This morning at the Peninsula Pet Hospital started on a sad note; when I walked in a dog was in the process of being euthanized and then laid there ready to be taken away. Euthanasia is an integral part of procedures done at the hospital because it is inhumane to let a dog or cat live in pain when nothing can be done to cure them. Yet it is still very sad to see a dog or cat be euthanized.

The pain continued with Stewart, a black and white cat, who I have mentioned before. He was transferred from the ER, back to the hospital, because he had kidney and renal failure. He looked like he was in such pain and was so lethargic that I thought he was under anesthesia when I came in. His quality of life was so low that the hospital had to euthanize, even though unfortunately his owners were out of town and did not get a chance to say good bye.

The next patient was a fluffy orange cat named Picky, who had to have some dental work. His teeth were in such bad shape, though, that he had to have two teeth extracted.

Another orange cat came into the hospital named Kiwi. He was seventeen years old and had an extremely bloated stomach. His owners described it as though someone had inflated him. Dr. Ulla, another veterinarian at the hospital checked Kiwi's temperature and heart. She then decided to get some x-rays of Kiwi's stomach to see what was making him so bloated. Through the x-ray images, she discovered that the inflation was due to fluid in the abdomen (as opposed to a mass or a blockage within his stomach or intestines). The cause of the fluid was unknown, so Dr. Ulla took some fluid to be sent to the lab to determine if the fluid was the result of some kind of cancer. Next I helped Dr. Ulla by holding Kiwi down as she took syringe after syringe of fluid from Kiwi's stomach, so as to make Kiwi a little more comfortable.

It turned out to be very much a cat day at the hospital because the next two animals that followed Kiwi were cats. First, Daisy, an eighteen year old black and brown cat, was bitten by another cat on her tail. She was given a shot of antibiotics to prevent infection and her tail was bandaged up. The last cat was also in a cat fight and had a bite on his hind leg. His name was ironically Puppy and he had an abscess on his paw. The vet technician informed me that you don't want to close a wound that has an abscess, and you keep the wound open so the abscess can drain. Dr. Harish therefore cut Puppy's paw open with a scalpel so they could place a tube in the paw to allow drainage, and then sewed his paw back up.