Boy, you leave town for two days. While I was on the road Friday night, the national news broke the story about pet-food recalls. I don’t hear a thing about it until I check out Veterinary Information Network this morning… about the time the phone calls start pouring in. I put a couple of links on a new web-page on the KVC site, titled appropriately "Pet Food Recall". There are way too many unknowns in this thing to make a definitive statement yet.
Adding the web-page and testing one dog whose owner feared he might have eaten the cat’s food started me on the road to missing lunch. [ Oddly enough, the owner didn’t seem too concerned about the cat, who was certainly eating the cat’s food. Both pets seem fine, though, and the dog’s kidney function tests were fine, as well.] Then the dog to be spayed proved to have wax impactions in both ears, one of which had already lost its eardrum. Thoroughly cleaning the canals (while still under anesthesia) took a lot more time. When you don’t go to lunch until 1:15, it’s hard to get back by 1:00. That’s why I schedule until 1:30 for lunch.
A couple more emergencies added into a full schedule made me about 30 minutes late heading to Pascola for a quick farm call. Since I was already at Pascola, it was only four miles further to Homestown (possibly the most dismal community I have ever seen). I went on to visit an elderly client who lives there. She has been bringing her pets to me for 24 years, and now is home-bound and unable to do so. It was a very humbling experience for me when I first saw her very humble dwelling. It put the amount she had spent on her pets in a very different perspective. If you had any doubts about the power of the human-animal bond, I think this would make it real to you.
I made it back to town just in time to change into my uniform and be only slightly late for the Troop 272 Court of Honor at 7:00. These boys were recognized for their hard work in earning merit badges and rank advancements in the last quarter.
I have a hard time relating to people who say "There’s nothing to do in this town."