Oh those funny and silly stories...

We all have some vet funny stories to share about working in clinical practice, so I decided to share with you a few hopefully entertaining episodes that I've personally been through while working. Share yours in the comments section!

I had a scared cat running away from the clinic

Well, that wasn’t fun at all… the cat was actually a very nice and quiet cat, but the door between consult rooms was not properly closed.

The cat decided to sneak into the storage between the two consult rooms, to find out that the door to the other consult room was also open. And there was no one in the other consult room. And the door from the other consult room going into reception was also open.

This smart cat knew all of this and escaped right into reception. Now, note that reception has a set of closed doors that only open when operated by people. Well, guess what – someone had just opened the door. The cat ran outside!!!

Right outside was a parking lot… and lots of bushes. And a river. We spent quite a bit of time trying to get the cat from underneath the bushes while hoping the cat wouldn’t run to the busy parking lot. We were lucky and a few scratches later, we were able to get the cat.

Moral of the story – make sure all your doors and windows are closed when you are consulting cats!

I spent an entire afternoon smelling like I was drunk

So this was more annoying than fun and all my fault… I had done a quick stitch up on a sedated cat, and used a kidney dish filled with spirit to place the instruments as it was not a sterile stitch up. I also decided to tilt my head to look at the wound I needed to close and got my hair inside the kidney dish. A lot of it. Half of it. This was right before evening surgery, so I had to finish my consults smelling of surgical spirit before being able to take a shower!

We squirted pus into a client’s face

Very recently I was treating a dog that had been bitten by another dog with a nurse. Many weeks after taking care of the nasty wounds, there was still one resilient teeny tiny little hole in one of the flanks. My nurse was looking into it and – like any vet or nurse would do – squeezed it a bit to have a feel for it.

Well… it gashed out pus and went straight into the owner’s face, who was also holding the dog and trying to have a look at the wound! It just missed the nurse’s face, but she got it all over her hair too. Me… I was on the other side holding the dog and escaped!

I had to bring a client through the back to prove her I was right

A while ago, I had an owner panicking that her dog had developed a dark patch in his mouth and the daughter, who was a doctor, was worried that it could be melanoma. I looked at the dog, a black Labrador, and proceeded to say that pigmented gums are common in black Labradors.

She did not believe me, so I asked her to come to the back of the clinic where, coincidentally, we had a black Labrador as an inpatient. I then showed her that the other black Labrador also had black gums and that was the only way to convince her… she also complained she had to pay a minimum consultation fee (after having me spend even more time than normal taking her through the back… this was before GDPR, by the way, so we didn’t break any privacy rules! :p)

I had to tell more than one owner that the new lump they are feeling on their pet’s tummy is a nipple

And I’m sure it has happened to many of you… especially with male dogs, when suddenly the owners realise there’s a very small lump in their dog’s belly and wonder if it’s a tick. Also happens with fat cats quite a bit, with owners saying they feel some lumps – those lumps being very fat nipples, usually at the back of the belly.

How about you? What silly things have happened to you in practice?