as soon as the doctor let go it was out again. She grimly said that it would most likely need to be removed. Some eyes that have popped out pop out again even after it's healed, and this one was terribly wounded. She sewed the eyelid together around the eye, so it was like a closed eye, but it probably needs to be fixed tomorrow in surgery, and the eye removed. It's a sad story for that poor dog, but she'll get better soon. It is an odd thing, this condition, because she was just playing with a bigger dog, possibly slightly fighting. Nothing terribly traumatic happened. It is just an unfortunate sometimes-side-effect of being a small dog, I suppose.