This year Angie let me design the annual Gentle Doctor Animal Hospital t-shirt for the Nebraska Humane Society Walk for the Animals.
My daughter Amanda did the editing and added the logo.
Here is a rough draft. I will show you the final draft and t-shirt as soon as they exist!
My coworker and friend Becky who is a veterinary technician married Buck this past weekend. Our coworker Trey, also a veterinary technician, was the officiant at the wedding. The wedding was beautiful.
Congratulations Becky and Buck! We are all so happy for you and wish you a continuing lifetime of happiness together.
I love almost everything about Independence Day.
Almost. I literally tear up every time I see, read about or hear about how rattled dogs become at this time of year.
Some of it is straight out nervousness or fear – Dogs in general are very sensitive to sound and in general love routine. This holiday is VERY loud and in Omaha follows an already loud storm season filled with pressure changes to which dogs are also very sensitive. The loudness of fireworks is also unpredictable and random – which adds to the scariness for dogs.
Thank you Omaha for making the terrifying portion of the celebration legally longer than one day. Think of the dogs when you pass legislation!!
Cats too become frightened – and much of this might apply to them, so take what you need and apply it to your poor scaredy cat too. However, cats have been practicing all year for this time – if you have set up your home to be cat friendly – and I know you have – each cat has at least one high perch and one low hiding place to which to retreat if need be.
So that is noise fear. Annoying, but manageable, yes?
Some dogs have noise phobia. This is different. Or maybe not. It is more extreme. It is the difference between someone preferring not to be around crowds or high in the air or ___ and a full blown shutting down crowd or height or ___ phobia.
Some dogs are not affected at all by the loud noises of storms and fireworks. If that is your dog, now is the time to be thankful! Some dogs – maybe most – are on a scale between unaffected and phobic – somewhat fearful of the noises associated with the holiday.
For those of you with dogs who ARE fearful this time of year, remember…
You cannot ignore or scold your dog out of a phobia or use a phobic state as a training time or reason a dog out of a full on panic…You CAN and SHOULD love and comfort your dog through a hard time.
You cannot start training, Thundershirts, music and medications on July 1 and expect them to be 100% effective…You CAN and SHOULD do all of these things anyways – at least the ones that seem to help.
Use the upcoming year to learn as much as you can so that next year storm season and Independence Day will at the worst be tolerable, and at best be boring or even enjoyable for you and your dogs.
You may already KNOW all the things, and it is just as good as it is going to be for your dog. Think how hard it would be if he or she did NOT have you! You are doing a good job, and being near you and having you help them through firework season IS comforting.
Do not feel bad if you have not spent the past two months preparing for this week! Dogs with phobias are often completely normal between episodes. Often dogs with noise phobias have no panic attacks between July and July, thank goodness.
Here are some things that I hope will help NOW. Feel free to add to the list!
Anti-anxiety medication – Call your vet and ask if this may be helpful for your pet.
Exercise
Thundershirts
DAP Spray – a calming pheromone spray for dogs – similar to Feliway for cats
Calming music – I love Through a Dog’s Ear – Here is a free download from their website!
A quiet, safe, maybe dark place – a kennel, a small room, a comforting and familiar rug
Above all, keep your dog INSIDE or on a leash – July 4 is the number one day of the year for losing dogs.
Doggy ear muffs – Oh yeah, someone makes them.
Comfort
Attention
More comfort
Distraction
Puzzles, Kongs, toys
Here are links to things I have written before…with links to things OTHER PEOPLE have written before!
You know, there is nothing new under the sun…except when there is. What I have learned this year that I did not know before is that using the month or two BEFORE you need a Thundershirt to work with your dog to associate it with happy times – called “coupling” – will make it tons more likely to be helpful, especially long term. Thank you for that information Dr. Stokes! I promise to remember that next May!
Thank you so much to friends Alicia Weiland and Janelle Van Riesen for letting me use these pictures of your beautiful pups!
Happy Fourth Everyone! Let me know how all your brave and hoping-to-be-brave pets do!
Fuzzy and Wuzzy Rats never struggled with phobias. They were not so much brave as oblivious to anything that was not edible or a toy.
During our recent stay in Hayward Wisconsin, I was beyond walking distance to my front yard, backyard or church garden. So I pulled all of the weeds out of the container in the yard of the cabin where we were staying and planted impatiens.
They did great.
On a slightly saner level, I also bought a boxwood basil plant, which I had never even heard of and thought was super cute.
And a lemon thyme plant. I grow a lemon thyme plant every year because I think it smells like lemonade.
Sara made sure the herbs stayed watered all week. I love that person.
When I got the lemon thyme plant, I hand pruned it a bit and put the extra in with the impatiens in the container in the yard. The thyme took root and grew around the flowers. I can’t even explain how happy that made me.
I also enjoyed the other flowers and plants we discovered…This one was in the yard of the cabin.
This was a wildflower in the side yard of the cabin. Does anyone know what it is? Very pretty!
There were beautiful container gardens and hanging flower pots EVERYWHERE in downtown Hayward…
These flowers below were at Lumberjack Village. The container is a hollowed log – so pretty!
This hanging basket was also at Lumberjack Village.
Flowers near the entrance of Famous Dave’s…
This white flower was in the container at Famous Dave’s.
Another pretty flower in the same container. I also do not know this one!
We saw these beautiful plants in a National Forest near Hayward…
These tiny flowers – each was smaller than a dime – were growing near the Round Lake Marina. I almost missed them!
We rode home with the basil and thyme and left the impatiens in the container at the cabin.
In my head, when the next visitors or the owner see the impatiens, they will jump like Charlie Brown did when he saw his newly redecorated Christmas tree and then break out in joyous song.
I hope at the very least they think “Well, that’s pretty,” or “What an odd thing for a visitor to do,” or something like that.
Managing Your Day-to-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus & Sharpen Your Creative Mind
Edited by Jocelyn K. Glei
Five Stars!
✩✩✩✩✩
While we were in Wisconsin this summer, I was reading Veterinary Economics with my family. Mom, Amanda, Dave, Sara and Cara were all reading books. I looked over the top of my magazine to ask what everyone else was reading, and Dave, who maybe should have known better than most of the rest of the group save Mom, was the only one left in the room. Everyone else had wisely tucked their books under their arms, grabbed their drinks and sprinted in different directions. They knew I could not catch them all. I guess I kind of have a reputation for stealing books.
So I stole (borrowed) Dave’s book, and it was GREAT! Really, I stayed up one night past midnight to finish it, because it was that good, but mostly because I knew I could not help stealing it again during the day while Dave probably wanted to read it, and I wanted to stop being a jerk.
It’s books, people! Not hard drugs. I can totally handle it.
The book was written by an amazing group of creative minds. I have pages of quotes, website links and new books to read, which is the most exciting thing of all about the book – where it leads next! I already had the books on writing by Stephen King and Ray Bradsbury on my list of books to read, and both authors were quoted in this book, which was neat.
Stephen King said that it helps him to have a routine about writing. He takes his multivitamin and gets a drink (tea or juice) and sits down to write at the same time every day. That COMPLETELY freaked me out all week. I yelled as much to Russ. “DID YOU KNOW,” I yelled (sorry about the caps – I really was freaked out, and really did yell), “that the next time you walk by someone and you are too close not to smile or say hi,” I paused here to say “You know how sometimes you walk by someone and you are too close not to smile or say hi?”
“Hmm,” Russ said, which let me know he totally was following me.
“THAT GUY YOU THINK IS NORMAL COULD BE AS NOT NORMAL AS STEPHEN KING!! Russ, Stephen King takes a multivitamin! Like someone you think is a normal guy!” At this point, I believe Russ stopped following me, but even if he did not get it, I was completely freaked out. I LOVE when books rattle me that much, and this one did.
It also inspired me to do the things I do better, which I also love. My job is not officially creative – maintaining health and treating illness – but it is always good to get a new angle on things. And really, SOME parts of veterinary medicine are done better when creativity is involved. And other things I love to do – mainly writing and creating stuff for social media for work and fun – those things DO have a creative element, so I felt that there were many direct applications from the book right to my life.
The book dealt quite a bit with managing the powerful monster that is email. It made me appreciate how much creative professionals have to deal with urgent and disruptive issues communicated via email that I just do not need to deal with on such an intense level. So much of veterinary medicine casework is hands on and needs to be resolved either completely or to an acceptable stopping point that I do not deal with the ongoing open projects that need immediate attention from me on near the level that creative professionals do.
I LOVED the chapter on multitasking. Summary: Don’t. It is not possible. If you think you are good at multitasking, you are probably just more skilled at switching quickly between projects than other people are, and you would still do better overall if you did not do that.
One of my New Year’s Resolutions this year has been to ONLY single-task, and it is HARD! I think my quality of medicine has gone way up, and my overall enjoyment of life in general has gone way up. It is still a struggle, but I try to completely finish one case before I move on to the next – not possible if you have multiple sickies to care for (though I can still work on completing one task or block of tasks before moving to the next), but it IS possible (but very difficult!) if you have one complex medical or surgical case and then another right afterwards. The upsides are that the pet who needs you most has your complete attention while they need it and receives better care, and once you have finished a case, it is done and you can relax or focus on the next pet.
Also, at the end of the day, you can do medical role call (Everyone okay?) and if no one woofs or meows at you because they are all home recovering, all better or transferred to the emergency hospital for continuing care, you do not need to stay into the wee hours finishing medical notes and trying to remember what you forgot, because you got everything done before each pet left. SO cool.
Now, on to other areas of life – giving my daughters my complete attention when they need it, eating a meal and doing nothing else, cleaning one thing then the next. Hard stuff people! Even though that is the chapter that resonated with me the most, it is also the one I will need to reread the most. (I am buying my own copy of the book Dave!)
I also loved Gretchen Rubin’s advice to write every day. I have loved following her discoveries on happiness as she writes about them, and just think she is an incredible person. So if she says to do an exact thing, I am most likely going to try it. Five days in. So far, I love it. I missed you, writing!
Great book. You will love it.
Thank you Dave!
I have four more “already read” books to review and many more to read! Next on my reading list is every book mentioned in THIS book and the new list (YAY!) of leadership books recommended by Tom McFerson and the others in the June Veterinary Economics issue.
Every other year, the Nelson family – my parents, my two brothers and their families and our family – goes on vacation together.
This year’s group:
Mom and Dad
Brother Bill, Cara, Charlie and Baby-to-Be
Brother Dave, Sara and Olive
Russ, me, Amanda and Abby
We have been to Turks and Caicos for Bill and Cara’s wedding, Breckenridge two years ago and Round Lake near Hayward Wisconsin this summer. My family (the Nelson AND the Finch sides!) is my very favorite thing in the whole world. The time we spend together is the most fun time I can imagine.
I hardly ever cry on the Nelson family trips, except when we pack up the Legos and I say goodbye to Bill and Cara and Charlie, and Charlie and I take our separate coloring books and separate Sharpies and go our separate ways.
The rest of us caravan back to Omaha to our homes and pets and gardens, and that part is not sad.
So here is the happiest part, the vacation itself where we are all together. This post will be long because my family is awesome and SO good looking. I apologize in advance for their awesomeness and good looks. If you are not Mom or Dad, feel free to speed scroll!
Dave had these coasters custom made for each of us. See what I mean about my family being awesome? Wait, it gets better. On the left is the family of origin of Sara (Bromley), on the top, Russ (Finch), on the right, Cara (Wood). The three dots under “Nelson” (headed by Mom and Dad) represent the three Nelson kids. The symbol under the line is a combination of Native American symbols for water and tent or temporary housing (symbolizing vacation) and the group of triangles symbolizes community.
All week I set my drink NEXT to my coaster because I did not want it to get stained!
This was the sign over the front door.
Cabin from the backyard – no we were not “camping,” thank goodness!
View of the main room from the upper story. And also, Russ.
Russ and Abby headed right out to fish!
Abby held an umbrella over Uncle Bill while he cleaned fish for dinner.
Sunday was Dad’s Birthday AND Father’s Day! Happy Birthday Dad! Happy Father’s Day! Not a bad double holiday, huh?
Olive working on her juice mustache…
Success!
I brought one of those Mindware coloring books I obsess about. I could not believe how focused Charlie was when he was coloring! And how good at details he is! That was a very fun thing to do together all week.
Olive says that if you are creative, you get the best seat at the party every time!
Amanda did not mind a bit. She was pretty comfy too.
Amanda and Abby making a surprise birthday cake for Grandpa which was also a surprise Father’s Day cake for Grandpa, Dad, Uncle Bill and Uncle Dave
Beautiful and delicious!
Charlie and Olive spending time with Grandpa and Grandma
Abby waiting for Uncle Bill and Daddy to get back from boating on Round Lake
Russ, Amanda and Abby
Olive and Dave
Charlie showing me his participation certificate at the Lumberjack show. He hand sawed a log with help from the lumberjacks. The world champion of going-across-logs-in-water and the third fastest log chopper in the world were there. Neat to see, but how great is Charlie?? (SO great!)
Abby driving a boat for the first time
Amanda driving the boat for the first time
Here is our destination – the original Famous Dave’s Restaurant! How cool is it that we got there by boat??
Amanda and Abby at sunset outside of Famous Dave’s
Russ, Amanda, (Bear) and Abby outside of Famous Dave’s
Cara, Mom, Dad, Olive (head of the table behind the paper towel holder!), Dave, Sara and Bill inside of Famous Dave’s
Amanda and Russ
…and Amanda and Russ
Abby at Famous Dave’s with our family in the background – what a nice looking background, huh? And a cute kid!
Bill, Charlie and Dad outside of Famous Dave’s with their matching Lumberjack hats
Getting back on the boat after Famous Dave’s to head back to the cabin
Goodbye Famous Dave’s!
Charlie tries his first S’more. It is good. Mom (Cara), Dad (Bill) and Uncle Dave are standing by to encourage and assist.
Charlie and Olive work on counting together.
Charlie works on some art.
(Bear), Amanda, Charlie and Abby at Round Lake Marina
We only had a couple downpours. Um, rain? This is where Mom and I like to sit…
Lunch and the show were so fun at Lumberjack Village that we went back another time for dinner. The team was SO nice, and the food was SO good! I made Amanda, Russ and Abby stand in the rain for this picture.
Amanda and Abby inside the River Deck Restaurant at Lumberjack Village – the place was so pretty! We were one of two families there. The chef came out to see how we liked our food. (Very much)
At the River Deck Restaurant at Lumberjack Village – Abby, Bill, Charlie, Mom, Dave, Olive, Sara, Cara, Dad, Amanda and Russ
Those are my pictures! What a fun week!
Thank you Cindy for telling Dad what a neat town Hayward is!
Thank you Joni for the use of your beautiful cabin!
Thank you Kylah for taking such great care of Max the Cat, Joy the Puppy and Noodle the Poodle!
Thank you Mom and Dad for such a great trip!
Thank you Hayward for welcoming us and showing us around and moving all the tables together for us every time we walked in a restaurant door! We think you are great. It was very nice to meet you!
Last fall at the Central Veterinary Conference in Kansas City, I was given a great big notebook as a thank you gift for serving on the Veterinary Economics Editorial Advisory Board. (Thank you!) When I got back to Omaha, I held out the notebook to show our office manager and boss. “You got THAT?! Ours is in the mail and won’t be here for TWO DAYS.”
“You can read mine…” I said, now hugging it tight, “after I read it.”
Intriged, I opened the notebook. “Benchmarks 2012: A Study of Well-Managed Practices.” One section caught my eye – “Breed Specific Healthcare.”
“Well, that’d be depressing!” I thought, and read on.
After I had read the entire Benchmarks 2012 cover to cover – yes it was as good as they said – I handed it over. Angie called me that day and said, “We NEED to do this breed thing!”
I love specific dog and cat breeds as much as the next rescue-loving domestic shorthair and mutt-adopting veterinary professional, but focusing on the medical concerns of each breed for clients who love the breed because of their awesomeness? It just sounded like a bad idea – You love Labs? Have you thought about HIP DYSPLASIA? Boxers? Yes they are sweet and their faces are cute, but also cancer. Bulldogs? Liquidate your assets. Oh, and congratulations on your new puppy.
Of course we cover breed-related medical issues during wellness care appointments, but focusing on it MORE?
“No,” I said, “too depressing!”
“Yes!” Angie said. And so we did. And it has been awesome – one of the most enjoyable projects I have done.
January 2013: Bernese Mountain Dogs (and Mixes!)
February 2013: Dobermans
March 2013: Russian Blue Cats
April 2013: Portuguese Water Dogs
May 2013: Cavalier King Charles Spaniels
June 2013: Sphynx Cats
Here is what I have learned this year:
Breeds are fun, and worth celebrating.
Your clients and team will be your biggest supporters. I have e-mailed, called or sent hand written notes, depending on the patient base size, and have gotten cute pictures in piles! Always get permission before you use pictures, but it will not be a snag. People know their pets are cute, and having their medical team confirm that? Awesome.
Clients and online friends appreciate learning about breed-related medical concerns, even of breeds they do not have. Balance it with fun facts, breed history and pictures, and a month of focusing on one breed will be rewarding, NOT depressing.
Putting fun facts out there – we do Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest – takes A LOT of behind the scenes work, but it is the kind of work I love most. If you have someone in your practice who loves learning, reading and assimilating information (And you do, you are a medical team for heaven’s sake!) put that person in charge of gathering info.
The team will love helping – Our receptionist Amanda gathers client names for me every month. Vet tech Allison, Dr. Stokes and Dr. Kanne have provided tons of cute pictures of their own pets. Angie manages the Pinterest page. Everyone has supported us on Facebook by commenting, liking and sharing posts.
Clients will love it. Most of the rest of our pictures are from clients who have gotten behind our breed celebrations.
Online friends will love it. When we do not have a picture within our team or client base, online friends have always stepped up. See the Twitter follower number go up with every monthly screen shot?
The fancy-pants picture changing is easy. If you decide to do a similar project, I will help you with all of that if you would like.
The only thing that would make this more fun is if more vet teams were doing it with us! We could share background breed information, cover the same breeds some months and share what is working and what is not.
Choosing breeds is easy. So far Angie and I have chosen them like this: “Do you like ___?” “Yes!” “Me too!” Next… We started with Beagles and Huskies (before we were doing monthly Twitter pictures to show you!) because those are breeds of two local rescue groups we love.
I have learned so much about specific breeds. When I am gathering information in order to help clients, I can swallow my pride about thinking I should already know everything about every pet, and secretly (until now) think things like “Sphynx cats tend to be healthy?! Who’d have thought?”
I know we have succeeded if I get near the end of a month and have fallen more in love with the breed. So far, YES on every count. SO fun.
Who would like to play Breed of the Month with us?
I work with a veterinary technician named Shelly Biers at Gentle Doctor. She is one of my favorite people. She is a great tech too.
Shelly Recovering Bratty Rat from Anesthesia
Shelly is moving to Washington to start a New Adventure.
I am really going to miss her.
To all my tech friends – I love you AS MUCH as I love Shelly.
To Shelly – I have really grown to love you over these past 18 months. We are a great team, and I am going to miss you. I know you are going to continue to do great things.
I will miss Moose too, but I can’t think about that right now *sniff*
I know you have gotten a lot of advice as you go, and here is mine, no longer flippant, guarded or joking – BE YOURSELF because you are extraordinary. Joe is lucky you are on your way (which I know he knows!) Whatever veterinary team you end up with is lucky to have you. I am so impressed you would set out on such a great adventure. Give Moose a hug from me. We are so excited for you and cannot wait to hear What’s Next!
Saturday was the high school graduation party for our niece Kylah. Congratulations Kylah!! We are so proud of you!
Russ, Sara and Shane and I decided to go from the Jones’ to the Finches’ to fish and let the kids go swimming in the lake. We had one job – keep the kids safe. We did that.
Well, we had two jobs, keep the kids safe and keep the dogs white. We did a great job. Wait, no, we did a 50% great job. Jacy Dog stayed white. Here is the other half of the story…
Lucy is Russ’ parents other little white dog. See?
Lucy escaped through the gate and jumped into the lake with the kids. I texted this to Karen, “This might have happened,” with this picture –
Since it did in fact actually happen, I let Lucy play in the lake some more. She is quite skilled at balancing on a knee board. But then she got out of the lake and THIS happened –
So I did this…
and this…
and texted Karen, “Now Lucy is back to this!” –
We walked back down to the Jones’ and I asked Karen, “Did you get all the pictures I sent you?”
“No!” she said, “Is everything alright??”
“Yes,” I said.
And it was.
The End
“Nobody can be uncheered with a balloon.” -Winnie the Pooh
Last Monday we had more euthanasia cases than I have ever had in one day. I love firsts. And mosts. The first time I did a Tru-Cut biopsy. Yesterday. True story. The most cases I’ve had in a morning. A couple months ago – 25, including phone consultations and prescription refills. Would have gone faster if I hadn’t stopped to run to the desk and add tally marks to my notebook page all morning. I couldn’t help it. It was so fun.
Monday though, Monday was rough. On the whole team. Stephanie came up beside me while I was entering medical notes into the computer on the third euthanasia of the morning. “Please tell me you don’t have another terminal case for me,” I said.
“No, I just wanted to see how you were doing.”
“Ok,” I said, “hanging in there. You?”
“Yeah, ok,” she said, and we regrouped and had an even sadder afternoon.
As Kelly and I were standing over our last patient of the day, in her own backyard, her beautiful spirit free of pain, and her beautiful body appearing so peaceful, her friends and family left behind in shock and heartbreak, we had to be strong. They needed us.
Euthanasias at home are even more heart wrenching than euthanasias at the hospital. You see the layers of Real Life.
Another coworker joins her friends and you realize her late fiance was close to the family and so was she. Everyone has gathered again to say good-bye, and your husband has come to help with carrying afterwards, and the lines between professional and family completely blur.
It happens in the hospital too, but if you need to stop and catch your breath, you can. If you look up during a home euthanasia, you see the yard the pet loved, or a family picture on the living room table, and you just stay immersed in the grief with the family.
And you want to fall apart with them and grieve for them so it is not so heavy for them to bear. Because there is so much sadness, you sort of absorb it like a sponge, but you have to carry the stretcher and you have to get back into your own pickup, and you have to get the pet and your team back safely and take care of the details of the body care and the rest of the things that you actually can shield her family from.
And you want to scream like you yourself have lost something so precious, but you hold it all in – all you let through is the tears and the hugs, because they need you to be strong so that, just for this short time, they do not need to be.
Tonight my family was walking up to the building we thought our oldest’s daughter’s volleyball game was in. I heard a scream like the one I had internally screamed at the end of that day of euthanasias. I turned just in time to see a horrified child as her balloon floated gently up out of her reach and into the sky, becoming a pinpoint as she wailed. The only ones in the area were her family and mine. I caught my own sob before it became a wail to match that poor kid’s cry, and went inside.
The receptionist let us know we were at a building a block away from the game. Hand on the door, I stopped and turned back.
This one I can fix. I can fix this one, I thought.
In my ever eloquent manner I said, “Balloons.” The receptionist looked up with a kind but confused smile. “The balloons. Were they from an event in here? I mean, there’s a kid…” I stopped and pointed outside to the little girl still howling toward the sky. “A kid…she lost hers, I mean…” I looked outside again.
“Oh, yes, we have more balloons! I will call her teacher!”
“Thank you!” I said, relieved. We left the building and headed up the block.
Mom was trying to get the screaming little girl into the car. Her baby sister was already in her carseat, wide-eyed and wisely clutching her balloon with both hands. Mom looked frazzled. For the second time in the span of a few moments, ever as eloquent as I am extroverted, especially when making split-second decisions to be so, I decided talking to a stranger was more important than protecting myself from the discomfort of talking to a stranger.
I turned back around and approached the car. I said to Mom, “Wait! Don’t leave yet. They’re coming. I mean, you know, they’ll be here soon. With another balloon.”
Mom stopped. She smiled the biggest smile I had seen in a long time, sighed and said, “Thank you.”
“You are welcome,” I said and my eyes filled with tears. Hers did too. Her daughter still had a great supply of tears going, but she had stopped crying and looked cautiously optimistic.
I know.
I know how hard it is to see someone lose something precious and want so badly to just fix it. To make things right again.
As we turned, almost out of sight, I saw a teacher run out with a balloon. This one was green! That one had been pink! I stopped and held my breath, watching and waiting. The little girl squealed with delight and jumped into the car, with as tight of a hold on her new balloon as her sister had on hers.
I remember what that first moment of panic feels like when you accidentally let go of a balloon outside. My balloon string slipped out of my fist once after a visit to Grandmother’s Restaurant as a kid. Once. My kids have each done it once. Never again. You never want to feel that loss again. When it happens to someone you care about, you want the hurt to stop as soon as possible.
Sometimes you can make that happen, and when you can, it is the best feeling there is.
