Incredible Northern Vets S01 E08
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00:00You're adorable.
00:02I have never done a rabbit neuter before.
00:04Okay, cut.
00:05Dr. Alice is here to help me explore some exotics medicine.
00:09Hello, little one.
00:11Oh, I hate it.
00:14Older pets hide everything so well.
00:18Yeah, that bottom.
00:20Jeez.
00:21Callie is in some degree of heart failure.
00:24I'm sorry, Callie.
00:25We wouldn't trade her for the world.
00:29Across the country…
00:31Be nice.
00:32…Indigenous vets are using their knowledge and skills…
00:35Good little baby.
00:36…to help the animals we love stay happy and healthy.
00:53Raffy!
00:54You're adorable.
00:57He's like a teddy bear.
00:58He's perfect.
01:00Yeah.
01:01Let's give him a listen and a look.
01:03Dr. Alice is here today at ARCS to help me explore some exotics medicine.
01:08The first thing we'll do is a rabbit neuter.
01:11Where did he come from?
01:12Australia.
01:13Someone picked him up and brought him here.
01:15No one has reclaimed him, so he'll be going up for adoption.
01:19We're going to be neutering him just because rabbits have lots of babies all the time,
01:22so they have very active sex hormones, and there's a lot of those hormones,
01:26and it can result in different types of cancers.
01:29Can you palpate the testes?
01:31Yeah.
01:32Oh, can you?
01:33Here.
01:34My personal focus in veterinary medicine is treating companion exotic animals,
01:39reptiles, birds, rodents, and bunnies.
01:42I think I can feel the other one.
01:45He is made to breed, but he can also suck them into his abdomen at will, right?
01:49So, yeah, it's not surprising that you might be like, where is it?
01:52As Dr. Emmett is learning how to confidently handle rabbits,
01:56I am here today to offer a little bit of guidance.
01:59He looks like he is good for surgery.
02:04We run him at, like, 7 to 8 ml per kg per hour.
02:09One of my colleagues, Conrad, came to do the anesthesia for the rabbit for us today.
02:14Anesthesia for any animal is a little trickier, but especially in rabbits,
02:18we wanted to have a specific person there to monitor.
02:25Oh, super, super thin skin.
02:29I'm just skimming the surface on exotic medicine and surgery.
02:33The main thing is stabilize this testicle when you make your little cut.
02:38But trying my best to always learn more because I'm still pretty new into it.
02:42Two distal clamps, cut in between, same as a cat.
02:46Thins out quite a lot, hey, you can feel.
02:49Okay.
02:50Now, if you want to try the other side.
02:54I have never done a rabbit spay or a rabbit neuter before.
02:57This is my first time.
02:59There you go.
03:00I got it.
03:01Yeah, grab it, don't let it go.
03:02Okay, got it.
03:03Oh, God, I lost it.
03:06For the rabbit neuter, the testes were a lot longer and a lot more slippery.
03:10Your incision doesn't obviously need to be, like, the whole length of the testicle or anything.
03:14So, grabbing them and getting them, I guess, isolated was more challenging.
03:19There you go, beautiful.
03:22Yep.
03:23All right, we got it.
03:24We got it.
03:25It's a little worm.
03:26Yes, it is.
03:30But overall, it's a pretty much similar technique compared to a dog.
03:35Make your cut.
03:37Beauty.
03:38Slug number two.
03:41And we're done.
03:42Ta-da.
03:43Surgery was super smooth, super successful.
03:46And Emma got in there, and she did a great job.
03:49It was great.
03:50Good morning.
03:51Hi, little buddy.
03:53I have already started to work with more rabbits.
03:55I'm starting to feel more comfortable with them, and I really like them.
03:58Nice.
03:59Yeah.
04:00Oh, my gosh.
04:01I think Rabbit would be a great pet.
04:03He was a good little surgical candidate, and I think he'll be a good buddy.
04:06Yay.
04:07Oh, he's so cute.
04:08Crazy cute.
04:19Hello.
04:20I'm just going to try and look way, way back at your molars.
04:23Good job, good job, good job.
04:24You did it.
04:25Can she have a treat?
04:26Oh, yeah, yeah.
04:27She would really like that.
04:28Okay, awesome.
04:29Callie came in today because her owners had noticed that she was favoring one side of her mouth,
04:36specifically with more chewy treats or treats that were harder in texture.
04:41They were concerned that maybe she had a tooth problem.
04:44Here you go.
04:47Callie is a 12-year-old German Shepherd Coley Cross.
04:51She's friendly.
04:52She's really gentle, very loyal, sometimes goofy.
04:56She's been that nonstop loving puppy.
04:59Just like the most caring dog.
05:06Do you know which side of her mouth seemed to be bothering her more?
05:09This side is bothering her.
05:11It is really important for really all dogs to come in and have their mouth assessed.
05:16Dental disease can happen at any age, but especially in an older dog.
05:21We brush our teeth every day.
05:23Your pet is not brushing their teeth every day.
05:25We'll look at the ouchie side.
05:29There was a little bit of tartar and plaque on all those teeth.
05:32I mean, I'd be shocked if she didn't have some buildup there.
05:35So I don't see any tooth that makes me go, this should come out.
05:39But that being said, what I see in there is just the tops of the teeth.
05:44I like to say that teeth are like a little iceberg.
05:46You can see the tip of the teeth in the mouth, but you can't see the huge root underneath.
05:50And the only way to see that root is by x-ray.
05:53She would benefit from a dental procedure.
05:56I've thought about how much buildup there is.
05:59Okay.
06:00It wouldn't be the worst idea to get kind of like a cleaning.
06:03She's such a good girl. Yeah.
06:05She gets a little bit older.
06:07Just wanting to make sure that we're taking really good care of her as much as possible.
06:11Come on, Cowie.
06:14I really hope she'll be feeling better and back to her zany self.
06:18Good girl. You're doing great. Good job.
06:22Good job.
06:23I have a lot of confidence in the vets here and the care we've been given.
06:30Right now, I am starting with my full mouth x-rays.
06:33The full mouth x-rays are going to tell us what's going on underneath that gum line that we can't visually see.
06:40X-ray.
06:43Kelly is an older dog.
06:44There is a potential to have a lot more surprises.
06:48Oil change.
06:51Moving on to the 300.
06:53Right now, I'm just doing my oral exam.
06:57I'm just checking to see if any of these teeth are broken or loose at all.
07:03I didn't have too many concerns going in.
07:06I'm pretty happy with how that oral exam is looking.
07:09We're just going to look at the x-rays now and just confirm that everything's looking good.
07:12All right. I'm going to start cleaning.
07:14Yep.
07:1510-06. Start time.
07:23I'm looking for signs of abscesses.
07:25I'm looking for the bone coverage.
07:26How much of the tooth does this bone cover?
07:30All of those things, if they're not looking good, can mean extracting a tooth.
07:36So far, there's not any extractions.
07:37Just a cleaning.
07:39That's great news for Kelly.
07:41Who wants to lose teeth, right?
07:44I'm using the ultrasonic scaler.
07:47It does a lot of the work for me, so I don't have to do as much hand scaling.
07:51I'm pleasantly surprised with Kelly's mouth.
07:53There's not a lot of bleeding around her gums.
07:55Looking pretty good.
07:57Once we remove all of this harder buildup, her breath is going to smell so much better.
08:04Does this look like VPC?
08:06Oh.
08:08Jeez.
08:11VPC means the bottom part of the heart is beating earlier than it's supposed to.
08:16It does look wonky.
08:18Shanna brought to my attention that the heartbeat was just looking a little off.
08:24I can see that there is this point which should be rather small and narrow on the machine,
08:30but it's quite high and wide.
08:33Her heart rate is being a little bit abnormal there.
08:36It's looking like a premature contraction, which is not ideal.
08:40Let's take a chest x-ray before we wake her up.
08:43I want to use an x-ray to be able to look at the heart and see if there's any signs of disease.
08:48Having premature contractions usually means that there's something else going on.
08:53It could be something that's potentially life-threatening.
09:02I was not expecting this to happen.
09:05During Callie's dental procedure, we noticed that there is some abnormality happening with the heart.
09:12Okay, x-ray table set up.
09:14I'm going to call and tell the owner.
09:17So we need to take an x-ray to figure out what is going on.
09:20Hi, Heidi. This is Dr. Allison Hinkholm from Forest Grove Vet Clinic.
09:24Callie has a little bit of an arrhythmia.
09:27It's just on our ECG reading, the one that kind of draws out their heart.
09:31I want to take an x-ray of her chest and just make sure that her heart is looking good and that there's no obvious concerns there.
09:37Older pets hide everything so well.
09:41I want to be clear that she is stable right now.
09:43If they're arthritic, if they have dental pain, they are hiding that.
09:47They are not really showing it to you.
09:48No worries, Kate. Thanks, Heidi. Bye.
09:51It's our job as veterinarians to figure out what might be causing them discomfort, right?
09:56Or what might be abnormal and bring that to owner's attention.
10:04X-ray.
10:06Mostly what I'm trying to look at is if there's a big enlarged heart in her chest or not.
10:12I'm looking at x-rays of Callie's heart.
10:16It's definitely too big.
10:19She has quite an enlarged heart.
10:23Callie is in some degree of heart failure.
10:29I feel bad for her.
10:31I suspect that this has been going on for some time and that Callie just gave us no signs at all.
10:39It's a good girl.
10:41Not everything is black and white. Not everything goes the way that you plan it to.
10:45And sometimes that's the hardest part.
10:48I'm sorry, Callie.
11:01What's this creature's name?
11:03Cheddar. Cheddar!
11:06Look at him. He's just showing off. He's like, let me show you the cutest things I can do.
11:11I love mice.
11:12I just feel like every kid who thinks they want a hamster, I'm like, I think you actually want a mouse, you just don't know.
11:18Dr. Alice is here today at ARCS to help me look at a little mouse named Cheddar.
11:23I don't like mice.
11:25The more you do it, the better he gets.
11:27I grew up on a farm and they would always get in the house and it was like a mouse in the house situation and it was just like panic.
11:32And that's where it comes from.
11:35Oh my god.
11:37Who's that?
11:39Oh my.
11:40We got a call from a lady. Her cat found this mouse, brought it to her as a present. She didn't appreciate said present.
11:47So she called us for assistance recognizing that it was a fancy mouse, so a domesticated mouse.
11:54No one has claimed him. We just want to do a little exam and we'll get him up for adoption.
12:00Oh, I love them so much. Someone's got to love them.
12:03I love pet mice. I think they're an excellent pet.
12:07No, it's just a baby.
12:10Okay. You have a boy.
12:13We were initially worried that he could have cat bites on him.
12:16Ears look good, just no nasal discharge.
12:19Eyes look normal, nice and black and glossy. Yeah, he's in good body condition.
12:23But there was no wounds, no evidence of any injuries.
12:27Mice will definitely have a bit of a yellow change to their teeth and that's pretty normal for them.
12:31I feel his little heart. Poor guy.
12:34For this guy, what I don't want him to do is strain and pull against me pulling on his tail, right?
12:42No, I hate it.
12:44Get to the door, get to the door.
12:46Zero it? Yeah.
12:48I'm so little, I'm so good at this.
12:51I'm trying to prioritize my mental health in this situation.
12:55So he's healthy.
12:57Come here.
12:59Okay.
13:01All right, Cheddar.
13:03I think he's good to go to home.
13:05There you go.
13:08Oh my goodness.
13:10Build your tunnels again, little buddy.
13:12I think pet mice, there's definitely people out there who will love them and they will have happy homes.
13:18Look at his little baby face.
13:21Not with me, though.
13:24Little angels. We don't deserve them.
13:26Working with exotics at ARCS has been amazing for building my confidence and building my learning and my knowledge for it.
13:32It's okay, buddy.
13:34I don't foresee myself working with a ton of mice in the future, though.
13:47Good girl.
13:49Just want a little bit of a brush.
13:52Just want a brush.
13:53Okay, just want a brush.
13:56During Callie's dental procedure, we learned Callie is in some degree of heart failure.
14:05And the only sign was that one weird ECG reading.
14:10I do feel good that we've caught it as early as we can.
14:14And one of the best things we can do is start treatment really, really early.
14:19All right. I know this wasn't the news that you guys were expecting when you dropped her off this morning, so I'm just really sorry.
14:26We did get a call that Callie does have a heart condition.
14:30And so we are going to send home medication for her heart.
14:34We're able to give medications that have been shown to prolong life.
14:38I'll grab her and I'll meet you guys up front.
14:41Okay.
14:42Who knows how long they'll have Callie, but they can certainly make the best out of the time that they have left.
14:48We did adopt her when she was older.
14:50So she was a seven-year-old dog and she was in the shelter for about seven months.
14:55So we decided to adopt her and give her a good home because nobody else was taking her on.
15:02And she's just brought a lot of joy in our lives.
15:06This way, Callie. This way.
15:09Some people may not want to get a senior dog, but she's been really solid.
15:14She's been really great with us and we wouldn't trade her for the world.
15:20Just so much love.
15:23Good girl, Callie.
15:25Aw, there she is.
15:34Look at those big pearlies.
15:36If we hadn't have done this dental, we wouldn't have found out that she has a heart condition and we wouldn't have been able to start her on this life-saving medication.
15:43Hi, sweet girl. You did so good.
15:46If you guys have any questions or concerns, definitely reach out to us.
15:49Okay, perfect. Thank you.
15:51Yeah, you're welcome. She's a sweet girl.
15:53She is.
15:54There'll be lots of visits to come check in regularly with the vet just to see how she's responding.
15:59Hi, sweetie.
16:01It's going to be an exercise, diet, ensuring she gets what she needs and we can extend her life to a full life.
16:07I'd say what's special about pets as they get older is they're really bonded with their owner.
16:13There's like this deep-seated bond.
16:15Good boy.
16:18Yeah, the eyesight's not as good. Come here, bud.
16:21They're like completely forgiving love that they offer to people.
16:25Yeah, that'll make you right lie all better.
16:28They're only here for a short amount of time, so really try and enjoy each moment.
16:32Oh, yeah, boy.
16:34She is a senior, so...
16:47I'd like to introduce you to Gordie. Come on out.
16:51Hello, Gordie.
16:53He's cute.
16:55He's a good dog.
16:57Today at ARCS, there's an elder coming in to perform a smudging test.
17:00Today at ARCS, there's an elder coming in to perform a smudging ceremony.
17:04Yeah, he is.
17:06I'm from Siksika. It's about an hour east of Calgary.
17:10Good boy.
17:12Elders play a very significant role in the sense of community leadership, traditional teachings and ceremonies, and revitalizing the culture.
17:21It's a busy place in here.
17:24Amy has had this done at ARCS previously, but I have never seen it performed in a veterinary clinic, a veterinary hospital, or a rescue situation.
17:32Go through here. This is our dog shelter, as you can see.
17:36The purpose of the smudging ceremony is to pay respects and give thanks for the animals.
17:41Got a bunch of dogs here.
17:43We deal with a lot of death and a lot of sadness in animal rescue.
17:47You know, you just can't save every animal.
17:51I have a bunch of staff that are joining us for the smudging ceremony.
17:56Good to see you, everybody.
17:58The smudging ceremony is just a way for the staff to come together, to say our goodbyes, and for us to be able to move forward with the work that we do.
18:08I was given this gift from my family.
18:11I'm going to burn the sweetgrass.
18:13I've never done this at a place like this.
18:16It's an honor for me.
18:17He mops. He gets him mopped.
18:20What I'm saying is that in our culture, our dogs are very sacred, and they're very spiritual.
18:27And I'm really happy, thankful for this day, for you guys are honoring the dogs.
18:32The purpose of the smudging, it's like a communication, a relationship with the Creator.
18:39It's going to smoke.
18:41I'm going to bless myself because I'm going to be saying a prayer for the dogs in my language.
18:47Go ahead.
19:02The smoke is going to get to the Creator.
19:05It's carrying your words, your prayer, or your request.
19:10You guys can adopt this anytime, and you could have a little smudge place in your living room, your bedroom.
19:17Do that on your own time.
19:19I shared it, and I gave them that right that you don't have to be First Nation.
19:24So with that, sing this farewell song for the dogs.
19:34Having Frank come to the shelter was amazing.
19:36I think it's pretty significant in the sense of it's a cleansing at my place of work.
19:46There hasn't always been acceptance for smudging in institutions.
19:52It's a very profound thing to experience.
19:55In our culture, all animals are very sacred to us.
20:00To be part of this meant a lot to me.
20:05Helping me out the dogs.
20:07They're singing with you.
20:11We'll see you again.
20:13Yeah.
20:29Come up.
20:31Have a banana.
20:34He likes bananas.
20:36His favorite food is bananas.
20:39We adopted Rafi because Marley is at the age now where we felt like it was a good time for her to have the responsibility of having her own pet.
20:49It was her sixth birthday present.
20:53I like feeding him every morning.
20:57Your biscuits are in there.
20:59Watching him play.
21:01And I like feeding him his biscuits.
21:05I would say Rafi's personality is extremely chill.
21:09He's just a very relaxed bunny.
21:11Raf, you want to get brushed?
21:14Marley and I went and met Rafi in ARCS in Calgary on the same day that we brought him home.
21:20Okay, nope, nope.
21:23Some days he doesn't want to be brushed.
21:25Some days he does.
21:27Come.
21:31I think he's definitely a part of the family. It didn't take him very long to find his place, eh?
21:40He's cute.