Episode 10 More Creatures Great and Small

We Brits love our animals.

From livestock in the fields, to pooches in the park.

It's the job of the nation's vets to keep them healthy.

Whether consulting in the countryside...

There is something very nice about being next to a nice cow.

..Or horsing around in the stables...

I spend all my job outwitting animals.

..They're passionate about their patients.

Why I stroke them a lot is to try and reassure them.

On call when the animals need them most...

If we leave it any longer he almost certainly won't make it.

..They're the dedicated vets, patching up pets, and caring every day

for more creatures, great and small.

Coming up...

In Teesdale, small animal vet, Steve, has a tricky,

taloned, customer.

When they hook on, they just hold.

Sybil's surprised when she delves into a horse's mouth.

It's like a shark's teeth in there.

And in Fife, heart and lung expert, Craig, treats a seriously sick terrier.

Zoe has a life-threatening condition.

In stunning County Durham, on the banks of the River Tees,

sits the market town of Barnard Castle, home to Castle Vets.

That's a good sign of grumpiness, yes!

It's a mixed practice, dealing with everything from the town's tom cats, to the county's cows...

and a handful of wild animals, too.

CAT HISSES Ay!

Small animal vet, Steve, has been practising for 17 years.

We had both cats and dogs growing up.

I guess that's where the natural tendency came

to relate to animals.

I suppose some would say there was only one direction I'd go in terms of a career.

But it was something I always wanted to do.

And being surrounded by beautiful countryside is another perk of the job.

There's cases as a small animal vet where you're in urban areas,

and yet just outside my back door is this.

Today, a creature from the great outdoors needs Steve's help.

We have a kestrel that's been found right at the top of the dale,

a place called Langdon Beck.

A chap from the Environment Agency apparently saw it.

He thought he saw it land, got out his car to take pictures

and realised the wing was damaged.

A kestrel beats its wings five times a second, allowing it to hover

whilst hunting.

But a wounded wing would turn her from the hunter

to the hunted.

Despite being small, this bird is also deadly.

Equipped to catch and kill voles, mice and even small birds,

examining a kestrel is a risky business.

It's not just the beak you've got to worry about,

it's these little guys as well.

They're really sharp and when they hook on they just hold

and they'll go straight through your finger, so they can be pretty painful

and you're trying to get bird off one hand and he's biting the other one

so you tend to just be...

err on the side of caution and hopefully keep your fingers intact.

Nurse Emma wears protective gloves.

You can... There's that pen.

And the pen is a handy distraction tool.

So what we've got...

You look here, this wing is hanging at a peculiar angle.

Quite limp.

I'm going to just have a little feel. No, keep your sharp bits to yourself.

When I try to extend this wing,

you hit a stop point that shouldn't be there, basically,

and movement of the elbow back and forth...

there's a clicking that shouldn't be there as well.

Erm, so if it's broken it's pretty low down.

It's obviously not been feeding well for a while, it's pretty thin.

Quite alert and able to bite still, but...yeah, pretty skinny,

so I think what we'll do here is we'll get an X-ray. Come on, sweetie.

We'll get an X-ray of that elbow and just ascertain how bad

the damage is, and then decide from there whether it's going to be

something we can fix, but we wouldn't prolong things.

If there's no hope then we would have to, unfortunately,

put this beautiful bird to sleep.

Basically we're going to gas the bird down.

I literally just want him still enough to lay out on the plate

and get the x-ray shot, nothing more than that,

and we only want him asleep hopefully about 30 seconds, a minute.

Only a tiny dose. Too much and it could be fatal.

All right. Sometimes get a bit of struggle, as they fight the last bit.

There you go. Come on.

While Steve checks the X-rays,

Emma brings the kestrel round with oxygen.

OK, so this is the area where the elbow isn't moving properly.

The bones are actually intact.

It looks like part of the bone's displaced.

Although there are no broken bones,

a dislocated wing is tricky to treat.

Aren't you gorgeous?

OK, let's pop you in there, sunshine.

All Steve can do is let the kestrel rest.

That wing is at an odd angle.

He's now performing a dirty protest for you.

You've got to drop the sentimentality about it

and look at the fact that she is a wild animal and

just because you can save her by putting her in confinement

doesn't necessarily mean that you've given her the quality of life

that she deserves.

If she doesn't improve soon it may be kinder to put her to sleep.

In Scotland's Kingdom of Fife,

it's another busy day at the Inglis Veterinary Hospital.

Oh, everybody's kissing me today.

With over 4,000 operations a year,

the team of vets and nurses keep their fingers on the pulse.

I'm trying to use my fingers

because obviously it's less abrasive on the actual tissues.

Using the latest technology.

But when pets need extra care experts are called in.

Heart and lung expert Craig Devine

uses technology designed for human medicine on pets.

I give support in finding out what's wrong with the animals

and in deciding how to treat them in the more complicated cases.

Today, there's a dog desperately in need of Craig's expertise.

Zoe the Yorkshire terrier

is just eight years old but has severe breathing difficulties.

Zoe has a life-threatening condition, tracheal collapse.

It's something we do see quite commonly in smaller-breed dogs,

Yorkshire terriers in particular.

This is looking into her main windpipe, and this should be

a nice round structure but you see it's flattened across the top there.

As she breathes, that windpipe collapses down completely.

That's why she's having the difficulty breathing that she has.

It's been a traumatic time for Zoe's owners, Jim and Irene,

especially when she collapsed.

Well, we went to run along the riverbank and she just run 100 yards

and stopped and she couldn't breathe, so I took her home.

-Coming down the road was a nightmare.

-I was driving and Irene was in the back with Zoe,

trying to comfort her. Couldnae do nothing.

Tongue was going black and just terrible state.

I said to Jim, she's going to die. I just...

I just thought she was going to die and that was it.

Today Craig is hoping to save Zoe's life.

He'll attempt to fit a stent -

an expandable wire tube, designed to open Zoe's windpipe.

The stent gets pushed out of the end of the catheter

and as the stent comes out of the catheter

it expands to fill the windpipe.

If the stent is not in the right position then,

then you've got big trouble, cos these stents can't be taken out.

I've got to know Zoe's owners quite well,

I know how much she means to them.

And...

..I'm apprehensive.

But I'm confident that we need to fix her

and this is the only way of doing it.

Craig rarely performs this procedure.

He's under enormous pressure.

She's a little apprehensive too, looking at her heart rate.

OK.

So we'll just let her go down gently onto her chest.

You can hear her whistling, that's the collapsed trachea.

With Zoe anaesthetised,

Craig prepares for this difficult procedure.

County Durham is home to around 400 breeding pairs of kestrels.

Four days ago one of these beautiful birds was badly wounded.

Vet Steve diagnosed a dislocated wing.

So this is the area where the bone's displaced.

Unable to operate on it, he was left fearing the worst.

If there's no hope then we would have to, unfortunately,

put this beautiful bird to sleep.

Now Steve's only hope is to give Mother Nature a hand.

If we can get her fed up, get some strength in her, get some

decent nutrition into her, we stand some chance of getting her to heal.

To stand any chance of flying again,

this kestrel needs to recuperate in an aviary.

Steve's taking her to animal sanctuary Ark on the Edge,

home to all creatures great and small.

Particularly beautiful part of the world, this.

All of the heather's out so I love coming up here this time of year.

Pat Kingsnorth has a lot of experience with birds of prey.

You can see her left wing is a bit squiffy.

She's dislocated basically her elbow.

The bones are not sitting together

so when she stretches out the elbow's actually popping in and out.

Right, we'll go and let her in the aviary, then, see how she gets on.

-Excellent.

-OK, come this way.

You can see there's plenty of space in here.

She won't be able to hover in here, obviously,

but I don't expect her to do that soon anyway.

It's really about trying to get her to use the wing

and actually move about.

-Ooh, she's out.

-She's out.

-She actually semi-flew across there.

Normally what they do is they take a chick and they'll go in a corner

and then they just open their wings up and cover it all up and eat it.

So when she gets to that stage she'll be ready to go.

If she comes right and she can hover

then she's back to where she came from.

Which is across the hills and that direction by, what,

-about 10 miles or so, isn't it?

-Yeah.

At the moment I wouldn't be betting my sort of next pay cheque

on her making full recovery but we've seen worse cases get better

so it's always worth giving them the chance, and

hopefully she'll prove our doubts or our concerns unfounded.

Her future is uncertain.

But with some more TLC there is still a chance

this beautiful bird could fly again.

Across the County Durham countryside,

equine vet Sybil is also out on her rounds.

It's fabulous to drive through fields...erm, sheep, cows, alpacas,

there's some camels, and obviously horses,

which...it's very nice to see them.

I like to keep a proprietorial eye on them all.

Sybil sees up to 50 horses a week.

Could I just have it, please?

Of all shapes and sizes.

There's a very large variety of horses in Teesdale,

right from the traditional Dales ponies, fell ponies,

and they go right on up to top-level showjumpers.

-Come on, then.

-OK.

Sybil's on her way to a pony with a locked leg.

It's a common condition in young horses,

but not always easy to treat.

He's a yearling so he won't be handled very well

and it's a back leg that's locked so he'll be quite keen to kick

and he'll also be very anxious about being handled,

and he's probably a bit anxious about the fact that his leg doesn't work,

so he might be a bit feisty.

The main thing for me is to, A, fix the horse,

and then, B, not get kicked.

Got a pony with a dodgy leg?

-Yes.

-Excellent! We're at the right spot.

Ten months ago,

the Brunskill family spotted this pony in an unlikely place.

Well, he was running round the graveyard up there.

I think he'd been running wild for a few months, hadn't he?

He'd been knocking headstones over.

I think they decided enough was enough

or they were going to end up shooting him.

You couldn't go near him. The police tried to get hold of him,

the RSPCA tried to get hold of him, nobody could get hold of him.

But, the Brunskills had a brainwave.

John decided to go and get the little one there and take him up

to the cemetery and he just followed him back down so...

And cos he was in the cemetery, we've called him Greyfriars Bobby

after the dog.

So, it's a careful approach to this wild child.

Come on, Bobby, hello, love.

OK...

It certainly looks like it's a locking patella.

Let's just see what we can find.

Good boy!

I know, your leg is stuck.

CLICK There we are.

That must have felt good.

What's happening is he... he is locking his kneecap

and it's because he's growing fast so his muscles are quite weak

compared to the sudden new bone length that he's got

and the way - horses have quite special kneecaps,

that's why they can sleep standing up.

He doesn't have the muscle strength to pick this up and get it off

so what he needs... Yes, I fixed you!

..is... it will come undone but what you guys need to do to unlock it

for him is get him to bend it.

Bobby, you're so nice!

So, all you have to do is pick up his toe...

that's it... and bring it forwards. That's it.

Handling him every day, two or three hours on a morning,

two or three hours an afternoon

and he was just so wild you couldn't do anything at all.

He's just a lovely little pony now.

Which has made Sybil's job a whole lot easier.

That's astonishing for such a little pony to be so well-behaved.

Erm, and that really gives you an idea of what kind of people they are.

And even their Rottweiler was a model of good manners so...

That is the most fun part... is the nice people, really.

In Dunfermline there's a much more serious case for

heart and lung expert, Craig Devine.

Zoe has a life-threatening condition. With her airway

closing like this she could, asphyxiate, really, at any point.

When Zoe collapsed, owners Jim and Irene almost lost all hope.

It was touch and go, like, you know.

I said to Jim, "She's going to die..."

I just... I just thought she was going to die and that was it.

I'm apprehensive but I'm confident that we need to fix her.

The life-saving operation Zoe's about to undergo, can be risky.

-Try and keep her tongue forward.

-All right.

'This is a difficult procedure, this is a tiny little dog.

'There's not a lot of room for error.'

OK...

Craig inserts the catheter and the stent.

Stand back.

Now fluoroscopy, or live X-rays, let him

guide it slowly down Zoe's windpipe.

Once the stent's released, there is no going back.

With painstaking precision, Craig releases it into Zoe's windpipe.

Now, only an X-ray will show if the stent is perfectly positioned.

Right, OK.

Everything's gone fine. The stent is in place now,

we just want to check and see the positioning of the stent.

And that's what this X-ray will show us.

And then, hopefully, we can all go down the pub.

I can already tell she's breathing a lot more easily

with the stent in place.

OK, that's it.

BEEP

Right, so there we can see the stent is now in position

in her trachea, it's a perfect position so everything's fine.

Just where we wanted it.

Listen to that lovely airflow. Do you remember how it was all...

-Whistly.

-..whistly to start with?

-Yes.

-Nice and open now.

Once she's awake and she's breathing normally with her upper airway,

she'll be a much happier, much more comfortable little dog.

It was as difficult as I thought it would be, to be honest.

It was no walk in the park but we knew it was going to be difficult

and it's in place.

But a walk in the park is just what the doctor ordered for Zoe.

In just a week, she is transformed.

-Zoe!

-Zoe, come on.

-Come on, babe.

And Jim and Irene are thrilled with Craig's handiwork.

He's a miracle worker!

SHE CHUCKLES

-Isn't he? Yeah.

-Spot on, really.

-He's a miracle worker.

100 times better. She breathes normally now.

-She's a different dog.

-Oh, aye.

-She's much livelier now,

-isn't she, Jim.

-Aye.

-Yeah.

-Brilliant.

At last, Zoe can get on with the business of being a dog!

TOY SQUEAKS

Equine vet Sybil's patch stretches over

860 square miles of County Durham countryside.

Today she's taking on the role of dentist - which is never easy.

HORSE NEIGHS

Horses usually need to be sedated. They will put up with you

doing dentistry without,

however it's very difficult for them

to open their mouths wide enough and relax.

Sybil's mission? Tackling the troublesome teeth of two horses.

Horse teeth grow continually, so annual checkups are vital.

But, just like humans, horses aren't too keen on the dentist.

They can kick and they can rear up and knock you over

or some of them will deliberately squash you into a wall

so they can, they can behave in a manner that's very dangerous.

If Sybil has any chance of keeping things calm,

she'll need to sedate both horses. First up is Merlin.

If you leave and give him to me.

Got him!

That was not friendly.

With over 20 years' experience, Sybil knows when to back off.

Too risky for him and too risky for me.

His back teeth are underneath his eye

which... if he's throwing his head around and tossing his head about

like he is now that could break my arm when it's fully

inside his mouth. He's going to have to be brought into the clinic

and restrained in stocks for further care.

Oh...

Next is Tino.

Poor Tino, he's got no idea.

Hello, gorgeous!

He's quite scared.

Oh.

He's just being good.

There you are.

So far so good.

And now for the horse-sized speculum to help Tino.

"Open wide!".

Can do better than that.

Some teeth are very much longer than the other teeth.

OK, so that's sharp.

It's like a shark's teeth... yes.

That's worn...

A quick rinse to disinfect...

This is the same stuff that dentists use as well.

And then the rasp, to file down overgrown teeth and sharp edges.

RASP WHIRRS

I know, it's better...!

You'll like it when I'm finished.

So, that's a piece of tartar that I've

picked off his tooth.

Oh, I know, you haven't done your teeth, have you?

You've never brushed them.

It's looking much better in here now.

All the sharp points that would have been causing him pain

have been reduced...

and the very overgrown teeth which are damaging the teeth below them

and wearing them to the gum line, have been reduced as well.

So Tino now has a winning smile...

And for Sybil, it's back on her rounds.

Small-animal vet Steve is also out on the road.

It's a nice day for a drive out into Teesdale today,

the sun is out.

He's heading back out to the animal sanctuary,

to check on the kestrel's progress.

-How's she getting on?

-She's not doing bad.

The kestrel was brought in six weeks ago with a dislocated wing.

But Steve thought her chances of recovery were slim.

If there's no hope than we would have to, unfortunately,

put this beautiful bird to sleep.

While he's keen to see the kestrel, now named Phyllis -

the feeling is not mutual.

Hopefully, a chick might tempt his feathered friend.

-WHISPERING:

-Come on, out you come.

Good girl. Come on, gorgeous bird, out you come.

She's just coming out.

She spotted the chick and she's...

inch by inch is coming closer, watching, watching...

She obviously wants the bird more than she's worried about us

so she's coming out here. I think she'll jump on it any time.

Good move that. That damaged wing...

the erm... she's carrying it a bit low still.

But it's so close to a normal position

compared to where it was six, eight weeks ago.

At least at the moment, you feel really good about the job that you do.

The things that you get to help animals with... it's amazing.

There was a bit of doubt in our mind that, you know,

such a serious injury, for a bird that has to be able to fly and hover

and hunt for herself...

The odds are probably against her, actually

but I'm really pleased, as I say, that we did

go with our gut feeling and her, sort of,

fighting spirit shone through.

Phyllis' wing is almost healed. But still not 100 percent.

She'll have to sit tight over the winter,

until she's released in the spring.

She belongs out on the wind and... you know, over the dale.

So, that's where we aim to put her.