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What you see here is an x-ray of a dog that had eaten nine handballs. Veterinarian Vanessa Hawkins of Bayshore Animal Hospital in Warrenton, Oregon removed the balls and then won the annual x-ray competition from the trade publication Veterinary Practice News. The dog had come in for a leg problem, and the handballs were found incidentally! The competition runners-up have some strange stories, too.
A 6-month-old bulldog, Tinkerbell, ate a training collar off another bulldog in their house. The owners had no idea until she ate a second metal slip collar and then proceeded to become seriously ill. Doctors were surprised to find two slip collars in her stomach.
Penelope, a 2-year-old duck, presented for left leg lameness and was uncomfortable upon abominal palpation. Radiographs showed a nail and stones in her gizzard. Surgery was performed and Penelope went home. She was back a month later. Radiographs revealed another nail and a second surgery was performed.
A 1 1?2-year-old male Chi-weenie had chewed on a bottle of Gorilla Glue. The glue expanded in his stomach and molded to it perfectly. He had a complete recovery after the surgery.
There’s more, all with x-rays, in the contest announcement. Link -via Metafilter
The one minute video from last week we called In Mommy’s Arms has been watched 18 million times on YouTube! Most folks thought it was adorable, while a few warned us not to anthropomorphize animals. National Geographic asked Dr. Nicholas Dodman, director of the animal behavior clinic at Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, whether the behavior of the kitten and the mother cat was really what it appeared to be. Is the kitten dreaming? Is the mother hugging the kitten out of love? And why was the kitten twitching like that?
Humans and cats both have certain muscles that are for precision, as well as what are called larger “anti-gravity muscles” like those that lift your legs. Those larger ones are activated by a neurochemical called serotonin. During REM sleep, the brain’s serotonin system is shut off, which means the anti-gravity muscles are shut off. What’s not switched off are these highly-tuned muscles in things like eyes and extremities—what for us would be fingers and toes, but for them it’s paws and whiskers. This kitten is in the state of sleep some people call “the sleep of the body,” because the body is totally relaxed except for these tips of things twitching, while the brain is active and dreaming.
Dr. Dodman has plenty more to tell us about the cat and kitten, at NatGeo Daily News. Link -Thanks, Marilyn!
A Canada goose landed in a garden in Toms River, New Jersey with an illegal hunting arrow stuck through its chest. The garden happened to belong to retired veterinarian Bernard Levine. Dr. Levine captured the goose and removed the 26-inch arrow, which was lodged six inches deep in the bird’s flesh. Then he took the goose to a bird rehabilitation center.
“This is a smart goose,” said Dr Levine, 82. “He happened to come into the yard of a veterinarian that could take care of him.”
After it recovered at The Raptor Trust, the goose was released last week into a stream in a wooded area on the trust’s property.
“It feels great to see him free and liberated, enjoying life the way a goose should,” Dr Levine said, as the goose preened and waded downstream.
Levine also removed several air rifle pellets from the goose. Link -via Arbroath
Sisso the swift was found with a damaged wing seven months ago. The little bird has healed, but must learn to fly all over again with some inventive physical therapy. Sisso takes flying lessons suspended from a custom-made sling!
The swift is being treated at an Israeli animal hospital and it is thanks to this ingenious device – which resembles a mobile in a child’s bedroom – that he can practise flying.
Fitting snugly into a red tube-like vest made of bandages and gauze pads, Sisso has holes for his head, wings, feet and tail.
A string is fixed to the harness and attached to the ceiling which allows him to whizz around a room at the Ramat Gan Safari Park Animal Hospital without falling to the floor.
However, until the muscles in his weakened right wing become strong enough, he will be kept indoors and in the sling.
Sisso will be freed when he can fly normally again. Link -via mental_floss
Veterinarians have no choice when they need to check a cow for pregnancy or infection. The standard procedure is to stick your arm up the cow’s rectum. The technique is difficult to teach to veterinary students because, well, it’s dark in there.
That’s why veterinarian and computer scientist Sarah Baillie has created the “Haptic Cow,” a virtual, touch-feedback device that mimics the feeling of real bovine anatomy, placed inside a fiberglass model of a cow’s rear end.
“With this technology, students can feel something that feels like the inside of a real cow, but I or another instructor can be following their movements on a monitor,” said Baillie, who teaches at the Royal Veterinary College in London. “This means we can say, ‘Come back a bit or go left a bit.’ It actually means you can direct them.”
Not only can professors follow a student’s exact movements and critique the technique, but they can also keep track of how much force is being applied. If a fledgling vet gets too rough and exceeds the number of Newtons considered safe by experienced vets, virtual Bessie will belt out a cautionary “Moo-oo!”
(image credit: Sarah Baillie/Royal Veterinary College)
A chihuahua named Smokey wandered around with a fork stuck deep in his head for three days!
A handle broke off a grilling fork and flew right into his head at a family party in Kentucky.
Smokey then ran off into the woods and was lost for three days before being rescued. He was immediately taken to the hospital.
Vets took just thirty seconds to remove the lodged barbecue fork in Smokey’s brain.
The dog is expected to make a full recovery. Link -via Arbroath
This cat’s full name is Ugly Bat Boy, and he lives at Exeter Veterinary Hospital in New Hampshire. His owner, veterinarian Stephen Bassett says that he is normal in every way, except that he’s ugly. The eight-year-old cat is bald in most places, but has a long flowing “mane” on his chest. Ugly has become a local celebrity. Veterinary employee Christie Hartnett calls him “Dr. Bassett’s little wonder cat.”
Workers said many people who come into the building can’t really believe what they’re seeing. But they said despite appearances, Bat Boy has a nice disposition and real inner beauty.
“The impression from clients that come in is he’s not real because he just sits so still, and when he does move, he scares them, but they think he’s mesmerizing,” Hartnett said.
Be warned that if you go to the story and click on the “slideshow” button, the first picture may frighten young children. Link -via Metafilter
Ernest is a 15-year-old cat who lives at a shelter in Godshill on the Isle of Wight. He suffers from entropion, a condition where the eyelids roll inward and cause inflammation. Surgery might correct the condition, but veterinarians were concerned about how such an old cat would react to an anesthetic. The solution? Contact lenses!
Centre manager Paula Sadler, 56, said: ‘Before Earnest was given the contact lenses he was quite squinty and had trouble seeing where he was going.
‘Now his eyes have opened up and he has a new lease of life.
