Friday, October 16, 2009

Sometimes people make me wonder

Today was a funny people day. As a veterinarian I hear this a lot, "Oh it must be nice working with animals, and not have to worry about working with people." I think they forget that the animals don't drive themselves to the clinic. There is usually some form of human attached to each animal that comes in. So here are my two funny people things today.

First, people need to learn to count. I went out to a farm to pregnancy check 200 cows according to the schedule in the book. I know that this was written down correctly because I was the one who made the appointment and I remember particularly the farmer saying about 200 head. Well, as we were working I came to the conclusion that I was either a particular wimp today or just really tired, or really slow, or a combination of all three because my arm and shoulder sure felt like they had done over 200 head and it was definitely past lunch time. When we were finished with the cows one son said,
"Do you want to do the bred heifers or the prolapse next?"
I was thinking to myself 'Bred heifers? You mean we haven't even done 200 yet? I really am a wimp.'
Well we did get done, eventually, and as I was leaving I asked the farmer what the head count was.
He replied, "350 head." !!!

Second funny people story. This was not my case but I was at the clinic and got asked for a second opinion. A llama came in for an ultrasound to see if she was pregnant. The doctor came to get my opinion on the case. As we were walking back to the chute he filled me in on the story. The owner had purchased the llama recently at a sale barn. He was told it was a female and just wanted to know if it was pregnant or not. The doctor wanted to know if I also thought it was a male. A very quick exam of anatomy revealed that I was in agreement with the other doctor and he was trying to ultrasound a neutered male llama. My first thought was, "Don't the people at the sale barn look to see if it is a male or female?" Then come to find out this llama was brought into the ring by the owner with "her" baby at her side. Either the owner was really clueless or really shady. With people you just never know.