My Pets Live With a Vet

Hello friends. I rarely even read blogs much less write on ones, so this will likely be very sparse at first. I am a veterinarian, and have often used the title statement when talking to some of my "scardey-cat" patients in the exam room. They may be hiding under the bench or behind their owner's legs, and I let them know how much worse it could be....my critters get to live with a veterinarian 24 hours a day, their entire lives! Such is their lot in life.

Since I'm new to this whole blogging thing, I'll have to look around the site a bit and see what goes on here. My idea was to write about the characters, animals and human, that I see on a daily basis. I love being a vet, but it is a challenging, very emotional job at times. It's no secret that the economy sucks right now, and many of my clients are hurting. We are seeing more people waiting out an illness or injury, hoping it will get better on its own before making an appointment to bring their friend in. Silly, really, because often those problems become much worse with time and will end up costing MORE to fix, if it isn't too late to fix at all. That is becoming a more common issue, too....people facing the choice of expensive treatment plans vs. euthanasia for a beloved pet simply because of the cost. Such a shame. I live in the real world, too, so I certainly understand this. My husband and I had tough choices to make 2 years ago when our own dog, Verbal, had cancer. She required radiation treatments that were over $4,000! We were struggling with our own money issues, having this veterinary hospital to run with many employees' livelihoods on the line. Somehow we made it work and she is cancer-free today, thank God. No vacations for us for awhile, though.

So, I'll drop in when I can and jot down notes about interesting cases or personalities we come across in the course of practicing the art of veterinary medicine. Any suggestions for making a more readable or interesting blog are welcome.
Peace,
DrReneigh