Days like these

Make me think staying home in the cold and the snow with the dogs isn't so bad.  

It started out ok.  Then the emergencies and idiots started rolling in.  First was a dog that ate a large amount of chocolate.  Luckily it was a large dog and mostly milk chocolate.  We successfully induced vomiting, the dog produced chocolate, wrappers and dog food and headed home no worse for the wear.  

At the same time a woman arrived with her older small breed dog whom her husband had been giving his prescription NSAID because he thought the dog was painful.  For 3 days the dog received one pill a day.  By the third day she was ill and passing black, tarry stools (typical of NSAID overdose).  For reasons I cannot even begin to understand the husband thought the dog was sick and painful from the cheese he put the pills in and gave the dog three pills a day for two days.  Then backed down to one pill a day until his wife arrived home and realized something was terribly wrong.  Something was.  The  daily dose of medication given to this dog was 20 to 60 times the recommended dosage.  The bloodwork was fairly devastating and the owner elected euthanasia based on prognosis and cost of attempted treatment.  There is nothing really comparable to telling a woman her husband poisoned her dog and then watching the ensuing (but certainly warranted) meltdown complete with wailing and sobbing that could be heard throughout the clinic.

The afternoon brought a slew of appointments that induced banging heads against walls.  One woman brought in her large breed dog she adopted over the summer and it tested positive for heartworms.  When presented with a treatment estimate she announced she didn't want to spend a lot of money as this was not a pet, but a "yard dog." ???

Another woman had two dogs attacked by the same neighborhood dog in one week.  I think a fence and a neutering is in order.  But she came in because one of the dogs was not eating well.  Turns out she could not give her dog it's meds because it wasn't eating.  The dog was not eating because it was painful.  It's painful becuase it wasn't getting it's pain meds.  See the cycle here?  You must be able to give your pet pills people.  

Someone who clearly should not be breeding dogs arrived with her tiny maltese covered in fleas and it's one week okd puppies and complained that the dog was not eating well.  The dog and puppies were in good shape (other than fleas).  The owner was unsure of how much the dog normally eats, how much she is eating now and when exactly it started. 

Yet another man arrived dragging two large mixed breed puppies with him.  He listed them as purebred pitbull-because after all the place that he got them had two pitbulls chained up in the yard.  Upon questioning his plans to plans to spay and neuter he announced he planned to breed them.  Ok, never mind the overwhelming pet overpopulation and the fact that they are mixed breed dogs, THEY ARE SIBLINGS!  Fortunately he was easily convinced that this was a horrible idea.  

I'm off tomorrow.  I think that's a good thing.