Dear Abigail Vet Tech Consulting

02/09/2024

Good doggie.

01/21/2024

Link to a Barn Fire Prevention webinar my cousin Dr. Rebecca Husted did for FHANA (Friesian Horse Association of North America).
This is for ANYONE with a barn that wants to know how to prevent, mitigate, and respond to barn fires. I HIGHLY recommend it if you have a barn or plan to have one. Barn fires are one of the most horrific tragedies that owners can do a LOT to prevent.
(Original webinar date 19 Jan 2024)
https://fb.watch/pIQsRr6Ck-/?mibextid=Nif5oz

11/10/2023

Not a pet, but directly related to human actions.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=937317721125832&id=100045428388237&sfnsn=mo&mibextid=AMJnMY

11/09/2023

Sure, your job may be boring, but at least you didn't accidentally jerk off a dog today.

11/07/2023

Today my nubbins princess, Sekhmet, got her yearly dental. Last year her teeth were fine, but this year she had some bad tartar and build up and my coworker doing the dental and the vet on call discovered she's developed feline resorptive lesions. Those are Bad News Bears. 🥴
Basically, her body has decided that her teeth are foreign objects that don't belong and are attacking them. It's essentially an autoimmune reaction. Luckily it's not too bad right now, but at her dental next year, or sooner if I start to notice she's having any issues eating, we're going to have to go in, get full dental radiographs (x-rays 🩻) to determine exactly which teeth are affected, and remove all of them that are. That's really the only treatment. :/ I'm simplifying here, but it's been a long day, so you're getting the simplified explanation this time. 🫣
She's already missing a couple incisors. Not really sure where those went..? 😂
She was overall a very good girl who was very popular except when she bit Asia, my coworker. ):
I'll post drunk videos of her (Sekhmet, not Asia) later. 💜
Sekhmet has her own IG

11/06/2023

Y'all, this is what I mean when I say we in veterinary medicine feel completely worthless to clients many times--a pet cat that hadn't been vaccinated for anything (including Rabies, which is the law ⚖️) since 2020 when he got his one kitten vaccine bit the crap out of me two weeks ago. It was so bad Urgent care took a look at it and noped outta there and sent me to the ER. I ended up on fluids with IV antibiotics, two doses of hydromorphone to help cope with the pain while the doctor and nurse probed and flushed the already-infected pocketing wound under the back of my hand. I was vaccinated for rabies in 2016, but given that was a while ago and the unvaccinated state of the cat, the ER pharmacy still highly recommended I go through post-bite exposure treatment which meant like 30mls of rabies immunoglobulins injected into my wound 💉 until my hand meat had no more space to hold any more, then the rest injected in multiple💉 spots💉 all 💉over💉 both 💉my💉 upper 💉arms💉 and 💉in 💉my 💉buttocks. 💉 Then a rabies vaccine a few days later. 💉
Yeah, ok. Better be safe than sorry. I do my part, the owners' part is to quarantine the guilty party for 10+ days depending on situation to be sure the animal shows no symptoms of rabies.
What makes me feel warm and cuddly inside is to get a frantic phone call ☎️ from the Health Department 😬 making sure I got all the post-bite exposure treatments and vaccine and what time and what days and are you sure? Because as it turns out it took them some time to track down the cat's owners, and when they did, the owners absolutely refused to quarantine the animal. 🫠
No matter how it was explained to them--that they could do it themselves, nobody was taking their cat away, this was Really Very Serious, they 100% refused. Even though they broke the law for 3 years, thereby rendering their pet unsafe to handle, and it bit a medical worker so badly they ended up in the ER with limited range of motion for over a week and had to get advanced treatment to be sure they wouldn't, y'know, die of rabies in a year,⚰️ or a terrible infection in 48hrs 🪦 (you should've SEEN the size of my hand and the redness of the infection creeping up my wrist before the oral Augmentin started kicking in).
Cause I mean, eff me, right? After I spent hours handling their cat so gently and giving him breaks because I knew he was feeling sick and we had to do so much testing and I wanted to make it as stress-free as possible. When he growled at me or hissed I was careful, but also just spoke soothingly to him because I knew he was scared and felt gross, and I could tell he really was a good cat; it just wasn't his day. He even let me inject him twice. It was an injection known to sting that he nailed me over. I didn't even blame him.
But wow. His owners certainly couldn't give two poops about me.
👍👍

11/01/2023

I can't handle these levels of horror. Let's watch The Shining or something instead.
🦜⚰️💀😶‍🌫️🎃🫣😱😳😵👻

10/30/2023

Just thought I'd share a pic of a few of my own babes from my menagerie. One of our two matriarchs, the 11yo white Tiny Kitty cuddles with our eternal kitten, the 7.5yo ginger himbo, Nibbler who is wearing a Halloween bowtie as he is very fashionable. A very interested Lucy (9.5yo), a boxer/AU cattle dog/AU Shepherd mix looks on from the top of the couch, behind.
Pic by a friend, Faith Thompson 💜

10/25/2023

VALID. As with any pet, please don't rely on the pet store (or dog breeder) for husbandry information! Most don't actually know what they're doing. For exotics, look for online groups of long-time amateur enthusiast keepers to learn from, and make sure you have an exotic vet in your area that is knowledgeable about the exotic you want to own! 🦜🐍🦎🐢🐸🐇🐠🐡🦂🕷️🪲🦆🪿🦙🫏🐎🐖🐎

Not Exactly Hardy: As a friend of mine always says "Chameleons favorite things to do are get sick and die"; and after a period of working with these guys in a Vet-Med environment, that is accurate! I think them being sold in pet stores as an 'easy first pet' is hugely to blame for that.

If you're considering bringing any kind of chameleon into your home I URGE you to go check out Chameleon Academy: https://chameleonacademy.com/ Chameleon Academy They are by far the best resource for new Cham owners. This isn't a sponsor or anything like that, I just am really tired of seeing chameleons on death's door.

10/23/2023

Please stop supporting "long haired" Frenchie breeders.
This is how hair length works in dogs (short story): there are 3 alleles a dog can have. (S=short hair, L*=long hair)
1. S/S=the dog will have short hair and can't transmit any long hair genes to its puppies.
2. L/L=the dog has long hair and can't transmit any short hair genes to its puppies.
3. S/L*(what SOME Frenchies have)=the dog has short hair, but carries a recessive gene for long hair and if two of these dogs breed, ONLY 25% of their offspring will have long hair (which means they'll show the long hair phenotype) and will be a "fluffy Frenchie".

But here's the thing. Frenchies aren't SUPPOSED to have long hair. It's a recessive gene. That gene isn't fully mapped out--other things like health issues could be tied to that gene as well. Frenchies already have very bad health problems because of the awful breed standards that are allowed. They never receive enough oxygen because of how their face and upper respiratory system is shaped. They have skin issues, eye issues, cardio and respiratory issues. They get heat stroke incredibly easily... the long hair gene does nothing positive for these little guys, and is a scam to make them seem more desirable because it's "rare".
Do you know what Veterinary professionals think would be more desirable? If breeders and AKC standards started breeding noses and faces back into these poor little dogs so they can breathe properly. Make their heads smaller so they can give birth naturally with less likelihood of dystocia. Fewer cleft palates and stillborn pups. Breed Frenchies back into health, not into more hair. 🙏

10/08/2023

Wrote a thread with a more in-depth look at Lyme disease (and yes, my 🐕 gets preventatives year round, AND the vaccine💉) and how testing works. Hope it helps make it all more understandable!