Why I'm doing this....

Not the blog. The blog is for fun.

Why am I swimming upstream?

Why am I knowingly going to school for fourteen hours a day, struggling in math classes that I know I can't get more than a passing grade in, dissecting animals to compare digestive tracts, and researching animals?

Because I need to be a vet. More specifically, I need to be an exotics vet.

There are plenty of vets available to treat your dogs and cats. But there aren't many to turn to when your reptile, small animal, or bird gets sick. I have so many horror stories of vets that will not admit their incompetence but it becomes evident.

...Googling treatments for a hamster with wet tail. Seriously, Google.
...Prescribing Ivermectin to a leopard gecko as a precaution when the medication could potentially kill it.
...Mistaking fecal matter as eggs in a snake that never met a male.
...Mistaking rat mites for a neurological disorder.
...Ordering the euthanization of a rat with red tears.
...Ignoring overgrown teeth as a reason of weight loss.
...Mistaking the hairless spot behind the ear of a guinea pig for ringworm.
...Rather than giving a longshot animal a chance, they immediately want to euthanize it.

Not only are there issues with the diagnoses and treatments but the prices. For an exotic animal consultation, it tends to be fifty dollars. Fifty dollars just to be in the same room as a vet. That doesn't include any testing or treatments.

...Fifty dollars to trim overgrown teeth.
...Twenty dollars to clip bird wings.
...Eight hundred dollars to let a frog sit in warm water til he pooped.

There is also the vet that looks at you and pegs you for a sucker and tries to milk you dry by running up the costs of tests and treatments that may not even be necessary.

Then there is my ultimate favorite. The vet who is seemingly trying to be nice by saving you money. But asks you... "Why not just buy another one."

Why would I rather take my animals to the vet and spend large amounts of money when I could by a new one for a fraction of the consultation price?

Because these are my pets. They are just as much of a family member as a dog or cat. And they deserve just as much love and care.