Joey’s Pet of the Week

By Scott Lackenby | Dated October 31, 2013

Happy Halloweeeeeen!!! I know it’s an American tradition, but we are all getting into the festive spirit by wearing some great Halloween headwear. Nurse Layne and Nurse Emma have even decorated the reception desk with some spooky spider webs and we have some skull lollipops and Halloween tattoo’s for the kids. If you are in the area, be sure to pop in to say Boo!!

I had a crazy morning yesterday. I was charging around the hospital, knocking things off benches, and when that didn’t satisfy my naughtiness I pulled apart my amazing scratching post! I was pretty tired after all of that, so I had a big nap.

We’ve had a busy tick week at GVH with 5 tick admissions on Tuesday alone! We have been lucky this week with everyone doing well with their recovery so far. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, PLEASE make sure you are using prevention on your 4legged friends and check them EVERYDAY for ticks. No product is 100% effective so the sooner you find a tick and remove it, the better your pets chances. Also, if you are worried they may be suffering from tick poisening, DO NOT wait to bring them down to us. The sooner we start teatment, the better their chance of survival.

Some sad news for GVH, particularly for Dr David. His gorgeous little Cavoodle, Ruby, has been quite sick. She has had terrible diarrhoea and her blood didn’t seem to be clotting properly. We couldn’t work out what was going on with the poor little poppette so Dr David took her for a second opinion with the good people at SASH. While they haven’t been able to work out exactly what is going on with Ruby, the good news she is on the improve and the Loneragan’s are hoping to be able to take little Ruby home on the weekend. We will keep you posted on her progress.

Now you probably know that we board cats here at GVH and we also have a few small old doggies that also get to spend their holidays with us. We usually don’t board big dogs, we just don’t have the room to have them stay with us for long periods. We have had to make an exception this past week for Mogador, who had double knee surgery last week at SASH and needed some extra special confinement and care that her family just weren’t able to manage.  Mogador is a 3year old 50kg Newfoundland who thinks she is about the size of a Beagle! She is a big, hairy, slobbery ball of love, who quickly learnt that she can open the doors to the kennels and treatment room so would often be found  just wandering around the hospital! Mogador went home yesterday and we are certainly missing her! Well, not me so much, I was a little wary of the big black beast!!

My star this week is the gorgeous Princess, a 14 year old Domestic Long Hair. Princess came in on Tuesday for her vaccination and general check over. Princess had been off her food and had lost 1kg since we had last weighed her, which is quite a lot for a little cat. Dr David could feel a large, solid mass which he was concerned was on her kidney or liver. Princess came back the next day to have some blood tests run and also an ultrasound to check the mass out. We were all quite surprised when we heard the results from Dr David after the ultrasound, it was a massive hairball, about 6cm in diameter! It was too big for Princess to pass on her own, and too big to retrieve via a scope via her mouth, so our only option was to perform a gastrotomy and remove it that way. Dr John and Nurse Hollie were amazed and a little grossed out when they were pulling out the giant hairball! Princess recovered really well from her procedure and is even eating today!! All going well, Princess should be home for the weekend.

As usual, check out the pics in my Pet of the Week album. As an extra added bonus, I have also created a album with our Halloween pictures, so make sure you check out them both. Just a heads up though, there are some pics of Princess’ surgery, but I will let you know on the pic before when they are coming. Enjoy the rest of your Halloween and I’ll see you all next week. Meows for now, love Joey xoxo