In the upcoming days I will post some pictures of interesting necropsies I did the last four years. This was a stranded free-ranging harbour porpoise, and although it smelled a little fishy, it was a really interesting case! 🐬
Hello everyone, I have been gone for a very long time but I am back!
I have finished my residency of the European College of Veterinary Pathology (ECVP) in October 2023 at the University of Ghent, and already have successfully passed 3 of the 5 exams (gross pathology, general pathology and comparative pathology). I have my two last exams the end of January 2024 (veterinary pathology and histopathology) and hopefully after those, I will be a Diplomate in Veterinary Pathology! Currently I am working two parttime jobs: I am the coordinating head of veterinary pathology in a laboratory and I am pathologist in the veterinary practice I was previously working.
The goal is to keep getting better in pathology, both necropsies and histopathology, because I’m noticing that learning things needs time! Finishing a residency is kind of like finishing vet school: you feel like you should know everything but actually you still don’t know anything! So here’s to learning a little bit more every day (and a lot some days), and sharing it with you all!
I’ve been losing myself completely in my job for the last years, seeing myself as absolutely nothing more than a veterinarian. I’ve been measuring my value solely on how many animals I can rescue and honestly, it has been exhausting and I am done with it. It feels good to see myself more as a person again. I hope that I can heal myself and find myself again because I deserve it. For the first time in my life, I am putting myself first.
When your cat is loving the box that the postman brought you that day!
Cats and holiday stress
Some tips to make it easier for your cat(s) these holiday period:
- Make sure your cat has a safe hiding place where it can comfortably get away from the party, such as flickering christmas lights, a lot of people, loud music or television, weird sounds and smells, unusual company,...
- Don’t move too much of your cats material (such as litter box, food bowl, scratching pole) to make room for christmas decoration. Don’t put your christmas tree on the spot of your cats scratching pole unless you want a comparable situation like on the picture above.
- Don’t use breakable christmas balls.
- Keep your cat indoors on the last day of the year and new year to avoid him getting spooked by fireworks and getting into trouble.
- In cases of severe stress, plug a Feliway evaporator in a few days (or weeks) before the holiday stress kicks in.
All these simple tips can help reduce the stress for your cat(s) so that he can also enjoy starting the new year!
Firework stress in pets
Make sure to educate your clients on holiday stress and consequences of fireworks on their pets soon enough!
Some simple tips are to make sure they have a comfortable place where they feel completely at ease. This can be their normal bench (if they are already trusting and comfortable enough) that is covered with an extra blanket to make it more soundproof. Distracting your dog with toys and candy is also a good way to make him relax a little bit more.
If you know from experience that your pet is very stressed during the holiday period, there are also some medications available to help ease the stress on your pets but it is important that they are started a little bit in advance to have the best effects sp don’t wait to long to tell your clients about this.
Evolution of a traumatic leg wound in a hooded crow that was attacked by his buzzard-neighbour. We used honeybased bandage material. We renewed the bandage every four days and always briefly anesthesised the bird.
First two pictures are of 9th november, picture 3 and 4 are of 12th november, 5 and 6 are of 16th november, 7 and 8 are of 23th november, 9 is of 1st december and 10 is of 4th december.
Do you guys know which Amazon species these are???
These are the puppies of the radiograph I asked you about some time back.
As you can see: the right answer was FOUR PUPPIES!
Chocolate intoxication in dogs
With the holidays that are coming, it is very important that your clients understand the danger of chocolate intoxication in dogs. And it is our job to tell them that!
The severity of the toxicity is dependent on the weight of your dog, the type of chocolate and the amount of chocolate intake. Theobromin is the toxic ingredient in chocolate that causes the problems and the concentration of theobromin is different in each type of chocolate. Pure chocolate is the most dangerous and white chocolate the least. The lethal dose of theobromin is 80 mg per kg body weight. In the table above you can find how much a dog with a specific weight can eat from each type of chocolate. It is in Dutch because I could not find a table in English that I found as useful as this one. The upper half of the table is for milk chocolate, the lower half is for pure chocolate. Green colouration means mild or no symptoms, yellow means mild symptoms, orange means severe symptoms and red means lifetreatening symptoms.
The symptoms that appear the soonest are excitation, vomiting, diarrhea, tachycardia and tachypnea. A few moments later more severe symptoms start to show, such as cardiac arrhytmias, seizures, incoordination and even coma. Eating a big amount of chocolate can eventually become fatal for your dog!
An quick start of the treatment is very important. If the dog has just recently eaten the chocolate, making him vomit with apomorfine (IV, IM or SC) is the best option to avoid further intake of theobromin in the blood. If it has already been longer than 2-3 hours, making the dog vomit will normally come too late. Treatment is completely symptomative since there is no antidote. Activated carbon is given per orally and can reduce the absorption of the theobromin. Other medications are dependent on the specific symptoms, such as diazepam for convulsions and metoprolol or lidocain for cardiac problems.
Chocolate intoxication is lifetreatening so these dogs are emergencies!
Anonymous asked:
How do birds' feathers work? Are they permanent? Do they grow back, like hair? How fast do they grow? And what makes a healthy feather? I've never seen much about bird care, and seeing the picture of the bird with the mass by its gland made me really curious.
Those are all really well questions. I will try to make a post about bird feathers in the near future, in which all your questions will be answered! A little bit of patience please, since everything is a little hectic here, but it will come, I promise!
Anonymous asked:
hey there! I absolutely love your blog, I wanted to become a vet as well, but sadly I’ve become chronically ill and disabled, which has made it impossible for me to work or even study properly. do you perhaps have ideas or suggestions what I can do to still help out in animal-care? aside from donating?
Hey there, sorry for this late answer! I guess it depends what your ilness or disability exactly is. There are so many different types of jobs to do that are related to animals and animal care and I am 100% convinced that you can find a job in animalcare that you love! If you want me to think about possible options, is it maybe possible to give me some more details about what you can and can’t do; physically aswel as mentally? Not to want to be rudely curious, but just to be able to find some options that will suit you the most!
So we are in holiday mood back at our practice!
Major Mitchell's cockatoo (Lophochroa leadbeateri) couple gone terribly wrong... This female was viciously attacked by her male without any obvious causes. The couple had been housevested together for five years without any problems. Fortunately, the female was able to eat like this and seemed to have no big problems with missing her upper beak.
This little Chinchilla was brought in by a pet store. He escaped the night before and got stuck in a glue-rat-trap. He came to us in a box with sand as substrate, which obviously was not an intelligence-pricewinning decision.
Fortunately we were able, with a lot of patience and precision work, to get most of the glue and sand of the little animal (last two photographs) and he did surprisingly well afterwards.
All ends well! And hopefully, the pet store will remove their traps now...
We don’t see it very often, but especially if you don’t find anything else on necropsy: always check the skull! Hemorrhages can cause acute death and are easily missed...