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

[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.