The Frustration of Poor Vet Care

Photographs today courtesy of Basil, the handsome old man rat.  He has congestive heart failure but won't let it get him down. 

One of the absolute most frustrating things about rat ownership is the difficulty of finding vet care.  I'm sure this is consistent with other types of exotic animals, but part of me suspects that it's especially bad with rats.  There's a certain amount of glamour and grandeur associated with exotic reptiles or flashy birds that probably attracts aspiring vet students toward that specialization.  Rats, on the other hand...I've met very few veterinarians who would even work with rats, and even fewer who seemed to really like them.  The "it's just a rat" mentality is one then when coming from an individual, but from a veterinarian it's especially disappointing.

I've run into the "it's just a rat" thing with animal care professionals before, when working with local animal control.  The hoarding situation  brought out some of the best and worst in people; the realization that, to shelter employees, mass "adopting" of rats as reptile and raptor food was a superior option to finding them homes really speaks volumes about the way rats are perceived in my city.

A few months after the hoarding case in Las Cruces, I saw a similar case on the web.  The difference?  The rats in question were lucky enough to be in California, which has a really wonderful rescue network in place.  Hundreds of rats were seized by animal control, removed from the shelter, spread out through foster homes, and placed with forever homes.  Dozens of people were mobilized to help.  The whole thing was a very smooth, clean operation, and nobody got fed to a snake.  This is why sometimes it sucks to be the rat rescue person in Southern New Mexico!

But, anyway, I digress.  I was supposed to be talking about vet care.

I've gone through three veterinarians in Las Cruces.  My first experience was with Jornada Clinic, and it was awful.  I've heard great reviews about their other small animal care and even care for other exotics, so maybe it was rat-specific, but I would never take another of my animals there again.  I moved from there to East Lohman Veterinary Clinic.  Dr. Cook was competent, but I never felt like she really liked rats, and a lot of her treatments were very out-of-date.  For example, using sulfur-lime dips to treat lice on my rats.  Ew.  That lasted a few weeks before I gave in and started buying Ivermectin.

Finally I've settled on Dr. Calista at Calista Animal Hospital and for the most part I really like her.  She's a sweetheart and genuinely likes the rats, which is already a benefit in her favor.  She's also been willing to work with me whenever I've gone there.  Overall, I've got no major complaints, but we've got a long way to go before I'd call her a really experienced rat vet.  I'm thinking this year I might give her a copy of Debbie Ducommon's book for Christmas.  It's normal to give your vet a Christmas present, right?  When you spend as much time and money as I do, it probably is...

Top Problems You Meet With Vets And Must Work Around:

• Vets won't give the right combination of drugs, or most effective drugs for the type of infection
• Vets won't give a high enough dosage
• Vets won't give a long enough prescription

Anyway.  What set me off on this rant in the first place was actually care my friend Callie received in a neighboring town.  Agnes, one of the little ladies she adopted from me, has been having respiratory issues that seem to have progressed to pneumonia, or at least severe bronchitis.  The general agreement among the rat community is that rats of her age (20+ months) and condition is a combination of Baytril + Doxy, or Baytril + Zithro.  You have to treat aggressively, with several weeks of strong meds.

Poor Agnes came home with a week's worth of Zithro.  Not exactly ideal.  Certainly better than nothing, but probably not likely to get things taken care of.  We're working on convincing the vet to give more and better drugs, but the whole thing has really gotten me thinking about how frustrating it can be not to have reliable vet care for your pets.  So many rescuers in other parts of the country have had absolutely mind-blowing, miraculous recoveries thanks to aggressive vet treatments.  Around here, we're usually lucky to get the vet care we need.

Ah well.  We'll have to work on them, one vet at a time, until we make a difference.