This section is for our young readers to call their own. Send us a story about your pet, a make believe pet or perhaps draw us a picture and send it in and we will put it on this site.
Here is our first contibution from Samantha Elliott
HARVEY THE CAT
This is a picture of me with my sister Sophie holding Harvey.
8 years ago Harvey arrived lost at our Nana's house. She advertised for his real owners but no-one answered. So she fed him every day, but couldn't let him inside because she had two old cats who didn't like him. But she made him a box in the shed for him to sleep in at night. We were living in the North Island but we came down a lot to visit Nana, and each time Harvey would always follow Sophie around and make a big fuss of her. She was the only one he would come to when called. Nana thinks that he must have been owned by a little girl so must have been very sad to have been separated from her. Harvey was at Nana's for two years until we came back to live in Timaru, and then he came to live with us. Brian, the vet, guessed his age then, so he must be 12 now. We decided to make his birthday on Anzac Day which is the day after Sophie's. He loves Sophie the most and wants to sleep on her bed at night but isn't allowed to because she's allergic to him. He gets up on her pillow and rubs his face on hers and dribbles while he purrs. So Mum keeps him in her room at night, although he always tries to get back to Sophie. He likes to bang heads with us and chase rubber balls that we throw. But he can be naughty and rips the furniture. He also expects to be let in and out of the window all night and meows and scratches at the window if mum ignores him. He's not a very brave cat, and is frightened when someone comes to the house and runs away and hides until they are gone. But he's alright if it's just little girls that are here. His full name is Harvey Norman Wallbanger. Sometimes we just call him Mr Wallbanger and we really love him.
By Samantha Elliott
If you have anything you wish to share with us email me at
bryan.g@aorangivet.co.nz
or drop it off at any of our clinics.
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A man takes his Rottweiler to the veterinarian and says, “My dog is going cross-eyed. Is there anything you can do to help him?”
“Well,” replies the vet, “let’s have a look at him.” So he picks up the dog and checks its eyes.
After a quick exam, the vet turns to the owner and says, “I’m afraid I’m going to have to put him down.”
“Why? Just because he’s cross-eyed?”
“No,” says the vet. “It’s just that he’s really heavy.”
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A veterinarian was feeling ill and went to see her doctor. The doctor asked her all the usual questions, about symptoms, how long had they been occurring, etc., when she interrupted him: "Hey look, I'm a vet. I don't need to ask my patients these kind of questions: I can tell what's wrong just by looking. Why can't you?"
The doctor nodded, looked her up and down, wrote out a prescription, and handed it to her and said, "There you are. Of course, if that doesn't work, we'll have to have you put down."
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Q. What is the difference between a doctors and a vets thermometer?
A. The taste!
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The vet had had a hell of a day, but when he got home from tending to all the sick animals his wife was waiting with a long cool drink and a romantic candle-lit dinner, after which they had a few more drinks and went happily to bed.
At about 2:00 in the morning, the phone rang. "Is this the vet?" asked an elderly lady's voice.
"Yes, it is", replied the vet, "Is this an emergency?"
"Well, sort of", said the elderly lady, "there's a whole bunch of cats on the roof outside making a terrible noise mating and I can't get to sleep. What can I do about it?"
There was a sharp intake of breath from the vet, who then patiently replied
"Open the window and tell them they're wanted on the phone"
"Really?" said the elderly lady, "Will that will that stop them?"
"Should do," said the vet, "- IT STOPPED ME!"
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A man runs into the vet's office carrying his dog, screaming for help. The vet rushes him back to an examination room and has him put his dog down on the examination table. The vet examines the still, limp body and after a few moments tells the man that his dog, regrettably, is dead.
The man, clearly agitated and not willing to accept this, demands a second opinion.
The vet goes into the back room and comes out with a cat and puts the cat down next to the dog's body. The cat sniffs the body, walks from head to tail poking and sniffing the dog's body and finally looks at the vet and meows.
The vet looks at the man and says, "I'm sorry, but the cat thinks that your dog is dead too." The man is still unwilling to accept that his dog is dead.
The vet brings in a black labrador. The lab sniffs the body, walks from head to tail, and finally looks at the vet and barks.
The vet looks at the man and says, "I'm sorry, but the lab thinks your dog is dead too."
The man, finally resigned to the diagnosis, thanks the vet and asks how much he owes.
The vet answers, "$650."
"$650 to tell me my dog is dead?" exclaimed the man.
"Well," the vet replies, "I would only have charged you $50 for my initial diagnosis. The additional $600 was for the cat scan and lab tests."
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This story goes in the amazing but true file.
Back in my dairy cattle days in Taranaki I got a routine call to a cow that was having calving difficulties. I was presented with a fairly small jersey cow with her tail in the air and occasionally straining. There was a bucket of warm soapy water beside her in the cow bail and the farmer was leaning on the rail beside her shaking his head. "I can't figure out what is happening inside her" he stated. This kind of comment was always received with a bit of concern on farms like this as these farmers were usually pretty good at calving their cows themselves so if they had problems we usually knew we had a difficult calving on our hands.
I lubricated and inserted my arm to see what was happening. I was pleased to find a calf coming forward but with its head turned to the side preventing a normal calving. With the right technique, which obviously the farmer didn't have, it is a relatively simple procedure to turn the head to the front and extract the calf. This I duly did. As is good veterinary procedure I then put my hand back inside the cow to check if there was another calf inside her or if there were any tears in her uterus. This is when I felt something strange. At the tip of my fingers I felt something small and hard but it slipped away from me. My arms were quite tired by this time so I removed them from the cow to allow the blood to circulate in them again and then tried again. Yes, it was still there. It felt metallic. I glanced down at my calving chains to see if one of the end links had fallen off but no, they were still intact. With an extra effort I managed to grab it between two fingers. It was definitely a link of some sort. I removed my arm and had a look at what I had hold of. It was a gold signet ring with a greenstone insert. You could imagine my suprise! I had thoughts of pearls in oysters and wondered if I had found a new commercial use for dairy cows, cultured rings, as the dairy industry was just going into a slump at a time.
I showed it to the farmer and he went pale. He looked at his hand and on his large weather beaten brown hands there was a white line around the base of one of his fingers. When he was attempting to calve the cow before I had arrived he had forgotten he had the ring on his finger and in the heat of the moment he had not noticed it had slipped off inside the cow.
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This is a new feature. Each month we will place a picture of someones pet on the website.
This is my wee boy called Benson and me Amy Beeby. He is a Maltese Dog.
He is 7 years old and I am 12.
Amy Beeby
‘Max Donovan is a 3yr old cross bred Bull Mastiff with a passion for food. A placid, loveable boy, he has a fascination with moving water (waves, rapids, sprinklers etc).’
Molly and Polly Szymanczuk after a hard days work
This is our neighbour's kitten Honey. He loves it when we take him for a ride in our dolls pram.
By Sophie Elliott
If you would like to have your pet featured, just email a picture of your pet and a small description to bryan.g@aorangivet.co.nz
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Tyler was brought into the clinic a few weeks ago, obviously very pregnant. She had had problems having pups a year ago, so we were considering an elective caesarean. As we did not have an accurate mating date (hence whelping date) for her we ran a blood test (progesterone) to indicate the day of whelping.
The day arrived with no sign of her going into labour so we opted to undertake a caesarean.
Tyler was anaesthetised and laid on the surgical table.
Tyler had an incision made in the centre of her abdomen and the uterus was exteriorised.
The uterus is opened and the pup is removed inside its sac.
As the puppies are removed they are rubbed vigorously by the nurses. This mimics the mother licking them and stimulates them to breathe
The puppies were then placed in an incubator. This is heated, and has oxygen flowing through it to give the pups a good start.
We use an anaesthetic called isoforane, which causes minimal depression to the puppies in the uterus. Mum also wakes up very quickly once the gas is removed from her.
Here is the proud mum, only about 10 minutes after the operation. I am pleased to say that mum and children are all doing well!
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A lame giraffe is not a simple matter!!
Gunhild and I have just returned from a trip to Gunhilds family in Germany. While we were away, we once again stayed at the Berlin Zoo with Oczy, one of Gunhilds old veterinary friends who is a vet at the zoo.
While at the zoo, one of the old giraffes became lame and required his feet to be trimmed.
This is not as simple as trimming cows or sheep’s feet as he required anaesthetising.
 The giraffe was anaesthetised using a blow gun. A towel was placed over his head to minimise the effect of external stimulus on the animal.
The feet were then trimmed back using a rasp, hoof knives and Angle grinder!!
The antidote was given for the anaesthetic and 5 minutes later the giraffe stood up.
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