Young woman books an emergency appointment for a cat. We ask why she's here, she tells us that she recently adopted this cat from a shelter a few days ago with all his paperwork, showing that he's clean as a whistle. Fine, so what's the problem? "Well, I think he may have a lung infection, he sometimes makes a funny sound and it's happening more often. Usually it's triggered when he's near me or when I touch him, but he'll sometimes just do it around the house". While the vet is checking out the cat's lungs I'm holding the cat and gently scratching behind the ears. He starts to purr. A deep loud hearty sound that fills the room. "THAT'S IT THAT'S THE SOUND!" We're momentarily stunned, eventually the vet manages to reply "Wut? Uhhh....seriously? That's a purr. He's happy, if that's it you can go home." She's still confused, but relieved and I give her a bunch of cat pamphlets and stuff and send her on her way. She was sweet as pie and about as smart as one too. That's okay, she thought something was wrong and came rushing in.

Love them dearly, but dogs can be morons sometimes. So a Golden Retriever (shocking) came in with symptoms like lethargy, excessive drooling, vomiting, not eating (uh oh, it's a Golden, something up here), and distended belly. We x-ray the patient and his stomach and part of his intestines are completely distended, like balloon huge, and filled with we're not sure yet. Table time. These surgeries are generally not short, but this guy took the prize. 4 hours later, we removed 6 and a half socks and 3 large dishtowels. The surgery looked more like the magic trick with the scarves up the sleeves than the trick itself. It never ended. We were dying of laughter, but holy shit. The dog is fine now. Hopefully no longer scarfing laundry. Sorry not sorry.

Nipples baffle the sh*t out of pet owner's new and old alike. It happens so frequently that it's a joke now. "Oh my god I found some lumps on their belly!" So for everyone's awareness cats and dogs alike have six to eight nips along their belly and it's okay guys. Sometimes the boys flash them too. Sometimes girls and boys alike don't. The best was the big burly guy and his Mastiff and he would simply not accept that his MALE dog had nipples. Wanted to get them removed under anesthesia even after explaining to him that they're normal. It was funny, but he was a bit intense. Nice dog though.

This one has happened twice now, and holy sh*t is it funny. Usually it happens while their grooming or if they're horny and decide to hump a blanket or something, and anyway their little red rocket makes a surprise appearance. Apparently if you do not know this, it's f**king shocking and terrifying. "What is that", "It doesn't look normal" "HIS PENIS IS BLEEDING WHAT IS HAPPENING" "But I thought you cut it off when he got fixed". For real though.

This one is kind of sad and weird. One of our clients is losing their mind a little bit, and they have a small dog. Well she brings the dog in all the time because the owner is convinced that her neighbors (shadowy figures with no face) are futzing around with her dog's penis while she's gone and that the dog has severe anxiety from it. The dog is fine and is really sweet, but oh my god.

Kids mean well, but goddammit guys where are you grabbing them? I understand when they have broken wings and sh*t but the number of times they just walk in with a bird and are like "Hey look what I got, do something with it" and just leave is weird. The notable and exciting day for everyone was when some kids nabbed a bird, brought it to us and it happened to be tagged by a local pigeon racing group (they exist?). Some old dudes in a truck showed up about 4 hours later all excited like little girls. It's apparently the farthest one of their birds has been tracked flying. There was also a budgie once brought in by the bird children, it got adopted.

Bless them, there are these rescue organizations that either seize or purchase food market dogs and get them adopted out overseas to live out "normal lives". Now don't get me wrong they do A LOT of good work and many of the animals are genuinely saved. Some are so deeply broken that they cannot function as a pet in any sense. This dog HATEd to get touched by literally anybody, it was extremely flighty and bitey, genuinely aggressive towards most people, and it came in to get vaccinated. That's it. Okay...fine. So we hand the owner a muzzle and that's when the guy goes "Oh no, I can't put that on her". She's a snarling drooling mess the entire time we're in there, positioned in way that she's ready to lunge at us at a moments notice. She's the size of a Shepherd, probably somekind of Akita mix thing, whatever. Anyway that's when the guy tells us that "he's scared to" because she once bit him so in the face that he had a hole in his palate into his f**king sinuses. He had to have reconstructive surgery. Dumbfounded it took a moment to tell the guy that he needs to go home, there was no f**king way. It's the only time we've ever done that.