Quote: Amber Morgan

 Quote: Debbie Bruce

The other two vets in the office let me assist in surgeries

Wow, is this common? I've never been able to be present for surgeries and I never thought to ask. I didn't think any vets let you do that! Anyone else have a vet that allows this?

I am always present in the surgery room and in recovery as I stated earlier, but not assisting. I confidently leave that to the vet and his paid assistant. I am careful to stay out of the way and not touch anything. Lucky for me my vet loves to answer all the questions I ask about what he is doing or what is that... I would forgo the questioning if I felt that the vet thought it was distracting and ask questions later.

I would not have ever thought to ask to be in surgery either, but many years ago the breeder I got my first dog from hammered into me that this was my dog and I should always be able to be present during each and every procedure.

Shannon

Our hospital would allow interested owners to observe surgery from behind a glass window-wall....they had an excellent view of everything going on. Owners could not be in the surgery suite.

As an aside, I noticed that our vets were much more accomodating with breeders and people who were seriously working with dogs. No one ever came out and said this was a "policy" but I did see these people given far more latitude than your average "Joe Owner".

C-sections are what I have helped with, I clean the pups and get them breathing.
I stay out of the way with the passing of sterile instruments and such.
I had a recent eclampsia dog incident and helped quite a bit with her, and then took her home for recovery, instead of taking her to the University Vet for 24 hour monitoring.
I also hold legs for blood drawing or IVs.

The more I'm there--the more I learn--the more I can be useful.

If you are competent and calm and have a vet who respects you then they probably wouldn't have a problem with you in the room during surgery.

My experience is very different. At the vet. clinic we take Hans to we bring Hans into the examination room. The vet comes and and talks to us the entire time he or she is doing the exam, asking us questions the entire time. I can't imagine how an exam could go any other way.

A couple of times the vet has checked Hans for worms and had to "go in" to get a sample because I didn't bring one with me. At those times they took Hans to a different room.

He had mites, and they give the dog medication for these mites until at least two scrapings are mite free. He had to have three scrapings, two were done in the exam room with us, one was done in another room while we waited in the exam room.

At this point I feel obligated to throw in my two cents.

I have worked as a tech for several years as I finish my undergraduate work for Veterinary Science with intentions of going to vet school and then specializing in neurology...

My current position is an ICU tech...and let me just tell you... sometimes the animals just HAVE to be away from the owners. For one thing, many owners make the animals much more uneasy than if they are to come in the back with us. The owners can tend to make animals more unsure by trying to calm them and tell them its all going to be alright. On top of that, some owners are not comfortable seeing the procedures we have to perform. I value owners who are well educated about their animals but don't appreciate being told how to do my job.

Other times, people take offense to their animal having to be restrained or muzzled. Well people, that happens. I know Fluffy doesn't bite at home, but I see thousands of animals and the body language Fluffy is giving me tells me he/she is willing to make an exception. And most owners don't know the proper restraint techniques to keep their animal under control. We cannot REASON with the animal that they are in this strange smelly place with strangers who are either feeling them, giving injections, drawing blood, etc. Plus the animal is often times sick or injured when they get to visit us...which makes them feel even more vulnerable. It is safer for us AND the pet... plus who wants to pay for their dog/cat to be in rabies quarantine for an unnecessary bite?

We deal with everything...the healthy that come in for sx, the sick, the injured, the dying and the dead. There are certain procedures that an owner can interfere with our ability to practice the best medicine we can. Our surgery procedures are done in Sx suites the same as human medicine...no one enters the room who is not scrubbed, gowned and masked. We cannot have owners in the back during a crash situation, I can't explain how horrible of a feeling it is to have an owner have to come back and see 1+ doctors and 3+ technicians standing around their animal doing chest compressions, using a defib and breathing for their pet.

Furthermore, there are plenty of malpractice lawsuits and there are lawyers that make their entire business going after veterinarians. Also, anyone can report a claim to the state boards and they have to investigate EVERY claim. It is ridiculous... I wish that I could report uninformed and ignorant owners...

If you really don't trust your vet...find a new one. I know first hand there are plenty of horrible vets and techs for that matter but I also know for a fact that I have worked with some of the best Vets practicing the best possible medicine you will find. I take pride in that. They are out there...believe me...and cut them some slack.

We have had dogs come in where the owner didn't even like us to grab the dogs scruff or squirt them in the playroom to keep them from attacking or running over another dog. They can't hear the growls or read body language well enough to realize their dog was about to cause trouble. I can imagine these same owners would do a lot more harm than good trying to restrain their dog or watching the vet restrain them.

With that said Xena had to go to the emergency vet for hives(insect bite) and the vet absolutely insisted on Xena going to the back for a simple injection. My mom does not coddle our dogs and could have easily held Xena for the second it took to give her an injection. We avoid going there already because of the expense but if it was a regular vet it would have been our last visit there. My shy lab was with us 100% of the time he was conscious. We couldn't afford to have somebody screw up all the training I had done to get him more comfortable with people.

Some vets I've seen do NOT know how to handle a shy dog. The first vet we had try to handle my shy lab got the leash from my mom and tried to drag him to her so she could do the physical exam. If Einstein panicked and went into fight or flight he had one option already removed so what do you think he's going to do? Most likely he would have attempted a bite. My mom took the lead from her and held Einstein for the exam. So I'm supposed to automatically trust her to not do anything stupid like that when she takes him in the back? Our old border collie mix, Morris, had very sensitive teeth and wouldn't allow anybody but my mom to check his mouth. My mom would simply open his mouth and pull up his lips and tell them what teeth were loose. Some vets insisted that they could handle that but these same vets would bend over Einstein and scare him. If they couldn't understand the basic principle of not towering over a scared dog why should I trust them to handle our dog who didn't like his mouth touched by strangers?

So I understand where you're coming from but vets need to improve their handling skills before I trust them with my dogs.

When I first got my dog I took her to Banfield inside the pet chain Petsmart and they insisted on doing everything in the back. I thought it was kind of strange myself and ended up taking her somewhere else.