Beautiful artwork...

This vet also loves art and paints (see some of paintings on this blog).Steven Nederveen is a wonderfully talented artist. His work is quite unique in the subject and media he uses. I first saw his work at Nuit Blanche last year at Engine Gallery (here you'll get great service, unlike many other places, see one of the previous posts) on Queen West, and immediately fell for it. He captures a certain peaceful aesthetic that transcends all of his pieces. I simply love this art. Here is one of my favourite pieces:This piece is 48 by 48 inches. Gorgeous... the actual piece is even more impressi...

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Rare case

Last week, just before we closed, I saw a Leonberger (large dog) who wasn't doing so well. He had difficulty breathing, especially on inspiration. This led me to believe there was a problem either in his nasal cavities (such as a tumour) or something obstructing his larynx. I sent the dog to the local emergency clinic where he was observed until a specialist could examine him. It turns out the dog had laryngeal paralysis, a disorder where there is loss of innervation to the muscles of the larynx (the voicebox) preventing it from properly opening and closing. This condition is typically seen in older large-breed dogs and can be associated...

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Customer service or lack thereof

Most of us who work have to deal with clients or customers to varying degrees. I have to deal with clients every day. I like to treat them in the exact manner in which I would want to be treated. Unless a client tells me to go fudge myself, I will offer the best service that I can. It's simple. I don't see this as a trend in Toronto. In fact, in cases where I receive excellent customer service, I will go out of my way to let them know just how great the service is. That's usually how awed I am when this occurs. In my experience, Toronto restaurants are notoriously terrible for customer service. Extra tomatoes? That'll be $1.00 extra....

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Teaching children to hate

This post has nothing to do with being a vet, but rather a human being. Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa TV regularly airs a children's show urging young Palestinians to hate Israel, incite violence against it, and participate in the "resistance," a sick euphemism for terror against Israel. A giant rodent looking like a twisted version of Mickey Mouse, with a voice more irritating and disturbing than having an ice pick jammed into your ear, urges children on the air to fight the "Zionist enemy until Jerusalem and all the world is liberated from the murderers." Hmmmm.... teaching kids to blow themselves up to kill innocent people in order to make...

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Pyelonephritis: kidney infection

I saw a cat that came in with a fever and a painful abdomen. While collecting her urine and blood for some lab tests, I noted her urine was quite opaque. It's not rocket science: I thought she'd have pus in her urine. Her labwork came back with classic abnormalities for pyelonephritis: elevated white blood cell count (with the type of cell typically indicative of bacterial infection), mildly elevated urea, with pus and bacteria in the urine. In an earlier post, I discuss a case of pyelonephritis and prosatitis in a dog.Where does the infection come from? The infection can start off in the bladder and ascend up to the kidneys, or it can arrive...

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