Strange things I have seen in my career

One of the most repulsive things I have seen in my practice of veterinary medicine occurred just a few months ago.

Late one evening, I came out on an emergency call. A dog had been run over by a car. The client, who inadvertently perpetrated the act, was devastated, as he is an animal lover and is always preoccupied with the welfare of his pets. This was a stray that the client fed daily and always looked out for her.{{more}}

But, as happens to the most careful of us drivers with pets, this night, the animal found itself under the wheel of the vehicle. On examination of the animal, I realized that she was unable to use the right foreleg. I did an X-ray and found no broken or dislocated bones. My concern was that there was serious soft tissue damage, including damage to the nerves of the foreleg.

The animal was put on IV fluids and injectable medication.

The following day, the animal appeared to be doing better and even started eating. My concern was that the leg was quite swollen and the animal had no sensation in the leg.

The following morning, which was a holiday, my daughter was helping me clean the pens and to attend to the hospitalized animals. I suddenly heard her yelling for me to go and see the patient, because she thought something was wrong with her vision.

I ran in and lo and behold one half of the leg was missing. The dog had eaten off her leg to the elbow. There she was wagging her tail as if to say, how brave a dog she was.

Another case I saw was a few years ago when a dog was brought into the clinic with severe abdominal pain. I did an X-ray and saw what appeared to be a needle in the gut. I decided to do an emergency laparatomy.

When I opened up the dog, I found a needle, but worse, a piece of thread about 18 inches long that had somehow effectively tied together a large portion of the small intestines caused by the needle entering and exiting the intestines at will on its trajectory towards the anus.. My only option in this case was to remove half of the small intestines of the animal. I am pleased to say that the dog is still alive and kicking.

Some of the genetic aberrations or deformities that I have seen are:

1. Puppies born without legs.

2. Sheep with two heads.

3. We found a lamb once with what appeared to be the trunk of an elephant where its mouth was supposed to be.

4. A kid born with all of the intestines outside of the body, still alive.

5. A puppy with hydrocephalous or the head larger than its body.

6. Animals born with both male and female genitalia (hermaphrodites’).

Once we had a young puppy hospitalized next to a cat for about two weeks. When the puppy was ready to go home, instead of barking, it was making mewing noises similar to the cat.

Relatively recently, I saw some pups that were Bequia poodle (native breed to St Vincent and the Grenadines) crossed with Germanshepherd. The mother was the “Bequia poodle,” weighing about eight lbs and the father the Germanshepherd weighing about 80 lbs. They looked like miniature shepherds with the ears sticking up; some of them even had the coloration of a German shepherd. Conception was not by artificial insemination, but rather by the good old-fashioned method. I would have loved to see how it happened.

About two months ago, this exact thing happened with my little poodle at home. The father of the pups is a German shepherd about 90 lbs in weight. She is a mere 12 lbs. Luckily, I was able to see them performing the act. Incredible!!!

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