Good Commercials Are Sold With A Smile You Never See

 Did you know the secret to selling something with only audio is to be smiling as you record?

Did you know that a smile can be heard?

Have you tried it? That smile is transcendent. It influences. Motivates. Sells.

Don't we all have to pitch ourselves every single day to someone?

Veterinary medicine is no different.

Simba. One of the 54 cats we helped last year from one home.

My job is to understand and translate my mute patient and sell their needs to their parents. Smiling while I sell, albeit the way a ventriloquist does, is the art behind the successful veterinary care sell.

I more appropriately I call it the 'building of trust to the point where the pitch is simplified to a permission versus a negotiation'. 

Basil One of 5 cats we took after the owners were evicted from a motel.,
He is safe with us now, but looking for a home.

I am a terrible salesperson. All that nonsense of fluff, fake veneers, and smoky mirrors is exhausting. I am a failure as a phony. I know this. I have had to rely on my genuine compassion to build a clientele willing to entrust their pets care in my hands. Just be me and try to remember to smile every so often. Not too much teeth or arm twisting. Keep the common goal in mind. We all have to be here with the same agenda and the same endpoint. Not an easy task or small hopeful wish.

It's not just lip service. I back it up with skin in the game. I make deals. If needed I will make deals that the house loses on.

Sadie. The most influential patient in my career.
She was my defining moment. My pivot point.

I give stuff away daily. It's the glitter in my vanilla day. It is the thing I love, take greatest delight in, every single day.

Sound crazy? Counter intuitive? Maybe its the easiest way to sell my genuine belief in always putting the patient first.

Saffie. Clinic cat.
Adopted and returned 3 times.
And still loved.

Here's an example.

Miss Phillips was elderly. Small, demure, crumpled and lacking any color in her dense weighty coat. Grey stringy hair, grey overstuffed winter coat, and grey sweatpants. She was seated on the long wide wooden bench in the exam room. Composed, quiet and clutching her coat sleeves enveloping her oversized market bag I think she used as a purse. She was quiet, withdrawn and weathered. She struggled with the weight of the 7 decades she had been alive. She needed help getting into our building. The staff led her into the exam room as they carried her petite dog-sized cat carrier for her. She was soft spoken and easily overlooked. She was a new client with a cat to be seen for a spay. This is the information I am given as I walk into the exam room. "New client, new patient. Cat needs to be spayed." No other information available. Blank slate. Not my favorite place to begin.

Seraphina.
Queen of everything

I say "hello" and start collecting pieces to finish the canvas. "This is Lilly. She is about a year old. She is not spayed." That's all I have. I look up at Ms Phillips. She has no emotion. She doesn't move an inch on the bench. Nestled into her winter coat seemingly swallowing her in its over abundant quilting.

"So, she has never been to the vet before?" I ask.

"No." Volley and serve and still no emotion to guide me on where this is going to end up.

"She is here to start her vaccines and be spayed. Correct?" I repeat. Ms Phillips is not giving me any information willingly. This is going to be a Q&A discussion. I slow down. Mirror her pace and attitude as much as I am able. 

I take a minute to look at her again. Switch gears from Lilly to her. "Did you drive here?"

"No, I don't drive." 

"Oh," I reply. A sigh of relief washes over me. "Who brought you?"

"My friend drives me."

"Do you have other pets?"

"No."

"No other cats?" Part of my job is sizing people up. Finding common ground whilst understanding the degree to which they invite these pets into their lives. That, and I just had a sense of "cat lady" lingering. Building a relationship to help a pet for their entire life and not this one and done visit. I try to remember to smile inside my inquiries. Add a smile, slow my pace, she seems very nice. I can see myself, someday, in her.

"There is a cat. (long pause).... She is not mine. I let her inside when it is cold. I just had her at the ER over the weekend. She had a respiratory infection. It cost me $300, so now I cannot afford to much for todays exam. I am not allowed to have more than one cat."

And there it was. The shell was cracked. She spilled the beans in just a few sentences and a change of perspective. 

We spoke for a few more minutes. She told me that she was renting her house. She was not allowed pets, but her landlords were going to let her keep Lilly as long as she was spayed and vetted. She was here, at my clinic, because we were the most affordable outside of the rescues and non-profits that had a 6 month plus spay/neuter wait time. 

"You let this other cat into your home where she sleeps at night. You feed her and now you pay for her to go to a vet clinic, and yet she isn't yours?"

All of a sudden one cat that she couldn't afford was two.

"What is going to happen when she has kittens?"

And with this question the look on Ms. Phillips face fell to the ground. It hadn't occurred to her. This reality where her good deeds put her in a predicament she couldn't manage.

We decided together that she would leave Lilly with us at the clinic. Her friend graciously ok'd bringing her back tomorrow with the other cat, Kitty. I would spay both the next day, and she could pay me back as she could. To save financial resources that she truly didn't have we would cut out the optional items like pre-op blood work. The exchange and change of plans had taken almost 20 minutes of our allotted 30. It had included being honest with who we are. It also included asking for help from the driving friend via a flip phone she dialed to her friend parked in the lot outside, too far for Ms. Phillips to walk again.

The next day I met Kitty. Small, slender, matted and peppered with grit in her coat from the flea dirt. Underweight, under muscled, overlooked and discarded like soo many cats in our community. She was gentle, confident, and melted with any small inkling of affection. She was so grateful for a warm place and a kind heart that she surrendered and collapsed into your arms soaking it all in.

Ms Phillips called later in the day checking on how the two cats did with their spay surgeries. "Fine," I replied. I had estimated Kitty to be about 4-6 years old. She was too sweet to be overlooked anymore. I asked her if she would like us to try to find her a home of her own. I never know if I can persuade others to see the kindness in an all black cat who isn't a kitten, but, she was not a feral cat and she needed a break. Ms. Phillips agreed once again that she couldn't have two cats at her home.

Over the phone (no car to drive and sign papers, remember), she authorized Kitty to stay with us as we tried to find her a home.

You know what happened? Another miracle. Seems so crazy the way miracles find us when we give more than we have to, and offer more than the house makes money on. Ms. Phillips got brave! She went to her landlords and put her cards on the table. She told them that she loved these two cats! That with a little help she was going to take care of them and she asked for permission to have TWO!

They said YES!

She called us back. Told us she wanted her Kitty back. 

Turns out happy endings just need a little faith and genuine compassion to make miracles happen.

....and with a smile we made the ending meet the intentions of everyone a reality everyone benefits from.

Wren. Night time ritual.
I tell her she is the most beautiful girl in the world and she reaffirms it.

Related blogs;

Wren: The Sickest Kitten Of Them All

Seraphina; The Futility of it ALL and Meet Seraphina

Sadie; Sadie's Story.

The Hardest Part Of This Job

Give Back. 

Kitten Season. The TURMOIL Of A Vet Who Doesn't Always Know What To Do.

This was the post I placed on my clinics Facebook Page this morning.

"Every Monday JVC provides TNR (trap neuter return) spays and neuters to our community cats. For the past three weeks every female has been pregnant. These cats are either without a home and/or feral. If not spayed the chances of the kittens being preyed upon or suffering from communicable disease is immense. It is not a life for a domestic animal. Please help us provide more assistance to the most needy in our community by spaying & neutering and supporting local charities that provide TNR services. Last year Jarrettsville Veterinary Center found homes for almost 100 unwanted pets. Let's try to cut that in half every year forward. Thanks to all who help."

The TNR cats arrive in a cat trap hiding, hissing, and afraid.
We sedate them through the cage and remove them when they are safe to handle and asleep.

This was one of the first replies I got back;

I am sure that must be difficult for you

Unlike · Reply · Message · 1 · 1 hr

Jarrettsville Vet Center We too often feel like we have no good options. These kittens die outside horrible deaths by disease or predators. These moms are feral. And the kittens become feral if not handled within the first few weeks. It is a vicious cycle only made better by allowing the moms to get spayed and be fed by the colony care givers. We don't even know they are pregnant because we have to sedate them inside the cage. If we don't spay them they will be euthanized when the colony numbers become too large. It is a side of society no one wants to see or admit too. All we can do is help those the volunteers trap and care for. Too many cats get no care, no feeding and no vaccines. Rabies is spread by these cats. Thank you for your kind thoughts.

A sleepy sedated cat is taken out for the exam and spay/neuter surgery

Here is what a typical TNR day looks like; The cats arrive they are in an individual metal trap. They were baited by food to go into it and as soon as they get far enough inside the trap door closes. Most of these cats are from a local colony that is managed by a team of volunteers who take turns providing food, shelter and over sight. They also know the colony. It is as good as we can get when a cat is dumped by a human. These cats were not born here from a wild cat. They are the byproduct of a society that domesticated them and then refused to take full responsibility for them. TNR is the only humane way to provide safety and compassion to a pet we forgot about.

waking up after surgery

Here's where I find myself swimming in an ocean of doubt, despair, and dismay; What do you do when there are too many cats in your area? Too many for homes? And too many to be ignored? After all I live in a very rural area of Maryland. Barns, horses, and farms are the halfway homes to cats who have no residence to call their own. For some the life of a 'barn cat' is a profession worthy of a warm meal, a safe bed, and veterinary care. For others, theses cats are tantamount to rodents. Unwanted scavengers who are not welcomed and not cared for.

For almost every community in our country a cat who is undeniably a domestic pet, they however have no rights, no status, and no obligatory list of provisions. Even though every cat is required to be vaccinated for rabies there is no oversight nor consequence when they aren't. If we took protecting ourselves from this zoonotic disease we should do a better job of protecting our domestic pets.

What do you do when every year, regardless of how hard you try to educate your neighbors about how prolific a cat can reproduce, more cats show up? The never ending revolving door of kittens so sick, so debilitated and so pitiful you are compelled to help, because you can, because you know that if you don't the prognosis goes from poor to grave, again, and again, and, again. There is exhaustion in taking them into the clinic, but, there is death, regret, and pain beyond compare when you don't. So, you do it,, again and again.

Most vet practices do not provide  TNR assistance. I am afraid that it isn't because there aren't any feral, homeless, or unspayed/neutered cats in the community, but rather because;

1. They make more money on owned cats. Typically TNR cats receive only a rabies vaccine, their sterilization surgery and ear tip. At my practice a TNR spay is about $80, a neuter about $40. The average client with a kitten will spend upwards of $400 at my clinic. The vets time is more lucratively served on clients.
2.  They don't want the hassle of feral cats. Big clunky cages strewn about the clinic, smelly cages (really BAD smelling cages), and the loss surgery time for others who can pay full price.
3. There is never an end to these cats. The feral cat well never runs dry. I can say that for as much as the finances don't discourage me the never ending flood of unwanted cats feels like swimming in an ocean without a horizon.
4. These cats are feral. They are afraid. I am sure there are some vets who would use this as a reason to avoid handling them. With practice and the right drug protocol I have never had a case or a cat I couldn't handle. 
5. Disease. I cannot get around the argument that a feral cat isn't a possible source for disease transmission. I can however argue that this is the nature of our business. There is an equal likelihood in my neck of the woods that the "owned" house cat has been, or can be, exposed to the same disease. I cannot chose to not help them.
6. The excuse that "there are places for these cats elsewhere" is a cheap excuse to turn your back on the members of our community we are supposed to be helping. An 'owned cat' should be treated as respectfully and professionally as an "unowned cat."

A very hungry orphan

These TNR cats are the off spring of cats who were;

• allowed to go outside and got lost.
• never spayed or neutered.
• put outside because they were house soiling
• put outside because they were not loved
• dumped by someone who couldn't/wouldn't care for them
• They are the consequence of a species we lack respect for.

Cats are magnificent creatures who are far more intelligent than we give them credit for.

Neutering one of our 2016 kittens

Here's the ethical dilemmas with TNR's. I don't know whether the cat I am sedating through a little wire square is healthy? Or if it is a male or a female? If she is a female I don't know if she is pregnant? If she is pregnant, how pregnant is she? What about if they are REALLY REALLY pregnant? Who wants to live with being an abortion vet? It certainly is NOT what I went to vet school for.. We use an injectable sedative that needs to be placed in the muscle. This sedative allows them to be handled. It also slows the heart rate, temperature, and blood flow. For unborn kittens this, and the general anesthesia needed to maintain adequate anesthesia, will often make trying to revive them impossible. Also, kittens who are removed from their mom before they are ready to be born have a low survival rate.

If the mom is feral (as all of these are) the kittens need to be hand raised. This requires feeding them every two hours. Making sure they stay warm, fed and cared for. It is a full time job that requires experience, fortitude and self preservation when they die at 2 am after a day (or days) of endless worry. To be dedicated and compassionate enough to provide this degree of intensive care and then have them die is.. well,, breaking. It can break you. If you aren't very careful, and somehow manage to volunteer for the next litter you learn to allocate yourself in more manageable amounts. I have tried on more than one occasion to save the late term kittens. I won't do it again. They die within hours or days, and they are so labor intensive it is heartbreaking on too many levels.

This is the uterus of a feral pregnant cat.
These babies are about a month old,, far too young to be viable

I know of many practitioners who are afraid to post to social media. They only allow chummy photos of happy kittens and puppies. I feel very strongly that honesty and transparency are paramount to building and maintaining integrity. I also feel very passionately and deeply about animals. I am a veterinarian so I do need to narrow that a bit to "pets". I am also trying, yes, still trying, to find that end of unwanted pets. To save enough lives along the way that it might actually make a difference.

Do I think about a backlash after I post a pregnant cat spay photo? Of course. I live in in the USA, abortion is under fire, and the collateral damage is possible.

If I wanted to live in the land of happy puppies and fluffy kittens I wouldn't be a vet. I would be a kindergarten teacher. I would blissfully obliviously portray the life I am paid to emulate. The real-life of a vet is unwanted pets. If you aren't happy about it do something. Join me for a TNR, adopt a shelter pet, or donate to one of the many rescues who take care of other humans neglect.

One of our JVC kittens is tested for FeLV/FIV 

You can spend your life tip-toeing around life and all of the sticky spots it provides you. I am too old and have too much left to do to waste anymore time living in life among the minefield.

The surgery table.
One cat is prepped for a spay, the other is being microchipped.

Being a veterinarian is part making people happy, part being true to a calling, and part trying to navigate through unchartered and unchapperoned shit storms. If it was easy we wouldn't be the lucky recipients of the "profession with the highest suicide rate." Do you think that we don't get asked to provide the ugly side of pets being property, disposable, and replacable daily? We do. It is why we are so sheltered, Why many of us are not your personal friends. Why our clients don't have our personal information and why we become the stoic, reserved, distant women of the profession.

The local Humane Society,, where they have more than enough cats to go around already

What do you do with the reality that most cats in my rural area are never going to be treated as a 'companion'? How do I turn away a basket of sick, dying kittens that some well intentioned kid found? If you think I can send them to the shelter, I need to inform you that in many places the shelter doesn't accept cats. In others I am sending the kittens to an overcrowded understaffed s-h-e-l-t-e-r. Where disease is more prevalent, more widespread, and the kittens are not likely to get the intensive care they need. I do not send kittens or sick, injured pets to the shelter. I do not shirk a responsibility I know I can manage better than they can.

Is leaving kittens outside to fend for themselves safe? NO! Absolutely not. They are little tiny meowing morsels. They cannot escape, defend themselves or feed themselves. So I am left having to decide what I can do to help these cats whom I feel equally devoted to. They have survived within the life we cast them away too. The babies we are asked to help get care beyond what the shelters can do. It has been a labor of building a network of people who know we will provide everything they need regardless of the bill and the owner being unknown and unwilling to step up. If you believe you can make a difference you must try. 

The kittens I found in a tire on the side of a deserted road.
They had been dumped there,,
If you are a vet you can have a hard time not hating people

The vet practice I am responsible for is doing whatever we can wherever we can, even if it isn't without sacrifice and hard decisions.

If I turn my back on them, and dismiss them as "someone else's problem, BOTH my conscious and my community cats pay.

If I turn my back on the reality of posting what is really happening in our back yards, I am as complicit as the pet parent who gave up on their cat. The vet down the street who is only worthy of paying customers, and society who refuses to embraces cats with the same degree of genuine love that the dog has earned.

If I turn my back on who I went to vet school to become I have no legacy to leave behind that I am proud of.

Two of the TNR cats we adopted out in 2016 proudly display their ear tips.

Does every pregnant cat break my heart, YES! Almost as much as every sick, debilitated, broken spirited, beaten up, hungry, scared cat does.. There is no end to the ethical dilemmas I face every day, I'm just not going to bury or ignore them.

Here is more about our dedication to cats;

TNR's are not charged an examination. For clients interested in our feline services here are our prices;

Rabies vaccine is $16, spay is $100, neuter $60. FeLV/FIV $45 Microchips are $25

Our routine kitten vaccination protocol;

• We usually see kittens at 8-12 weeks. First visit includes FVRCP + Leuk vaccine, part 1 of 2 done 3 weeks apart. Fecal exam for intestinal parasites, $30, deworming about $15, microchip $25, Feline leukemia & FIV test $45, first dose of flea preventative $10. Cost of first cat visit is about $175.
• Last kitten visit at 16 weeks, finish FVRCP + Leuk vaccine, 1 yr rabies vaccine, pre-op spay/neuter bloodwork ($50), about $150.
• Feline Neuter $60
• Feline Spay $100

Here is our complete Price Guide for 2017

If you would like to follow our Facebook page you can learn more about us. If you have a pet question you can ask it for free at Pawbly.com. You can also find interesting pet facts, cases and stories at my YouTube channel and @FreePetAdvice.

Another Kitten Falls

We work very closely with a very large rescue. They are a dedicated bunch of hard-working, tirelessly driven group of people who take in almost every kind of animal plight imaginable. I love to help out because it allows us to give back to those pets who need us most. It also allows me to see things I would likely spend a whole life practicing and never get to encounter. I see cases with them that I had only read about in textbooks in vet school.

Some of the cases have happy endings and some don't. But every case is treated with love and given every single available option for treatment that we have available. If they bring the pet to us we know that they want to do whatever is possible to get that pet well. We have few restrictions and we don't have to debate with treatments based on a financial or emotional constraint. We can jump in and get to work.

Yesterday a 3 week old kitten was brought to us for care. She had been "found" by someone who brought her to the rescue. She was a small brown fluff of meows. She resembled my baby birds at home. No real structure just wisps of baby fur. The shear degree of her pitifulness tugged at your heart from the moment you touched her. She was so tiny you couldn't help to root for her.

She had a half closed left eye, and a very painful bottom. After the fur was cleaned away we noticed that she had a very deep wound that ran from her anus along the left side of her spine almost half way down her back. That hole was completely full of maggots. And it hurt like crazy.

We spent most of the afternoon trying to get the maggots out, keep her warm, get her to eat, and treat her for her infection, discomfort, and tissue trauma.

As much as she had already endured she was too weak to fight such a devastating wound. She died overnight.

She is another victim of an over abundance and neglectful oversight by the human beings around her.

She is also the reason that vets try so hard to urge people to spay and neuter. Our hope is that if we have fewer and fewer breeding cats, then hopefully we won't have so many unwanted litters, and hopefully those kittens won't be trying to live and defend themselves on their own and fall victim to another cat attacking them or a wound that then succumbs to the harshness of the environment.

Please spay and neuter, and please encourage your neighbors to do the same. TNR works, it just needs a greater effort on every one's part.

Earth Day TNR

As many of you know by now TNR stands for Trap-Neuter (god, it's always about the boys) and Release.

Jarrettsville hosted another TNR today, and in total we spayed and neutered 53 cats.

Many of the cats were females, which is great because we are heading into kitten season and every year Harford County is overwhelmed by more cats than it can feed and house.

Many wonderful volunteers came out to help control the pet overpopulation problem and support this cause.

I want to send a very big heart-felt Thank-You to all of the volunteers today. You all did a great job and you are an inspiration to us all.

Special Thanks goes to Jill, Julia, Phil, and Grace.

But my BIGGEST THANKS goes to JVC's own Dr. Morgan, Dr. Hubbard, and my amazing techs Laura and Amanda. I am immensley proud of you and grateful for your help, your compassion and your time. You make me so proud, and I love you!

One very large, very angry uterus.



Dr. Hubbard spaying a cat.



Dr. Morgan

Dr. Morgan, Laura and Amanda

Another cat, "in heat" uterus.

Me.

The recovery area. All the cats waking up under a watchful eye.

TNR, Tired & No Relief

OK, that's not what TNR really stands for. It is "Trap Neuter and Release." It is the acronym for one method of trying to address the feral cat over population problem. I whole-heartedly stand by it's intended premise. It is designed so that we, (the kind-hearted compassionate group of us who think that cats are the responsibility of mankind who domesticated them in the first place), have a safe responsible alternative to catching and killing because there aren't enough homes for all of the cats in this world.

About three times a year JVC (Jarrettsville Vet, my clinic) hosts the local TNR. The TNR is set up and run by the most kind generous bunch of people. They organize, co-ordinate, set-up, sedate, vaccinate, treat, care for, assist with surgery and dote over some of the saddest felines imaginable. They donate a huge number of hours in making sure that these cats needs are addressed and provided for. Some of these cats have never known human kindness before, and some are down right vicious with fear. But these volunteers never get frustrated or quarrelsome. I quite frankly don't know how they do it. I do however understand why they do it. They all share a desire to help a species that is often overlooked, under appreciated, and often viewed as 'unworthy.' These volunteers all share a love for cats and that in itself drives them to help save these cats from certain death from either euthanasia injection, gunshot, falling prey to other animals, or poisoning.

Dr Morgan (goofily -happily) spays a feral cat.

I understand this affection for felines. After all, I have 6 of my own and I love my kitties dearly. They are the thing I most look forward to at the end of my day. Nothing compares to snuggling up with Wren or Jitterbug purring next to me as I drift off to sleep. They are a big part of the reason I think my life feels so blessed.

Ready to start surgery.

Today at JVC there were 3 Veterinarians, 3 JVC technicians, and about 14 volunteers who made this TNR possible. We all donated about 6 hours of our time to provide very low cost spays and neuters to 43 cats.

So, here is where I take a deep breath. We all volunteered to help make those cats lives better. But for the county we live and work in, Harford County Maryland, I will say it is very upsetting that NO ONE else helps out. NO ONE else volunteers their veterinary facility, their time, or their staff.

Is this frustrating? HELL YES!

Do I understand why? HELL YES, and, HELL NO! There were cat owners driving (multiple) cats to the clinic in their brand new Mercedes. Now this was not the majority of the owners, but please? When was the last time anyone of you, or they, were asked to work for free? I understand why vets are so bitter about this. We went to school forever, (most of us had 4 years of college AND THEN 4 years of vet school), at an average cost of $120,000. Since then everyday of our working professional lives someone asks us to do something for free. I mean how is that fair?

Dr Hubbard and Dr Morgan share a surgical assembly line.

So after every TNR I come home feeling proud of myself for still giving a hoot, and frustrated that I donated my time and weakened the impression of value of these surgeries.

So I understand both sides. I guess I just lack conviction to pick one and stand by it.

To those volunteers today at the TNR at JVC you did an amazing job! and I applaud your generosity, compassion and devotion!

Oh, and whoever made the vegan chili it was fantastic and I loved it! Thanks. I ate three whole bowls.

and a link to discuss the subject further

http://petsadviser.com/animal-welfare/what-is-tnr-trap-neuter-return/?utm_campaign=twitter&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitter

I was just doing some "web-surfing" and found the following discussion about our county, Harford County, Maryland, where the discussion of TNR came up, and the horrific adoption rates of our shelter. 31% of cats leave the shelter, and 71% of dogs. Very sad. Please read the blog and discussion and chime in! http://belair.patch.com/blog_posts/animal-house-follow-up-on-harford-humane-society