Anyone West of Bree

Calling all artists!! Do you love African Painted Dogs? Want to help fundraise for in situ conservation work? If you’ve got the time and desire, please consider donating your efforts to a good cause and submit a design for this year’s African Painted Dog SAFE fundraising merchandise! Learn more about APD SAFE at the link and please consider showing off your skills!

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"The full documentary, “ᏩᏯ Waya, Saving Our Red Grandfather,” is now streaming!

Our productions team created this documentary in partnership with Cherokee Nation’s Natural Resources Office and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. It explores the historical and cultural significance of the Red Wolf, along with efforts by conservationists, governments and other partners to save the species from extinction.

Also referred to as our “Red Grandfather,” Red Wolves are sacred in Cherokee culture because of their connection to our tribe’s largest clan, the Wolf Clan. We’re proud to help bring this powerful story of resilience and conservation to the spotlight.

So I would like to add some personal experiences that could make for comedy gold on a show like this:

Excited pig monch to butt/knee cap/boots (see this post)

Surgery/necropsy where something full of liquid that is not blood erupts all over the doc/tech/student (like a giant cyst or abscess)

Bird escaping a kennel and techs having to wander around a dark room with nets trying to catch it OR bird escapes kennel, lands on a tech’s foot and attacks shoe while tech has to carefully scoot across room to get a net to catch the amgry birb

Farm call where a group of amgry geese/swans/turkeys are between vet and patient

Yearling colt doesn’t want vaccines so badly that he bolts from the restrainer by managing to tear the ring the lead rope attaches to off his halter

Absurd hamster death

Vet goes home to visit family farm for holidays and ends up providing impromptu wound care to family horse that did something stupid to get through the night

Sassy bunny steals something out of your hands, runs under something, and growls at you while you’re trying to get it

Being trapped in a room with a client for half an hour trying to get a yes or no on CPR/DNR on a patient (could be side plot of a whole episode)

Tech/student not scrubbed into a surgery freezing in the OR and cuddling with a freshly autoclaved surgical pack for warmth

Rat just hanging out on someone’s shoulder for a whole episode while they go about their duties

Almost drowning self and patient in mud attempting to net a hog

A sedating dart misfire out of the gun directly up into the air and having everybody stand stock still waiting to see where it would fall back down

Having an animal who is “mostly” sedated but has to move quickly, so being told “we’ll throw it on the back of the golf cart, you sit on her and we’ll drive fast”

Watching a supervisor literally up to the elbow manually cleaning out a rhino rectum for an enema, wearing neon orange crocs and saying that they’re better than closed toed shoes because “you can hose ‘em off after”

Techs not communicating they had started intubating so everyone thought the lion was rousing rather than coughing and everyone trying to panic bolt out of the stall

Being told “Be careful if you go into the hospital, I wasn’t paying attention while making diets, so the rehab crow stole and is now flying around with a knife in his mouth”

We’ve got an animal who has been a little bit off for a while and we did an exam a little before we felt it was dire to see what might be going on, and initial results were inconclusive, but now they’re back and it’s not good. There are multiple things we can’t manage and it’s just going to have to be her time.

I don’t think it’s the wrong thing to do by any means, we can’t manage these conditions well enough, she’d only suffer, potentially in a catastrophic crash if we don’t just go ahead and euthanize, but given her current status and practicalities, we think it’s going to be some time early next week, and I’ve just never been in this particular situation before. I’ve done plenty of exams on animals thinking that if we investigate and find something damning, we’d call it there, but I’ve never had to know so far ahead of time that the outcome was already decided.

She’s not in agony, and you don’t want to wait until they are, but now I’ve got to spend multiple days looking into her darling little face, carrying this grief for her already and hoping she stays comfortable so we can get things in order, that we can make it easy for her like she deserves.

I cried more this week than I have in the last five years combined, and harder when it happened than, without hyperbole, I ever have in my life, but it was the right thing to do, and admittedly the grief is still present, but at least the anticipation part is over. Rest in peace my sweet girl, there will never be another like her