Four Reasons Our Medical Staff Kicks Butt.

#1) No Teeth, No Problem.

Check out my three toofers. 

In case you haven't noticed, we get a lot of wee little dogs. Small dogs tend to have big dental problems - everything is just crowded too close together in those tiny little mouths. So a lot of our smaller muffins come in with painful dental issues.....

She's got too few, I have a bunch of spares. So it goes. 

which our amaze-balls medical team totally handles on a day to day basis. In addition to spaying/neutering, microchipping, doctoring, etc, etc, etc our pets, they also wind up doing full dental cleanings and procedures on a large number of our dogs and cats. In fact they're so good with the dentals that we even take in animals from other shelters who have dental issues needing treatment. Like 15-odd cats from a rural shelter that had been hanging out for a very long time because they needed some serious mouth make-overs. We brought them here, got their smiles more functional and got them adopted.

So drooling when you purr...it's a thing. People dig it.

No one is psyched about going to the dentist but everyone is psyched about getting a home.

#2) They Make Casts Look Good.

I'm rocking the 'Easter themed tibia' look. 

Being in a cast stinks. But it shouldn't mean you have to look like pathetic, too. Our techs are famous for making the best looking casts and splints in the biz. Not only do they provide support for healing bones, they're also flippin' adorable.

It's not a cast - it's a kickstand for a mobile trouble-machine. 

In addition to being dental wizards the vet staff is also bone wizards, too. Our Dr. Moore is amazing with the complicated orthopedic problems. We also work with specialists when we get a super-duper hard case. The same way our mad dental skills mean we get a lot of transfer animals with bad teeth, our ability to work with bone breaks means we can help other shelters when they get kids with broken or deformed bones. Which is awesome.

I got the tulip cast. Which makes me cooler than the last two dogs. 

And if the thought of our absurdly hard working vet techs taking a couple minutes out of their day to carefully craft little hearts and tulips on casts doesn't melt your heart, you might not be human. We're just sayin'.

#3) This. Just....

Don't I look like a hairy, happy flower? 

This.

Snickerdoodle lost a leg. No biggie - it had been hurt for a long time and was causing her a lot of pain. She's happier with it gone.

Doesn't that fourth leg slow you guys down? I'm streamlined for speed!

But it does mean she has to wear the Cone of Shame until her surgery site heals. Or is it the Cone of Joy? Our medical team partnered with our education team to makes cones a little happier. One of the activities our Education Team does with kids visiting our Animal Community Center on field trips and day camps is to decorate the cones for healing pets. It's a win/win. The kids have fun and the dogs get ridiculous amounts of extra lovings and attention. Because NOTHING draws a crowd like rockin' a cool head cone.

#4) They Are All Enormous Suckers.

You are powerless over my puppy breath, hooman. 

Ridiculous suckers. In the best way possible. Kitten season finds a veritable parking lot of carriers in the vet tech station - most of our techs foster kittens and run back and forth bottle feeding their little charges. Talk about bringing your work home with you at night.

Even the doctor peoples cannot resist us. 

If counted up the number of HSSV pets that have been fostered and adopted by our techs, assistants and vets you could easily fill up an entire shelter. Heck, if you even winnowed down that number to 'hopeless/hard cases adopted or fostered by our medical staff' you could STILL fill a shelter. Pets like Westley, the kitten who came back from the dead.

I was only dead for a few minutes. No biggie. 

 Shawna, our Manager of Medical Operations, fostered and then adopted him. And wonderful, scaly Sweet Pea...

who Dr. Berger took home with her family while she recovered from horrible skin issues. Dr. Berger didn't keep the 'Pea but she did a lot of smelly baths in her home until Sweet Pea was furry again. Sweet Pea, meanwhile, is living the life. You can check her out on instagram - search #dailysweetpotato for pics from her new owner. 

What? You've never seen a pit bull in a tutu before? 

There's actually a billion reasons why our medical team is made of awesome but we only had space for four (or else this would have been a novel). While they do everything for our shelter pets, they do have time to do spaying/neutering and vaccines for the general public in our clinic. More deets (including how some folks can get these services free) can be found here. 

In the meantime, let's all just bask in how amazing they are and how many lives they save.