When babies and puppies are born to die
I still remember my first patient dying of parvo. I was absolutely devastated, he was from a horrible pet shop in southern Spain and most animals coming out of there were sick.
I feel for the vets I see on social media posting about positive parvo tests and unvaccinated puppies. I think it’s brilliant we now have these platforms whereby we can educate owners and they can firsthand see the consequences of the decisions they make for their pet-babies.
And I also know that no matter how much we do, anti vaxxers will exist forever. And some people will never understand the benefits of insurance, or save up for an emergency, or they just don’t have the resources.
This is where we need to learn to manage our minds and emotions around shitty situations we land in, where life seems incredibly cruel and unfair.
For reference, I’ll tell you a story a nurse told me on a night shift together. I don’t remember the exact details, but she was volunteering in an orphanage somewhere in Africa. HIV-infected women would come there to give birth, and as a lot of them were sick and non-treated, their babies would often be premature.
Now, this place didn’t have incubators, or any other high intensive care facilities for these babies. So they were basically born to die.
All the volunteers could do was to carry the little things in a sling, on their chest, to give them warmth and the comfort of a heart beat. And let them die peacefully. Now, that’s next level tough!!
So, when we’re put in these situations, where we KNOW we could make a difference, had we just had access to the right tools, at the right time, with enough money, and then …. We just don’t have that …. That’s when we need to have tools to manage our mind and not succumb to an eternal argument with reality:
- There are no incubators for those babies
- Some puppies will not get vaccinated
- Some owners will not have the financial means to let us do what we need to save a pet.
- Some pets will be brought to us too late
- Some owners will refuse treatment
And so on. This does not mean you’ve failed. It means life has put you in a certain situation with a specific set of tools and abilities, and you can do your best. Your best to help avoid pain and suffering. Your best to try to convince the owners of doing the right thing. Your best at diagnosing with no tests or imaging.
And let go of the perfect scenario, thinking that things “shouldn’t” be like this, or “if only”.
As Byron Katie puts it, when you argue with reality, you lose, but only always.
We now have access to incredible tools such as CT, MRI, detailed blood tests and Pet Blood Bank, for example. It doesn’t mean we can always use them, just because they exist. Because they are not for every owner nor pet.
Humans are messy and imperfect, and so we cannot expect pet owners to be any different.
If you have that expectation, you are going to get very disappointed and frustrated, and that serves no-one.
When you go to bed at night, know that you have done your best, WITHIN each situation, and that’s as perfect as it gets. You have done enough. You are enough. This is how you thrive, no matter what.
This is the skillset you learn in coaching: Being able to manage your mind and emotions in any situation, so you can get up looking forward to your day every morning. Looking forward to going to work because you know you make a difference.
Check out my program "Happy in Vet Med" that helps you exactly with this. AND, if you then decide you want one on one coaching to support you, you get discounted the price of the program because it is included in my coaching 🤗
In your corner,
