I'm a vet, AMA!

[KarlDilkington]

I am a co-director of quite a large practice with 7 small animal branches and a central hospital, plus farm, equine and exotic clients. I mainly do small animals but also do some farm and equine. Happy to answer any questions, but please don't expect me to diagnose anything or advise on treatment plans over the net

Does veterinary training cover bereavement counselling for pet owners? I feel that vets aren't very good at this.

@chocolou - lots of reasons for high suicide rate among vets. Stressful job with long hours, sometimes hostile or bullying clients with unrealistic expectations; perfectionism leading to self-doubt; easy access to ways to kill oneself easily and without pain; culture that euthanasia is a good thing in the right circumstances - I think I've read that most vets are in favour of voluntary human euthanasia (with proper safeguards, obviously). Cultural expectations to keep going no matter what. No time to process difficult cases or decisions. Self blame when things go wrong, as they inevitably sometimes do. Client blame ditto. That's probably a few of the reasons?

@Nixee2231 - not wanting to sound harsh, you wouldn't last very long as a vet nurse without acquiring more detachment than this, or the job would tear you apart. If you are seriously thinking about it and haven't done so already, I suggest you ask for work experience at a local practice and see whether exposure to the real thing is feasible for you. If not, then it's not going to be the job for you. We all become desensitised to some extent over time - like black humour about awful things, it's a survival mechanism to cope. But some people just do find it too hard to process, and I don't know if you could or should fight that if that applies to you? One has to learn to wall off one's feelings from the situation - e.g.. if I am putting an animal to sleep, my priority is to do so competently. If I'm blinded by tears myself, I won't be able to find a vein, I'll mess things up, and make it worse for the animal and the owner. So even I feel very sad about the situation, I put those emotions aside and think about them afterwards, while remaining in the moment to do my job at the time. Does that make sense?

@ThinkingCat - there are courses on bereavement, I expect there's a bit on it on the curriculum by now, but as a 'soft' skill it will be fighting for space with 'hard' skills like surgical technique, so inevitably there isn't time to teach much; it's a skill most of us pick up on the job, to some extent. Also, vets are often simply too busy to spend long with owners after the actual loss. Most practices will have support staff who can do this, or there are charities that offer pet bereavement counselling. Of course vets vary in our personal empathetic skills or how well we interact with people. I think it's unfair to say vets in general aren't very good at this, because some of us certainly try to be. But in a busy practice, where any one vet might put down hundreds of animals a year, we can't remember them all in detail or provide counselling for everyone ourselves, we'd not be able to cope. So I think it's appropriate for people to find support elsewhere as well. What is a big problem, I think, is the lack of recognition in wider society for the emotional trauma of pet bereavement. Obviously not all losses are equally hard to bear, but some people are absolutely bereft when their pet dies, yet employers etc seldom allow for this.

I haven't rtft, so apologies if this has been asked.

What is your opinion on annual vax boosters for dogs? Do you advise them (as my vet does) or do you think they pose significant risks?

Our last dog had not been vaccinated (but had been wormed) since she was a pup. When she was 9, she had to be admitted to a vet hospital (she has got something stuck in her oesophagus) and they tested her immunity. She was found to still have antibodies present for everything she was vaccinated for. She was never vaccinated again and lived to be almost 15.

Do you think boosters are safe? Or is it predominantly a financial incentive for manufacturers and vets?

Hey moredogsthansense,
Thank you very much for your reply. I absolutely understand what you mean, it is exactly what Im afraid of. That if I am over emotional, even its because I care deeply about the animals, I can’t do my job properly. And its unprofessional and inappropriate as well when you’re dealing with clients, how can they have trust in me if I can’t stay calm?

Its funny because in all other areas of my life Im a very calm person but for some reason this just haunts me endlessly. Most days I feel confident that I can learn to have my sadness under control because its worth it to pursue my dream. I can’t imagine anything I want more in my life than to care for animals. But other days I read an article about abused horses and I just break down and feel hopeless.

What you said about getting practical experience makes perfect sense and its definitely something I will take to heart. I just started volunteering at a petting zoo and I hope from there I can move on to a shelter where I will have to confront my fears. Its probably the only way I will know for sure if I’ll make it or not.

Besides getting the experience do you have any other tips for how to distance my thoughts from my emotions? Does focusing on creating a routine help instead of on the animal itself? Do you think if I read more about animal biology I might start looking at them differently?

Thank you again for your insights its incredibly helpful. Don’t worry about offending me, I asked for honesty and its exactly what I need to hear. If I go into a career with my head in the clouds in my 30s with no concept of the reality of the work, Im only going to end up wasting precious time and resources so Id rather know now.

I read today that 90% of owners do not want to be in the room when their dog is PTS (understandably I guess) which results in most dogs final moments frantically looking for their owner as they die. Is this true?

What sort of clients do vets most enjoy dealing with? E.g. those who clearly love their pets, listen to advice and who don't tell the vet what to do?

I missed giving ddog his milquantil on the 12th (was away) only remembered today. I gave it to him today - do I wait a month for the next dose or do it when it’s due on 12th next month?

(Yes I’m an idiot)

Also is it true that youll just "know" when the time comes to PTS?
My partner has a 17 year old staffie. He adores that dog, she has loads and loads of what we assume and have been told are lipomas now. has only a few teeth, deaf as a post and has cloudy eyes, cant see in low light. she can tolerate short slow walks and still likes her food and still is happy to see us. She has started having fits now when she gets excited, where she collapses fits and wees. Will we just know when shes had enough? How do people know? she also seems wheezy

@PetraDelphiki if you're giving it monthly, give it a month from the last dose. Would it be easier to maybe do it on 1st September and 1st each month thereafter? That's what I do with my dogs flea prevention so I stand some kind of chance of remembering!

@Branleuse I personally cannot remember the last time an owner didn't stay for a euthanasia but it's all down to personal preference. In my experience, the vast majority (maybe 99 in every 100) stay.

oh thank god, it broke my heart

What are your thoughts on when to spay larger dogs? I’ve got a 10 month old golden retriever and have heard for breeds prone to hip problems later is better.

My cat is a lovely, fat, beast. He should be 3kg yet he weighs in at a princely 6kg. I always feel so guilty when the vet tells me he needs to lose weight. We only feed him dry food, perhaps a little more than required, but he truly is six dinner Sid. I think he gets fed elsewhere

Dried food such as Dreamies is meant to be a "treat". If you're using Dreamies you're only supposed to give your cat 20 a day, which isn't many. You really should be feeding him wet food as it's much more filling.

Thanks so much for this thread, so helpful!

I don’t think my question has already been asked but apologies if I missed it.

We have hens as well as cats and found it hard initially to find a vet knowledgeable in all things chicken-related. He is amazing, but when he’s not available we struggle to get good advice. As you know hens don’t often show signs of illness until very late. We’ve seen two non-exotic vets in the same practice whose advice was to pts. One I think was spot on but the other absolutely not. However she gave her diagnosis very confidently, but my gut feeling was that the hen had a good chance of recovery (which turned out to be the case).

Are all vets truly capable of treating hens or is it a specialist field?

Thank you!

@mycatthinksshesatiger an exotics vet will be your best bet or failing that potentially a farm vet. Most standard small animal vets will have limited knowledge and even more limited suitable medications available.

Do you see any bullying in your place of work?

I used to work at a large practice, training to be a veterinary nurse. It was a completely toxic atmosphere. The deputy head nurse ruled the roost and was absolutely vile (turning nurses against me, making up stories, giving extra help to other trainee nurse and excluding me.) It was absolute hell. I went to one of the partners and told them what was going on and they simply were not interested and chose to blindly believe DH nurse. I was signed off with stress and never went back. I saw the partner again a few years later, after I had met my husband, had children and felt confident again - I told her how awful it had been and that I had been totally let down by the management team. She wasn't bothered.

Having worked in a vets I can totally see why people have the impression that it's driven by money rather than compassion for animals a lot of the time (although I'm not saying this is the case everywhere.) I felt disillusioned after working there and seeing the reality.

@Picklesandpies it depends on the practice. As with any other workplace, individual personalities make a huge difference. One difficult member of staff can sour a whole team, particularly given it's a high stress environment anyway. Having said that, most places I've worked, the vast majority of people have been lovely.

@Branleuse , completely agree with @AnotherOriginalUsername : almost every owner stays, in my experience. When they don't, there's usually a good reason, such as they are themselves too old and frail to cope, or a child. Most of the time, the animal is sufficiently frail that it's not distressed by owners going anyway, though of course they are always pleased to have their owners there. Once in a blue moon you get owners who are in such a state that they are better not staying, because they are distressing the animal, but this is very rare. Nearly every time both animal and owner are better for them staying till the end.

I am lucky have the world’s best vet for my horse. Vets have a very long period of training, equipment is very expensive and so are the drugs. People have no idea how much human medical treatment costs because of the ‘free’ NHS. I think people should have to contribute to the cost of human treatment.

There is also 20% VAT on vets bills which does not help...

@EdWinchester I don't think annual vaccines pose significant risks, I think the anxiety around it is the pet owning equivalent of the Wakefield autism measles thing. Having said that, most diseases don't need annual boosters, and certainly where I work, we only give leptospirosis annually, the others every 3 years. I have vaccinated thousands and thousands of dogs, never seen an anaphylactic vaccine reaction and only a handful of other complications. Before there was a distemper vaccine, a quarter of all dogs died from distemper, and many of the survivors had permanent complications. So I am absolutely pro vaccination. I don't worry too much if low risk dogs don't get annual boosters as they get older, but the annual visit is also a health check where many other problems, such as dental disease, tumours, arthritis can be picked up earlier than the owner might notice them, so I am keen for annual visits. We discuss individual vaccine needs at that time, but as most dogs where I work have contact with moist ratty areas like streams and farms, we do generally recommend leptospirosis. I know of one person who died from it and another who nearly did, so it's a disease I take seriously.

So glad a vet is doing one of these threads.

My 15 year old cat is on Vidalta 15mg and doing really well on them but my question is why do they cost me £1.46 per tablet from my vet but I can get them on line from another vet for 59p a tablet (150 tablets at a time). I would love to support my local vet but the difference in price is massive! Does medication have an RRP?

Also my male cat use to have a weird thing were he would 'squirt' a really smelly substance which I believe was anal glands. Wasn't a regular occurrence but why do they do it?

Just seen you've answered the question about online meds although I would be interested if there is an RRP due to the difference in price.

Btw I think you all do a fantastic job. We lost two very elderly cats in quick succession with one of them having a massive tumour and our vet was absolutely fantastic in explaining everything and giving us time alone to say goodbye, especially as it was out of hours.

Wow lots more questions! Will get up to date this evening