It's Bad When You Are THAT Client

Well yesterday I went out with Doc for the day- he actually had a pretty full schedule, which is very good for him, and hopefully a sign of things to come. The first appointment was an ultrasound for breeding. The mare was obviously in heat, and one of her corpus luteum's was 45 cm and soft (perfect for breeding!), while the other was 20 and hard (not yet ready). They were able to order semen for her that day, and Doc will do the insemination today. We then went to a farm simply for Wellness exams, vaccines and coggins, and then on to a lameness re-exam (foot abscess). Finally, we headed down to do my girls. And they were the worst patients of the day.

Since I had been out with the vet, I obviously hadn't had them caught and chilling in stalls for awhile. Thus they came galloping in, and while they let me put halters on and pop them in their stalls, they were obviously whacked out and worked up. My horse started it out with trying to bolt out the door, and refusing to stand still for her vaccines. She is normally a perfect angel and doesn't even react for shots, but today she was being a brat! To make matters worse, we should never have started with her- my mom's horse is way too smart and knew what was coming. She got vastly unruly, dancing all around, and even threatened to rear! After a little calming down and some firm words, she stood still to let Doc inject her with a pre-treatment (she breaks out in massive lumps from vaccines without it), and then give her vaccines. Both of them were wide-eyed, perk-eared and all worked up, and once I let them out of their stalls, they took off bucking and farting into the pasture.

If I were a vet, I wouldn't want to work on my girls! To be fair, Doc's horses can be pretty bad as well, so I'm sure he wasn't too upset about it. But I certainly would have preferred that they did me proud!

~Melissa