Thursday, January 26, 2006

  • a young ferret with distemper.
  • Wednesday, January 25, 2006

  • An otherwise healthy looking hamster that had gotten into rat poison. An apartment manager found it. One of her tenants thought it was vermin.
  • Monday, January 23, 2006

  • Red-shouldered hawk with a shattered shoulder. He was covered in lice and piegon flies and was in bad shape all around. My hands have been shaky today and I slipped while giving him the injection and the needle, full of euthanasia solution, went straight into my forearm. I sighed and shook my head and treated it like a snake bite, sucking the venom from the wound then filled out an accident report. I don't think any chemicals ended up in me but it's a good reminder that we are all just meat.
  • Wednesday, January 18, 2006

  • budgie with a huge tumor in its abdomen.
  • very old rat. so sweet, so kind. he licked me. i kissed him. he smelled like disease and dying. his kidneys had probably failed. his paws were covered in blood. he made me cry. i whispered to him.
  • iguana with calcium deficiency.
  • the most beautiful veiled chameleon i'd ever seen. metabolic bone disease.

    All of these happened within 45 minutes of eachother. None of us could understand.
  • Tuesday, January 17, 2006

  • A little budgie. We didn't really know what was wrong with him other than he had been ill his entire life. His legs bowed out to the sides and he couldn't stand up anymore.
  • Monday, January 09, 2006

  • A very chipper and seemingly happy lovebird whose bottom beak somehow disappeared today. The owners didn't know what happened - maybe he was attacked by another bird or maybe it got caught in the cage. There was no way he would have survived without being syringe fed for the rest of his life. I didn't like the way it felt to euthanize an animal that was in such high spirits.
  • A young Hermann's tortoise who had been attacked by a dog.