Please! Show some restraint!

Have you ever heard the term, "It was like herding cats?"

As we all know, cats don't willingly do anything they don't want to do, and rarely have we met a cat excited about getting a shot or having her claws trimmed.

So what happens when there's a cat in the clinic who needs various procedures done to him, and he just isn't feeling the love? Restraint. We show it and we practice it!

If you've ever tried to stuff Tigger into a carrier when he doesn't want to go, you'll know that cats have an amazing ability to resist any and everything thrown at them. They use all four paws to avoid getting into the carrier. The can twist their heads seemingly completely backwards to chomp on your knuckle. The lightening speed of their paws as they strike out at you is legendary. (It's all part of their charm.)

We need to outsmart them. (And it isn't easy, sometimes!) Here's what we do.

To pick up a cat: come at him from above instead of head-on. Cats may feel confrontational when face-to-face with you. Although many owners insist that Gigi isn't aggressive in the least, we generally will scruff a cat when picking it up, much as a mother cat carries her kittens. This doesn't hurt the cat, and it usually goes relatively limp. Use your free hand to support the cat's back end as you transport it to the examination table, or wherever you need to take it.

If the cat is frightened or aggressive, we toss a fluffy terry-cloth towel over the cat before we touch it at all. The cat usually feels more secure under the towel, and we're able to pick her up without her claws sinking into our arms.

Once the cat is on the table, it is fairly easy to keep it in lateral recumbency (lying on its side.) We do this by reaching over his body with his legs facing away from us, and grasping the legs with our hands. We use the forearm of the arm holding the legs nearest the cat's head to gently press down on the cat's head, keeping it securely lying on the table in a relaxed position. This is usually enough for the doctor to examine whatever needs examining.

However, there are (many!) cats who are still pretty sure they aren't into this whole being-held-down-at-the-doctor's-office thing, and will use their amazing feline superpowers to squirm out of the grasp of the restrainer. This is sometimes followed by an indignant hiss and possibly even a mad dash from the table and across the room into dog treatment, which is a whole different (and loud!) story. If the cat is fractious, we have a few more tricks up our sleeves.

A cat "muzzle" isn't really a muzzle, but more of a mask, which covers the cat's eyes and ears, thereby helping it relax slightly, since it can't see what's happening around it. This is sometimes enough to enable the doctor to complete her medical duties.
But we all know cats, right? And we all know that cats don't always give up that easily. They own the world and only tolerate us sharing it with them. We want to be able to restrain them, too? Imagine!

Our final step before chemical restraint (tranquilizing) is to use a cat bag, an unintentionally funny little canvas sack that we zip the cat into, leaving only the head exposed. Many varieties of cat back have zippers placed at the appropriate places so that we can unzip one and pull out a leg to work on. This usually does the trick. Whatever procedure is necessary is done, and we return the cat to her cage, where she usually hisses menacingly and then rubs her face against the bars, purring, "Love meeeee!"

Restraint is not just for the safety of the employees, but for the animal, as well. A loose cat or dog in the clinic is at risk for being attacked by other animals being led back to the treatment area. It could escape the building and get lost or worse.

Restraint is not a punishment, and is not malicious. So if you see one of us picking up a cat by the scruff of the neck, please don't think we're being rough. We're following standard procedure and doing the best thing for the cat and our fellow workers!

How not to die on the job.

1. Do not get bitten by a rabid animal.
2. Do not set self on fire.
3. Do not inject self with Beuthanasia-d.

The rest of the health hazards the staff of an animal hospital deal with on a daily basis are a bit more subtle. One of those things is radiation.

Not the sort of radiation that'd turn us into superheroes (although think of what we could do with superpowers!) but the kind we get exposed to from taking radiographs (x-rays) of Fluffy's hips.

Think of the radiation emitted by an x-ray machine as a bunch of tiny ping-pong balls being poured out of a bucket. They'll fall straight down initially, but when they hit the tabletop, they'll bounce in every direction there is, hitting whoever is helping to restrain the animal.

Really, though, what's the problem with a few stray beams of radiation smacking into you? Not much, if you do it once or twice, but if you do it several times a day over the course of a few years? Radiation can cause genetic abnormalities in tissues of the body--an in quickly-growing tissues, the harm can be irreparable. This is the reason that we employ as many safety precautions as we can during even the quickest, most routine radiographs.

These rules are SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) for our clinic (and most other clinics we know of!):
1. Only employees who have been specifically trained and passed a test on radiation safety are allowed in the radiography suite.
2. Pregnant employees are not allowed in the radiography suite (remember--quickly-growing tissues, like those of a fetus, can be harmed by scatter radiation!)
3. All employees present in the suite at the time a radiograph is taken MUST be wearing the appropriate Personal Protective Equipment (or PPE) which consists of a lead apron, a lead thyroid shield, lead-lined gloves, and a personal dosimeter badge.

By the way, have you tried anytime lately to restrain a cat while wearing lead-lined gloves?

The lead and lead-lined equipment effectively shields our bodies from the radiation, and the dosimeter badge records how much radiation exposure we've had in a certain amount of time. Those of us who may have had more exposure than is considered wise will be pulled from the radiograph suite for a period of time. Fortunately, this hasn't happened to anybody.

I can't say we don't complain about the PPE; it can be oppressively uncomfortable, and as I mentioned before, doing just about ANYTHING while wearing lead-lined gloves is well nigh impossible. But we do it. Because we love these animals and want to be around for a long time to keep helping them be at their best.