Stories from Vet Tech: The Lot of Tech Husbands, and Hell Hath no Fury like a Cat.

All my professors thus far are women. Married women at that. This industry, like human nursing, tends to appeal mostly to women. In human nursing, that's beginning to change--the stereotype of female nurses is being beaten down. But it hasn't kicked in yet in Animal nursing. I think I've seen two men in leadership/teaching roles at VTI, and about 6 male students.

"It makes no sense," said Animal Tech. "I would love to have a man handy when I have to wrestle a 150 pound Mastiff down into lateral recumbancy."

For the men here, they have both more and fewer obstacles than the women have. On one hand, it's easier for the (generally) stronger men to restrain a large, frantic dog. On the other hand, if an animal has been physically abused, it's (generally) by a man, so the Vet Tech guys have an extra major hurdle to jump in winning the trust of biased, abused animals with PTSD.

But perhaps the roughest place for the men is as Animal Tech husbands. They deal with 3am ER visits for their wives and girlfriends with septic cat bites, and they must be flexible when it comes to strays. Luckily my husband is just as likely to bring home a stray as I am, but not all are as willing. With good reason.

~~~

"Best story," said Terminology. "We'd just gotten married. We were relaxing in bed, just enjoying each other's company, when I heard a noise. I turned on the light, and my cat had just had explosive, gelatinous diarrhea all over my new husband's pillow. We both freaked out and spent an hour cleaning everything, all the while me dragging towels around and weeping and begging him not to kill that cat. 'How much longer could he live, anyways?' I said. Well, he lived another 17 years. And he peed on everything. If it was on the floor, it was fair game. You bet my husband and kids learned to pick up their clothes real quick."

~~~

"I got this Golden when I was 19," said Animal Tech. "He died when I was in my thirties. He saw me through college, marriage, and kids. My kids grew up with that dog. I didn't realize it would destroy me when he died. I could not stop crying. Decided to try and find a dog in Pennsylvania or Ohio. More than that was too far. Well, I found this dog. This perfect dog. I kept coming back to her photo--there was something about her. But she was in Indiana. But I needed a dog. That dog. One day my husband came home from work, and I was under the kitchen table, cleaning up taco meat and crying. I'm talking Night of the Living Dead. Mascara everywhere. I hadn't had to clean food up off the floor for years because of my Golden. My husband looked at me. Now, he is not an animal person. If anything, he wanted just a little foofoo dog. One of those tiny ones. Something he wouldn't have to deal with too much. I wanted a manly dog. With teeth. But he looked at me and was like 'you want to go tomorrow morning and get that dog?' So the next morning we drove six hours to Indiana, spent twenty minutes with the dog, and drove six hours back home with her. She's been with us ever since."

And for heaven's sake don't breed your dog or buy from a breeder, either. If you think you require a certain breed because of how it looks/acts, you're doing it wrong. Shelter animals have all the personality traits (and a lot of the looks) you need and want, you just need to know what to look for (or find a friend who does!).  PLEASE get your pets neutered. So not kidding. 

~~~

"You have to be prepared," warned Animal Tech. "Be gentle with old animals, but do not ever underestimate them. This one time, some people brought their cat in to be put down. It was 22 years old. It looked like death. Like somebody had just draped skin over some cat bones. Worst mouth I had ever seen. Teeth like eugh. One bite from that one and you were going straight to the E.R. But it was completely emaciated, right? The owners said it had just gone downhill all of a sudden the last two days, and they knew it was time. So the vet and I took it back and are getting ready to euthanize it and I'm making jokes about how I don't even need to do anything to hold this thing down, I mean, look at it. And the vet was like 'yeah, scruff that cat.' And I'm like 'Really? are you kidding?' I was still fairly new at this. But thank God he told me to scruff it. The second that needle went in, that cat took on new life, freaked OUT. If I hadn't had it scruffed, it would've eaten my face right off. Now, of course, it was dead in like, two seconds. It was just like the last hurrah. Don't ever underestimate old animals. No matter how crappy they look. There's still life in there."