Dogs and cats are more than pets, they are often a member of the family.
When disaster strikes and a pet needs urgent medical care, professionals at an emergency vet clinic in Okotoks are ready to help.
Dr. Zoe Williams is one of those professionals. An animal lover who likes to solve problems, she has cared for creatures for over a decade.
Medical director at Southern Alberta Veterinary Emergency (SAVE), Williams says no two days are the same.
“It’s always something new, especially in emergency,” she says.
SAVE, a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week emergency veterinary clinic, differs from most primary vet clinics.
“We don’t schedule routine appointments,” Williams says. “We don’t do vaccines or wellness checks, we’re here for cases that can’t get into their primary care clinic.”
Pets brought to SAVE can have less-serious conditions like an ear infection or stomach problem that’s making them or their owner uncomfortable, especially if there aren’t any openings at the pet’s regular vet.
“Those aren’t really an emergency, but they sure make a pet uncomfortable,” Williams says. “It’s hard to watch your pet be that miserable.”
Then there are those honest-to-goodness emergencies that can be anything from a C-section, surgery to remove a foreign body or a complex medical crisis that needs immediate attention, she says.
The clinic is set up for diagnostics like blood work, urine testing, X-rays, some ultrasounds, CT scans as well as for surgery.
Just one time — hopefully
Although there are some repeat patients, another difference between SAVE and a primary care veterinarian is that staff at SAVE don’t typically develop a long-term relationship with pets or their owners, like they might at a primary care vet’s office.
“If people get to know me, they're probably having bad luck,” Williams says.
About 30 staff members work their magic at the clinic, including registered vet techs, who function like nurses in a hospital, tech assistants, who take care of animal handling and patient care, and the client care team that greets clients at the front desk.
The client care team works from 7 a.m. to midnight, and the rest of the teams are split into morning, afternoon or overnight shifts.
Because the clinic is open 24 hours, patients who need longer care can stay overnight, and veterinarians are on site for urgent problems that crop up after other veterinarian offices are closed, Williams says.
Every client is stressed out and worried to some degree when they come through the door.
“I don't think anyone wants to come see us,” Williams says. “We’re not primary care, so they’re not seeing us for good reasons.
“It's like if you had a kid and they were feeling unwell. You're not sure what exactly is going on.”
Clients sometimes Google their pet’s symptoms, which always tells the worst-case scenario and can make for more anxiety, she says.
Located in north Okotoks on Highway 2A, the clinic sees patients from Calgary and area, and even further south and into B.C.
The clinic specializes in small animals like cats and dogs, as well as more exotic species like rabbits, lizards or birds.
Exotic animals
Williams says it’s hard to find a clinic that will see exotic animals on an after-hours emergency basis, so owners of those critters are often “extra stressed” when they arrive because they’ve had to call every emergency clinic in the Calgary area.
Williams lists stomach ailments among cats and dogs as one of the most common complaints she sees, although they can vary in type and severity.
“If pets stopped having upset tummies, we'd probably be out of a job,” she says.
Dogs, especially, like to eat things that they shouldn't and often need surgery, but that type of surgery is among her favourites to perform because animals tend to bounce back quickly.
“You’ve got a pet who’s very, very sick, potentially going to die without intervention,” she says. “You take it to surgery, you cut the thing out and I've got a pet who's doing well again.”
She remembers one case where she learned that Gorilla Glue expands in water and forms a cast of an animal's stomach that needs to be surgically removed.
“It makes a nice little model of your stomach,” she says.
In other cases, surgery isn’t required.
“I had one patient who I was going to do surgery on and then it pooped out the spoon it ate, which is amazing,” she says. “First off, that it chose to eat a spoon, secondly, that it managed to pass it on its own.”
They also use a scope with a camera on it to retrieve things from an animal's stomach if they can see it.
“We send the camera down, grab it and pull it out,” she says.
Then, there are trips made to the vet because a dog or cat got into something poisonous.
Rat or mouse poison is flavoured and Williams has seen several dogs get into boxes labelled animal-proof.
Don't eat that
A lot of dogs eat marijuana, too, and generally look miserable when they are brought in but usually recover quickly, she says.
“It’s very hard to have them eat an amount that’s going to be life-threatening, so that’s a good toxicity,” she says. “A bad toxicity would be something like a cat that got into lilies or Tylenol, those are both very serious for cats.”
One of the worst things to see is when a cat eats lilies that were bought as a gift, she says.
“That person just feels awful because they bought lilies as a present, and now the cat is dying. That’s just gut wrenching,” she says.
SAVE also takes in strays or injured wildlife brought in off the street. Although most stray animals are quickly reunited with their owners, it’s not a happy ending for all, Williams says.
“We're always pretty sad if we have a dog here for a long period of time and no one's claiming it.”
In Calgary, for example, strays are taken to the Calgary Humane Society after 24 hours, but there is no such facility in Okotoks.
Caring for strays is a cost the clinic chooses to accept, and animals that aren’t picked up eventually become the clinic’s property.
“They have to be euthanized if no one claims them, so we’ll hang on to them as long as possible because we don’t want to do that,” she says.
Local pet rescues will sometimes take in strays if they have space, she says.
Almost everyone who works at a vet clinic ends up with an animal that they didn’t want to see put down or sent to a pet rescue, and Williams has four pets at home.
To reduce the number of unwanted animals, many vets will help by volunteering at spay and neuter clinics, she says.
Injured wildlife is often brought in, and although SAVE it isn’t a licensed wildlife rehab centre, supportive treatments like antibiotics, pain medication, or simply keeping a critter warm, can be started until the animal can be picked up by a licensed organization.
Birds are the most common wildlife to arrive at their door, although every summer they see baby rabbits. Williams says the babies should be left alone unless they are obviously injured or if the mother has been killed.
SAVE also gets calls about deer that have been hit by a vehicle, and in that case, Williams says people should call police.
“We can't go rescue an injured deer off the highway, unfortunately,” she says.
People who come across injured wildlife and aren’t sure what to do can call a rehabilitation centre like the Alberta Institute for Wildlife Conservation (AIWC), which can answer questions and suggest what action might be taken.
One of the more unique animals Williams treated, as a volunteer at AIWC, was a baby beaver that had a broken nail.
She says the tiny mammal was distracted with vegetables so she could deal with the nail.
“It was really cute,” she says.
