Today's adventures with wildlife.

Dr. Cliff shares his experiences volunteering at Shades of Hope, a wildlife rehabilitation center. He discusses the various cases he encountered, including eye conditions in birds, a baby groundhog with a parasite, a fawn with a neck wound, and a coyote with multiple injuries. Dr. Cliff emphasizes the importance of euthanasia in relieving suffering and discusses the decision-making process involved. He also highlights the value of teaching and inspiring future veterinarians through hands-on experiences.

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Transcript

Dr. Cliff Redford (00:02)
Hey everyone, it's Thursday June 6th. I'm just driving back from my weekly volunteer work at Shades of Hope. And I thought I would record a little bit of a podcast episode and frankly to see how it sounds. Both the audio quality to see if Riverside .fm and then Buzzsprout .com are the two services I use. One to record and clean up the recording and then the other two I guess essentially post.

or download it, download it, upload it, download it, download it to the different podcast sites like Apple and Spotify. And we talk about the day, because vet life isn't always about being a vet, but sometimes it is. I started volunteering at Shades six years ago, I think, six and a half, I don't know. And it was really only supposed to be for about six months just kind of for me to learn about wildlife medicine and surgery.

Well, I learned so much and enjoyed it that six years later I'm still here. It's always gonna be a long day with the days I go on volunteer because now I'm driving back to the clinic for an evening of paperwork and appointments until about 8 p So today, what did we do? Well, there is a video on my Instagram, check it out at drcliffworldwidevet about how I kind of walk in there and I basically just check out the card and not in chronological order because I'm gonna forget.

What did we see today? There were a bunch of eye cases. We saw a VIOP, Virginia opossum. They all have all these cool acronyms or these cool short forms. VIOP, V -I -O -P. There's a little baby VIOP. Both of his eyes, unfortunately, are non -visual, but he's doing really, really well. And we're going to try him off his pain meds to see how he does without, to see if we have to remove the eyes or not. Of course, he's not going to be released into the wild, but because he's a little one,

He can find a foster home and the biops are really cute and a lot cleaner than people realize and he's going to make a great sort of release into someone's backyard where they're going to take care of them. And he can still eat some ticks and help prevent the world from getting Lyme disease. So we did some eye cases. There was a bedo, which is a barred owl with a...

basically vitreous chamber, vitreous humor inflammation, which is the back of the eye. On both eyes, we're gonna do some systemic antibiotics and some anti -inflammatories to see how that eyesight improves. A lot of eye cases. Birds, one of the students, I had two students there today, Leo and Sarah, shout out to you guys if you hear this, if I end up posting it. Leo had asked why so many birds.

have eye conditions and I think it's basically due to head trauma and you know they just slightly get clipped in the head maybe when they hit the ground due to something else and their eyes take up so much space in their skull and their cranium and they're so fragile that you get bruising and inflammation and cataracts due to trauma things like that, ulcers.

So we ran a couple of ulcer tests on eyes as well. So a lot of eye cases. There was a ground hog there, a little baby ground hog. Someone's gotta remind me what the difference between a gopher and a ground hog is, I can never remember. There's a little baby ground hog who's doing great, but all of a sudden over the last three days, his belly has, I think it's a male, his belly has gotten like twice as big. He's all like doughy and he looks like.

He looks like Sylvester the cat when he drank all that water. And it did feel like dough, like it didn't feel like water, it didn't feel like gas. It felt like soft poop. We took some x -rays and sure enough, it's soft poop. He probably has a parasite called Tania, like a worm, so they're gonna be deworming him. The major cases that we saw, I'm trying to think, because I wanna leave the last two to last. No, there were three, so there was a...

fawn, a baby deer. Interesting, I found out the hard way months and months ago that I'm quite allergic to deer, so I have to leave them till last. I have to make sure I'm wearing gloves, long sleeve shirt ideally, and then really wash up and not touch my face for a while afterwards. Sometimes now just having them in the same room as me, my eardrums become itchy.

Last time, two weeks ago, I had last week off to an attendance deployment. Hi, Dr. Margaret. That's my sister -in -law. I was driving home. We had dealt with this deer that was lightly sedated with some leg injuries. And she had flailed, and it was an adult. She was like kicking and whatnot, so I had to like half jump on her and help. And I had basically an allergic asthma attack on the way home. I probably should have called my wife just in case.

I died, I could have said I love her one more time. Of course, all she would have heard was heavy breathing and she probably would have laughed at me and told me to stop being such a perv and hung up on me. But at least I could have said I tried to communicate. But of course, I was okay. So I'm not really allergic to fawn, which is nice. Well, this poor fawn is, he is probably three or four weeks old.

has a wound on his neck that was infected. He probably got attacked by another animal, but he's like bone thin and dehydrated. They've only had him for 24 hours. So he's probably been out on his own for quite a while and just becoming super weak due to not being able to nurse from his mama. So that's a touchy case. I helped with that medically. And then there were two surgical cases and I'm sorry to say neither of them ended.

positively in the sense of the animals are not going to make it, but we were able to euthanize them humanely so that they weren't suffering anymore. One was a ring -billed gull. We don't call them sea gulls around here because we have no oceans or seas, but it was essentially a sea gull, but a Lake Ontario gull, called a ring -billed gull. And it had a fractured humerus, which I call the funny bone because I have a morbid sense of humor.

a fractured humerus, which is the bone between the elbow and the shoulder, the main arm bone or wing bone for this case. And it was not repairable because it was so close up to the shoulder joint that the type of IM pin technique we use where the pin exits the shoulder and goes all the way down the length of the bone.

It would be exiting essentially right where the fracture is and it just wouldn't be stable and especially with these gulls we've learned over the years that their bones are very prone to fragmenting and breaking into little pieces and getting infected, osteomyelitis. So this little guy, he would never fly properly again so he had to be humanely euthanized. And again, I had the joy of working with Leo and Sarah.

Leo goes to University of Waterloo, future veterinarian. Sarah goes to University of Guelph, future veterinarian. I joked that what if there's only space for one of you guys? We're gonna have to throw you into a ring, let you battle it out, Mad Max style. Of course, them being students, we would lock them in a library and let them battle it out academically instead. But there is room for both of them, but I was just having a little bit of fun. So I got to teach them a lot of things. And then one of the last cases was this,

female coyote and she'd obviously been hit by a car and she had multiple problems. She had a dislocated right hip. The hip socket, what's called the acetabulum, was broken into several pieces and then various parts of the pelvis were broken. Now that was causing a narrowing of her pelvic canal by about 20%.

which is important because it's a female and if the hip heals and the other wound heals that I'll get to, we also have to worry about whether or not she can give birth safely and effectively and without pain to her or her puppies. If the puppies get stuck in the narrow reproductive tract, it's called dystocia and she would die out there in the wild as would the puppies and having a...

female animal that you're releasing into the wild must be able to mate. Male or female, they must be able to mate. That's one of the steps or one of the requirements we have as certified wildlife rescuers to release animals into the wild. They have to be able to mate and breed successfully and give birth successfully. So no neutering or spaying your canids.

various dog -like species and then sending them out, that's not appropriate. They also have to be able to hunt and find food or on the flip side, escape predators, so have a normal place in the circle of life. And then they have to have reasonable mobility. So for example, if it is a Canadian goose, they have to be able to swim a little bit or wade in the water. I guess you would call that wading in the water.

Dive the way they dive though a lot of them will grab grass and stuff most of them with the Canadian geese will grab grasses and whatnot So so diving is not as important, but they also potentially have to be able to not only fly but fly great distances if they are Migratory now if you think they can fly but they may not be able to migratory because maybe their their shoulder is not strong enough if it's a shoulder injury

then we can do what's called a soft release where they're released into an area in Lake Ontario, let's say, that never freezes over and there's always food sources. So there's actually areas you can release, appropriately release these wildlife where they're going to be okay. But again, you know, mobility is an issue. So for example, if it is a diving water bird species, they have to be able to dive. If it is a...

If it is a pigeon, a pigeon's flight is not that not as important because they stay in flocks. They got to be able to fly up to the power lines or to the trees or to the tops of houses so that they can fly over and shit on your car because that's so important, of course, right after you washed it. But they are a more heavy body bird and they spend a lot of time on the ground. So they need to be able to effectively walk.

where they're not gonna get a condition called bumblefoot. And then there's predatory birds like birds of prey. And even those have different classifications in the sense of if it's a bald eagle, a bald eagle is getting a lot of its food as carrion, dead animals already. Maybe they're chasing another bird off of the dead bunny rabbit or they're finding dead salmon that have washed up on the shore.

So they don't have to be quite as perfect at hunting in the sky. But if you look at, say, a hawk or a falcon, they're like jet fighter planes and they need to be able to turn on a dime and catch the bird that they're chasing. So all these factors have to be taken into place. Yeah, taken into place. With this coyote, so she had the bad hip, the bad pelvis.

but also, and the hip was her right side, her left knee was completely mangled. She had what's called a drawer sign and a tibial thrust. So I'll give you guys a second to think what that means for you future veterinarians, or maybe the veterinarians or technicians that are listening to this, or just the people that are educated in mammalian physiology. A drawer sign, and it's a different name in people, is a forward motion of the shin, which it shouldn't have.

And a drawer sign indicates tear of the cranial cruciate ligament or what's called in people the ACL, the anterior cruciate ligament. And I think, I know this dog's blown its ACL, pardon me, this coyote has blown its ACL. It's also blown its MCL, which is a similar ligament right inside the knee. It's also likely blown both of its lateral collateral ligament, which is on the outside of the knee.

and then the medial collateral ligament, which is on the inside part of the knee, essentially sort of like the thigh, but down by the knee. And this dog was under heavy sedation while we were doing this. While we were moving the knee around, you could hear and feel the femur coming in contact with the tibia. So we, and I say we because it was not only myself, but the team at Shades of Hope, the actual certified animal rescuers.

and they make the final decision. I make the recommendation and of course they follow my recommendation. But a lot of my recommendations are based on talking to them because they know better. I'll say to them, well, how well does this bird need to fly? And how well does this bird need to walk? Or how well does this coyote need to be able to run? You know, we can have these conversations. Now sometimes it's clear cut, though I also did speak with another veterinarian who goes and volunteers.

on Mondays. It's so much easier now having the two of us. So much better for the animals, almost said pets. So much better for the animals that there's two vets involved, because then they can get treatment quicker and we can also bounce ideas. So she was on the ledge. I kind of joked with her when I texted her saying, look, I have real concerns with this coyote. You know, if we try and fix the hip.

We're now dealing with a knee that can't be fixed. I'm not an orthopedic surgeon. So the technique to repair the knees and all the torn ligaments is beyond my skill. And this coyote is not gonna be 100%, not even close. Six months from now on that knee as the arthritis and degeneration kicks in, I got this bad hip and there was a technique called an FHO. We could do a help with the hip. Then you got the pelvis and the possible dystocia with the puppies.

when it's in labor, when it's whelping. And so she kind of said, well, if you really think euthanasia is right, I'll go with that. And I joked with her that I was hoping she would talk me off the ledge. And she joked back saying, I'm right out there on the ledge with you. And I was hoping you would talk me off the ledge. So we both agreed to sort of air quotes jump and make the right decision. I am very confident in saying we had to put this coyote out of its misery.

It would not have a successful release. So, you know, so a lot of sad things, of course. What is saddest is that this coyote got hurt and what is saddest is that the bird got hurt, et cetera, et cetera. While I do feel regret and wish things went differently with the coyote, I actually don't really feel sad that we had to euthanize because we were giving a treatment to a severe set of

injuries and again it was you know we were we were relieving this coyote of its suffering. But I had it gave me an opportunity to sort of have a learning lesson with Leo and Sarah and I should say Leo and Sarah had heard me talk a year ago at the Discovery Vet School group of seminars at the University of Guelph where they basically have people students teenagers like high school university students.

sometimes their parents join them to learn about what it's like being a veterinarian and they can do all these hands -on clinical labs and learn about bandaging and learn about looking under the microscope. And then I gave a talk on sort of working internationally and working with wildlife and I had mentioned Shades of Hope as a good place to volunteer for the summer, not only to volunteer and learn and give back to the community.

see if this is something you want to do, which is very, very important, but also it helps them in gaining experience to help them get into vet school. And Leo and Sarah, and there have been others as well, but those two happen to be working with me today, Leo and Sarah took my advice and ended up are now one of the, I think about 15 interns that do work during the summer at Shaves of Hope. Fifteen all at the same time. That's how crazy busy it is here in the summer.

So I had a nice chance of like a learning moment with them. And you know, we talked about euthanasia and we talked about how I sort of present, I look at cases like this as euthanasia is the default and I am looking for reasons to take that off the table. Meaning, just like if you have a scientific theory that you want to test,

through experimentation, you actually are trying to prove that the theory is incorrect, or you're trying to disprove your own theory. And if you are unable to successfully disprove your own theory, then your theory must be correct. That's essentially how it works. And so in this situation, I say, okay, we need to euthanize this animal. Now let's find reasonable reasons why that's not.

And I work really hard at finding reasonable reasons why that's not correct. And if I can't find reasonable reasons, then euthanasia is the right move. Now a lot of times, not in the case of the coyote, I'm not sure. And with wounds, or it's more like I'm not sure if surgery is necessary. So I'll often say, let's just treat it medically, let's treat it supportively, let's find out what Mother Nature's gonna do with healing.

over the next couple of weeks. And we end up, we've come up with an acronym called LITFA, L -I -T -F -A, leave it the F alone. And LITFA sometimes is the best treatment, and that we come back to these patients that maybe need some granulation tissue removed, or we're wondering if the eye needs to be removed, or the digit needs to be removed, string foot and a bird.

and they end up healing. We're like, thank God we didn't do this surgery and we weren't too gung -ho. So I had that learning moment. And the other thing, I basically summed it up with them and saying, just because I can do something doesn't mean I necessarily should. And that is a good lesson for a lot of things. Now in the end, and I don't think this is morbid, but a few of you at first may think this is morbid, what we ended up doing is there were several seagulls that,

that had either died or been euthanized, including the one, pardon me, not seagulls, ring -billed gulls that had been euthanized, including the one with the broken humerus. And so what we did was after, you know, a couple hours after it passed away, right at the end of the day when all the patients had been dealt with, we broke the other wing and we broke it right in the middle of the humerus and it was a single fracture. We literally just grabbed it with our hands and snapped it.

And then I did fake surgery on it, where I quickly cut open the wound and pinned it and x -rayed as if we were fixing up a normal broken wing on a live patient. And they learned a lot. And I actually, as I left, I pulled the pin out. We did x -rays post -operatively, if you want to call it that, to show them how this simple technique, and it was like the most basic of techniques for the best sort of.

easiest fracture to fix on a bird. But it gave them the principles for them to sort of think about it. Honestly, it's really just there. They're not gonna remember this stuff or do this stuff on their own, of course. But it sort of just gets them fascinated, hopefully, about being veterinarian, because it is the greatest career in the world. And then as I left, I had pulled the pin and said, okay, Leo, you gotta start your shift at 2 .30.

and it was 1 .45 when I was leaving. So he's gonna have a long day, because he's probably working till about midnight tonight, maybe 10 p And so he's gonna have a longer day than I am. I basically said, now do it, do it yourself. Stick the pin, retrograde up through the shoulder, retract it, put the two pieces of bone together, slide the pin back down towards the elbow, take an x -ray to make sure you did it right.

And then after him, Sarah will do it because she's off for the rest of the day so she doesn't have to go grab lunch. So it was fun. It was fun watching them get excited. I had them do an eye exam on the Beidou, the barred owl, and they had trouble finding the eye structures that I was sort of using as markers, but they found, they think they found it. Obviously I can't see through their eyes.

But already they're learning what normalized look like what normal or what abnormal eyes look like and again, hopefully just I'm just planting that seed and maybe inspiring these let's call them kids in their 20s these kids to pursue animal care pursue veterinary medicine pursue science pursue careers that they're passionate about even if they

decide not to be veterinarians or don't get into veterinarian school, which may happen, right? And if you don't get into veterinary school, your life is not over, life continues. I think it's Zoe Senehise, is in Greek, I just read that this morning. Sorry, life continues, but you still find something else you're passionate about and you can be kind to animals without being a veterinarian. Kate?

Lola and Dr. JJ, who's a veterinarian from Mexico, who's here at Shades now and working on becoming licensed here in Canada. They're all saving way more wildlife lives than I am. And I still bow to them and ask them for their advice in a lot of these cases. I'm just the guy who can stitch, who can cut and stitch versus stitching cut. Hopefully you do it the other way around. So I hope this worked out.

24 minutes, this could be a whole episode. I hope you guys found this interesting. Be kind to animals, be kind to yourself and to others, and stay tuned for more Vet Life with Dr. Cliff. See ya.