Kelly Hurd has been pitching us to producers for Discovery so I sent him footage and story lines.
Some things that are always true of our surgery and vet visits:
Unless you have been involved in these very tense situations, it is hard to explain how stressed out everyone is and our coping mechanism is to joke around and talk about things that have nothing to do with the work at hand as a way of being able to deal with these life and death situations.
In most cases we go to the vet not knowing if we will have to make the awful decision to euthanize one of our family members, because loading a cat up and taking them offsite to a vet clinic is the last ditch option to save their lives. After 22 years of doing this, we know that there will almost never be a clear choice to make and we will almost always be burdened with making a decision that could result in lingering misery for the cat and then still having to put them out of their misery days, weeks or months later after trying every thing we can to give them a good quality of life.
A lot of the editing will require you to use common sense about what is appropriate or not. Often in these videos you will hear people talking about other vet situations or clients, and unless it is about one of our other cats, that audio can’t be included. The ultimate goal of these vet videos is to show the details of the surgery for vet students and make our vets look great; because they are.
Some clowning around is OK to show, but it should be narrated as to why we act this way in the face of such serious business. Sometimes, while a cat is waking up, we let volunteers touch the cats, as they are never allowed to touch cats otherwise. I would not include this in your finished products though, because we do not want to encourage people to pay to touch big cats.
You will see us often taking a lot of photos and videos because these kinds of surgeries are rare and documentation even more so. That is why these surgery videos could be so helpful to other cats if done well.
In the videos I have sent you, this is the sequence of events, so you know what is going on. If you watch them in this same order, I won’t have to duplicate such detail on latter videos, because you will know what is happening.
Task List
1 Four minute or less video of the surgery or vet visit with no graphic imagery.
1 Twenty minute video with the graphic imagery; suitable for both a vet student and the public, who is fully prepared for what they will see.
WARNING SLIDES: Be sure to warn viewers before showing something like surgery both in a warning slide and in the early part of the accompanying text.
Vet Joseph Lion. http://bigcatrescue.org/joseph/
Joseph stopped eating and stopped taking his pain meds, so we sedated him for diagnostics. Due to his age (16) we didn’t want to risk a long trip to the University of Florida, if we could assess him here, so we invited Dr. Fay Hererro, DVM, from the Odessa Equine Clinic, to bring a portable X-ray machine. Dr. Justin Boorstein invited Dr. Tim Jones to help w/ anesthesia. They drew blood, gave fluids, administered antibiotics and did the X-rays they could, but the portable X-ray machine was just not good enough for abdominal X-rays.
Joseph did not respond to the antibiotics and fluids and continued to refuse food and water, so we asked the Humane Society of Tampa Bay if we could use their X-ray and Sonogram machines, after hours, and took him in for more X-rays, blood work, fluids, a longer lasting antibiotic and a sonogram.
Nothing of note was found in all of these diagnostics, except a possibility of neoplasia, which are masses in the abdomen. We had hoped that the antibiotics, fluids and appetite stimulants would help get him up and eating again, but they didn’t.
We discussed euthanasia, with both vets, and Dr. Wynn suggested a last ditch effort of injecting him with a steroid. It had been 8 days since he had eaten anything and 3 days since he drank water on his own, so we gave that a shot. He drank for the first time, a few hours later, but still wouldn’t eat. 10/31/14
On 11/1/14 Sue got him to eat just a few bites of food with his meds in them, so we held off on euthanasia, to see if he is rounding the bend.
Vet Little Feather. This is the most recent vet issue. Little Feather is 21 years old. http://bigcatrescue.org/little-feather/ as was on the observation chart on Oct 10th for having a puffy chin, but we didn’t see an obvious swelling and she has a rather pronounced chin anyway.
Oct. 15th we could see there was an abscess and made an appointment for her to go in to the vet the next day. Her dental X-rays showed that almost all of her teeth were rotten and the jaw bones were decaying as well. Dr. Justin had to pull the teeth very gently, so as not to break her jaw. He pulled 8 teeth; her last remaining canine tooth and 7 others and was about done. There was one more tooth, that didn’t look bad on the surface, or in the X-ray, but he debated as to if he should leave it or take it, given the decay in the jaw.
He decided to pull it and found that it had been the cause of the abscess and was in very bad shape. Had he not pulled it, we would have had to bring her right back in a few days or weeks. Good instincts!
Little Feather was put on pain meds and kept in the Cat Hospital at BCR for a few days until she was eating well and ready to go back to her cage. When we opened the door of the transport cage she had been sleeping in, to let her out into her outdoor enclosure, she dragged her back foot.
It looked like some neurological issue, so we crated her back up and took her in to the Ehrlich Animal Hospital where Dr. Farid Saleh, who is not our regular vet, gave her an exam and said that he believed she had thrown a blood clot that was causing neurological damage to her foot. She had no feeling in her foot. He treated her with laser therapy and sent her home with instructions for daily massages and controlled walking to help her work out the clot and regain use of the foot.
10/31/14 Little Feather is continuing to get physical therapy, such as laser therapy, and massage therapy and harness walking to keep her foot alive and hopefully dissolve the clot that is keeping her from having the ability to use her foot properly. We do not condone people having wild cats as pets and are hesitant to even show a cat in a harness, or being touched by people, but she is declawed and now has no teeth due to her old age, so we are able to give her the help she needs without risk.
Vet Natasha Siberian Lynx. http://bigcatrescue.org/natasha/
Natasha is 21 years old. She has been healthy for most of her life, except a bout of seizures and dizziness in her early years that turned out to be one of the first confirmed cases of heart worms in cats. As a result we began using ivermectin monthly in all of our cats as a preventative, back in the 90’s.
Her recent observations by keepers were that she was breathing heavily and not hungry, so we took her in to see Dr. Wynn on Oct 30, 2014. For a 21 year old cat, her kidneys look surprisingly good, but her lungs are congested and we can see, by looking down her throat (great video of this) that half of her throat is paralyzed, so all of her breathing and eating is happening on the side that is still functioning.
We did a biopsy, to see if there is a tumor that is causing the one side to be forced shut (from the pressure), but we can’t see a tumor. There isn’t any surgery to fix this.
She is getting antibiotics to clear up the infection in her throat and lungs and that should help a lot. Getting those meds into her will be the challenge. If she will eat, that is easy to do, but if she won’t then she will have to stay in the Cat Hospital for injections. She is taking her meds and eating well, so we moved her back outside 11/1/2014
Vet Simba Leopard. http://bigcatrescue.org/simba-2/
On this page is another video. In that video is a clip of Simba going to the vet.:http://bigcatrescue.org/now-big-cat-rescue-jan-11-2014/ Appx date: Jan 11, 2014
Cast, you don’t have to name them. Just named here in case you want to or have title slides. Vet’s should always be named or have title slides:
Trapping Simba:
Willow Hecht, Green Shirt Keeper, Red Hair
Reddish shirt, Carole Baskin, CEO
Navy shirt, Master Keeper, Jamie Veronica, President
Navy shirt, Master Keeper, Gale Ingham (thin) Operation Mgr
Green Shirt Keeper, Chris Poole
Lifting Simba add:
Green Shirt Keeper, blonde, Chelsea Feeney
The long golf cart we use is named Gertie
On site hospital is the: West Boensch (bench) Cat Hospital for weight so vet can sedate.
Van is a 1998 Dodge Ram van that leaks, rattles and really needs to be replaced. Lifted into van to drive to vet who works in a practice about a mile away called the Ehrlich (ur-lick) Animal Hospital.
Vet techs help offload Simba. Vet is Dr. Liz Wynn, who has been our vet for over a decade. She comes twice a week at no charge to do house calls. We do have to pay for X-rays, blood work, drugs, etc. Simba is sedated and then gently touched around his eyes to see if he has a blink reflex. Cats can fool you by being very still and then attacking, but they can’t control an involuntary blink reflex, so we always check to be sure they are really asleep before reaching in for them.
We double check his weight and wrap him in a blanket (burrito style) because it is safer, if he wakes suddenly and carrying a sleeping big cat is like trying to carry 100 plus pounds of liver. We draw blood every time a cat is sedated. It gives us a benchmark to use in their record and we check for infections diseases, kidney function (failure) because our cats are all so old and in varying stages of renal failure.
Vet manipulates joints and listens and feels for “crunching” that indicate calcium build up of arthritis. All of our old, gimpy cats are on supplements for their joints and some are on stronger meds. Palpitates for masses as cancer is the second most common cat killer (after old age destroys their kidneys). Even though Simba is sedated, Jamie, Gale or Carole usually hangs onto the scruff during most of the procedures, just in case he wakes up suddenly.
Leopards are the biggest cats that a typical dog / cat clinic can Xray. The most dangerous moments at the vet are during the Xray because none of the BCR staff can be in the room.
At appx 34 min. Dr Wynn expresses frustration that the X-rays aren’t showing us why Simba is so wobbly. He had been falling over and acting disoriented. She’s worried that he will hurt himself if he falls off or tries to jump down and suggests longer ramps.
Part of his problem is that he has gained 50 lbs since being prescribed medication, so they aren’t as effective. It’s really hard to tell the weight of a cat, because they are so muscular and have such loose skin.
You can see and hear dogs and I hate this part of going to the vet. Cats should never have to tolerate that and even asleep, I think they can hear us, and the dogs, and that is stressful. It is one more reason we need a full service vet clinic on site; so we never have to expose our cats to dogs barking.
Dr Wynn is getting better about speaking up for the camera, but on these old ones you will probably really have to bump up the volume, while killing background noises, to hear her.
We drive Simba back to our on site hospital to let him recover and as soon as he can safely be returned to his Cat-a-Tat he is delivered by Green Shirt Matt, Green Shirt Nanci, Gale and Jamie. How long in the Cat Hospital is usually dependent on making sure they are eating well, taking their meds and are stable.
Vet Nik Tiger Eye Surgery. http://bigcatrescue.org/nikita-tiger/
Sedated, but vomited. We try to fast them before sedation, but sometimes they still have food from the night before in their stomachs, or from morning meds. Sedation makes them nauseous and they almost always will have dry heaves or vomit and doing so in their sleep can choke them to death. The options aren’t good if a 700 lb cat is choking because there isn’t much we can do about it without someone getting killed if he isn’t asleep fully.
Tests blink reflex w/ stick.
Load onto Gertie
Cast:
Dr. Justin Boorstein (boor-steen)
Dr. Liz Wynn
Master Keeper, Jamie Veronica, President
Master Keeper, Gale Ingham (thin) Operation Mgr
Green Shirt Keeper, Chris Poole
Yellow Shirt Keeper Sharon
Yellow Shirt (maybe red) Keeper Darren
Yellow Shirt (maybe red) Keeper Jen
Navy Shirt, Master Keeper Regina
Yellow Shirt (maybe green) Keeper Lynda
9-10 people to carry Nik on a specially made stretcher
Our scales only go to 500 so we have to distribute Nik over two of them as he is 700 lbs.
Dr. Tammy Miller is the eye specialist and she brought her own vet techs to the sanctuary to do this procedure in the West Boensch (bench) Cat Hospital.
Because this was such delicate surgery, Nik was restrained with ropes. Sometimes cats can have seizures under anesthesia, so we didn’t want him to kick the vet’s hand while she is cutting on his eye.
Nik’s eye trouble started the same way most big cats’ eye troubles start. They are pulled from their mothers when just days or hours old; put on an insufficient diet of puppy or kitten milk replacer and then have flashes go off in their sensitive eyes for the first 4 months of their lives, until they are too big to use. Then they are discarded or warehoused and usually fed a deficient diet and denied vet care until they die.
Nutritional cataracts are very common in cubs who were used as pay to play props. Sometimes the lens breaks loose and can be very painful, so surgery is needed to repair the eye.
Make sure there are warning slides before graphic images.
We give fluids to help the cats eliminate the drugs we used to sedate them. These are given SubQ (under the skin) rather than IV (intravenously) Sometimes you will see us squeezing the bag to give the fluids as quickly as we can, other times, like this one, there is a compression cuff (white) that squeezes the bag as we use the hand pump. The reason we are in such a hurry is because anything can go wrong at any time and we may have to wake the cat up suddenly if they start to arrest, so we want to get the fluids on board fast.
We draw blood every time a cat is sedated. It gives us a benchmark to use in their record and we check for infections diseases, kidney function (failure) because our cats are all so old and in varying stages of renal failure.
Vet manipulates joints and listens and feels for “crunching” that indicate calcium build up of arthritis. All of our old, gimpy cats are on supplements for their joints and some are on stronger meds.
Palpitates for masses as cancer is the second most common cat killer (after old age destroys their kidneys). Even though Simba is sedated, Jamie, Gale or Carole usually hangs onto the scruff during most of the procedures, just in case he wakes up suddenly.
Dr Wynn mentions “reversing” Nik. This is an injection to reverse the drugs we gave him to sedate him and it is good to do that as soon as he is safely on gas (either a mask or tube down his throat) because having all those drugs at work and the anesthesia gas can kill them.
Nik will need drops in his eyes and Gale has become expert at tricking the cats into looking up at a treat and dropping the medication into their eyes. It stings and they don’t like it, so it is amazing that she can get them to do it over and over and over; usually 2-3 times a day for 10 days.
Nik had been declawed and defanged by his former owner who used him as a petting prop, even as a full grown adult. She had tight collars on him and the other 5 cats rescued from there, and would chain them to the ground with chains so short they couldn’t turn their heads to bite the people who would sit on their backs for photo ops. That was illegal, and she lost her USDA license, but continued to do it for years because no one took any action against her.
Nik will wake up in the transport wagon. We can’t leave any bedding in there, or he will eat it. Whenever our cats are asleep we micro chip them, if they haven’t had one before. While the cat is sleeping, Big Cat Rescuers take the opportunity to mow, landscape and do other cage enhancements to the cat’s enclosure.
There is a separate video called Vet Nik Tiger Wheezing. You may want to add this to the end of the video and say that his eye has healed well and Nik has been doing fine, except that he has begun wheezing when he gets excited. He needs to be X-rayed, but the only machine big enough is two hours away and he is too old and had too much trouble breathing to make the trip. Thanks to some wonderful donors we have a new X-ray machine but need a building big enough to put it in.
There is another video file called Vet Dr Liz Wynn. You may want to include this from it:
Dr. Wynn is a volunteer vet and has been with us for over a decade.
She shows how we put drops in Nik Tiger’s eye and she describes the coloration and procedure a bit.
Vet Arthur Tiger Dental. http://bigcatrescue.org/arthur/ Date of dental: 12/9/12
Arthur was rescued in 2011 but was in no shape for the prolonged surgery necessary for a root canal. By Dec. 2012 we asked Dr. Peak to come to Big Cat Rescue to help Arthur and his brother Andre, who had suffered broken teeth since 2003.
Cast:
Dr. Michael Peak http://www.thepetdentist.com/meet-the-doctors.php
Dr. Justin Boorstein (boor-steen)
Dr. Liz Wynn
Master Keeper, Jamie Veronica, President
Master Keeper, Gale Ingham (thin) Operation Mgr
Green Shirt Keeper, Chris Poole
Green Shirt Keeper, Angie
Green Shirt Partner Jeff (who usually stands by with a gun and dart gun in case of emergency)
You may find some video of trying to get Arthur into his feeding lock out later, out of sequence. It was a little confusing, but they finally gave up on him going in the transport and managed to get him into his feeding area where Jamie sedated him. Jamie is our best person on the “jab stick” which is needle on the end of a pole that injects the drugs on impact. It makes a loud noise and the cats usually spin and lash out at the person doing it, but Jamie has nerves of steel and manages to retract the pole without the cat biting it.
It’s better than a dart, because darts have to stick in the cat and stay there until the drugs dispense. If the cat eats the dart, that is very bad. Board is held across cat because they can raise up very unexpectedly and bite. Protecting the vet is our main objective.
Backstory: Arthur and Andre broke their canine teeth off during transport in 2003 from NJ to TX the first time they were rescued. The sanctuary that took them in didn’t give them dental care for 10 years and went bankrupt in 2011. That is when we rescued Arthur, Andre and their sister Amanda, but they were in bad shape and not capable of undergoing extensive surgery.
Not in this video, but for reference; as soon as they were strong enough after their arrival, Andre (not Arthur) was sedated due to the fact that his untreated, broken teeth (since 2003) were obviously causing pain and he couldn’t eat. He died on the table during the dental surgery, but there were 5 vets there and they said, “No one is going to the light with five vets in the room!” They brought him around, but decided to wait on doing the other two canines until he was stronger. I don’t know if there ever was any video of that. I can’t find it.
Arthur had a seizure after being sedated. This happens maybe 5 percent of the time and can be life threatening. We use a cocktail of drugs to be as easy on the cat as possible, but every cat is different and reacts differently. Arthur reacted very badly and scared us even further because he would hold his breath for such long periods of time that we often feared he was dead.
Graphic warnings through out are needed.
Back to Arthur. Dr. Peak performed a root canal. They drew blood to check for feline viruses, infections and kidney levels. This lets us know if there are underlying issues to deal with and gives us comparisons for latter life levels. We draw blood every time a cat is sedated. It gives us a benchmark to use in their record and we check for infections diseases, kidney function (failure) because our cats are all so old and in varying stages of renal failure.
During the root canal Dr Peak finds a shard of plastic lodged inside the tooth against the nerve. You can just imagine how painful that must have been. It was probably from a toy or water bucket that was not tiger proof. While this was pretty rare, to see a shard of plastic embedded inside the tooth, it is very common for people to give big cats toys and water buckets that are too flimsy. The cats bite off portions, which end up lodging in their stomachs and intestines, causing internal hemorrhaging and a painful death. The reason people do that is that it is cheaper than buying items that are safe for the cats.
The gun they point at the tiger’s face is an X-ray gun. Dr Peak takes X-rays in the field and even brings along a developing tank to monitor his progress as he goes. Arthur gets IV fluids to give him an added boost and to flush the sedation drugs out of his system when he awakes.
At about minute 35 Dr Liz Wynn gives a good overview of what we are doing and why. These are usually at the end of the videos that I give you, because we don’t know what is going to happen in the beginning, but you can use parts of it earlier in the story to illustrate.
Dr. Peak packs Arthurs root canals with antibiotics to help kill any infection.
We move Arthur into the transport wagon to wake up. As soon as surgeries are over the cats are “reversed” ( they are reversed as soon as they go on gas, if they are masked or intubated ) Cats can wake up very quickly as soon as they are reversed, and / or taken off gas. They can easily take off a limb with a groggy bite so we are very quick to get them into a controlled area so they can wake up fully. The next really dangerous part of any sedation, is the waking up.
Even though they can wake up quickly, they also can go back to sleep and never wake up. We do everything we can to get them sternal (laying on their stomachs with their heads up) as soon as possible after sedation. We call their names, tickle their ears and toes (they hate that) rock the cage, bang on the bars and totally obnoxious. It is so tempting to just let them enjoy a good long sleep after their ordeal, but that could be the death of them, so we have to be the bad guys and wake them up. Another thing that kills many exotic cats is hyperthermia from anesthesia. This causes their bodies to overheat and can just cook them to death inside of a few minutes. The whole time we are waking them up we are looking for signs of hyperthermia (opposite of hypothermia where you get too cold and die) If they spike a temperature we are suddenly in a life or death position of deciding if the cat is groggy enough to pull them out and put them in a tub of ice water, or, in the case of a tiger, if it will be safe to open the door and start packing them in ice. There is always this dilemma going on of doing what will save the cat without undue risk to the people trying to save the cat, because if the cat wakes up, someone is going to get hurt or die.
Cats don’t understand; as much as we would like to believe they do, when you are trying to save their lives. There have certainly been what appears to be exceptions, like removing a piece of food from a choking cat’s mouth and having them not turn right around and bite me for reaching down their throat, but I think by and large I’ve just been lucky.
Back to Arthur. Several hours lapse between the time of his waking and release back into his Cat-a-Tat, and I think there may even be some film out of sequence, at this point, although I am not sure how that could have happened.
Dr. Peak did the root canals on both Arthur and Andre on this day, so we would have been sedating Arthur, doing his surgery, putting him back in the transport to wake up and then sedating Andre, doing his surgery, and then putting him back in his enclosure. The easiest way to tell these brothers apart is that Andre has a notch in his ear, courtesy of his brother.
Waking up from anesthesia can be ugly. Arthur thrashed around a bit waking up. What most people don’t know, when they take their pets to the vet, is that they are kept away as the animals are going down and coming up from anesthesia, or they would completely freak out. The cats bang their heads on the bars and thrash around like wild. Unless they are very, very sick, they don’t usually go under easily.
Vet Andre Tiger Dental. http://bigcatrescue.org/andre/. Date of dental: 12/9/12
Gale distracts Andre so Jamie can sedate him using the pole syringe. We often put a blanket over the head of the sedated animal so that if they wake suddenly, they feel secure in the dark and cannot land a bite as easily. You will often see Jeff Kremer, our Director of Donor Appreciation (tall, slim, bald, usually wearing khakis) in our surgery videos because he is our marksman and in charge of darting or killing the tiger depending on what life threatening event happens.
As noted in Arthur’s dental info, this is Andre’s second dental. He died and was revived during our first attempt several months ago, so now we are trying to finish the repair to his four broken canine teeth. We were told that in 2003, when Wild Animal Orphanage rescued him from Tigers Only in NJ, he broke off all four canines on the bars of the transport cage. Wild Animal Orphanage took in 23 tigers during that rescue operation and was unable to fund all of the medical needs. Andre suffered with exposed nerves in his teeth for the next 8 years. When WAO went bankrupt we helped orchestrate the rescue of the final 7 tigers there, thanks to financial help from an amazing couple. Four went to Carolina Tiger Rescue and Andre, Arthur and Amanda came to us.
Andre has a growth on one of his back legs, so we used the opportunity to do a biopsy. Andre’s blood pressure began dropping dramatically 107/72 so he was reversed, since he was on gas. His temperature dropped significantly as well, so we covered him in an electric heating blanket. He was fighting sedation so hard that we had to give him more drugs. It is always such a fine line to balance between making sure they feel no pain and don’t hurt anyone and yet not killing them with kindness.
This video shows the X-ray developing tank. Red glass tank. At the end the vets gave Andre straight oxygen through the mask to help him flush the anesthetic gas from his lungs. This will help him wake more quickly. Again we stimulate him in every way we can to get him up and sternal as quickly as possible.
King Tut and Zulu Hybrid Cats. 10/16/2012
http://bigcatrescue.org/king-tut/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ka3Xu1cEEq4
You can scrape video from here to use in this video if you want
http://bigcatrescue.org/hybrid-facts/
We almost never take in hybrid cats because they do not require permits to possess, so any cat lover can take them in and we need to save our cage space for cats who require permits that most domestic cat rescue groups don’t have. The hardest part of turning them away is that breeders will try to get their hands on any hybrids they can because people buy them over the Internet or at cat shows and don’t know, until after they have paid thousands of dollars for them, that they spray and defecate all over everything to mark it as theirs.
King Tut and Zulu had been terrorizing a neighborhood after either escaping or being turned loose by their owner, and Animal Control trapped them. A man from the Sierra Club heard about it and went to see the cats that had been brought in. He wasn’t sure what they were (I think he called them Jag Cats) and called us. He brought them to us to see if we would take them.
Both were thin, but King Tut was emaciated. His paw had been injured, so he probably couldn’t hunt or travel as well as Zulu, plus he felt awful trying to fight off infection, so he was just wasting away.
Zulu turned out to be a handful and have awful house manners, but one of our long time volunteers, Sharon Dower, asked to adopt her anyway, and we were happy that she would get a home. She was spayed first and for a while could be watched on our live web cams via UStream.tv/channel/bigcathospital
King Tut responded well to antibiotics and a good diet, but he’s just too dangerous for a pet home, so he will live with us forever. There is some later video of him (I don’t know if I bound it into one file) where King Tut is released out into his Cat-a-Tat. All he needs now is food and love.
Vet Dr Wynn. http://www.ehrlichanimalhospital.com/about-us/veterinarians/
This video can be put into other videos as needed. I don’t think there is enough here for a full 20 min segment. Maybe a segment under 4 minutes as a stand alone piece.
Dr. Wynn is a volunteer vet and has been with us for over a decade. She shows how we put drops in Nik Tiger’s eye and she describes the coloration and procedure a bit. http://bigcatrescue.org/nikita-tiger/
We don’t give Vet Tours but our vets both come out twice a week or more and will answer questions if a tour group happens by.
Tonga the white serval had a nosectomy, to remove his nose, to get rid of all the cancer. That’s been more than two years ago and has allowed Tonga to live as long as most of our servals usually do (17 is the average for our servals. most other places only 10-12) and he is still doing well. This shows how quickly and how far a wild cat can reach out through the bars of the cage and why we have to be so careful around them. http://bigcatrescue.org/tonga/
Jumanji the black leopard is being treated for his skin allergies. Not in this video, but we are now using a new blend of fatty acids in all of the cats’ diet to help them with skin and coat condition. http://bigcatrescue.org/jumanji/
There is some previous footage on Tonga’s nose.
Vet Skipper Lynx May 2014. http://bigcatrescue.org/skipper/
Skipper is taken to the vet because Keepers notice that he isn’t passing feces.
Every day, as Keepers clean the cages, they note food left over, the feces condition (runny, grassy, missing), vet issues like scratching, coughing up hairballs, and cage maintenance issues. All of these notes are entered into a data base at the end of cleaning. This sends an immediate email out to the Operations Manager, CEO, President, Vets and Maintenance staff and becomes a permanent part of each cat’s medical record. Not passing feces for a couple of days means trouble, so Skipper was taken to the vet for diagnostics.
That’s never an easy thing to do. Catching the cat is always stressful to the cat and dangerous for the people involved. If there is any way to check a cat and treat them in their cage we do, but this sort of problem would require sedation and X-rays. There is footage of us catching Skipper in this video that you can scrape for use in this video if you want.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRC_pCZqza4
Dr. Wynn tries a warm water enema first, but Skipper’s intestines are really blocked.
Note that Jamie Veronica is able to pull up Skipper’s complete medical history on her phone for the vet, because of the google Education Apps site that we use to keep all of these records. We have set up more than a dozen sites like ours for other sanctuaries to use in the care of their animals.
Let me know if you want screen shots of these kinds of files for the video.
When we have time to take a volunteer or intern along, we often pick someone who has been especially helpful and who happens to be in the right place as we are heading out. This time it was Green Shirt Afton Tasler. Afton got the job of clipping Skipper’s nails while he slept. In this raw footage are vets talking about other client’s pets, so be sure none of that makes it into the final cut.
The vet does X-rays and a sonogram to make sure she has gotten to the root of the problem. It would be foolish to assume we got it all and then be back in here two days later because the main blockage was still there. This is a good time to talk about how dangerous it is to sedate a cat and why we don’t do it any more than absolutely necessary and to talk about why we need our own, on site X-ray and sonogram. Both have now been donated, but we are still fundraising for the building to house them, as our current, West Boensch Cat Hospital is too small.
Skipper is given fluids to help flush out the drugs used to sedate him and to help hydrate his entire system to make it easier to pass feces. Dr. Wynn talks about how cats get so stressed going to the vet (domestics too) that their blood sugar levels spike, which can sometimes be mistaken for diabetes.
Vet Cheetaro Leopard. 2013 vet visit. http://bigcatrescue.org/cheetaro/
Even though our cages are full of trees and wooden structures for the cats to sharpen their claws, they often do not do it consistently enough to keep their nails from growing too long. Because of the way the claws are curved, they can grow all the way around and pierce the paw pads. Their feet are so furry and the ground in their cages so soft, that we often cannot see that there is a problem until the cat begins limping.
Given the ages of our cats who are mostly geriatric, it can be hard to tell if it is an ingrown nail or the inevitable arthritis of old age. Some cats, like Cheetaro, we know to have chronic nail issues, so in his case we knew we would have to sedate him and clip his nails back.
You might wonder why we don’t declaw cats who have these issues, but declawing takes off the entire last digit of the toe, can cause extreme pain to walk and the nails still grow back in many cases; just worse, like out of the tops or sides of their paws.
Due to Cheetaro’s advanced age we only want to lightly sedate him, but he’s one of our most dangerous leopards too, so we need to be sure the vet is safe while working. You can see in this video how hard it can be to draw blood from a cat. They have evolved to have tiny veins that roll away from the point of puncture. This is great for avoiding a bite from another cat, but makes it hard on our vets to get a vein. Dr. Wynn and Jamie Veronica discuss some ways to encourage Cheetaro to use his scratching items more.
Vet Jade Leopard. http://bigcatrescue.org/jade/
Jade had been vomiting. There probably isn’t enough here to do anything with. There must have been other video taken at this time that may have already been used on BigCatTV.com or YouTube.com/DailyBigCat Jade illustrates how hard it is to catch a leopard. I think leopards are the smartest of the cats.
We feed them every night and their water bowls are in their Lock Outs, so they know it is a safe place. Part of our Operant Conditioning with them is to give them treats in Lock Out and open and shut the door, so that when we do need to trap them, that isn’t scary. CEO, Jamie Veronica and her husband, Dr. Justin Boorstein talk about how they will hook up the transport inside the cage.
We lock the cat into one of the furthermost sections of their cages, which are all in 2 to 4 sections, separated by guillotine doors. Then we can open the outside door to bring in the transport. Once in the transport we have to slide in long metal poles so that the volunteers carrying the cats can keep their hands and arms away from the cat. We have to go slowly so the cat doesn’t strike out at the poles and risk breaking a tooth.
We weigh Jade at the West Boensch Cat Hospital before taking her in to see Dr. Wynn, so she has a recent weight on which to base her sedation drug dose. Unfortunately there is no vet video attached, so I don’t know if any of this makes sense to use. This video was on our secondary site, and thus never got much exposure. Jade's sister, Armani had a polyp in the back of her throat that was causing her to choke and had to be removed.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjxJL-_uO4s
Vet Canyon Sandcat Claws 12/10/13 http://bigcatrescue.org/canyon/
I didn’t get a chance to take notes on this one, but it’s pretty clear what is happening. According to books I’ve read, Sandcats don’t live past 13.9 years and ours are both over 14 now. Given the ages of our cats who are mostly geriatric, it can be hard to tell if it is an ingrown nail or the inevitable arthritis of old age. Some cats, like Canyon, we know to have chronic nail issues, so in his case we knew we would have to sedate him and clip his nails back.
You might wonder why we don’t declaw cats who have these issues, but declawing takes off the entire last digit of the toe, can cause extreme pain to walk and the nails still grow back in many cases; just worse, like out of the tops or sides of their paws. Due to Canyon’s advanced age we only want to lightly sedate him, but the littler the cat, the more fierce they are, so we need to be sure the vet is safe while working.
Enrichment http://bigcatrescue.org/enrichment/
I didn’t get to take notes while encoding the enrichment footage from tape to digital but here is what I did note:
Pinatas
Cupcakes - Jade and Armani Leopards http://bigcatrescue.org/jade/ and http://bigcatrescue.org/armani/
Dinosaur - TJ Tiger http://bigcatrescue.org/tj/
Donkey - Cameron Lion and Zabu Tiger http://bigcatrescue.org/cameron-lion/ and http://bigcatrescue.org/zabu/
Flower - Nikita Lioness http://bigcatrescue.org/2011/nikita-3/
Present - Jumanji Leopard http://bigcatrescue.org/jumanji/
Toys
Barbara Frank and Chris Poole load toys.
Yellow Donut - Cameron Lion’s favorite toy http://bigcatrescue.org/cameron-lion/ and http://bigcatrescue.org/zabu/
Red & Blue Donuts - Arthur, Andre and Amanda Tigers http://bigcatrescue.org/arthur/ and http://bigcatrescue.org/andre/ and http://bigcatrescue.org/amanda/
Meat Cakes for Birthdays
Apollo and Zeus the Siberian Lynx http://bigcatrescue.org/apollo/ and http://bigcatrescue.org/zeus/
Bengali Tiger moaning and rubbing http://bigcatrescue.org/bengali/
Other
Castle - Little Feather Bobcat http://bigcatrescue.org/little-feather/
Rock den - Apache Bobcat who got a card board cake http://bigcatrescue.org/apache/
Jamie at the beach with her friend Gail.
Hi, I’m Carole Baskin and I’ve been writing my story since I was able to write, but when the media goes to share it, they only choose the parts that fit their idea of what will generate views. If I'm going to share my story, it should be the whole story. The titles are the dates things happened. If you have any interest in who I really am please start at the beginning of this playlist: http://savethecats.org/
I know there will be people who take things out of context and try to use them to validate their own misconception, but you have access to the whole story. My hope is that others will recognize themselves in my words and have the strength to do what is right for themselves and our shared planet.
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Music (if any) from Epidemic Sound (http://www.epidemicsound.com) This video is for entertainment purposes only and is my opinion.