Want a little uplift in your day? (We all need a little respite from the frustrations of this week’s news and angst.) Try on a few of these embarrassing moments stolen either from a colleague’s entertaining career or my very own as an antidote to what ails us:
1-There was that time when the lanky Doberman jumped up on his owner, hooking his claw into the V of her cleavage, thereby dislodging all her front-hooking garments in one fell swoop. It would have been OK—sort-of—except that this was a male colleague of mine who was notorious for his blushing trouble. To make matters worse, his tech was challenged in the social mores arena and could not contain her laughter. I don’t know if they ever saw the client again but I would bet against it.
2-Overheard at a vet conference: A man brings his big, manly dog to the “lady vet” to see what might be awry with his digestive habits. Apparently, he did not want to offend her with tales of bowel movements gone awry so by the time she discovered the real problem there was projectile diarrhea all over her scrubs. She said she’d never been so happy to be so tall.
3-I once had to explain to a couple of frat boys why their dog’s penis was not going back into its proper place. Red-faced after my frank explanation of the dangers of over-excitement, especially after the technician giggled at their obvious mortification, they left the dog with a couple hundred bucks and didn’t come back for days.
4-The young vet whose supermodel client tore off her dress to place in her dog’s cage for “safe-sniffing”? Apart from having a great story, I’ll bet he was embarrassed. I’ll also bet the dog wasn’t the only one sniffing the dress by the end of that shift.
5-Having to tell a famous client to keep his—ahem—in his pants (as he urinated in the lobby’s potted plant). That extra-special demonstration came after his dog had done the very same foul deed. I was embarrassed to be the one to have to say something—but this guy was so nasty I just wanted him out of the hospital ASAP.
6-Examining an aggressive dog on the floor then (for no apparent reason) falling over like a “weeble-wobble” at 8 1/2 months of overdeveloped pregnancy, thus revealing my “I’m-so-pregnant-I-can’t-wear-anything-else” underwear (at least I was wearing some).
7-Performing an ejaculation on a large dog (for semen analysis prior to breeding) and having the [male] owner chant, “go, Boy, go!” the whole time. Priceless.
8-Trying and failing to implant a microchip multiple times (something I had done perhaps a thousand times before) after explaining to the client how easy it was to do. She’s refused to bring her pets to me ever since. (Can you blame her?)
9-Having an impressively inebriated owner offer to take me out “after my shift” while standing in the ER waiting room in front of the entire staff and the waiting clientele. It wouldn’t have been so bad had he not offered to explain where he would take me and what his exact plans were. For the record, the police were summoned.
10-Finding such a ginormous bone in a dog’s rectum (that alone should’ve been enough) that I couldn’t manage to extract under anesthesia, with buckets of lube and my dwindling patience. I had to send this drowsy case sixty miles away to the vet school where they observed the fruits of my labor first-hand and—much to my chagrin—extracted the bone without incident (or so they said, but I’m not sure I believe them).
11-Courtesy of a friend in the biz: The tale of the wayward abdominal palpation that led to the untoward cupping of the owner’s left breast. Eek!
12-And this story’s cousin—my own—about the time the owner refused to unhand her beast during its yearly vaccines. Bucking like a bronco, this pup ended up inflicting a tiny needle jab into his mother’s bosom. Sure, you could say it was my fault—and, technically, it was—but that was the last time this owner ever held one of her pets in the exam room. No harm done. “At least you won’t ever have to worry about Parvo,” I quipped. Luckily, she seemed amused.
There are so many more but they don’t come to mind immediately. I’ll have to post a follow-up. But I’m sure you’ll come up with a few choice embarrassing moments to help jog my memory.
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One of my favourites comes from when I was working at an all-night emergency vet. There were 3 of us - vet, assistant and me, the receptionist. The vet, Buck, was one of the calmest people I've ever met. Most of the vets lasted 6 months, he'd been there almost 3 years. Albert, the assistant had been taking lessons from Buck, and was almost as unflappable.
So one night this huge dog comes in, with multiple bites. He was up on the table, with Albert restraining him, and Buck cleaning and stitching, and the owner holding his paw. I was at my desk, on the phone, when I heard a loud crash. When I went through a couple of minutes later, the owner was lying unconscious on the floor, having fainted when he saw the blood.
Buck, believe it or not was standing with one foot on either side of the owner, and still suturing the dog! I asked him if he'd noticed the owner on the floor, and he looked up and said 'yeah, could you move him please - he's in my way a bit'...
jcat March 21st, 2007 12:26:00 PM
Thanks for sharing these, Dr. K! My wife and I were having a great laugh last night at similar stories on VIN. The female vet who diagnosed a yeast infection after smelling a dog's ears was one of our favorites. She sniffed the dog's ears, then told the handsome young firefighter who owned it, that she thought it had a yeast infection. When he asked how she knew, she said, Oh, believe me, I've smelled lots of yeast infections in my life. She said she was called Dr. Monastat for a week afterward.
catmanager March 21st, 2007 12:52:00 PM
And then there's the well-known vet I once worked for who attempted to spay a cat only to find out she had already been spayed.
Gil. March 21st, 2007 01:46:00 PM
Then there was the friend of mine who took her male cat in to be neutered. The vet decided he was a she and started a spay. After not finding a uterus, the vet did find and remove the testicles.
kabbage March 21st, 2007 04:04:00 PM
The animal-already-spayed problem is, I hear, not that uncommon. My dog was spayed by at the rescue by a doc who tattoos the spay scar. We call it her "prison tattoo". When we took her to our vet at home to get her stitches out, our vet was delighted -- called it a great idea, and said that often spay scars heal so well that you won't know an animal was spayed until you open her up, and that's just a waste of time and it's unnecessary trauma, etc.
Almost two years later, I can see what she meant: if it weren't for the tattoo, you would never know. There's no visible scar; just the tattoo mark.
It also means that if Bella ever takes off, we have one more reportable identifying mark for Animal Control (she's got a collar & tags, but isn't chipped).
Laura March 21st, 2007 04:26:00 PM
Years ago I worked at a vet as a jack of all trades. Kennel attendant, receptionist, vet assistant, what ever was needed. We had a male client come in with a hound dog that he said had quills in her face. You couldn't see any of them immediatly though because he had cut them off right next to the skin. (to let the air out, an old wives tale of course) I was bringing the dog out back to stay for the day and said loudly to the other assistant "look what this idiot did". (cut off quills are much harder togrip to pull out, one of my jobs while there) As I stepped back up front after handing off the dog I notice the owner still there. He sees me and says. "It's ok, that was nothing compared to what my wife called me." I learned a valuable lesson about being very careful when and where I said anything after that.
Marie March 21st, 2007 11:03:00 PM
A client called late one night about having his dog euthanized at home. This message was left with the answering service and since I was the one closest to the phone, I got to retrieve the message along with the clients information and what was going on with his dog that brought him to his decision.
I got the "I'm not doing a housecall at 10:30 at night! Who does this clinet think he is? Couldn't he have called during normal business hours?" I roll my eyes and tell the vet that is tearing me up one side and down the other "I'm giving you the message that the service told me! It's never a good idea to kill the messenger!! Do you want me to call this client back or not?!"
After a brief moment of silence I'm asked nicely to call the client back stating that there won't be a housecall made that evening and the best thing to do at that point would be to put the dog in a quiet, dark room. If the dog survived during the night, he could call the office during business hours. Fine!
I call the guy back and what do I do? I called the guy by his pets name with Mr in front of it instead of his last name. Fortunately the client didn't take offense, but I still wanted to crawl under the desk. What I should have done is went for a walk for a few minutes to cool off from the situation in the treatment room, but I didn't think of it until after the fact.
I think I gave all the vets I worked with the "Don't kill the messenger!" speech and eventually they got the hint and stopped doing it. I didn't mind being their sounding board, but there wasn't any reason to rip my face off either.
Stacy March 22nd, 2007 08:47:00 AM
Stacy: I make that mistake so often with some pets that these clients have gotten used to it. Problem is, when your dog's name is Wilson and your last name is Thomas, sometimes the vet's going to mess up. And if I do it once I find it hard to get past it.
Dr. Patty Khuly March 22nd, 2007 10:06:00 AM
The dogs' name was Dudley. LOL
Something about saying "Hello, can I speak with Mr.Dudley please? " just doesn't sound right.
My vet has been getting my parents last name wrong alot lately as for some reason. When she thinks of my parents, my last name just pops in her head. She gets really embarrased, but we just tease her about it. My parents and I are close so it isn't as if she's offending anybody.
Stacy March 22nd, 2007 11:29:00 AM
I don't think anyone at my vet's office knew my name for the first five years I brought pets there. Which is fine- they knew my pets' names almost immediately, and ask about the other pets' health.
My full first name is Georg-Karen, which looks really weird on a credit card, and I think that's the only place I actually gave them my name. So when they started to call me a name, they thought the card said Georg & Karen, so they called me Karen, and I don't answer to that. I corrected them - after I realized to whom they were speaking. I think I first answered with, "No, her name is Kenya" ... meaning my dog.
Georg March 22nd, 2007 12:05:00 PM
When I was a senior in school, we would pair up with another student and perform the wellness exams in the small animal hospital. While auscultating a dog, I moved my stethoscope from the dog's left side to the right, and just flicked the owner's privates with the stethoscope. That day I learned that human testicles don't really make any sort of noise...
We fell over laughing after the exam.
TorontoVet March 22nd, 2007 09:54:00 PM
What exactly are the dangers of "overexcitement", as you so delicately put it?
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