Status Updates From All Things Wise and Wonderful

Treating guide dogs for the blind has always seemed to me to be one of a veterinary surgeon’s most rewarding tasks. To be in a position to help and care for these magnificent animals is a privilege, not just because they are highly trained and valuable but because they represent in the ultimate way something which has always lain near the core and centre of my life: the mutually depending, trusting and loving associa

A victory over an animal is a hollow one

Thank God there were moments like this among the traumas of veterinary work; the sudden transition from despair to triumph, from shame to pride.

Vets often wonder after a patient’s recovery just how much credit they might take. Maybe it would have got better without treatment—it happened sometimes; it was difficult to be sure. But when you know without a shadow of a doubt that even without doing anything clever, you have pulled an animal back from the brink of death into the living, breathing world, it is a satisfaction which lingers, flowing like balm over t