Episode 4 Junior Vets on Call

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

but don't worry, cos coming to the rescue

are today's team of Junior Vets On Call.

Today, a feisty badger...

a horse on its back...

and mind those spikes.

Ow.

Now, when animals in the wild get ill or have a little accident,

they need a super-fast, speedy response team.

Well, come on, junior vets. Chop chop.

Junior vets, standing by.

I'm not scared of any animal

and I'm definitely braver than my dog, Digby.

I'm not sure whether I want to be a vet or a doctor.

Well, hopefully our visit to the wildlife rescue and animal service

will help you make up your mind, Devashree.

Here, boss Trevor and his team work 24/7 to help injured creatures.

Today, the junior vets are helping with a poor badger

who's not eating or drinking, after he was hit by a car.

The injuries involve damage to his teeth but we'll give him

some extra fluids so he doesn't dehydrate.

Don't worry, mate. That's just an injection to make you sleep.

So we're going to give him now a good 15 minutes,

to make sure he's really sleepy.

And then we can safely handle him.

Get cracking, junior vets.

This bag is full of nutritious fluid that will help the badger survive.

We just need to get it inside him.

It was amazing, being able to help animals.

Yeah, but there was a lot of pressure.

Now, we just need our badger to nod off.

Then it'll be safe for the junior vets to come in and help.

We've had a quick look at the mouth

and the jaws and the teeth, where they've been injured,

seem to be healing reasonably.

Junior vet, would you like to come in

and Trevor's going to show you some interesting life on him.

-Well, here's one crawling around.

-Oh, it's a tick. Oh, lovely.

Nasty ticks are sucking blood out of the badger.

Yeah, these bad boys have gotta go

and junior vets, it's going to be down to you.

WOOF!

There seems to a lot of sad animals round here.

Yeah, they all seem to have long faces.

No, seriously.

These big fellows need fixing up. Junior vets, where are you?

Junior vets, standing by.

I'd save any animals. My favourite are the spiky ones.

My cat Lila's really lovely and he really loves my hair.

Well, I like your hair too, Joe.

Anyway, there's some animals in need of help.

Are we up for the challenge? OK, let's go.

Plum Park in Towcester is an equine clinic.

That's fancy vet talk for a horse hospital.

There are plenty of poorly ponies to be fixed up.

Junior vets Joe and Harvey are on the case with nurse Louise.

-Hello.

-Hi.

-Who's this, then?

-This is Matilda.

-Hello, Matilda. What seems to be the problem?

Matilda has sarcoids. Do you know what sarcoids are?

Not exactly, no.

Sarcoids are skin tumours, so we need to remove them.

I couldn't even make a reasonable guess as to what they were.

-Just guessing.

-Yeah. I think we both were.

And then when we found out, then we were like, "whoa".

Sarcoids? Sounds nasty. And they are.

Left untreated, they can make a horse pretty poorly.

Unfortunately one of them's not very easy to get to, so

we need to do it under anaesthetic which involves putting her to sleep.

Matilda doesn't seem too worried about the surgery

but Harvey's not so chilled.

So Harvey, am I getting a sense that you might be a little bit

squeamish around blood?

Yeah. It's all right if it's just like, small cut or something.

But I'm not much of a pouring out kind of blood person.

You're ready for the challenge anyway?

Yeah. I'll give it a go.

He'll be fine. And there's nothing to fear for Matilda either.

Louise is setting up a catheter.

It'll mean the medicine goes straight into Matilda's body

during the operation.

I'll tell you when it's done.

'What did I say about Harvey?'

I'm not watching.

Not great with needles.

S'pose not everybody is but it was a massive one, so...

So, that's her catheter in.

Now a test to make sure the catheter's working.

Great work there, Joe.

And Matilda's off into a padded room to be anaesthetised,

so if she falls, she won't hurt herself or the team.

Now it was starting to look really serious for Matilda.

Yeah, I was getting really worried.

Matilda was out like a flash. I mean, she just fell over.

She would have caused herself some injury if no-one had been

there to catch and she hadn't have been in that padded room.

But since she was and she had a specialist team around her,

it was fine.

Matilda's unconscious and now it's a race to get her

on to the operating table.

Then it was all about getting Matilda sorted for surgery.

Being under anaesthetic can be dangerous, so the vets

will want to wake her up as soon as they can.

This operation needs to be done quickly.

Grab some gloves from over there.

Top laser surgeon Jeremy is in charge.

So what are we looking for?

These are the small tumours that we're going to remove today.

So there's a little tiny one there. There's one here.

Right foreleg here, there's a little cluster of two tumours.

First up, junior vets get rid of all the germs.

Think that's a tumour and that's one.

-So you go round it?

-Yeah.

And I go round this one.

'Jeremy uses a laser to cut the tumours off.

'So we need these cool shades to protect our eyes.'

Get used to these, definitely.

This is the laser.

And this is a smoke extraction machine

because when we cut with the laser, we'll get some smoke being produced.

And we don't really want to be breathing that in.

So I'm gonna get one of you to give me a hand with the smoke extractor.

So I think that's you, isn't it, Harvey?

It was like a spaceship and sci-fi.

They were using lasers to cut stuff up. It was unbelievable.

It was great that Matilda was getting the best treatment possible.

The junior vets are at the ready to whip off those sarcoids.

Woof!

Oink! MOO!

At the animal rescue centre, junior vets Devashree and Freya

are helping a badger that's been hit by a car.

Their first job is to get rid of some ticks

that are sucking blood out of him. Ugh!

-It makes me itch just thinking about it.

-Ugh!

Slide it under and then just give it a slight pull.

So the ticks are gone.

Now the most important thing is to get this nutritious fluid

into him before he starts to wake up.

So you can make it flow faster.

This badger is dangerously weak and every second counts.

I'm squeezing the drip so it goes faster into the badger's body.

It feels good that I'm able to really be a part

of a veterinary experience, not just standing outside and watching.

Now can you turn the little wheel?

Hurry, hurry. Oh man.

Keep calm, little badger.

He's woken up.

Look, we haven't got that much time now.

Vet Mike has seconds before the patient comes round fully.

We need to get more vitamins into him...and fast.

There was lots of pressure because we didn't know

whether he was going to wake up

before we could get all the vitamins in.

The vitamins were really important.

How much fluid have you given him?

Half a litre. Enough for a badger of his size.

Yeah, I was really panicking.

All done.

Now the junior vets need to make a cosy bed up for the badger.

That was tense but, thanks to them,

he's well on the way to being released back into the wild.

Hey, little fella, consider yourself vetted!

At the equine clinic, junior vets Harvey and Joe are helping

Matilda the horse.

She's having surgery on nasty lumps called sarcoids.

If they grow, they could stop her being ridden.

So Mike, I'm gonna start cutting now.

So you can see we're cutting now with the laser.

Good job with the smoke extraction, Harvey. That's excellent.

The laser was amazing. It was a cool piece of kit.

I didn't like the smell that was coming off it, though.

Yeah, it was burning flesh.

That's one lump gone.

Joe's job is to burn the blood vessels shut, to stop any bleeding.

It was so nerve-racking.

One false move and everything could have gone wrong.

That looks good. Great, OK.

So that's one done.

Now we have to remove the rest of the lumps, but will they be as easy?

Harvey's keeping a check on Matilda's breathing and heart rate...

I count 18.

..while Joe and Jeremy get to work

on some of those hard-to-get-to lumps.

-Go forwards. That's it.

-Now I can see.

-Is that better?

-Where's the tumour?

We were working so fast.

We didn't want her to stay under anaesthetic for too long.

There we go. Right.

'That's another nasty lump gone. Good work.

'How's it going up top?'

Like, pressure. Cos you're like, ooh, you're in charge of its life.

We really had to concentrate

and we were kind of in the zone at the time.

Yeah. Cos I had an important job.

I had to make sure that she wasn't dying.

I'm just going, look there, not there.

Look there, not there.

Matilda's final lump is in a delicate place, her eye.

So she's had some previous treatment here but I'm not entirely

convinced that that's been 100% successful.

So yeah, I've decided I'm just going to take all of that out,

including the area which has been treated before.

So the tumour on Matilda's eye looks like it's grown back.

The team need to be very careful when they're removing it.

One slip could blind her.

If you mess up, then wow. Something could go wrong.

We've every confidence in you guys.

Nearly there.

-Great.

-Is that all of them?

-That's all of them.

Come on, team.

You're going to have to work fast to finish this job in time.

Hurry up.

We had to get her back to the recovery room before she woke up,

because as soon as we took her off the anaesthetic it was

basically a ticking time bomb.

Yeah, it was really cool, cos it was like a travelator.

You know, just pull her along into the room.

Poor horse.

Now we need to leave Matilda in peace because an operation

like this will certainly have taken it out of her.

It was really intense surgery.

Yeah. I mean, it was life determining.

But Matilda's a tough cookie and less than an hour later,

she's back to normal.

Up on her feet, tumour-free and vetted.

You truth seekers have come up with a lot of questions.

And we've got a lot of answers. What's on your mind, Gemma?

Look. These are my fish.

And there's one thing that I'd really like to know about them.

Do they sleep?

Well, Gemma. See, the thing is, fish ain't got eyelids.

No eyelids? How do they get some shut-eye then?

They can't, can they?

But what they do is slow their bodies right down and just chill.

That's their way of sleeping.

Ah, so if Gemma sees a fish lounging about, it could be just

catching some zeds.

Oh, I see. Eye see.

See what I did there, eh?

Hilarious(!)

Junior vets Devashree and Freya

are helping out at the wildlife rescue centre. And now...

-What's going on, girls?

-There's a call out.

Yeah, some animals in need of some help.

-Animals? Which animals?

-Hedgehogs.

Well, don't waste no time then, girls.

Let's get this van loaded up! Come on.

Don't forget your seatbelts, girls.

SIRENS

It was really exciting. We were proper junior vets on call.

That's what it's all about, Devashree.

And today, there are some very cute young hedgehogs

whose mum has gone missing.

Right, OK. So in these boxes down here we've got some hedgehogs.

Cathy's asked us to come up here and have a look at them,

and make sure they're all fit and healthy and well,

otherwise they can't be released back to the wild.

The hedgehogs are really relying on us to help them.

Yeah. They really needed our help.

Excellent. Now do you wanna put him on to the towel?

Where do you like, sort of like get them from?

Most of them were just found wandering round in people's

gardens in the daytime.

So what's happened is Mum's probably hibernated

cos the weather turned cold

and the babies were born too late in the year to hibernate themselves.

So they're still too small. So they were out looking for food.

INEL: Hedgehogs hibernate from around October

through to the spring. And while they're resting,

they'll be living off the fat they've built up

by tucking in over the summer.

Hands either side of her and then she'll curl up.

So they need to be a good weight.

937 grams.

So she's about 937, 938 grams now.

Which is a brilliant weight,

considering she came in at about 250g, something like that.

This machine scans a chip inside the hedgehog

so the junior vets can tell which one is which.

There we go. Look, we found it.

Timbuktu.

What a cool name. But is she in good nick?

Do her eyes look nice and bright on your side?

-Yeah.

-Yeah. And on this side?

-Yeah.

-Yeah. So i think she looks rather healthy.

I think she's itching to go home.

Great stuff, Timbuktu. You'll be ready to go it alone.

But how will your spiky pals measure up?

She is really prickly.

Ow.

We had to be really careful with the hedgehogs

because they were so prickly.

Olive's next and she's a bit underweight.

She's 658 grams.

Is that small?

She doesn't need to go back to the casualty centre

cos she's nice and healthy still.

But I have got a spare hutch at mine

and what I'll probably do is keep her on her own there.

So she's got her own bowl of food

and she can put on some more weight ready for the spring.

But that's not it. Oh, how many more hedgehogs are in there?

So all the legs are fine and everything inside is fine.

It was really teamwork that got us through the day.

Yeah, definitely.

No bite marks and the feet look fine.

I think that side's good.

Doesn't look like you got in many fights.

So these little guys will be all OK to be released in the spring,

after a very nice, cosy time hibernating.

Well done, junior vets. You did fantastic. Really well handled.

They didn't get too stressed either. So you did a fantastic job there.

Thank you for looking them so well and checking them over.

And I'll take Olive back to mine and settle her down for the night.

-OK. And we'll head back to the centre.

-Bye.

Woof!

Meow!

At the equine clinic, there were loads of horses that need help.

Like Katie's show jumping buddy, Frank.

So junior vets Harvey and Joe are racing to the rescue with

horse vet Mike.

OK, so this is Frank. He's our patient.

And this is Katie, his owner.

Hello. What seems to be the problem?

So Frank has what's known as gastric ulcers, which is

a problem with his tummy.

And so his stomach lining has got ulcers in it. So yeah.

So it showed up with him being hard to ride, he wouldn't go forwards.

He wasn't doing quite what he should do.

JOHNNY: Frank's been having treatment for his ulcers.

But although he may seem a bit better, he can't exactly tell us.

Can you, Frank? So we need to have a peek inside.

But how do you look inside a horse?

I take it that we're going to put a camera up his nose,

into his stomach? Hoping that he's going to swallow it.

And we're going to see if he's getting better.

You sound like you've done it before, not bad.

I've never done it before but I've seen people do it, so...

-Will that hurt him in any way?

-No, it doesn't hurt him.

Sometimes they don't like the start once we get in.

But once he's swallowed it, should be OK.

I hadn't had much experience with horses,

but it was really exciting to treat Frank.

I mean, you see them in fields

and then you just don't realise what you have to do to help them.

Considering how big they are, horses have pretty small stomachs.

About the size of a rugby ball.

But that doesn't mean stomach problems aren't big problems,

and this is what's been making Frank tough to ride.

Oh! Stick your blinkers on. It's horrible.

This is the main nasty one here.

You can see the swelling on the side.

So if you now imagine that you've got that ulcer in your mouth.

But rather than just having saliva on it, you're pouring acid on it.

-Oh!

-And then going for a run.

The ulcer was nasty. It was huge.

It must have been so much pain. Imagine having that in your mouth.

You can't treat it, if it's in your stomach.

So it was just horrible.

So, junior vets, get ready to stick that camera

right up poor old Frank's hooter.

Now one of my favourite bits,

where we find out what you and your pets have been up to,

with a bit of help from good old Barker.

Hit it.

# 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. #

This is my dog, Buddy, and he's four years old.

Hit the music.

# Oh, yeah

# This one's for you

# Ah, ah... #

BUDDY WHINES

He's an Ellie Goulding retriever.

-What?

-Ellie Goulding ret...

Ellie Goulding retriever?

OH! Ellie GOLDEN RETRIEVER.

That's good, that is!

Yeah, I know.

-Thanks.

-GOLDEN. That's clever.

Yes, I know. Yeah.

It's not that I'm slow. It's that you're quick. So...

You're fired.

What?

WHINNYING

It's been a busy day for junior vets Devashree and Freya

at the wildlife rescue place and it ain't over yet.

There's another badger that needs your help.

We've got a badger in here.

And this chap we're going to have to sedate

and get the vet to check over.

He was hit by a car last week

and we need to check to see how he's doing,

because he's not eating properly.

So let's see where he is.

We don't want him jumping out and frightening us.

Oh, he's adorable.

The badger was really cute.

Yeah. We felt sorry for him, though. He looked really sad.

Why will it affect him eating if he's got hit by a car?

Because he's had a blow to the head,

he's going to have a very nasty headache.

He's going to get dehydrated.

He's going to lose weight

and then obviously he could potentially die on us.

So if we don't get him out and don't sort him out now,

obviously he may not survive.

Sounds like serious business. We gotta get to it then, girls.

This badger looks cute but it ain't that simple.

He might be carrying diseases, so it's safety first.

Fantastic. Does that fit? There we go, jiggle it in place.

-You looked really funny.

-No, we looked professional.

-OK.

But in all seriousness though, Trevor,

this safety gear is very necessary, isn't it?

Definitely, yeah. This is really important.

We need to protect ourselves and in that way, we can protect the badger.

And then everybody's safe.

The badger's safe, we're safe and everybody's happy.

So very important indeed.

-You all set, girls?

-Yeah.

Good luck.

The junior vets must get this badger to vet Mike

for a check-up right now.

And he also requires a jab that will give him the drugs to help cure him.

Well done, junior vets. Thank you for that.

This badger looks so poorly. He needs help...and fast.

He looks adorable.

Yes, but he's a wild animal.

And one of the dangerous things for badgers is

if they're frightened, they bite.

And that's why you must never get too close or let your fingers

get in the way.

And don't think you can ever stroke them.

That's good advice, Mike. Badgers have powerful jaws and claws.

Best to stay well clear.

Is he frightened now?

He is very frightened now. He's not used to people.

At the moment, he's got an injury to his jaw which is healing.

Because he's not eating, he's not taking his medicines and his food.

And so we're now going to inject those medicines

that help keep him from an infection and give him some pain relief.

Oh, that made me jump.

You might be a bit angry, Mr Badger, but that jab will mean you

should start getting better, and quick.

The badger looked really grumpy and frightened.

Yeah, but you would be if someone came to you

with a massive injection and tried to stab it into you.

Yeah, that is true.

Now another injection that will stop his pain.

Will he need a plaster, because won't it bleed?

Like when we have injections.

No, it's only a little needle. That's done, then.

We can take him back to his housing.

The badger needs to be put back in his cage, so he can't run off

when he wakes up.

And the junior vets make him all comfy.

We're going to just put a little bit of straw over the top of his cage.

Ah, snug and relaxed. One more patient junior vetted.

ELEPHANT TRUMPETS

At the horse clinic, the junior vets are getting to the bottom

of Frank the horse's stomach problems.

They're investigating if his ulcers are on the mend.

This cool camera's going in through his nose and right into his stomach.

It's called an endoscope, and it's massive.

So look how long it is, OK?

It's about three metres, that.

I mean, three metres long, on the floor, looks really long.

But for it to go down a horse,

I didn't think Frank was three metres long.

But it's something solid, not food,

so it must have been quite uncomfortable.

Then just put a little bit of lubricant on the end.

What does that help do? Does that like soothe it?

-What do you reckon?

-Make it go down more smoothly.

Yeah. I wouldn't fancy having this up my nose without lubrication.

It's going to be a bit sore, isn't it?

Mike knows, you know. And Frank doesn't like the idea either.

Oh, wow.

You see it going up his nose.

And we can see, this is at the back of his throat.

You can see there, that's his larynx.

So that's his windpipe opening and closing.

He's putting up a bit of a fight against this tube we're

shoving up his nose.

Journey to the centre of Frank.

There we are. We're just in our stomach now.

Finally we're in.

Joe, your turn to use the camera to look for those nasty ulcers.

You can just push that down now, that yellow button.

That's food.

Oh. It looks like a sausage.

My mum would not want to be in here right now.

It was really disgusting, to be honest,

but fascinating at the same time.

Yeah, it was like, you wouldn't really see that often.

But spotting any sore patches is tricky.

Why is it, like, sometimes so difficult to find it?

In this case, where his stomach's quite full of liquid,

we can't really see where we're going.

It's like an underwater cave.

So what do you reckon, junior vets?

Remember you saw the other pictures.

What do you think about this now?

Looks much better. It looks like it's improving a lot.

So it looks like Frank's on the mend.

So how do you feel about like, he's completely better?

It's fantastic news. It's been a long journey.

I'm happy that he's happy and you're happy.

That's what being a vet's all about, having happy patients

and happy owners.

It was really lovely to give Katie the good news,

cos her expression said it all.

And it was great to know that he could go back

to show jumping again, the thing he's good at.

Frank the horse, you have been vetted.

What can I say? Some top junior vetting today.

She is really prickly. Ow.

Look there, not there.

There, not there.

Oh, that's a tick.

Oh, lovely.

Wow.

Cor. You girls never stop.

Look at that, making lunch for everyone, I see. Mm-hm.

Actually, this is for the badgers.

Oh, right. Yeah, the badgers.

Hey, you girls kept your cool, especially

-when the badger was waking up.

-Yeah, it was really tense and frightening.

Well, girls. You should be proud of what you achieved today.

Well done.

Oi!

Nice one, junior vets.

Thanks to you, this lot have all been junior vetted.

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.