Episode 3 Junior Vets on Call

Pets, wildlife and farm animals across the UK are in trouble.

But don't worry. Because coming to the rescue are today's team of...

Today, cute piglets,

lovely lemurs...

Hip, hip...

..and a singing dog? DOG HOWLS

Now, there are vets that specialise in tiny animals,

and there are also vets that are masters at fixing big huge beasts.

This place?

They do the full works.

Junior vets, prepare for the unpredictable.

BOTH: Junior vets, standing by.

I like fish so much I once tried to become one.

And my dog made it hard for me to finish my homework.

Yep, junior vets in the house!

Well, junior vets in the FIELD.

I'm standing here next to aqua man Will.

You tried to become a fish, didn't you?

Yeah, when I was five. I tried flushing myself down the toilet.

Whoa! How far did you get?

-About halfway.

-Whoa, don't try that at home, guys!

In fact, just don't even try it.

And Oliver, you had an incident with your dog,

-what happened?

-I was just doing my homework,

and it comes and snatches my rubber. But it's not like I needed it.

-Because there's no mistakes, right?

-Yeah.

That's what I'm talking about.

Right, let's go help out some animals, shall we, boys?

Confidence! I like it.

And it's going to be needed at Galedin Vets

in Northumberland today.

This place fixes all sorts of big things, small things,

pig things, everything!

Right now, it's a cute fluffy thing that needs junior vet help.

Hello, what's your name?

Well, we don't have a name for her yet. So you might need to name her.

What do you reckon, boys?

-Yes.

-He has the name.

-We'll call it Jess.

-Jess.

Nice choice, boys.

She was handed in to the local adoption centre,

and the owners didn't want her.

But the adoption centre noticed that there's something not

quite right with her, she's got a swollen belly.

We need to have a look at her, check her over,

and get to the bottom of it.

OK?

It's quite sad that someone would have, like, had Jess,

and then just like, said, "Oh, I don't want her any more",

and she's just been kind of, like, left.

Oh, look, she's rolling over for you so we can have a look underneath.

Jess was, like, a really nice calm cat.

She didn't seem to mind that we were seeing what was in her.

She seemed pretty relaxed.

That's right, Jess. You just chill out, girl.

The Junior Vets are going to check out your swollen tum.

Yeah, you see how it's a lot harder than a normal cat's belly?

-Yeah. It's hard.

-Yeah, that is pretty hard.

And what do you think could be causing that?

She could have, like, swallowed something.

A lot of illnesses could cause a swollen belly,

but she's, she is very well in herself, as you can see,

she seems like a normal cat.

It's a mystery all right.

Good job we have some top pet vets on the job.

This remarkable place is full of rare

and exotic creatures...

LION ROARS

..in need of urgent veterinary care.

SNAKE HISSES

So who's with me? Junior vets, I need your help.

BOTH: Junior vets, standing by.

I've rescued some animals in the past.

I want to be a vet when I'm older,

but there's one animal I'm terrified of...

Hey, listen. You have an animal fear?

-Yeah, a rabbit.

-And why are you scared of rabbits, Harrison?

They're just so bony and wriggly.

And Tinaya, I've heard you have some epic story about saving

-an animal's life. Which one was it?

-Yeah, it was a moth.

A moth?

-Yeah.

-Oh, right, OK. Well, how did you save this moth?

It had a broken wing, so it couldn't fly.

With your experiences

and my expertise, these animals have nothing to fear.

Let's go.

As you have probably guessed,

they don't just have flamingoes at Flamingo Land in North Yorkshire.

Oh, no. There's over 140 different species here.

So expect junior vetting of the exotic kind, you two.

Vet Matt, fill us in.

We've got a really tricky job now,

that is a bit of a dangerous one too,

so we've got to take it carefully.

Under here, we've got a bird.

And it's a bird that in the wild

would spend a lot of time eating dead animals.

So, to be clear, it doesn't eat live humans then?

Well, not before...

but you never know.

So under here, we have...

Agh!

It's a powerful, flesh-eating, dangerous hooded vulture...

BOTH: Aww!

..called Derek.

-Say hello to Derek.

-BOTH: Hello.

Not the most vulture-like name. But it kind of suits you.

He wasn't the best-looking patient.

In the wild, vultures feed on dead animals.

Nice.

In eating the dead animals and things like that,

it would rip and tear, and it would wear its beak down.

But because we're looking after it and feeding it,

it doesn't have to do all that work.

So if Derek can't keep his own beak nice and smooth,

what happens, Matt?

Can you see how overgrown just the end of his beak is

-a little bit, there?

-BOTH: Yeah.

-Yeah?

We're going to grind that back.

And we're going to use a really complex tool.

Electric toothbrush?!

And we can just do my own fingernails.

'Oh, it's an electric nail file.'

I don't have any nails.

-Oh, it tickles.

-That didn't hurt, did it?

-It tickles.

-I think I'll do mine, yeah.

-Did that hurt?

Yeah, no, just...very good.

That's very nice, yeah.

-Who's going to have a go first?

-I don't mind.

-Do you want a go?

-Yeah.

-Come on,

-you have a go.

-Go on, then, Tinaya.

I was a bit nervous. I didn't want to hurt Derek.

Now, this may look like a drill,

but actually it's a very special vet tool,

so never try this yourselves.

Seriously, never.

-TOOL WHIRS

-And can you see where

we're going to go? Just the end of his beak.

Yeah? And burr away, that's it.

Push on it a bit.

That's it.

Oh, it's moving.

No, that's really good.

And how does that feel, Tinaya, when you're doing it?

Really weird.

Like, it's vibrating.

I was quite happy for Tinaya to keep working on the beak.

You're up, Harrison, here we go.

Oh, look, he's eyeing you up.

'That ain't going to put Harrison off.

'Look at that focus.'

If you hold it on the end.

We're just trying to get the end a bit shorter, aren't we?

-Yeah.

-That's it.

Right on the very, very end.

It was harder than it looked.

TOOL WHIRS

That's brilliant. Well done, Harrison.

So that looks a lot better.

-Can you see how the shape is following...?

-Yeah.

The top and the lower beak is following each other?

That's really what we're after.

I think you've done a fantastic job.

-Thank you very much.

-Great job, guys.

Great job, Tinaya. Great job, Harrison.

-Absolutely fantastic. Thank you.

-You're welcome.

Yeah, I just need a little bit off of my toenails now,

-so you ready for that? BOTH:

-No.

'Fair enough.

'Let's get freshly-fixed-up Derek back home.'

He's going to be showing all his friends.

"Look at my new beak."

Showin' off.

And relax, Derek.

-He's just done a poo.

-Oh, dear.

He's just done a poo.

'That's gratitude for ya.'

Back at the vets', junior vets

Will and Oliver are still baffled by Jess the cat's big belly.

'If only we had a cooled machine to look inside her.'

We're going to scan her abdomen

with the ultrasound.

What are the chances of that?!

There is waves that bounce back, and it makes it into a picture,

so you can get a black and white picture of what's going on.

So we can look at things like

the liver, kidneys, spleen,

and have a look around, see if there's anything abnormal in there.

Oh, I tell you what, don't do that inside me.

VET LAUGHS

You don't want to see what I've been eating.

Just turn that upside down and squeeze it onto the scanner there.

That gloopy gel is going to make this scanner work better.

Rub that on her belly, just down a little bit.

There we go.

The gel was, like, all sticky and, like, ew.

It's like jelly.

-All the cat's fur was, like, sticking to it, as well.

-Ugh.

It was disgusting.

And if you just move that around while having

a wee look at the screen there.

Hang on a minute - what's that?

This area, the whiter area here...

So that looks like a bone.

-Yeah.

-Yeah, there's definitely something in there.

-Yep.

Hey, it's moving. There, it's moving!

I think you're on to something there, Will.

So what could be moving in there, and what's alive?

-I think it could be a kitten.

-I think Will's got it.

I think there's definitely a kitten in there.

-She's pregnant? Wow.

-Yeah.

-It's moving.

So she's pregnant.

I was like, "Yeah, there's definitely something in there."

-"It's moving."

-Yeah, you spotted that was the kittens - well done.

I would have never guessed that.

-That little thing beating on the screen there?

-Yeah?

That's the heartbeat there.

You're looking - inside of a cat,

you could see the inside of another cat.

-It was weird!

-Yeah.

How many kittens might be in there?

I would say there's maybe about three or four kittens in there.

It's quite hard sometimes to be accurate.

Because the kittens are so big,

sometimes it's difficult to tell one kitten apart from the other.

But there's definitely more than one in there, isn't there?

-You can see those two, side-by-side.

-Divide the line.

Yeah, you can see one over there, and one there.

So Will and Oliver have cracked this cat's mystery,

and it's all good.

But once she's had the kittens,

we'll be able to find her a new home after that.

She's a really nice cat, so I don't see why she can't.

Yeah, she seems really chilled out.

And this time she won't be given back.

I wonder what she's doing. Like, if she has a home or anything.

Yeah, she might have, like, gave birth.

Wonder no more, junior vets,

because when this lot were born, they all went to new homes.

And so did Jess.

Got to love a happy ending.

Ask us any animal questions and we'll tell you no lies.

Well, we'll do our best anyway.

Step forward, latest truth seeker Deniz.

Is this animal fact true?

Can tarantulas float

and swim on water?

And HOW can they?

Well, tarantulas don't LIKE water,

but if they fall in, they CAN float.

Is that because they have

WEBBED feet, Johnny? Ha!

That terrible, Inel.

No. In fact, they're covered in tiny little hairs

called setae that help keep them afloat.

And they can paddle using their front legs.

Well, Johnny, if that incy wincy spider comes up the waterspout,

I'm out of here.

Junior vets Will and Oliver have been called out to farm

with Graham the vet.

Now, they're what I call cute patients.

Here we have a mother pig called a sow,

and she has seven piglets.

When I found out it was pigs, I was really happy.

Cos I...

I just love pigs.

I don't know why.

What we've got to do today

is castrate the male piglets.

What is castration?

Well, castration means that we actually remove

the testicles from the piglet.

When Graham explained what we were doing,

I was like...

"What?"

Now, this might look cruel, but it will help stop the farm from

being overrun with an out-of-control

number of grumpy, aggressive pigs.

-GRAHAM:

-Tight.

-Got it.

Tell us when it's over.

Oh, don't look now, mate.

'Don't worry, that injection means the little piglet

'won't feel a thing.'

Nice and tight. Nice and tight with your knees, man.

That's nasty, isn't it?

-The needle thing?

-Yeah, the needle...

-Yeah.

-..oh!

You're up next, Oliver.

Hold on tight.

Oh, he's escaping. He's escaping.

If you didn't, like, go for it and just, like, volunteer, and thought,

"This is what I signed up for," then

I probably wouldn't have done it.

-That's it.

-I've got him.

-Good lad.

-Yes!

I'm a junior vet, and I'm here to help.

'Nice reassuring manner, Will.

'I like your style.'

-PIGLET SQUEALS

-Scalpel, nurse.

-There we go.

-It's OK. It's OK, mate.

Me and you can be best friends after this.

Let's hope so, Will.

That's some top-end vet work.

Well, bottom end, at least.

I saw the insides of a pig.

Don't be shy with that healing spray.

Good lad.

'You're doing well, Oliver.'

-You got him?

-Yeah.

-Good lad.

It was disgusting...

HE GROANS

..but it was for its own good, so it's all right.

A good spray inside.

Other one. Well done.

'Oh, lads, I'm speechless.'

'Confident, brave - I couldn't be more impressed.'

I'm kind of getting used to it now.

If you get any opportunity, do it - just go for it.

A job well done. You've both done very well.

So, boys, how do you feel after all of that?

-HE IMITATES EXPLOSION

-Yeah.

Oh, I'm with you there, Will,

but we now have six piglets nice and calm,

and back with Mum.

I wonder what's up next for junior zoo vets Tinaya and Harrison.

Lemurs!

I love these little guys.

In the wild, these primates live on the island of Madagascar.

I think the lemurs were really cute.

I'd have loved one as a pet.

OK, before we can complete our vet checks,

I think we should get to know our patients.

Aw!

HE SQUEALS

You guys all right there?

'It's was so funny.'

-They're very soft, aren't they?

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

Harrison, how do you do this, mate?

Harrison, how do you do it? There's loads of 'em on me, mate.

I've got a lemur tail round my neck.

What you've got on you at the minute is actually very special.

She's got a little baby underneath her.

Aw! That's adorable.

It's breeding season here,

so lots of lemurs have had cute little babies recently.

But one new mum is having a hard time.

What's her story, Eve?

Rainbow is one of our

lower-ranking animals.

So unfortunately, what that means is that there's

a lot of lemurs that will boss her around

and think they're in charge of her.

One of the more dominant lemurs must have not been too

impressed that she had a baby, so has had a bit of a fight with her.

So you can see on her side

she's got these cuts on her.

-Can you see?

-Yeah.

-Ooh, they look painful.

-Is the baby injured?

No, the baby is completely fine.

I felt sorry for Rainbow.

Same, I hate bullying.

We need to check out that nasty wound on her

and make sure it's healing so

she can look after her little baby.

Can it not get infected?

It can get infected, so this is why we need to check her regularly.

Thinking like a vet there, Harrison. I like it.

What would you guys think to this wound?

Is it kind of wet, or oozing,

or anything like that?

Rainbow's cuts looked really sore.

Yeah, but they looked like they was healing.

It's a nice colour.

It's quite dry - that's the most important thing.

But so far, it looks like it's healing nicely.

That's great news.

Have some nice grub, Rainbow.

Get your strength up, girl.

So luckily, with Harrison and Tinaya's help,

-Rainbow should be back on her feet in no time?

-Yeah.

'Time for one of your videos.'

Ooh, I feel a song coming on.

Take it away, Johnny.

# Doggy, doggy, lift your tail up

# Doggy, doggy, lift your tail up

-# Doggy, lift your tail up

-Doggy, lift your tail up

# Doggy, lift your tail up and show us what you got. #

I've got quite a troublesome pet.

Not because she's, like, naughty, but because she's massive.

She's very overweight.

Like, we do feed her the right amount,

but she doesn't get much exercise.

There she is.

Hello! She's very fat.

Oh, are you scared, Miso?

I don't think Miso's scared -

I think she's got a secret stash of pies under that bed.

She's very chubby.

It's like...

Come on.

Here she comes.

I want to help her weight.

Like, we've tried loads of things like diet food,

and it just doesn't work. Thank you.

Well, Edie, It sounds like you're doing

your best to give Miso a balanced diet,

but exercise is really important.

If Miso's an indoor cat,

you could always get her some toys to play with.

I mean, she won't even know she's exercising.

And it might not hurt to check under your bed

for some secret pies, as well.

Yeah. Do that.

Junior vets Will and Oliver are getting pushed to the limit today.

Now, they are with horse vet Tim.

This is Steve. He has a poorly eye.

OK, so you can see Steve's tears

running down the side of his face here.

That's not normal.

Normally the tears would be coming down the little tube

that runs from the corner of the eye here,

right down to the nose.

And so the tears would be coming out there.

Hm. So Steve's runny eye could be an infection?

It looked like he was crying,

-gunk in his eye.

-He had white gunk coming out of his eyes, yeah.

-Yeah.

-Felt so sorry for him.

Right, you two, this is no ordinary patient.

Steve the horse belongs to vet Tim's wife, Sandy.

-She thinks the world of him...

-I do.

..so it's really important you get this done.

Don't worry, Sandy. Oliver's on this one.

That injection should chill him out for his eye treatment.

There we go. Now, inject the rest of that, then.

-Just, like, push it?

-Just push it all the way in.

That's the stuff.

What we're going to do now, we're going to stand back a wee bit,

while he goes a bit sleepy.

-His head started, like...

-Yeah.

-He was falling asleep.

-Yeah.

And he was wobbling, like that.

Yeah, he was like...

What will happen if he just, like, collapses and falls down?

Well, first of all,

the thing we need to do is calm Sandy down, then.

THEY LAUGH

She gets very anxious. Doesn't often happen.

It doesn't often happen.

Try to give him just enough now just to make him sleepy enough,

but not too sleepy.

If he, like, collapses, we might need to give her something.

We probably need to give her something, yeah.

-It's a very special patient, this, so...

-Yeah.

..we got the pressure on us today.

So what's the plan, Tim?

This is the bit you guys are going to have to work for me,

cos I can't work both ends.

This is teamwork here now - junior vet

and senior vet working together.

You can do this, junior vets.

Let sort out Steve's eye.

Hang on a sec, that's his nose!

That's great. Connect it up there, Will.

I see.

So that coloured liquid goes up his hooter

to help clear the blockage in his eye?

You know what you're doing, junior vets.

Keep going.

You managing to get any stuff through,

or has it gunged up completely?

Keep injecting.

-Hard work, eh?

-Mm-hm.

It was really hard to push because of, like,

the blockage going on.

There we go. Well done, fellas.

-There it is.

-Yes!

-There we go.

-Whoa.

-Oh.

Oh, plenty coming out now. Good.

Keep going, then.

Well, would you look at that! It's worked.

You could see all the liquid, like, pouring out of his eye,

-and it just went down his cheek.

-Yeah.

-A lot easier to inject now, is it?

-Yeah.

OK, that means we've cleared the gunge.

Junior vets have done the job!

He's like a disco horse, isn't it?

Is he going to feel a lot better now?

I think so.

You felt how much pressure there was to get that clear, didn't you?

-It was a lot of pushing, wasn't it?

-Yeah.

Great job, lads.

A bit of antibiotic will help clear that infection.

There we go. Bit more.

That's us.

See? What did I tell you, Sandy?

I knew the junior vets could sort out Steve.

-SANDY:

-Thank you both very much for doing that for him,

because I think he's going to feel so much better for that.

One happy owner, and an even happier horse.

-Job well done.

-Yay.

Tinaya and Harrison have been taking zoo vetting in their stride,

and they're up for anything.

So, guys, what we've got under here...

is Fluffy.

Fluffy?

That's got to be an animal that's ickle and cute!

Fluffy is a blood python.

Oh, Fluffy the snake.

We really need to talk about these names.

It weren't my favourite animal.

So we're going to get Fluffy out now.

How do you feel about that, junior vets?

-Scared.

-Nervous.

-Anxious.

Anxious.

Kit's worried, too.

She needs to check Fluffy for painful parasites that might

be sucking his blood and making him really ill.

Would he bite you if he doesn't like being touched?

Well, yeah, they can bite, absolutely.

That's why I'm trying to be very gentle with him.

Oh, right. He might be tetchy, but she needs help.

It's moving.

Can you feel all its muscles?

Oh, my gosh, yeah, he's tensing.

Be brave, junior vets -

we need to check for creepy crawlies.

Very, very gently move the scales forward.

If we can see anything moving...

Snake skins are made of thousands of tiny scales

that help them move along the ground.

Searching for parasites in them looks tricky.

Quite hard, isn't it?

Can you swap sides? I don't like the tail.

Sure.

It'll be easier.

I started to like the snake.

I really wanted it to be OK.

First time I've ever held a big snake like this.

-I think it all looks quite healthy, doesn't it?

-BOTH: Yeah.

Good news.

Fluffy is mite-free.

But hang on - what's going on with his eyes, Kit?

They have a very thin covering over their eyes

and when they shed their skin,

they shed this eye cap, as well.

And so, Fluffy has shed,

but unfortunately the eye caps are still on.

Look at that -

Tinaya straight in with the soothing eye drops.

That's it, just drop it gently.

Squeeze a little bit harder.

I never thought I was going to put drops in a snake.

-It keeps moving.

-Perfect.

That's it.

-Harrison, are you going to do the other side?

-Yep.

It's quite hard trying to put eye drops in Fluffy's tiny eyes.

-On the top there?

-Yeah, squeeze the tube.

In his eye, not on the floor!

That's it, perfect.

Yeah, get Fluffy back to his enclosure,

you junior vet snake charmers, you.

Probably just starting to get some vision now -

the drops will be working.

So hopefully by tomorrow he'll be back to normal.

That's good.

Wow. Now, that's what I call junior vetting.

HE SQUEALS

Ooh.

Aw!

HE GROANS

That piglet stuff was touch-and-go.

How do you think it went?

It was all gory and disgusting and...

HE GROANS

All in all, a great day, Oliver.

Do you have anything to sum it up?

Erm...what an experience.

Yeah, you've all done so well.

And this lot?

Fancy getting vetting yourself?

Well, get on the CBBC website right now,

and start earning hearts and points

by helping the animals that need you.