Sir Percy Goes to the Vet

This is Sir Percy Bird.

And me. I'm there, too.

I have had Sir Percy since I was 9 years old, and he was <1. 

He is now 16. That is a lot of years we've been together. 

When I was young and foolish, my siblings and I used to play "birdie ball" where we would sort of chuck him across the living room to make him fly back and forth between us. He still lets me hold him now, so hopefully he's mostly forgiven me. I'm sorry, Pretty Bird.

"It's okay."

Once, Sir Percy was walking along the floor and Dad rolled over his little foot with a computer chair. He's been missing that one back claw for years now since it happened. But he still climbs up and down his cage with ease. The top is his favourite place to take a little snooze. 

Zzz.

Until some jerk comes along and wakes him up with a camera.

My parents originally promised me I could have a bird to prove I was responsible enough to have a dog. But, as it turned out, my great Aunt Carolyn and Uncle Mike found our perfect dog for us a few months before I'd even gotten Sir Percy. We all trekked out to their gorgeous farm on the Tennessee river and what they'd tried to convince my Dad of over the phone was made abundantly clear in person--yes, a German Shepherd could be the perfect family dog for four young children. 

Playing during a rare snow in TN.

Exploring the new PA neighbourhood with Ben. 

She even attended a creeking at GCC during my college years.

Cani and Annabelle.

She remained the best dog until she died in 2011 at age 13, and now there is a dog-shaped hole in my heart, waiting for the time and space to to fill it again.

But anyhow, after getting Cani-dog all those years ago, my parents decided they'd still get me a bird, so I received Sir Percy for my 9th birthday a few months later. He was hand-raised by a breeder in Jackson, TN, and Dad went and watched that batch of babies for an afternoon one day before picking out Sir Percy to be my companion. 

He was a pretty great pet. I mean, other kids didn't have little parrots, and I did. It was awesome.

Sir Percy has witnessed a lot in his time with me, and quite a few pets have come and gone since he's been here. We've had a random variety of snakes, a few turtles (including a little snapper!), a couple goldfish, and some wildlife. 

He ignored Weepers, a sparrow I raised. 

"Why is that thing here?" he said. "Who even keeps birds as pets? Ugh." 

I don't recall him having any animosity towards my squirrel, though. 

Me and T.J., both of us still young.

Sir Percy lived through encounters with a number of cats. 

Figwit, who liked jumping on the side of his cage and trying to pull it down.

"Just one little taste? Pleaassee?"

Betsy's little kitty, Gillie of Ockham

Guen

Tiny Kitty

Sir Percy has also had to accustom himself to me acquiring a husband, and said new husband's pet, Rad Cherenkov, the beta fish. 

So Sir Percy moved to the city with me. 

He was fine with the husband.

New perches are always welcome. 

He met Rad, decided he wasn't worth bothering about, and never mentioned him again. 

Rad is basically a flower that swims around.

Rad, for your information, is almost 4 years old. He is a very hardy beta fish. 

Well, I've been trying to read more about cockatiel care on my own, but going to Vet Tech school has opened my eyes to a lot more information that you can't get just by googling "cockatiel care." I decided Sir Percy should probably go to the vet. One of my favourite professors works with exotics and large animals, and when I approached her about it, she recommended a couple clinics nearby. I picked one, made an appointment, and today Garrett and I took Sir Percy to the vet for the first time in 16 years. 

I learned a lot. 

Firstly, while it's good to fast dogs and cats before vet visits in case they need bloodwork, it is not good to fast cockatiels because they'll tend to hypoglycemia. 

Secondly, I learned how a healthy cockatiel's body should feel, and where natural little divets are, and how to tell if the cockatiel has fatty liver disease (a common complaint). Sir Percy has a perfect little body, with no signs of fatty liver disease.

Thirdly, I learned there is this thing called the "choana." It's sort of the nasophanyngeal opening, but it also consists of lymphatic tissues dangling from the top. Basically, it's cockatiel tonsils. In birdies, you want it to be spiky-looking. If they're blunt and dull, it would indicate bad diet and immune issues. 

See the little tooth-like things? That's what I'm talking about, and they should look like that.

The vet showed me Sir Percy's choana, and, much to my disbelief, his are super sharp and pointy and not dull at all. So now all I can think about is---did dinosaurs have choana? Like, it wasn't enough they had dinosaur teeth... even their little throat lymph tissue needed to look like teeth?

I think we're going to need a bigger speculum.

See figure J-51.

The vet also commented how nice Sir Percy's crest looks. Usually they're kind of sparse and short by his age. This surprised me, since I'd thought Sir Percy's crest looked a bit ratty. But no, the vet thought it was super fine, even though it bends off to the left a bit. 

Super fine neck feathers. 

I decided to get him tested for psittacosis (a fairly expensive test, but the disease is zoonotic). I mean, it's been 16 years, but I figured we might as well do it right. We'll get the results from that in a week and a half. 

Fourth thing I learned: the vet said that because Sir Percy is so old, he's probably set in his ways, and he wouldn't recommend getting him a birdy buddy, because he probably thinks he's part of our flock and doesn't recognize that he's a bird (which explains why he didn't know what to do with Wheepers). So I guess we're off the hook for that. I do think I want to invest in a new cage for him, though. This one is as old as he is, and actually looks its age, unlike Sir Percy, apparently. 

Fifth thing I learned: I love exotics medicine and I definitely want to try to pursue that in addition to large and companion animal medicine. 

Sixth thing I learned: Sir Percy weighs 77grams, a nice midway between the 70-85g the vet usually sees in cockatiels. When the vet first saw Sir Percy he thought he was going to be overweight, because he's fluffy-looking, but nope! Healthy birdy weight. 

In the end, the vet was awesome, and gave us almost a 50% discount because I'm a Vet Tech student. Yay! Basically, he just charged us for the psittacosis test they have to send out. Sir Percy will be getting yearly check-ups there from here on out, and I'm thinking perhaps I could see about developing a relationship with this practice and either working there, or making other exotics connections through them. 

And once I know Sir Percy is cleared of possibly having psittacosis, he can go back to his favourite past-time--cleaning people's teeth. 

"Yum. Let's see what we've got back here..."

Special thanks to Garrett, for being my chauffeur and errand-buddy, and Dr. Glenn Marsch, for taking a lot of these photos, and siring me. Here's his flickr account. 

Stories from Vet Tech 6: PG-13 and Parasites

We've been covering the reproductive system in A&P, so, naturally, there have been a lot of good quotes.

During these discussions, I've had one burning question building up inside of me. We were discussing the male parasympathetic reflex caused by olfactory cues and behavioural changes in the female, and my time had come. I raised my hand.

"Yep?" said our prof.

"I have a weird question," I said.

"Okay," she said.

"So I used to work with these stud horses... and I swear that whenever I was ovulating, they'd get pushy with me and I had to be a lot firmer with them and, and..."

By this time the whole class was laughing, including the teacher.

"Am I crazy?" I asked.

"No!" said my prof.

"Thank goodness!" I said. "Because it was getting pretty weird when I'd have to come home and tell my husband that the horses all got boners when I walked into their stalls."

"I'm guessing," said my professor, still laughing, "they weren't picking up any behavioural cues from you, right?... but they could definitely pick up hormonal cues. Actually, that reminds me of this gelding I used to have. Zippy. And Zippy shouldn't have been behaving like this, being a gelding. But Zippy would get an erection whenever the farrier pulled up in his truck. It was so awkward."

Hey, hey, hey!

~*~


"Dogs don't have bulbourethral glands. Bulbourethral glands are also called Cowper's gland, after the guy who discovered them, I guess." She paused. "I don't think I'd want an accessory sex gland named after me."


~*~


Discussing mammary glands and that females will continue lactating as long as they are regularly being suckled.

"That's how you end up with people still nursing their toddlers and stuff. Eesh. If you're old enough to go get your own drink, it might be time to move on."

Good grief, look at that kid; he's ready to join the local flag football team. 

I guess it's a great diet plan for mom, anyways. 

~*~


Fun facts:

Armadillos always give birth to identical quads.

Really interesting and only kind of horrific facts:

1. Those cute little pot bellies that puppies and kitten have are actually caused by Toxocara spp (roundworm). Puppies are born with it because it goes transplacentally as well as transmammary, and kittens get it immediately after birth because it goes transmammary for them. Also, virtually every single adult dog/cat has encysted roundworm. You can deworm them, but it won't kill the encysted ones, which will just wake up and become adult worms whenever they want to later (which is part of the reason why you have to deworm regularly).

Irresistible!

2. Toxoplasma gondii is the protozoal parasite pregnant women are told to watch out for and why they are warned not to change cat litter for fear of catching this. In reality, you are much more likely to get it from unwashed fruit or improperly cooked meat, but anyways... normally people just fight it off and it's not a big deal, so if a pregnant woman was exposed to it prior to pregnancy, and then exposed again, it wouldn't be an issue because she'd have antibodies to fight it off. But if her first exposure was while pregnant it can cause miscarriage if contracted in early pregnancy, and severe developmental issues in the baby if contracted in later pregnancy.

But besides that, here's the really fascinating thing; it also might be giving normal, everyday people the crazies.
Read this article about it!


Just plain horrific facts:

If you want to know what the parasite Echinococcus granulosus does when it gets into a human (which is not its definitive host, and we'd be better off if we were), you can watch this video. It merits a solid 12 out of 10 on the ick scale.

~*~

Not quite so desirable now. Is it.

Desperate Times

I've been having issues staying awake in classes this term because of it still being dark when I get up in the morning. I've never drawn so much on my notes before, just trying to look busy.

Please note the obvious lack of actual notes on this particular slide. 

Stories from Vet Tech 5: More Crazy People and What Not to Write on Legal Documents

"We do not recommend supplements to our veterinary clients," says our Clinical Medicine, and Anatomy & Physiology professor (the same fabulous math prof from first term) during our Clin Med class.

Not okay

"There are some that can be useful in human medicine, but they're not regulated the way actual medications are, and most of the ones you get over the counter aren't even in the correct form for your body to process them. It doesn't really matter how much vitamin D you're adding to your diet--if you're not eating enough fat, your body can't process the vitamin and it's basically worthless. And some supplements would be downright harmful--calcium supplements to large-breed puppies, for example. But some people, I tell you what--they buy their pets supplements and won't listen to a word you say. There was this lady... well, she had issues going way beyond this. This was also the lady who accused us of stealing her puppies. I told you that story, right?"

No, we said. You didn't.

"Well," said Clin Med, "I should tell you that story later, since we're discussing nutrients now."

She stopped and looked at her powerpoint, contemplating. "Actually," she said. "Can I just tell you this story real quick? It's so special."

Definitely, we said.

"Okay, so this lady bought her animals supplements all the time--from human stores--but that's not the fun part. So she had this golden retriever that needed a c-section. She's one of those awful backyard breeders. So she brings her dog in and we do an x-ray, and I tell her, you know, okay, I think I saw maybe 4 or 5 puppies in there, we'll do the surgery, and I'll call you as soon as we're done to let you know how it went, okay? So she leaves, and we do the surgery. There were only three puppies, actually, which is a common mistake to make reading the radiograph because we can keep the momma dog still, but we can't keep the puppies from moving around inside, so a lot of time one puppy will superimpose on itself and look like, you know, three puppies or something.

Pin the spine to the puppy

So I call this crazy lady and tell her the surgery went well, and guess what, your dog is doing so well you can come pick her up tonight. There are three puppies. So she says okay, she'll come get them, and she's bringing the police. And I'm like what? okay? and just hang up, because this lady is crazy, right? So she shows up without the police and is all mad at me and wants to know where the other puppies are. And I'm like there were only three puppies. I miss-read the radiograph, and I explain that whole thing to her.

No, crazy lady says. There should be eight puppies.

Eight? I say. I only told you four or five, originally.

No, she says. I talked to my son, who is a very respected human physician, and he told me there should be eight puppies, and you stole the other five, and I'm going to sue you.

I kind of look at her, thinking, you know, I don't want her inbred golden retriever puppies, and finally I'm like, okay, crazy lady, why do you think there should be eight puppies?

And she says (get this, you guys)... because she has eight nipples!

And I don't even know what to say to that. I just look at her and say that's... not really how that works.

Yes, it is! she says. My son is a very respected physician, and he agreed with me!

I'm like soooo you have a son, right? Like, one son?

And she's all YEAH, what's your point?

And I'm like, nothing. Nevermind. And somehow we convinced her not to sue us. The end."

This person was obviously made to nurse five puppies.

The whole class agreed that was a great story. "Do you have any more?" we asked.

"Oh, my goodness, yes. All from this lady, too. She also sprayed her birds with cologne. Which is very bad for them. We were working on one of them one day and I thought the bird smelled pretty fruity. But you know how animals sometimes kind of smell like the homes they're from? But I sniffed this bird a little harder and it was way too strong. So we finish up the check up or whatever we were doing, and I take the bird back out and I say by the way, you don't happen to, you know, spray cologne on your birds or something, right? And she just gives me this look and says, of course I do--they LIKE it."

They do often enjoy baths.

Clin Med looks out over the class and sizes us up. "We can always discuss this whole nutrition thing later. Want to hear about the time she told us aliens abducted her cat?"

We asseverated there was nothing else in the world we would rather hear about; certainly not the relative dissolve-ability of fat-soluble vitamins.

"Great, because I'm kind of dying to tell this story, now. So she brings her cat in, and she's all shaky--you know? And tells us her cat had been hiding under her bed and wouldn't come out, so she tried to go down and pull him out, and he started talking to her. In English. He told her that aliens had abducted him and probed him and put an alien microchip in his brain and they were keeping tabs on her with it, and she demanded that we remove the microchip immediately. So Dr. L and I are trying really hard not to look at each other, because we'll lose it.

Incidentally, MIB is one of my favourite movies of all time

Okay, says Dr. L, we'll do an x-ray to see if we can find a microchip. So we take the cat back and do an x-ray. You guys. You know the normal microchips? For pets? Well, it's well-known that they can travel around. They're in the subcutaneous space and they can sort of migrate--but they migrate down--to the caudal end, maybe down the legs a little bit. It is extremely rare for them to go anywhere else. Well, you guys--this cat's Avid microchip had somehow migrated out of his scruff, up his neck, and into the SubQ layer on the back of his head. He had a microchip in his head.
So obviously Dr. L and I have a powwow.

What do we do? I ask.

Dr. Lee kind of grimaces. Maybe I should show her an x-ray of a different cat, he says.

You aren't going to do that! I said.

No, I guess not, he says.

So we take the x-ray out and explain that it's her cat's own microchip in the back of his head, and it's not in his brain. But she doesn't care, she demands we remove it. So we do. We make a little incision and squeeze it out and sew him back up. I hand that poor cat back over to her, and he sort of stiffened and just looked at me, begging me, I could see it in his eyes, not to make him go home with her again. But we had to, of course. And what do you know--she calls us later that night and said the procedure worked--her cat wasn't speaking English to her anymore."

~*~

"You guys, if something is oozing pus, the correct term is 'purulent'. Please do not write 'pussy fluid' on your medical forms. They are considered legal documents, and everyone will laugh at you."
--Every single professor

Please have your human on a leash.

Today I went on a walk in the park with my cousin and her daughter and two dogs. I call her my cousin, because that is the closest approximation of the familial relationship we have. It's complicated.

Our family is much less sterile, and even more fun than this.

Anyroad, we went to hang out, and complain about life, and enjoy the sunshine and each other. All these things were accomplished. As we strolled along, chatting, we came across a group of older walkers, standing in a cluster blocking half the pathway, with their four--unleashed--dogs milling around blocking the rest of the pathway. Now, all dogs are supposed to be leashed in this area, but there's no point making enemies if you don't have to, so we let the dogs all meet (not that we had a choice), keeping an eye on one of my cousin's dogs, who gets nervous and nippy around bigger dogs.

"He's got a bit of a Napoleon complex," my cousin said, later.

Nervous Dog did great, which my cousin commented on, and we continued on our way, exchanging knowing looks about dumb dog owners, only to realize Unleashed Dog #3 was tailing us. The owner came huffing up, eventually, calling the dog, which paid absolutely no attention to her. I was peeved at this point and stood in-between the dogs, trying to block hers from Nervous Dog.

"You don't need to do that!" she said. "[Unleashed Dog #3] won't hurt him!"

"Ma'am, you're supposed to have your dogs on a leash," I said.

"[My Unleashed Dogs] are friendly!!" she said, angrily, as if that made everything okay.

"Well, this dog gets nervous around bigger dogs," I said, pointing to Nervous Dog. "And they're still supposed to be on leashes."

"SHE said he was fine!" Angry Lady said wrathfully, the "she" referring to my cousin and her previous, surprised comment about Nervous Dog's lack of nervousness.

Then we exchanged a few heated comments, hers mostly about us, to her dog she was attempting to leash. She then tried to continue down the path, loudly saying to Now-Leashed Dog #3 "no, I'm sorry, they don't WANT to be friends!"and other such passive-aggressive comments, while interjecting her commentary on us with trying to call Unleashed Dog #4 to follow her. Unleashed Dog #4 did not think she was very important, and continued circling and bothering our dogs.

"You obviously do not have control of your dogs!" I called after her, while we stood still, confident, waiting; interested to see how long it would take before she had to sheepishly come back and physically leash Unleashed Dog #4. It took a lot longer than it should have, then she faded off into the distance again with her animals, complaining about people who won't let their dogs have friends.

Then we passed a pile of steaming doggy poo. 

"I bet that's theirs, too," said my cousin.

~*~

After this charming interaction, we went to the off-leash, fenced-in area to let our dogs have some fun. Several dogs and their owners came and went. Then I saw her. A large, fluffy, magnificent German Shepherd.

Such dignity.

"Shepherd!" I said. She turned away from the other dogs she was playing with and looked at me, and made a bee-line for me. I crouched down and she leaned up against me, panting, and let me pet her all over. I found her itchy spot, which she liked, and then after talking to her for a few moments, I figured I should acknowledge her owner.

"What's her name?" I asked him.

"Petra," he said.

Petra, deciding that I was now more interested in her human, and our interview was up, stood up, strode over to her owner, sat down squarely in front of him, and looked up expectantly. He gave her a treat, and made shame-faced eye contact with me.

"She's a therapy dog," he explained, sheepishly. "She marked you as her patient, and gave you therapy, and now she gets her treat."

I laughed. "Well, she was right," I said.

I went home and told the story to Garrett. "The thing is," he said. "She probably did know. I bet she might even have been able to smell and recognize your meds."

Best dog.

Crazy Train

Welp. After months of headaches, and irrational, rage-filled crying fits because some dude on the street offered me a business card or flowers, or I had to, you know, go anywhere... I am diagnosed.

Because obviously this guy is a threat. 

But I'm at a stoplight and can't escape without rejecting him and being a jerk!

The official ruling: "Migraines, general anxiety disorder, and agoraphobia."

So now I have crazy pills, just like everybody else, AND a therapist (to learn coping mechanisms).

Ah, The Far Side.

As for the migraines (which they definitely are), apparently I've been taking the Excedrin for so long it stopped helping the headaches and started making them worse.
Cool.
I didn't know that was a thing that could happen.

My crazy pills are going to make my headaches worse for a period of time, and then after a few weeks everything should start leveling out. So I just need to survive a few weeks longer. Garrett pointed out that the meds should be kicking in just in time for time-change and winter darkness and SAD to start being an issue. So there is that.

At least they didn't try to steal my blood.
And after taking the headache meds, my incredible migraine I've had all day has simmered down to merely "pretty annoying," which is totally workable. Boo-ya.

For fun animal facts I have these:

1. Basset Hounds are considered a large breed dog.

Long breed dog. 

"Too much skin for his face."

--Garrett

2. If you can't properly train a dog, you shouldn't have children. (This was just the opinion of my dog-trainer professor, but I have noticed correlations betwixt badly behaved children and badly behaved animals in homes).

Or you have good kids AND good dogs.

3. The reason dogs and cats can't have acetaminophen (tylenol) is because it will cause the hemoglobin in red blood cells to denature (change its shape), and clump together, and the cell to basically leak all its goodies out. It causes anemia in dogs, and death in cats. So yeah. No tylenol.

Heinz-ehrlich bodies, with a bite munched out of them by evil tylenol forces 

(or diabetes mellitus, or lymphosarcoma, or hyperthyroidism...)

Crazy Train

Stories from Vet Tech: Learning New Things

I learn all sorts of new things at school. Some of them are unusual or not well known outside the animal-lover world, and some are more generally known, and if I'd bothered to think about it, might have figured it out. But they're all still amazing! And each time I get excited. Here are 5 of my favourites (i.e. the ones I remember right now).

1. The iris (the coloured part of the eye) is a muscle. Involuntary, non-striated, smooth muscle, to be exact. This is filed under "things I should have known, but somehow never thought about."


2. Zoos dread days that service dogs come to visit. Emergency alert calls go out to all the keepers whenever somebody brings a service dog in, and keepers surreptitiously follow the person with the dog and are always on alert. Why? because lots of exhibits (birds, petting zoos, etc) allow for human-to-animal interaction, which naturally means service-dog-to-animal interaction. This is dangerous both for the smaller zoo animals if the service dog's instincts take over, and dangerous for the service dog if it enters, say, the Kea enclosure. Keas are brilliant and angry and have those massive parrot beaks and will mob up on and kill a dog.

They laugh, but really this kea just wants to tear the liver from her still-breathing body.

Oh, and also? One service dog with kennel cough killed 5 out of the 7 Mexican wolf cubs the Cincinnati zoo had managed to breed years ago when for ten years basically everybody thought Mexican wolves were almost extinct (turns out the wolves had managed to move and set up operations in Yellowstone when we weren't paying attention, but it was touch and go for a bit). It's even worse now because people can get their normal pets labeled as service "therapy" dogs. Zookeepers get pretty suspicious when the "service dog" is a chihuahua with a sparkly pink harness.

Uh-huh. 

3. Cats are "induced ovulators." They don't have normal periods of ovulation when they drop X number of eggs, mate and get pregnant, and that's that. During mating times the female will drop an egg each time a spiky tom-cat penis penetrates her (no wonder they yell), so actually, if she mates several times during her season, that single litter of kittens can have multiple fathers.

Are you my Daddy?

4. If you like fastidious, self-cleaning, independent-minded dogs (you know, the closest thing you can get to a cat while still being a dog--i.e. a dog that just looks at you when you tell it to do something), go for a:

Vizsla

Basenji

or Dalmation

5. And finally, good zoos do a lot of "enrichment" stuff now. The keepers try to provide toys or mental stimulation for the different creatures in their care. If the creature is, you know, a snake... that enrichment might be a nice new rock, or a different kind of dead rat. 

"This is my favourite new toilet paper rollsss."

But the smarter your animals are, the more enrichment they need. Keas and macaws and animals like that get puzzles to play with (kindergarten toys and the little metal and wooden kinds you keep in baskets for when guests come over and none of you can solve them). 

"Idiots can't solve a simple puzzle..."

But Bonobo monkeys? Our closest extant relatives? Well, like us, Bonobos enjoy the simple things in life, like squabbling, and then having sex. And eating, and then having sex. And that's pretty much all they ever do, which is really awkward for families visiting the zoo. At the end of their day outside working hard and sexing each other for the entertainment and horror of families everywhere, Bonobos like to kick back and watch TV. 

Now, they fall into our "uncanny valley" of being WAY TOO CLOSE TO US FOR COMFORT and can read our facial expressions really well, and make a lot of the exact same ones--hence our discomfort with them (trust me, I hate apes just as much as the next normal person). They're fascinating, but creepy as heck. 

Seriously; stop that!

Well, Bonobos love soap operas. It makes sense. What do people in soap operas do? Squabble, eat, drink, and have sex with everybody. Also they overact something terrible. You know how you've been in a waiting room and a soap opera is playing, and you joke that even though you can't hear it, you can still tell what's going on and who's doing who and related to who? Yeah, Bonobos do that, too. They even have favourite soaps. 

Oh, no!

The best part? They will get mad if the keepers show a repeat episode. I mean, they'll deal with it if they're really bored and saw that particular episode like, long enough ago, and don't really want to get up and change the channel. But if it's only been a month or something, and they were really looking forward to seeing whether Diana is dating young Anthony or older Jonathon or the men's really old, silver-fox father, they will freak out and scream Bonobo obscenities at the keepers until they fix the problem--just like normal people. 

Omg. Get a room.