This is a special week, one of those that I always enjoy.
Besides getting ready for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, I get
to talk about pets this Friday with the folks at the Saratoga
Rotary Club.
This is a special week, one of those that I always enjoy. Besides getting ready for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, I get to talk about pets this Friday with the folks at the Saratoga Rotary Club.
I was invited by my good friend, Warren Heid, a long-time member of Rotary. I met Warren many years ago at a meeting of the Toy Train Operating Society. He and I have traded these old tinplate toys and we’ve had fun for many years. Whenever we get together with our trains, we feel like kids all over again.
But enough of that. Warren asked if I would come talk to Rotary about my profession and I quickly accepted his invitation. Besides having lunch with a friend, I get an opportunity to share stories about pets.
And there’s something special about animals, especially pets. People love to talk and to hear about them. My slideshow presentation, “Why Would Anyone Want to Be a Vet?” sounds a bit cynical, but it’s really a play on words. I’m going to show them pictures of what happens in a veterinarian’s daily life. The Saratoga Rotary will see that there are a million reasons why this is a great career.
Here are a few examples.
Have you ever thought about what a veterinarian does in clinics during any given day? There are many different tasks and my job is never boring. There’s an old saying that “variety is the spice of life.” If this is true, vets are some of the luckiest people in the world because life in the clinic is never predictable.
Variety. Think of all the different animals we get to treat. Anything from labradors to lizards, cats, cows, horses and sheep. There are pigs, parrots, and pygmy goats. We get to see them all.
And vets perform so many different procedures to care for all these animals. Think about it. On any given day, a veterinarian might be a surgeon, a radiologist, a dermatologist, cardiologist, orthopedist – the list goes on and on. Oh yeah, sometimes we also get to mop the floor or clean a few cages, so add janitorial work to our duty roster. Ah, the variety!
All this makes our job very interesting. We have lots of hats to wear and a lot of demands to fill. The workday can be a little long sometimes. But ask anyone in the profession and they will tell you the same thing. Life is good when you are a vet.
When I visit Warren’s group, I’m sure someone will ask what started my interest in this field. “You must love animals,” they’ll say to me. “You gotta love animals to do what you do for a living, right?”
Well, caring for animals is a huge part of the job. But the practice of medicine is a science and the intrigue of a solving a difficult case drives us to succeed. We are problem solvers on a medical level. Better yet, we get to know pets and their families. And this is what really makes our job worthwhile. Vets have to respond to the needs of people and their pets. One of my biggest rewards is seeing Fluffy healthy again, going home with his family.
A veterinarian must enjoy working with people as well as animals to succeed in this business. People and their pets are family. Helping a family through a medical crisis can be very satisfying.
So Friday I will talk about all these things with the Rotary Club in Saratoga. I’ll tell stories about Pebbles and Rumpy and Shadow and Doc. I’ll show them pictures of some of the sights of South County, my home for the past 24 years. And I bet when they see all my animal pictures, they will know why I chose this profession. And more importantly, they’ll understand why anyone would want to be a vet.
Thanksgiving is next week and please remember to be careful when feeding your pets. People food is not healthy for pets, especially food that is high in fat.There is a huge risk when either Fido or Fluffy eats food that is high in fat. It can cause pancreatitis, a serious and potentially deadly inflammation of the pancreas. Gravy, stuffing, even the skin from a turkey are all high in fat and potentially dangerous.
Remember, people food is for people. Give your pet healthy treats, not leftovers from your holiday meal. They are not good for your pets.
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. Peg and I hope this is your healthiest and best holiday ever.
Pete Keesling is a veterinarian at San Martin Veterinary Hospital and co-hosts Petpourri, a weekly show about pet health on KTEH in San Jose and a bi-weekly column for The Times. If you have any questions about pet care, please mail them to The Times, Attn: Vets, 30 E. Third St., Morgan Hill, CA 95037.
