• Dr Liza’s Vet Tales Excerpt – Holistic Vets is Born!

Thanks to the support and insight of some wonderful people, I established myself as Holistic Veterinary Services, providing a mobile service to meet people’s needs. I never wanted to run my own business but it seemed clear that if I wanted to look after animals and people in the way that I believed was right, I would have to work for myself.

After spending the previous weeks dealing with difficult cases that would consult us because conventional veterinary practice hadn’t helped and we were the last resort, it was wonderful to deal with relatively straightforward cases like a cat with a laceration, a dog with a sore eye and a calf with a broken leg.

A kindly farmer that I had known had mistakenly run over the little calf and wanted to do everything he could for her. I placed her leg in a cast and the farmer kept her in the barn, not only as a warm and dry place to heal but also so that his farming buddies didn’t see the bright purple cast on her leg and the lengths that he was going to to help this little calf! Her leg healed well and she grew up to be one of his biggest and most productive dairy cows in the herd!

I was amazed at how well my patients received me in their own homes, especially the cats who often “smell vet” when cat owners bring out the carry cage and then declare with feline flair, “I’m outta here”, not to be seen again for the rest of the day. Big Bob was a cat who was really “large and in charge”, swiping out with his massive paw when he didn’t get his way, and was very difficult for his owner to bring into the centre when I had first met him months before. When I went to visit him at home I found him sprawled out on the deck ready to see me and even fairly co-operative as I examined him.

It’s always nice being complimented on a job well done and having grateful patients but sometimes it’s not clear cut. Bob was one of the biggest cats I’ve ever seen and being such a big boy with a sore back, he hadn’t been grooming himself properly and he had some very thick knots in his coat. He wouldn’t let his loving owner Jenny brush him and so I was called in and there was no doubt I’d have to get Bob very sleepy with some sedatives before he’d let me do a thing.

I jabbed Bob, carefully avoiding his “left hook” and he slowly fell asleep. I quickly got to work on his coat. Some of the knots were extremely thick and the only way to get rid of them was to shave them out. By the time I was done, Bob had a jagged Mohawk down his back. I reversed his sedation and he woke up uneventfully. Jenny thanked me for doing a good job but suggested that I stay doing what I’m good at, being a vet and to not go into hair dressing!

There was also my lovely black labrador friend Bella, owned by Maggie and Pat, whose friendly manner and total commitment to Bella made me smile. Bella had had a sore leg for many months. She loved to go hunting with Pat but would come home and be extremely sore for a couple of days afterward. Prior to seeing me, her usual vet had performed many diagnostic tests but had not managed to find anything significant.

Bella was a very boisterous and happy girl and she was also VERY vocal. Whenever she went to the vet she could be heard from a mile away with her high pitched “bowowooooowoooowooooo” which was just never-ending (until she went home anyway). When I first met her at the Centre, she would look at me suspiciously and continue her vocalizing while Pat and I tried to discuss her, it was very challenging.

When I first examined her, I found a bit of pain on manipulation of her shoulder area but I couldn’t isolate the exact problem. We tried putting her on medication to support her joints, to which she showed no response. Our next plan was to wait for a day after Bella had been out hunting and sore so that hopefully we would be able localize the origin of the pain.

It was Saturday afternoon and I was nearly finished for the day when I heard “Bowooooowooooo…..” and I knew that Bella had arrived! We diagnosed an issue with her biceps tendon and referred her to a specialist for further treatment of her persistent injury. She was injected with cortisone and given six weeks to make a recovery. If this didn’t help then surgery would be the next option.

Bella didn’t improve and Pat took her to the specialist out of town for surgery, which went well. She then returned home, at which time I was working as a mobile vet which worked well to visit her on a weekly basis at home to check her progress and eventually remove her bandage. I was so impressed to find that after a brief “Bowoowoo..” when she saw me arrive, I was greeted by a very friendly and happy Bella with a wagging tail who quickly rolled onto her back for a tummy tickle. What a pleasure to talk to Pat and Maggie without having to shout over the “Bowoooowoooo…”!

Some lovely new clients that I acquired were John and Pip, a retired couple with a fair menagerie….. sheep,  cats, dog and  their latest addition, two alpacas similar to Llamas but smaller, “Anton” and “Jimmy”! Their new alpacas needed a check over, the cats worming tablets and the one sheep, Baby, some treatment as he’d been coughing. I was most impressed with Pip as she helped me to handle the animals and she quickly learned how to throw the sheep, to lie it down and hold it for me as I had showed her how.

Every few months I would go out to Pip’s farm and examine their alpaca boys and give their hooves a trim. Jimmy was a co-operative fellow and usually his hooves didn’t need much maintenance. Anton on the other hand was not always delighted to see me and offered Alpaca insult number one: he would spit some lovely masticated grass in my general direction which thank goodness generally missed!

Failing this having an effect, he would give me Alpaca insult number 2, a kick with his leg which I generally managed to dodge and I would persevere with my efforts to look after his general well-being. Generally he would resort to the final insult in the hope of deterring me. After insult number one being a great green goober one would expect the final insult to be something really disgusting or potentially dangerous, but thankfully his final strategy was to my benefit; when he was totally fed up with the situation he would just lie down on the spot and refuse to move which was just what this doctor orders when it comes to hoof trimming!

My visits to Pip and John were always rewarding. Pip’s sheep were so well looked after, they generally lived to a ripe old age. One winter though, the cold wet winter had left Grandma sheep falling behind a lot and losing weight. A few months prior, Pip had decided that Grandma was battling too much and so she had made the difficult decision to put her to sleep, booking a time the following morning. However the next morning, Grandma suddenly had a new lease on life and was back out in the paddock hanging out with the rest of the gang and so Pip decided to leave her to live another day.

In the midst of that cold winter, months later, Grandma’s time had come and I was called out to put her to sleep. Not the typical farm sheep farewell, in the pouring rain we sedated grandma out in the paddock and then sent her off to sheep heaven with another injection… a very elegant departure which Pip chuckles at as most tough farmers in New Zealand just wouldn’t understand!

To read more about my adventures, read Vet Tales available as a book or e-book from https://www.drliza.co.nz/shop/