| | I never thought I would ever say this but I LOVE Monday's.
Since I work at Banfield, The Pet Hospital our clinic is closed every Monday it's great! But the only down side to that is I have to work pretty much every Saturday. I love being a technician and working with animals, of course, it has it's days just like anything else in life. Some days you can have the sweetest, cutest animals, who just give kisses and make you smile. Then other days the animals try and test our different skills such as wrestling(sometimes full body wrestling with larger dogs), holding techniques(headlocks), quick reflexes, and most of all patience and trusting your coworkers with sometimes what feels like your life. I'm serious!. I don't mean to brag or anything but I will for a second. In the 5 going on 6 years that I've been working with the Vet. I've only seriously gotten injured maybe 5 times if that. Compared to many other coworkers who get injured a lot more often. Don't get me wrong I have my fair share of nips, warning bites, and scratches but nothing compared to what it could end up being. A lot of times my coworkers/friends will choose me to help wrangle the animals with them cause they KNOW that I won't let anything happen to them, unless they're the ones that do something stupid and practically ask for it. And it has happened like that before and I'm like what were you thinking, lol. It can be funny at times.
Well I know it's a lengthy story but it's worth it.
Like for example Saturday I was gently holding a pekinese about 2 years old that the owner's had just gotten the day before from a friend of a friend who didn't want him anymore. They had mentioned he can be snippy. So I start talking to the dog "Vern" and he was wagging his tail and licking my hand and being real sweet not showing any signs that I needed to be careful, but since the owner had mentioned he MAY snip I asked them if I could take the pet to the back and get all the prelims ex. temp, fecal, blood, check his eyes, ears, teeth, body over for any problems. Well as I was holding him the more we did the more wiggly he would get so I just talked to him and held him tighter. Well then he decided it would be fun to try and wiggle himself away and start trying to bite the Dr. Well I wasn't going to let this happen, so I get him in literally a headlock (Not joking, at times he turned slightly purple) and he still was trying to bit her. I was like Hello dog if you want to breath easier stop trying to bite us, we're not doing anything that bad for how you're acting.
Well for all those out there reading thinking man she's being really cruel, well I was also carefully monitoring the pet and easing up when he would calm down. It was and is my job not to let the Dr. or myself or the pet get hurt during the exam. Fun job eh?
Lessons I've learned from work if you have a pet trying to bite or scratch you or wiggle out of your grip as much as if would be easier to let go the pet will remember that and try even harder next time. But if you just hang in there a lil longer than you normally would the pet will give up and you have them dominated the dog/cat and they will learn that you don't put up with that and it will be so much easier to handle later.
SO back to my story "Vern" then still trying to bite my left bicep decides to start kicking, twisting you name it otherwise if I let this dog of 10# or so go someone is going to end up getting hurt pretty bad. So we go to find a muzzle aka party hat for the lil fella well since he's a pekinese he has nose to put in the muzzle, of course. We even tried the cat ones that are like a face mask still no luck we would jump at whoever was trying to put the muzzle. We were like you have got to be kidding me he's 10#s. Well so I just held on tight to the pup and we got our prelims and started them going. Well while the tests are running I have 2 of the techs standing back there watching all this go on. Well finally the dog has about had enough and you can only hold something tightly for so long before you start aching it's probably been about 20 mins by this time. So the other techs and I decided together to get this dog on the floor and have no one get hurt.
Communication is VERY important besides trust!
Well here was the plan: to have one hold the leash opposite of where I was with the dog, the other calling it from the other side of the table distracting it, then all at one time I'd let go of the dog pushing it away from me, the girl with the leash tugging torwards her so the dog gets away from me, the other girl calling it so it's confused at what's going on and then me again as the dog is on the leash slightly hanging in the air I try and support his back half as he's quickly being lowered to the ground still trying to bite us.
The one tech who was holding the leash was surprised at how once the dog was on the ground it seemed to be sweet again I told her that's what he did to me almost 30mins ago by now DON'T trust him, lol. WELL she sits on the floor and starts petting him and he's wagging his tail and licking her and she's like oh he likes me...I tried to warn her you see. So then out of no where he stops licking her hand, jumps at her and bites her first finger knuckle and starts bleeding. I just stood there and shook my head and smiled and told her "See I told you DON"T trust him, he did the same thing to me." She looked at the dog and said "You stupid dog" I was like yah that's it blame the dog 
Oh by the way check out some of our wedding pictures on Cindy"s site www.xanga.com/singingmom
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| | Posted 12/4/2006 10:02 AM - 1 view - 7 comments
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MMM YUMMY!
