Dear followers Mininos&Kaninos
OF HYENAS, MAGIC CAVES AND CAR THERAPY
In other countries the hyenas laugh, here the seagulls laugh. This squeak, which seems like a laugh many times, is one of the most pleasant sounds in this area. Without beginning to talk about the sound of small waves on the beach. Generally in the summer, at least myself, I perceive the sounds differently. I don´t know if it’s the heat, the gentle breeze or something else, but the sounds are softer.
Today is a apocalypse day. It is raining cats and dogs, you can not even see the Montgó, the beautiful mountain that protects our town. Some say that in profile it looks like an elephant, and it is true. It also contains a magical cave at 375 meters high. It dates from 2000-3000 a.d.C and turns out to be a burial chamber. It contains cave paintings representing cattle. It should be declared a world heritage place.
I wish it was Saturday today and we did not have to leave the house, but it’s Friday and the agenda is full.
And the rain passed and so did the gray days, and the sun has risen again, like so many other times. After the storm, calm always comes.
In this weeks there is an avalanche of puppies, no calm at all. A joy for the house and I feel so happy spoiling them here with bits of wiener, giving them the prize when they bark and consenting almost everything, because here they are in absolute paradise, they are in their aunt’s house. Here I spoil, at home they educate ; ). Maybe this are redirected action, since my mother does this with my daughter, for something she is the grandmother and I have to say that my daughter loves her with madness.
This March there is nothing new going on, we continue on the run of decompensation of the chronically ill, otitis, skin conditions, endocrine diseases (hormonal) etc … proud of having stablized some of them, regarding other´s we weren´t that lucky.
Today I want to talk about Mila, Shar Pei rescued by my friend Steph. She never wants to see me, there is no chance of making her love me. Nothing works: saussages, nice words, stroking. She always had problems with the skin, but in the last monthss he was accentuating too much, so we decided to do a serology to see if he had been bitten by the damn mosquito of Leishmaniosis, with such bad luck that positive was a big one along with a proteinogram of the most decompensated.
We started treatment, but Mila had bad luck and her stomach twisted a few weeks later. No, I don´t think it was due to the treatment, or at least in my life as a vet I had much dogs in leishmaniose treatment, but none of them with stomach torsión after the treatment. But who knows. She was taken to emergency to my Nexo colleagues . She is a strong little soul, she is harder than iron. I remember like it happened yesterday, it was a Saturday, 20:00, when Steph sent me a message (record the words of the message in your memory):
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Steph: “Nina, Mila is weird. Her belly seems wollen and she is trying to vomit without stopping, but nothing comes out. Do I have to worry?
Nina: “Right now you’re calling emergency. Victor i son duty. I warn them, too. It is a veterinary emergency that must be attended to as soon as possible “
Steph: “ok.”
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I did not know what was happening, but if I knew that this was a emergency, it should be attended as soon as possible by a veterinarian.
20 minutes later they were in Denia, and 20 minutes later the diagnosis was made: twisting of the stomach and spleen and without waiting time she was entering the surgery room.
Stomach torsion (with or without spleen) is life threatening. Many of the affected animals (mainly those of deep chest such as the Doberman) can evolve not favorably. We, the personas, have a fairly fixed stomach inside the abdomen, but the dog has it much looser. If we imagine a balloon inflated with water and food (because it often happens after having eaten water / food and have done an exercise) we connect a tube to the right (which would represent the exit to the duodenum (small intestine) and one to the left ( that would represent the exit to the esophagus.) Now we take each tube with our hands and suspend the balloon in the air.If we would start jumping and holding the balloon in this way, the moment may come when that balloon rotates around its own axis.
Within the tissues there are many blood vessels that carry blood to organs. If the tubes are turned, this blood flow will be compromised and will not reach the stomach tissue, nor the intestine. Therefore, this tissue is going to die shortly. We say that it it will necrose. We appreciate it inside the surgery for having a dark to black appearance.
The recovery depends a lot on the percentage of damaged tissue and also of the the animal’s capacity to re-heal these parts.
There are enough animals that despite passing a surgery will not survive. The same night or some days later.
Important to keep in mind, this are and can be symptoms:
• Unsuccessful vomiting
• Swallow water / drink and vomit it right away
• Gut looks bloated
• It is a deep-seated dog in addition
It is always advisable to seek veterinary help immediately. If it turns out to be after a simple gastritis or a stomach dilatation which doesn´t need surgery (some in fact need, it depends) we can be more than happy.
Our recommendation for any dog is:
- not to eat food or a lot of water before going out to do intense and not so intense exercise. There is more chance of stomach twisting with a full stomach
Information and education is everything.
At home our education programm is running. I educate Lily (my daughter, 5yrs.) and Palma (our rescue dog, 2 yrs.), and Lily educates Palma and the cats Bikini and Lilo, although they do not pay much attention to her and Palma only if she gives her pieces of her tortilla (tipical spanish omlette) .
When we walk and I say to Palma: “Good girl, very good”, Lily says: “What about me?
I tell her that we are educating in this momento the dog and that she behaves excellent and I do not have to say all the time, she says: “Why do you love Palma more than me?”
Pacience….and there comes the time to educate myself to myself: “Ohhhhmmmmmmmmmm”.
Yesterday I went with my friend Anita, who is also my swing dance teacher, to Valencia. In our short trips we usually do a kind of “car-therapy” which subsitutes the “couch-therapy”, that’s what we call it. It´s always a big pleasure. One of the strong points of discussion was: ambition.
I realised that until now I had always related ambition more with work and the job, but since yesterday I have changed my mind.
In fact, when I was 30 years old, I wanted to be a big name in the veterinary world, to become one of the best someday.
Now almost 20 years later I realized that maybe I was confused with the concept of “being one of the bests”. In the background it matters more that whatever you are what you are, be one of the good ones, and then you will be one of the great ones and the best ones. One of the privileged, who apart from charming their work have some free time to practice some of his favorite hobbies.
So I rediscovered yesterday the meaning of my “personal ambition”: to work and have free time to enjoy my way. It’s not that I have not done it in recent years, but not with as much joy as yesterday, because inside me, very hidden, I thought I did not have enough ambition the last years. And the reality is that I am full of ambition. What a car therapy can produce is incredible.
Everyone chooses where to focus their ambition, I love my work, in fact I would not know what to do if it wouldn´t be the clinic, I love my day to day, talking with clients, putting vaccines, curing diarrhea, doing eye exams, among them recommend a typical rice restaurant or a nice cafe where they behave well with dogs, like my neighbors, the team of Cala Bandida. Sea view, great coffee and they bring your dog fresh water. You don´t even have to ask for it normally.
The other day I went to have a coffee before going to work, and when they brought me the coffee I saw, that they had drawn the face of a dog with milk foam. Life is Beautiful.
I couldn´t not imagine a life without this little details. In the end everyone must find their balance, it is an art to find “your” personal balance, there will be days when that work better and other days worse, the issue is to realize and try.
I think I’ve said it and several times. I am very proud of my clients, I think most of them are learning very well. My half-year notes, very secret and personal evaluations, have given a good average balance. I would say an outstanding-remarkable.
Above all I have to congratulate the owners with new friends, puppies and not so puppies, who are more than attentive during the consultation, explaining doubts and questions and writing down important data. A very interactive and fun consultation that I love.
Just coming to an end I would like to repeat for those who have not read my previous posts: the pine carterpillar is on the road! Attention everyone!
More information about this caterpillar can be found in the monograph about the pine carterpillar on the page of Minina & Kanina Center Veterinari.
I wish you a month of March with lots of sun and good temperatures & coffee in the sun.
Saludos peludos
Nina Minina&Kanina
One of the main photo´s I posted is called: “ Heidi´s and Amy´s La marina Swing Club secrets”, Amy is my friend Maria and Heidi, that´s me.
