I would. I would like to volunteer at a vet clinic, but I've read on here of people doing so and it having negative repercussions with ADCOMs.
How many times do you think we could afford to have them sewed up at the vets office? And these weren't pets, they were working dogs. He did a great job at it. After dealing with livestock for over 40 years you tend to learn a little something. He broke horses for a living in his younger years, and was one of the few people I ever knew who was skilled at horticulture to the point to where they could graft trees reliably. I always took that for granted growing up, and didn't realize how gifted he was. Raised horses, donkeys, cattle, hog, chickens, turkeys, and mostly goats.
Lack of funds to get your animals cared for appropriately by a trained professional who could have provided them with pain relief and proper wound management doesn't mean that stitching them up yourselves was even remotely appropriate. Do you know how common it is for animals to present with absolutely horrendous health problems caused by owners trying to manage issues themselves? This includes tetanus from wounds that should have been managed without suturing at all that were sutured shut by owners who thought they knew what they were doing.
It was definitely necessary. When you have a hog backed up into a brush pile, and your catch dogs are trying to latch on, those tusks can do some serious damage.
Growing up poor in the country, you make things work the best way you know how. Im no longer poor, I saved every penny from the Army, the farm has made a profit, plus I've put away plenty as a nurse. But my dad made maybe 35,000 a year as a radtech and we struggled to make ends meet. Mom was epileptic and couldn't work. Never ate a non homecooked meal until I was in my teens. We would either hunt coon, squirrel, rabbit, or possum, or go to a salvage store and buy like 50 pounds of ground meat at a time and store it in the deep freeze. Couldn't afford to do it otherwise. Mainly had chickens for the eggs but we did eat them occasionally. Mostly old roosters.
It wasn't illegal until 1976 or about that time. He wasn't fighting dogs by then. Probably in the 50s-mid 60s at most.
Ironically claiming the animal is a hog dog is a very common cover explanation for dog fighting operations.
I never claimed to know about vet care. And you seriously think hog hunters call a vet every time a dog gets ripped open by a hog tusk? What world do you live in? That would be so expensive NOONE could afford it. My father did call the vet if he had a situation he didn't feel like he could handle. But he had probably sutured hundreds of hog dogs in his lifetime. The times I remember him calling were usually about the horses.
It does not matter he could. Should he of? Should hunters and farmers do their own suturing? No. It’s cruel to suture an animal without adequate pain control.
I'm not attempting to demean. I'm saying you can call bs on my upbringing if you want, but it wasn't just my family. It was pretty commonplace where I grew up.
I mean, you apparently never called the vet about it so I'm thinking you don't know anything about the cost. I've worked with several SA vets at this point, each clinic has done sutures for non-life threatening situations for like under $75, and that's working at suburban clinics. It may not be the treatment plan the doctor want to implement, but if the owner can't/won't pay, I've seen each do sutures with lidocaine, the suture, and abx/pain meds to go home for less than $50-75. And that's within the last 10 years or so, and again, suburban clinics (aka more expensive than a rural clinic). You do the math as to how inexpensive it may have been during your childhood.
Skin incisions and sutures are some of the most painful parts of soft tissue surgery. Skin sutures and incisions often are what gets an anesthetized dog to start panting/responding under gas. Cannot even begin to estimate how many times a dog has been under a perfect plane of anesthesia during an intestinal R+A, splenectomy, spay, etc only to start responding while we start closing the last layer.
Both are very painful and I bet you dollars to doughnuts those dogs were in pain and definitely showing it. Animals often show pain very differently from humans and stoicism is easily misinterpreted as an animal that is free of pain. The fact that you clearly expected the inciting injury that called for the stitches in the first place to be painful says a lot here.
How many times would a vet allow you to come in to have a dog sutured for a mere 50$? And yes we used antibiotics. My father bought them from a livestock supply catalog or the feed store.
When did I say I didn't believe people shoot their dogs or do stupid things at home, such as suturing themselves? I literally laughed out loud at you saying that, what an absurd thing to come up with
. Gunshot is actually an AVMA-accepted form of euthanasia as long as it is done properly, and I suspect you didn't know this. This is very common knowledge in the vet world, and I've met many clients in my area who come to the clinic for options and when euthanasia is decided as the best route, they go home and do it themselves to save some money. Some people keep so many animals and do this for a lifetime that they invest in a captive bolt gun because it's cheaper in the long run. Don't kid yourself. Again, you "don't understand vet med."
I call fellow nurses kids all the time. Not being derogatory. Just seemed like a real young, but good fella. Patients call me kid all the time because I look very young. People think I'm 19-20 when I'm 31. I take it as a complement.When did I say I didn't believe people shoot their dogs or do stupid things at home, such as suturing themselves? I literally laughed out loud at you saying that, what an absurd thing to come up with
The fact that you still aren't unaware of any point any of us have tried to make really makes this a meaningless conversation. Also, please don't refer to medical professionals as kids, because they're not.
doesn't matter how you intended it, that's pretty disrespectful. to other nurses, too. My feeling on reading your posts is that you're in that phase where you know enough to be dangerous, but not enough to know what limitations there are. Continued learning would help with that.
Well my father pretty much did. He didn't go to the doctor. Like I said.. he had me suture him up. I don't own working dogs. Never have. I had a GSD that I treated like my child. She wasn't a working dog. She was a pet. Huge difference. Kind of like you can eat a goat or have a pet goat. You treat them entirely different.
My father was very compassionate with his animals. I could tell by the effort he put in taking care of them. And we never had a dog die from suturing. While I know he didn't have a vets knowledge he had a vast amount more than the typical animal owner. I'm quite surprised about the judgement of him without knowing him. I mean, it takes quite a while to suture up a dog and approximate the edges appropriately. As Im sure you know... but no.. he had no regard for his animals...
It was sarcasm. I know what the word means. I wouldve answered with sarcasm, but I value the respect you showed in your post. Arguing that he had an insufficient level of knowledge is a valid argument. But when someone's going to say he's a terrible person without knowing him, it makes me scratch my head.
I would argue your dad wasn't compassionate as he didn't provide pain relief for your animals - working, pet, or farm, animals deserve a life with as little pain as possible.
I agree! I would never want to be in that situation. But I also wasn't raised in nearly as hard of times, and I'm in a much better financial situation (and much less educated than he was. Still amazes me how much he knew).
and we have prevention that lasts longer than a day...
Inpt setting the rn may put some common things in as a 'verbal' order with or without some knowledge... Often like the trauma Bay where everyone was getting Labs drawn so if we couldn't put the order in first then they would do it to send. Rarely a floor nurse would do it, but it was like once a month.
Well, now that you know better, you can look back with a different view. It's good to remember the past, but that doesn't mean you should necessarily remember it fondly or think that it was all OK because that's just what people did. It's OK to say "yeah, he did some crazy, dangerous stuff back then that could be pretty mean-spirited, but no one realized it at the time". And certainly don't use those actions as a template for your choices today.
