How we got our vet

Dr. Sue Felter of Westview Animal Hospital called me one day when we first were getting started. She said she didn’t have much experience with herps and wanted to help with the rescues to get experience.

Well, I must say, she’s now got a boatload of experience! I don’t know how we could survive without her. Way back when, Dr. Felter talked me through trying to put back a prolapse over the phone. At that point I didn’t even have latex gloves and I had to use dish-washing gloves.

Dr. Felter surgically removing a gigantic tumor from a bull snake.
I took the photo with my cell phone so it's not too good.

Giving the bull snake room air to help him breathe while waking up.

She taught me how to sub-Q fluids (give them under the skin with a needle). She removed a gigantic bladder stone from my iguana Jub-jub (he’s kind of our mascot and the background photo of this blog). She taught me how to give a lizard an emema, how to tube feed a snake, how to give IM (in the muscle) injections and so many more things that I thought I could never do! I used to be pretty squeamish, no more. I still can’t bear to watch my dog get an injection, but I can give them to one of the rescues.

Jub-jub had to have massive sub-Q fluids before his bladder surgery and I never thought I’d be able to do it. He’s so strong and fights me that I had to have help until I got the hang of it. Jubs has been through a lot, but I’ll talk more about him later.

Although she doesn’t do it for anyone else, Dr. Felter comes to my house regularly to see the rescues. That is a huge help. Sometimes I have several animals that need to see her and it is so much easier for me if she comes here. It’s a big sacrifice on her part, and it is appreciated.

Sometimes we’ll try things, like the first time Dr. Felter spayed an iguana. I would much rather have her “practice” on a rescue than someone’s beloved pet. Knock on wood, we’ve had very few problems. We’ve done tons of biopsies on things. Dr. Felter has even convinced the place that does the bloodwork for us to give us a break. She hoped they would do it for free, but I’m happy for any help we can get. On several occasions, Dr. Felter has paid for tests herself just for professional curiosity. A couple times the animal had already died, but she wanted to find out why. It goes back to the whole “greater good” thing. If that test can help someone else in the future, why not do it?

I can't say enough about Dr. Felter. We would have really struggled as a rescue without her help and generosity. Vet bills can add up quickly, especially with a rescue, where animals often arrive with serious medical issues. After over a dozen years of working with her, I have seen her save countless animals that would have died without medical treatment. I completely trust her judgment when it comes to deciding whether or not to spend money on expensive tests, choosing a treatment or even whether or not to euthanize animals. Those decisions are not made lightly and an expert opinion is always welcome.

Lots of rescues, or people who claim to be rescues, don't even have a vet!

Dr. Fred Cohen, who owns the hospital, doesn’t work with reptiles. I have to give him a shout out too, because he’s very cool about the reptiles. He doesn’t want to touch them, but he’s understanding.

I get to go back in the treatment area of the hospital because a lot of times I either hold the animal or help in some other way. Once I saw Dr. Cohen lose a dog that went into cardiac arrest. I saw him give the dog CPR, even though the dog was very ill. He tried his best to save the dog for quite a while. After the dog died he went back into the treatment room and just put his hand on the dog’s chest and looked at him. That was really touching and it made me realize how difficult that job is. My dog had recently died of heart failure and that dog had a lot of the same problems as mine so it was upsetting for me too.

After several years of knowing Dr. Cohen at the hospital, we realized that we graduated high school in the same class. We never knew each other back in high school, but he lived in the neighborhood where I live now (only a couple miles from where I lived in high school). Small world.