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[alargeanimalvettech]

Sometimes I don't want to go to work, but then I remember I get to play with horse's false nostrils and I feel a little better.

[alargeanimalvettech]

Weird Things Clients Say pt 2

"My budy said that giving my horse a beer if he colics will fix it."

And

"It's only a horse, we can get her (daughter) another one."

I am still low key traumatized from this call.

First, let me explain the word "colic." This is a broad term used for any stomach ache a horse could have. It could be gas, labor pain, a twist in the gut, etc. What makes colics dangerous for horses it the fact that they can't throw up. So whatever is in their system has to make it all the way through to get out. In the event of a twist, they can go from fine to dead in 24 hours.

Now, this story started on a lovely Monday morning in mid summer. The clinic gets a call for a colic and the owner implies that he may have given the horse a beer. When pressed for more information, he says that was for the last time the patient had a colic episode and that he had not done it this time. We were skeptical since he was the one who brough it up, and he only backed down from that when the receptionist explained that doing that was a horrible idea and could kill the horse (all said nicer than that).

When the vet and I arrived at the farm, we realized what a shit show we were in for. The first red flag was that reflux was already freely flowing out his nose. That's when we knew that this horse was in some serious pain and had been given a beer. When the vet took the heart rate it was over 100 beats per minutes. 30 bpm is normal, and 60 bpm tends to be part of a regular colic. This horse was trying to crash and his stomach was on its way to rupturing. When we tubed it, the reflux was so thick it clogged the tube and smelled of cheap beer.

We gave the owner their options: hospitalize or euthanize. This was a money case and hospitalization can be expensive, so they opted for euthanasia. I can still feel the residual anger in me from this call. There I am covered in blood and reflux as the owner complaines. She calls he son to update him since the horse is for her grand daughte. This is when he said the wonderful phrase: "It's only a horse, we can get her (daughter) another one."

No hose deserves to feel the pain of their stomach rupturing. The owner declaired she couldn't watch the euthanisia. I had been praying she wouldn't, because this horse needed peace and he wasn't going to find it in them. They left the vet and I to finish our job and the horse ended up going down smoothly.

I will always remember that emergency as one of the worst things I have ever seen. I was still a baby tech when this went down, so to deal with the greif and anger, I made a bracelet with the horses name in morse code to remind me why I go to work everyday. I can't save all of them, but I can give them a little dignity and comfort in their final moments.

[alargeanimalvettech]

Weird Things Clients Say pt. 1

"He (horse) keeps having diarrhea, so I've started him on marshmallow concentrate powder."

This particular owner had been trying a new suppliment every two weeks for her ulcery horse and didn't know why he was having diarrhea. Our most commonly used product is Gastroade. It's basically pepto bismal for hoses. I personally have two horses on it and they stay pretty stable (lol). When we asked this client if she had used it, she said she had and it just "burned him up." She also complained that it wasn't "all natural" and only wanted to use organic suppliments. Now, there is a time and place for natural remidies, but when a hose has chronic diarrhea, it is important to keep it to a schedule and keep a steady diet, so constantly changing his feed was only keeping things angry.

I was still an intern when I heard this original conversation, and it still makes me laugh a year later.