Wow, volume 18 huh? we’ve come a long way from a bored Technician ranting two years ago haven’t we? Maybe I should stop, I have matured a lot and grown into a stronger, more patient man and I’m sure you’ve all grown with me…. Grown to the point of confusion and rage at times by the things we encounter… Yeah, no change on that front so the volumes must continue! Let’s get into it shall we, I welcome you to The Boarding Edition

The Barker

Okay so let’s begin this journey with the most common boarder you will ever encounter in this field. The Barker. This is the dog that is in the kennel whom is a master of sheer destruction via sound waves. Once they enter your facility this beast will never stop barking. Whether it’s high pitched yips or low baritone Woofs, this dog will bark for the duration of its stay at your kennel. This poor beast doesn’t even stop barking to sleep. So since this beast won’t sleep you assume it will stop barking to eat. You are wrong, you naïve fool, so wrong! No meal or treat will stop this dog from singing you the song of its people. After about 8 hours of this The Barker goes through a transformation that takes their bark to the next level. It now barks with enough passion, power, and volume to summon Christ himself. Bless your eardrums.

The Fearful One

This poor unfortunate soul has the title The Fearful One. Nothing makes your job in veterinary medicine more aggravating and dangerous than a fearful. A fearful pet is more likely to get extremely desperate and attack to garner its freedom from you. In the case of boarding, fearful dogs and cats cower into the corners of their cages. I’m talking about an impossibly small ball in the impossibly cramped corner of the cage. All in hopes that it was an accident that you opened their kennel. Once the realization sets in that you meant to do this they activate their next line of defense, excrement. Submissive urination, defecation and emesis from being overly worked up is all a possibility with an extremely fearful dog. Once you breach their second line of defense and clean up the mess their third and final option becomes clear in their mind. It’s a two-parter as well. First these dogs have mastered fear biting and will use it at will if provoked enough, second once they have bit or snapped at you they will escape by any means necessary. Remember this dog isn’t biting you to kill you, it’s doing so to make an opening for escape. These pets aren’t truly aggressive just terrified of you.

The Junkie

This class of boarder is known as The Junkie, or at least by the time you are done with your shift you feel that way about them. This pet is usually at or over geriatric age and has been given a diagnosis that will result in death were it not for the miracle of modern medicine. When you work for a facility that offers medical boarding you are a godsend to those owners who don’t trust a pet sitter to give medications, so take pride in what you do. But, that doesn’t mean we aren’t aggravated by the fact that your P has 7-8 different medications all given at varying dosing times, which are staggered throughout the day and not given together in any way shape or form! My god why can’t they all be given together (If possible lol)? Now every thirty minutes we’re medicating your dog. We don’t mind, but if your pet doesn’t want the pill, we have to use a pill pocket. If they don’t want that we try to hide it in wet dog food. If that fails we enter into a UFC brawl with the pet, putting them in some form of headlock that allows us to pry open their overly powerful jaws to shove a pill down their throat. This method results in one of two options: The dog bites you either by accident or on purpose because we are essentially gagging them for a moment. The second option is that pet NO LONGER trusts us and feels betrayed by our actions making each dosing after that harder. That look of disappointment and disdain afterwards just makes you feel sooo bad, but you remember that he has 72 more pills to take and you don’t feel so bad anymore.

The Apex Predator

Okay in the mind of an overly creative imaginative vet tech such as myself this is the scenario that plays in my head when it comes to The Apex Predator: The owner of this dog stops at the door and kneels down to whisper into their ear and casts a spell of true malice and malevolence while “Eye of The Tiger” plays softly in the background. As the spell is casts the ancient spirits of prehistoric wolves, velociraptors, and your elementary school bully now possess this dog making him the most demonic thing you will ever encounter in your working life. The Apex Predator enters your facility in pure rebellion of your kennel. It matters not who they see, they will bite/claw/maim all that are unfortunate enough to pass them. They exhibit multiple forms of aggression. Cage aggression, kennel aggression, dog aggression, male aggression, there was a breeze aggression, I hear a voice aggression, you have a mother and father aggression, all of them. It’s safe to say that this pet was a T-rex in its past life. When the owner comes to pick up the spell is broken and they become extremely cuddly towards you and everyone around you. This cast the illusion that he was like this for his entire stay. This then prompts the owner to schedule another visit with your facility, YAY!!! But, they only try to do it when you work, NOOOOOOO!!!!

The Cat

This is plain and simple. The Cat isn’t a complicated boarder, but it can be the most exhausting of the lot. Cats are either sweet cuddly balls of fur that you love to rub on and give attention while they stay with you. Or they are dark malicious phantasms born of fire, brimstone, hate and dragon’s piss! Sent fourth from the bowels of hell to render your mind, body, and soul null and void as it reigns down its unholy terror upon you. All just to feast on what remains of your dried up husk of a vet tech simply because it was mad at the fact that it was brought to your kennel. Yup, simple indeed. A purr angel, or Lucifer’s left nut, that’s what you get with cats.

But that’s just my two cent on the matter. Remember these are just the over simplifications and exaggerations of what we do at the job for satirical purposes. Not a direct reflection of any facility. Except the cat part… that’s just life.

-Poetic Ice