Craziest thing you've heard at work....

Started by CatVet2Be
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CatVet2Be

OSU CVM c/o 2013
10+ Year Member
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I'm sure there's been a thread on this at some point but why not start a fresh one? So, what's the craziest most asinine thing you've heard people say?


Today a client brought in her dog for a dog bite to its anus that happened last night. Since it was bleeding she thought it would be a good idea to apply cayenne pepper to stop the bleeding! 😱 The poor dog didn't want us getting anywhere near its rear and I don't blame it!

I also had someone who's dog was spayed and wanted to know if the stitches would explode if she took the dog on a plane with her.

Another favorite: we diagnosed a yeast infection in a dog's ears and the owner said: "she like to play with my underwear, do you think that's how she got it?" :scared: Sometimes you just get way too much info.
 
A few years back I was checking a "growth" on a dog. The owner was a middle aged man and the dog was a male yorkie. So I examined the "growth" and explained to the man that it was actually a nipple.

The owner was still concerned that this was not normal, I then showed him all the other nipples to prove that it was ok. He still would not believe me and told me that there was no way it was a nipple because the dog was a male. I tried to tell him that males have nipples too but he would not listen and I think he really wanted something to be wrong with the dog!

He would not believe that males have nipples until I pointed out to him that he, a male, also had nipples. At this he laughed and realized how silly it all was. :laugh:
 
Our clients are all relatively tame compared to that, so I don't have anything much to add...

But, I'm curious: what % of your call-ins ask how much it costs to get their dog "spaded"? I just wonder if it's a southern misconception or what. I'd say 60% say "spaded," 25% say "spayed," and the other 15% use a generic term like "fixed."

Oh, and good ones catvet2b! I've noticed odd looks when we've mentioned a yeast infection (and when the vet smells the dog's ear, or her nose is stuffy from allergies so she asks me to do it... lol) but no one has brought up underwear, thank goodness. I couldn't keep a straight face!
 
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Who knows why people would assume spayed=spade. Perhaps they've only heard it, and not seen it written somewhere?
 
My least favorite is a customer who has a cat with multiple names, and, according to her, he has multiple personalities. Huge over weight cat. She pushes it around in a carriage. She says he communicates with her telepathicly (and tells us what he is thinking while we are examining him.)

She also said her deceased chow wasn't aggressive; he only bit 4 people, but from his perspective they all deserved it, and she had to agree with him. And he isn't aggressive because he never barked or snapped or growled...he just bit, once and for all. Not like her neighbors lab who is very aggressive as proven by her cell phone video of him barking and jumping at the fence (which doesn't even look like barrier frustration but rather 'come play' behavior..but because he is noisy and bouncing, she insists he is aggressive (she has no other esperience with the dog.)

We all want to autoclave our heads when she comes in.
 
A few years back I was checking a "growth" on a dog. The owner was a middle aged man and the dog was a male yorkie. So I examined the "growth" and explained to the man that it was actually a nipple.

The owner was still concerned that this was not normal, I then showed him all the other nipples to prove that it was ok. He still would not believe me and told me that there was no way it was a nipple because the dog was a male. I tried to tell him that males have nipples too but he would not listen and I think he really wanted something to be wrong with the dog!

He would not believe that males have nipples until I pointed out to him that he, a male, also had nipples. At this he laughed and realized how silly it all was. :laugh:


Hahahah try having a dad who said the EXACT same thing. He was petting my cat's belly when he felt a little nipple and said HE HAS A TUMOR!!! And I said no, it's just a nipple, look he's got more. And my dad was still fully convinced it was a tumor, because boys don't have nipples. So I took my cat away from him and said "you have nipples..."

He's also convinced my cat has an eye infection because he looks heavy-lidded when he's sleepy. Also that rubbing my face on my cat's fur will give me acne and rashes.


One of the really ridiculous things I remember from the hospital was that one time this labrador retriever came in with a ribbon around his neck and half a lemon strung through it. Apparently the owner said that's how he gets his vitamin C..........by smelling it through the lemon tied around his neck.
 
Another favorite: we diagnosed a yeast infection in a dog's ears and the owner said: "she like to play with my underwear, do you think that's how she got it?" :scared: Sometimes you just get way too much info.

We had a young couple bring in their dog for a yeast infection in the ear and the husband looks at me when I told him and asked if he could go to the CVS and get just get some monostat. I had a hard time not laughing, and an even harder time not picturing him trying to treat his poor dog.

:laugh:
 
Didn't we (most of us) get yelled out just recently for a post just like this. Not nameing names, but telling details that could possible cause some confidentiallity issues!?

Well, I for one learned my lesson...

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We had this crazy old Jewish lady, and once every 2-3 months we would make a house call to treat her dogs ears. Probably the worst ear condition I've ever seen. Infections, polyps, cysts, oozing, smelly, and painful (for the dog and us). But, all she wanted was the cleanings and antibiotics, and we obliged.

The best part, was the food. When we walked in there would be a huge (usually jewish) spread on the table. We would have to eat (and enjoy it) while we told her about our day. Then took care of the dog, and a parting gift for me "Irish Coffee" for the road.

Ahh, I so miss her.
 
"My cat couldn't be pregnant. It's just her and her brother and I keep them indoors."
 
ONe time I was taking a history and I asked the lady what she had brought her cat in for.

She told me that the cat's nails had grown in. The cat was declawed. She didn't understand how the nails could be growing in again. I told her they looked more like growths on the cat's foot that happened to be near where the nails would have been.

She didn't believe me but was convinced that the nails were growing back in.

(When I went to tell the vet he just laughed.) When the vet came in he said the same thing, that it was just little growths that had appeared and not the nails growing back in...


There were always a lot of clients that came in with horribly obese cats and wondering why the coat didn't look like it used to...
 
I hear "spayded" so much that I'm always mildly surprised when someone says "spayed." People also come in because their dog needs his "rabie shot"... anyone else get that?

As for stories... the weirdest exchange that I can remember is one in which the client insisted that they were there to "get their cat's nails removed." It took me something like five minutes to determine that they were there for a nail trim rather than a declaw. And they kept looking at me like I was crazy the whole time while they insisted that their cat needed "his nails removed."

And speaking of nipples...

My Mom: Van's got a tick, and I can't get it because it's really embedded.
Me: Uh.. ticks don't embed themselves, Mom.
MM: Well, this one is! I can't get it off of him and he keeps trying to run away!
Me: *sigh* Let me take a look...

So we got Van to lay down and roll over a bit (looking like :scared:) and she showed me where it was.

Me: ...:uhno:!
MM: What? Why'd you let him get up??
Me: ...that's not a tick, Mom. You were trying to pull off his nipple.
MM: Huh. No wonder he kept trying to run away.

She also randomly informed me once that our male cat still "pees like a girl."
 
But, I'm curious: what % of your call-ins ask how much it costs to get their dog "spaded"? I just wonder if it's a southern misconception or what. I'd say 60% say "spaded," 25% say "spayed," and the other 15% use a generic term like "fixed."

Make it 14% fixed . . . we have the 1% of clients from Australia, where apparently they don't say "fixed," they say "broken."

makes sense to me. 🙂
 
I work with a LA vet on saturdays ... after hours if you call in you get an answering machine that does the "office is closed if you have an equine emergency please leave a message and the doctor on call will get back to you, if you have a small animal emergency call X emergency clinic at X number" When they leave a message it buzz's her on-call cell and she can hear the message and then call them back.

Besides all of the million small animal people that leave messages about wanting to cancel appointments or with dumb questions ... my favorite one was someone who called in (and this is in january 2009) about her horse colicking. We call back.
Vet Asks the owner "how long has she been acting like this?"
Owner: "August 27th, 2008."
Vet: Sorry, how long has she been acting colicky?
Owner: I told you. Since August 27th, 2008.


Horse wasn't colicking (or doing anything that resembled said behavior) I think he had a right front lameness.
 
There's a facebook group just for this sort of thing called "stupid things pet owners say to vets and vet nurses." I never post due to confidentiality issues, but it is HILARIOUS to read.
I rarely hear "spayded," but frequently people want their male animals spayed and females neutered (though I believe the latter is technically correct as well).
Also, I can't count the number of times people have demanded I tell them whether their animal's leg is broken/strained/etc over the phone 🙄.
 
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This one is priceless!!

I was working as the emergency on-call tech and the vet asked me to meet him at the hospital for what he thought was a rectal prolapse in a Boston Terrier. We met the clients (a married couple) at the clinic and started to exam the dog. Apparently the dog had eaten a condom out of the trash and it was "on it's way out". The clients were relieved when the doctor told them it wasn't a prolapse but extremely embarrassed when he showed them what it actually was!
 
One time a client came in with a cat that was EXTREMELY infested with fleas. We brushed it and literally the entire table looked like someone coated it in pepper (flea dirt). Well the lady was clueless and asked if fleas come from "like nature." The vet explained to her that yes fleas come from the environment and she continued to tell her that they were so disgusting and she was horrified her cat was so gross. She then explained to the vet that they "were like crabs in college, so hard to get rid of!" TMI!

Another time someone told us that she wanted to die. This was one of those really crazy clients who is a riot the entire appointment.
 
There's a facebook group just for this sort of thing called "stupid things pet owners say to vets and vet nurses." I never post due to confidentiality issues, but it is HILARIOUS to read.
I rarely hear "spayded," but frequently people want their male animals spayed and females neutered (though I believe the latter is technically correct as well).
Also, I can't count the number of times people have demanded I tell them whether their animal's leg is broken/strained/etc over the phone 🙄.

I'll have to look at that, though I'd better not tonight since I have a lab report to write.

Yeah, it's my understanding that any type of "fixing" is technically a neuter - for females, it's a spay, and for males, it's castration. I think SA medicine has leaned away from calling it that because the word has a more negative connotation. The code at Antech was CM - castrated male - so some places still call it that.

Phone: My dog's limping, and it has bald patches, and it's teeth are falling out, and it has diarrhea, and... (goes on)... what do you think I should do?
Me: Um, take it to a vet?? 🙄

How about an estimate of the number of times you were called last month to ask about the stringy and/or rice-like 'things' in their dog's poop? I've gotta say at least 20, and I work at a really small place.

Or, worse yet, they BRING you the poop to show you. Or one lady had dried tapeworm segments in her hand to show us, and when we told her, she set them on the counter and asked if we had any hand sanitizer. Lol.
 
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"My cat couldn't be pregnant. It's just her and her brother and I keep them indoors."

When I worked at Petco a girl came in with her hamster and was extremely bewildered because it had given birth the night before and she had no idea how it got pregnant. I asked her if she kept any males in the cage with her and she said "no, just her brother". :smack:
 
My favorite was from the wildlife center. A woman came in with a gray domestic cat. This was no feral cat either - it was super friendly, fat, and purring. She insisted that she had found a silver lynx and that she had had it for a few months, but she couldn't keep it because THEY were coming to take it away. We couldn't get a coherent answer as to who THEY were but apparently something rather menacing. We tried to break the news that this was, in fact, a domestic cat, since silver lynx are very rare and they don't have long tails. She refused to accept that it was a domestic cat or to take it to the regular shelter. She signed the paperwork as "White Wolf" which she explained was her Native American name (and she was not Native American). We ended up keeping the cat at the center for a few days until it could get a ride down to the regular shelter.
 
well this didn't happen at work, but my dad and my neighbor thought my dog had a tick, so obviously they went, got tweezers and began to try to take it off... i walk in, see my poor little girl dog lying on her back whimpering because they were trying to tweeze off her NIPPLE. needless to say i intervened...
 
We get a lot of nipple-related confusion for both male and female pets in the clinic I work at. It's almost a weekly activity to explain to clients to try to look for a matching "growth" on the other side of the body before they try to pull anything off.

We get a lot of crazies, and I honestly can't remember any that have stood head and shoulders above the rest. Most of the crazy things I hear happen in arguments about price.

I'm also a big fan of people whose dogs "don't like" wearing leashes. They're then shocked when their dogs end up in dangerous situations.

We did have one guy over the summer that got in a huge argument with one of our receptionists over a rabies tag. It was the most ridiculous argument I've ever heard. He had what was clearly a pit bull, and called in to scream at the receptionist for putting Pit Bull as the dog's breed on the rabies tag registration -- even though the previous year's registration said Pit Bull anyway! He insisted that she should have written Mixed Breed, and wouldn't believe that she couldn't change the dog's breed as registered with the county from one year to the next. I'm guessing he was having some kind of homeowner's association issue or something.
 
My favorite is when a client comes in and says that their dog is getting grumpy and craby again. They come into the room as say " I think my dog is due for her distemperment shot again" . Some times they ask if we can give a distemperment shot to their kids to settle them down. It never fails, I say it more then once a week that a distemper shot is not going to change the dog or cats attitude!!!!!!!!
 
But, I'm curious: what % of your call-ins ask how much it costs to get their dog "spaded"? I just wonder if it's a southern misconception or what.

I'm from western Pennsylvania, and a lot of clients call in and say "spaded." Lots of others say "neuter" regardless of sex, but most say "fixed," for sure

My favorite story is the man who brought his little terrier mix in and couldn't understand why he was losing all of his fur. I could see fleas scurrying all over its bald little back. The best part? The dog was wearing not one, but TWO flea collars. And the guy says, "Now I know he don't got fleas, 'cause I got them collars on him." :smack: In retrospect, I should have not only educated him on how ineffective flea collars are, I also should have referred him to my optometrist. You'd had to have been blind to not notice the fleas on this dog.

A close second is the guy who thought his dog had "a cut on its butt." It was a female in heat. We gave him a spay flier and sent him on his way without even charging him for an office call.
 
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I almost forgot the best one of all!

Once a client called in and said, "I'm reading my dog's medical record, and it says he was KILLED!" I said, "Killed? I'm not sure what you mean. Did your dog pass away?" She said "No! He's sitting right here in front of me. But his medical record says he was killed." It then dawned on me that she was reading her dog's rabies certificate, and then had to explain that the virus is killed before injected, and that our records did NOT list her dog as deceased.

Silly clients.
 
Totally not vet related.

At my old law firm, my attorneys were interviewing a woman for an attorney position, and evidently she had a few fairly visible tattoos. We were discussing it and one of the higher-ups said he just didn't understand why women would do that to their bodies.

I have 3, so I asked him if he'd ever had one. His response was "have I had what....a woman with a tattoo?"

Best laugh we'd had in that office for weeks at that time.
 
ONe time I was taking a history and I asked the lady what she had brought her cat in for.

She told me that the cat's nails had grown in. The cat was declawed. She didn't understand how the nails could be growing in again. I told her they looked more like growths on the cat's foot that happened to be near where the nails would have been.

She didn't believe me but was convinced that the nails were growing back in.

(When I went to tell the vet he just laughed.) When the vet came in he said the same thing, that it was just little growths that had appeared and not the nails growing back in...


There were always a lot of clients that came in with horribly obese cats and wondering why the coat didn't look like it used to...

I've seen that twice... declawed cats having a nail or 2 grow back. Odd but it happens
 
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Pet peeve: dogs or cats who have had explosive diarrhea for ___[insert insane amount of time... 3 mos, a year, etc]___ and they decide to come in at 3am.

Today a dog came in critically shocky due to being attacked by several of the owner's other dogs. Owner's response to intense, time sensitive plan: "I'll shoot those dogs" and runs out of the hospital. 😕 The dog has a gaping wound in his neck with the jugular visible, possible trachea damage and turns a fascinating shade of blue without O2. Sooo it makes sense to ditch him? Vet calls the other owner, gets tx okay'd (with anger that we are even asking her that...). This is from the clients that have an Addisonian dog that is constantly sick because they refuse to do tx/dx regularly. An obese daschund btw.

Mega *sigh*.
 
I think about half of our clients say "fixed" and the other half say "spayed" or "neutered." A handful would say "spayded," but not very many.


Seems like confusion over nipple is quite common....hear me out on this one.
A client brought in his rabbit and wants to examine a growth on his groin area. According to him, his rabbit has been neutered. Have you guessed it, the "growth" is really the rabbit's testicles. He's had the rabbit for at least 2~3 years and never noticed those balls until that day....
 
Ive had some real crazies at work...

There was the dog booked in for a "Pimple on his neck" Dog (80kg hairy beast!) turns up and its a huge errupting tumour in his neck, absolutely filled with millions of maggots. What a mess.

the asian couple with the (speyed) female labrador who was "bleeding from behind" so they were concerned the speying didn't work...she had a urinary infection...

Then what about the client who was VERY concerned about her dog...was sure he had a tumour growing between his legs. Nope, those are his balls.. ;-)

Oh and the crazy druggies who brought their parvo puppy in for treatment, and then proceeded to smoke their drugs in the carpark and work on their car, while asking if they should hit the puppy on the head or drown it, cause it was smelly...

and the little old lady who's cat had not moved in a few days. She was very concerned about it as it was quite elderly. The cat was dead as a dodo..

And the final thing...the lady who brought her kitty in (not to my work) to be "put to sleep because she was going on a long holiday in the car". She left the cat wit hthe vet to do the deed. Long story short..she came back a few hours later and it turns out she wanted the cat tranq'd for the long car journey..not euth'd... (that was many years ago )
 
I had a client decline heartworm preventative because her husband "keeps the house very clean".
 
And the final thing...the lady who brought her kitty in (not to my work) to be "put to sleep because she was going on a long holiday in the car". She left the cat wit hthe vet to do the deed. Long story short..she came back a few hours later and it turns out she wanted the cat tranq'd for the long car journey..not euth'd... (that was many years ago )

This one is somewhat apocryphal . . . it's often referenced as emphasizing the importance of client communication/active listening. 🙂
 
This is a two for one deal:

Yorkie puppy comes in on emergency with V & D (One of this Yorkie puppy's many problems... dont buy from petland).
Owner: He gets sick all the time. I teach special ed. Do you think hes a special ed dog?
I continue to have a conversation about this for a few minutes (one of those clients who cant stop talking to save her life) and then continue to take a history
Owner: Ive been giving him Sprite to settle his stomach.
Me: He drinks it?
Owner: Well I take the fizz out of it
(now.. most people would think that means leaving the can open for a couple of hours to let it go flat, but I had to be sure)
Me: How do you take the fizz out of it?
Owner: Well, I just pop all the bubbles with my fingers, like this (takes out a can of sprite and pours it into a cup she had brought and shows me how to "take the fizz out")...

At least she paid for treatment... I dont care how crazy a client is as long as they are willing to help their animal
 
Gotta love the people who let their giant dog sniff strangers cats in their carriers: "It's ok my dog loves cats!", maybe so but I don't think the hissing and yowling cat shares the feeling 🙄
 
going back to the speyed/spayed/spaded/fixed thing...
We had a client bring their dog in recently for desexing.

On the surgical consent form, the surgery he was consenting to was "Getting rid"

We had a chuckle about that...getting rid of a uterus etc... until we got the dog sedated and realised that she was heavily in pup...

So I guess he was right after all.
 
We have a client who brought her cat in to be spayed and asked us to return the uterus and ovaries for a "ritualistic burial" in her garden. Same client also takes all of her cats' testicles home for burial (and she has lots of cats)...
 
One client asked for her lab's testicles back so she could show her husband, not sure what that was about.....
 
We have a client who brought her cat in to be spayed and asked us to return the uterus and ovaries for a "ritualistic burial" in her garden. Same client also takes all of her cats' testicles home for burial (and she has lots of cats)...

My roommate brought my rat's uterus back to me after she was spayed, telling me she had "a surprise" for me when I got home. It was "ritualistically buried" later by being tossed in the trash can 😉 Then (clearly not thinking) we didn't take out the trash for the next two days, and the kitchen smelt like rotting uterus XD
 
My roommate brought my rat's uterus back to me after she was spayed, telling me she had "a surprise" for me when I got home. It was "ritualistically buried" later by being tossed in the trash can 😉 Then (clearly not thinking) we didn't take out the trash for the next two days, and the kitchen smelt like rotting uterus XD

Ew^2!

lol, that's barftastic.
 
We had this crazy old Jewish lady, and once every 2-3 months we would make a house call to treat her dogs ears. Probably the worst ear condition I've ever seen. Infections, polyps, cysts, oozing, smelly, and painful (for the dog and us). But, all she wanted was the cleanings and antibiotics, and we obliged.

The best part, was the food. When we walked in there would be a huge (usually jewish) spread on the table. We would have to eat (and enjoy it) while we told her about our day. Then took care of the dog, and a parting gift for me "Irish Coffee" for the road.

Ahh, I so miss her.


Though I doubt it was your intention... you do realize that can easily be construed as offensive, right?
 
just wondering why that post would be offensive?

I also found the tone of that post a bit hard to read, you could read it as being said in a sarcastic and rather mocking way, and it was mentioned several times that the woman was jewish and made jewish food (which she happily shared, with the perhaps less than willing vets and crew?), so you could take it as having an anti-semetic tone to it.

But No Imagination is hardly a new poster, and I don't think he (sorry if I got your gender wrong!) meant anything by it, as a little bit dry and sarcastic is his usual tone when posting. Just unfortunate phrasing of the story (I hope). I think rather that the woman was a bit of a character in her own right, and I would think that the fact that she was jewish was more a detail to help frame the story, than the overriding focus of the experience (No Imagination would of course be able to offer a better explanation than me though). Of course using terms like 'crazy old jewish ladies' is hardly a good way to show your sensitive side... I'm just saying.
 
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We had a guy come in for a tick removal. He said he had tried pulling it off with tweezers, squeezing, burning it, etc. After a quick look (with the dog shaking violently while I did) I tried not to laugh and told him it was in fact a nipple. I got the whole "but he's a boy" thing until I told him to look at his chest and see what's there. Poor dog - he actually tried to burn off his nipple! I feel like this happens all the time in clinics. When will people realize that 1. they're in pairs 2. its soft and 3. its a nipple!!

:smack:
 
Heavily pregnant 14-15 year old girl comes in with a cat who is acting weird. "weirdness", i.e. sticking her butt in the air and yowling turns out to of course to be the cat in heat, and I say to bring the cat back in when she's out of heat to be spayed. Girl asks what that is, and I say that we cut out her uterus so she won't get pregnant. Girl says, "But then how will she pee?"

I shudder to think of this child reproducing.
 
my clinic doesn't regularly see a lot of "ticks" that are actually nipples, but we do get a lot of invisible ticks. i am actually the resident expert at invisible tick diagnosis and removal. literally four times last summer (which felt like a lot-- i only work 2 days a week at that clinic) we had clients come in, some of them in quite a state, saying "i think my dog has a tick." i would go up front to triage the pet, and have a good feel over the whole body of the pet as i asked the owners to point out to me where they thought they saw the tick.

i'm pretty sure that in most of these cases there actually had been, at one point, a tick present on these dogs, because the owners descriptions of bloated, flapping tick abdomens usually seem pretty accurate. however, for some reason, by the time they get into my waiting room, the damn thing is always gone (maybe because they usually wait about 4 days after seeing the tick before coming in)!!!! i have actually had clients point to a perfectly smooth patch of skin and ask me "that's where i saw it... so isn't that a tick, right there? on the skin? that's a tick, right?" one time the clients were so distraught that i took the dog to the back and had the vet confirm that there was, infact, no tick, i almost thought maybe i was going crazy for not seeing anything there!
 
I also found the tone of that post a bit hard to read, you could read it as being said in a sarcastic and rather mocking way, and it was mentioned several times that the woman was jewish and made jewish food (which she happily shared, with the perhaps less than willing vets and crew?), so you could take it as having an anti-semetic tone to it.

But No Imagination is hardly a new poster, and I don't think he (sorry if I got your gender wrong!) meant anything by it, as a little bit dry and sarcastic is his usual tone when posting. Just unfortunate phrasing of the story (I hope). I think rather that the woman was a bit of a character in her own right, and I would think that the fact that she was jewish was more a detail to help frame the story, than the overriding focus of the experience (No Imagination would of course be able to offer a better explanation than me though). Of course using terms like 'crazy old jewish ladies' is hardly a good way to show your sensitive side... I'm just saying.

Ya, overall I would say No Imagination is pretty harmless and doesn't have bad intentions.