categories

[asterroc]

I realized that there's four categories of pets: cats, dogs, farm animals, and exotics. Anyone else find that strange? Someone tell me what birds, "pocket pets," and turtles really have to do with each other.

Comments

[l0stmyrel1g10n.livejournal.com]

i'm not sure what a pocket pet is, but birds and reptiles are, evolutionarily speaking, fairly closely related, right?

are pocket pets like rodents? rabbits and suchlike?

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Yeah, isn't it a cute terminology? ^_^

Probably a little further apart than placentals and marsupials. Aren't reptiles cold-blooded? Birds aren't. That's a kinda major difference. Imagine if a human doctor were told he had to help a sick koala. I expect it'd be tough. Things like X-rays, blood work, feeling for organ displacement...

[rubicat.livejournal.com]

I was once told that vet students generally learn the "big" animals, and then take a semester on exotics. Guinea pigs, I was told, was one WEEK of learning. Birds and avian medicine, at least, were a concentration. But yeah, it was pretty strange that anything deemed not feline, canine, or rodent was considered "exotic." I would only hope that things are changing....

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

The overnight vet told me that she'd done an internship w/ birds - but she didn't specify how long. It wasn't enough for her to notice the abdominal mass and displaced internal organs that worried the exotics vet until he got Peeper's bloodwork back. He's kinda dropped that in favor of the kidney failure now.

It seems they are learning more about birds, as people in general that I talk to these days know a bit more about feeding them stuff other than just seeds, and more often know about taking them to the vet for yearly checkups, and so on. Though, I talked w/ a woman in the waiting room who runs an animal rescue shelter in NH, and despite being there for chemotherapy for a mostly-blind cat, she said it'd never occured to her to take her (healthy) birds to a vet for a checkup. I talked with her about how I've been considering a cat after Peeper (*sniff*), and she sounded receptive to my allergy concerns (it depends upon the individual for me) so I got her name and number.

It's probably b/c pepole rarely take "exotics" to the vet that vets don't bother to learn more about them.

[marquiswildbill.livejournal.com]

If you can, find out if you can get Peeper seen by an avian specialist at a vetrinary school. I am pretty certain there is one in Boston. Failing that the zoo would have one. Might cost an arm and a leg though, but if they're an academic, you might get some kind of break for being a science prof.
The exotic category does seem a bit weird though.
Again, best wishes with all this. May the Flying Spaghetti Monster touch Peeper with his noodly appendage.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Well, she does have a "regular" bird vet that she sees regularly. I'm going to ask tomorrow about getting a second opinion from them. Her regular vet is at a cat & bird clinic, and I believe there's just a few vets and each does either cats or birds. We always see the same one. So point is, she'd know birds (and Peeper) better than the current guy. Whom I believe is an intern rather than a full resident Doctored vet. But the hospital was open 24/7, and I've heard that they're a good place.

[galbinus-caeli.livejournal.com]

Cats, Dogs, and Farm Animals are all domesticated work animals (in Europe and North America) so they are the "normal" veterinary subjects. Everything else is exotic because it falls outside of that category.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but cats and dogs are both discrete species. At least most farm animals are ruminants - unless they also count chicken and ducks. At least exotics are all vertebrates...

[galbinus-caeli.livejournal.com]

That is very true. But from a historical perspective vets were there to take care of our work animals and only recently started looking at pets.

It is kind of the same reason we call squash, peppers, and tomatoes vegetables when biologically they are fruits.