Ah, life

[cjsmith]

If I ever own a dog who outweighs me, he will be trained. He will know (and respond properly to) at minimum COME, SIT, and STAY. Heck, he can be shaky on STAY as long as he knows the other two.

Saw two different pets today who were attacked by other animals in their households. One is going to heal, though slowly. The other was DOA.

In the clinic's computer system we keep track of all kinds of info about the animals, whether medically relevant (age, sex) or not particularly (color). We had a tortoise in today. Just guess what color he is.

I gave my first vaccination (supervised of course). Remember those tiny tiny puppies? They're a LOT bigger now, and twice as heartstoppingly cute. I gave two of them their distemper vaccines. The whole staff was joking around about how we had to keep an eye on each other and make sure that the client got all five of her puppies back.

My heart goes out to one couple who are facing the hardest decision a pet owner ever has to face. I don't yet know what they will choose to do, but finances might turn out to be the overriding factor. I feel awful for them, just awful.

Yep, you guessed right: the tortoise is listed as tortoiseshell.

Comments

[evilegg.livejournal.com]

TORTOISE!!! What was wrong with him?

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Attacked by, apparently, a rat. Gnawed up the outside portions of his arms pretty badly.

[evilegg.livejournal.com]

Holy smokes.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

It's possible that the rat was not a pet, but food for a reptile. So he wouldn't have been the gentle type. But still!

[zianuray.livejournal.com]

Do the puppies fit in pockets?

[evilegg.livejournal.com]

Yeah- I figured it was all part of a larger herpe family.

[jimp220.livejournal.com]

Just went to the pound yesterday looking for a young dog to possibly adopt. We just lost a 16 month old Rotty/Boxer/Cattle Dog (one brown eye, one blue!) mix to cancer and her twin sister is lost without a companion. The semi-retired vet said he had never seen that much cancer in such a young animal. Her mother died of similar symptoms so perhaps she was born with it.

Very heartbreaking, I must be getting soft in my old age, these things didn't used to bother me. Hopefully we can find a suitable dog/puppy soon.

[steph-2012.livejournal.com]

A friend with a boa put a dietary rat in the tank with the boa... in time for the boa to go into hibernation. The rat snacked on the boa till the friend discovered the problem. The boa eventually healed, but it just makes you think...

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Not any more - they're about the size of a bread loaf, the small ones people make for banana bread or something. Not particularly big, but larger than a pocket. :)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Oh OUCH. That's awful. (I've probably been soft all my life - that kind of thing has always bothered me.)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Yeah, live feeding has its drawbacks. :-/

[allanh.livejournal.com]

Something's wrong with the story you were given. Most tortoises don't eat rats. Snapping turtles, maybe, but that's the only exception I can think of. Color me highly suspicious. I can think of no reason that a tortoise and a rat should be caged together.

Raccoons also eat tortoises. They bite off the legs (and head and tail) like a hamburger, and leave the rest because the shell's too difficult to open.

Bleah.

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

i love the 'tortoiseshell' thing :)

[racerxmachina.livejournal.com]

I've seen frightened mice really hurt the heck out of wild snakes we captured to study in biology classes. The teacher put the mouse in with the snake, explaining that the snake was hungry and how the snake would attack and eat the mouse. We then saw the mouse beat the crap out of the poor snake. After a minute of this, some of the softer-hearted students (like me) asked the teacher if we couldn't please take the mouse out of the enclosure.

[racerxmachina.livejournal.com]

So do I. What an apt way to put it!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

No, no, it wasn't supposed to be food for the tortoise. It wasn't supposed to be in the tortoise's enclosure at all; that's where the problem started.