Episode 15 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...

It's one of the better parts of the job, really,

when you can help create a new life.

..or horsing around in the stables...

I spend all my job outwitting animals.

Got him!

..they're passionate about their patients.

Hey, little miss.

I am now known as the mad chicken lady.

Hello, darling.

On call when the animals need them most...

If we leave it any longer,

he almost certainly is going to not make it.

..they're the dedicated vets,

patching up pets and caring every day

for More Creatures, Great And Small.

Coming up.

In Teesdale, farm vet Graham tries to help a calf to his feet.

Just try and get his legs...

Ian takes drastic action on a rescue dog with problem ears.

It's sometimes better to take the whole canal away.

While in Fife, small animal vet Adam has some exotic foot trouble.

It's definitely quite swollen.

The rolling countryside of County Durham in the north-east of England.

Over a thousand sheep and cattle farms dot the landscape.

The livestock, all potential patients

for the farm vets of Barnard Castle.

Vets Graham and Erica met at university.

And when Erica got a job at Castle Vets, Graham followed.

Been in a relationship with Erica for a good while now.

When the job came up at this practice, you know, it was

maybe an ideal time to give that a go, you know, working together.

It's actually the first time that we have, you know, cohabited and

worked at the same time.

It's much better that we're able to live together.

You don't spend all your time travelling backwards and forwards.

Today, Graham has been called to a farm on the dale where a cow

is having difficulty giving birth.

If it's a young heifer that's never had a calf before,

then perhaps the calf is a little bit big for her.

We might be thinking along the lines of doing a Caesarean section.

Maybe the calf isn't presented in the normal manner

and we might have to manipulate it to get the calf out.

The 300-acre hill farm has

herds of 80 cows and 500 sheep.

It's been in farmer Geoffrey's family for 80 years.

It's backwards is the calf and a bit big.

Right, shall we crack on and have a look first

and then we'll make a decision from there?

Look.

Wow, even its backside isn't coming up into the pelvis, is it?

So that's going to make the decision,

we're going to do a Caesarean on this cow.

Graham needs to perform a Caesarean fast

to save the mother and her calf.

He anesthetises and then makes an incision to access the womb.

We're into the body of the cow, so the calf is inside the womb.

Right, if you hold on to one foot, I'm going to just fish his head out.

And within minutes, Graham delivers a very large boy.

Get that leg going round see if we can just wake him up a bit.

Yeah, he's going.

While Graham stitches up Mum,

the calf is moved into the shelter of the barn.

He'll be a bit slippery, won't he?

So the womb of the cow is stitched up now.

We've just got the muscle layers to stitch back up.

Once the calf is on his feet, he can start to suckle.

Right, if we want to get her back into the pen,

then she can have a look at her new calf.

But first his mother needs to bond with him.

Would like to see some motherly instinct and then the calf

will be up and...

You know, he needs to get up and suckling within six hours

so he gets that first milk

and that'll help him thrive in his first few weeks alive.

So if she gets stimulating him with her tongue to lick him and dry him,

then that'll help him get up.

But this mum doesn't seem too keen on her new baby.

And he's not showing any signs of wanting to stand up.

Back at base, in Barnard Castle, the small animal practice is busy

with a steady stream of patients.

All done.

Now, now, now. Tat, tat, tat. That's a bit sore.

Vet Ian will spend half his morning consulting...

This can sting a little so just steady her head.

Your eye really is giving you problems, isn't it?

..and the rest in surgery.

Not too tight, I like to breathe during the operation.

Booked in for an operation today is seven-year-old Bichon Frise, Alfie.

His owner Vickie has had him for three years.

I got him from Dog's Trust.

We rescued him cos I just lost my dog, and it was a bit heartbreaking.

So we went to have a look.

And then I seen this little white dog in the pen.

And he was getting picked on by another dog.

And I knew that he was going to be my dog.

And I asked about him.

And within a few weeks, I got to take him home.

Poor Alfie has an eye cataract,

but it's his ears that are causing him the most trouble.

A severe recurring infection has been giving him

horrible earache for two years.

Alfie Walker, please. Good morning.

-Hi, how are you?

-I'm all right, thank you.

-Hello.

Have you been managing to get drops in and treat it and clean them?

We did use drops at first, but it wasn't working.

So we ended up getting him on steroids.

The canals are very, very narrow.

That won't allow good air movement.

And it's probably just due to chronic infection

that they've actually just closed up.

The infection is not responding to medication,

so removal of the ear canals is the best option.

It's quite a painful procedure to do and they are in a lot of pain

with it to start off with. But actually, the change

in their demeanour and their attitude to life and the way they are

is massive when you get that.

-Will he be deaf, then?

-I would say yes because I actually go

into the middle ear and damage that.

I'll go into that quite deliberately and do some work in there as well.

So, yes, he will be deaf.

But he'll hear his food bowl rattle, I'll guarantee it.

He does!

Their hearing is so, so sensitive

that they can even hear something through just skin,

without having a canal there at all.

But before he can operate, Ian needs to check Alfie's ears.

Some very, very red, sore tissue in there.

There's lots of inflammation going on in there.

I think they're too infected, at the moment,

for me to operate on.

What I want to do is get it under control enough

so that when I operate,

I'm going to have less damage, less bacteria contaminating the tissues

that I'm operating on. I want to get things better

because his recovery will be quicker and better.

The operation is postponed, but Ian can clean up Alfie's ears.

Leave him with me and I'll run him through.

And then... I'm going to carry him.

-And then I'll speak to you as the day goes on.

-All right.

Come back about three o'clock? Yeah? All right, I'll see you then.

-Bye!

-Bye!

Now, he is just sedated.

And I want to have a look, see if I can actually see anything in here.

It's the eardrum that I'm particularly concerned about.

It's bleeding just with me touching it. It's so sore in here.

Oh, dear, flower, your ears are bad.

It's a tough time for owner Vicky.

He no longer plays.

He's constantly walking around and shaking his head

cos he's uncomfortable from it. He's in a lot of pain as well.

Bichon Frise are susceptible to ear

problems as the fur growing inside their ears can become

a breeding ground for bacteria.

They are very, very, very sore ears.

When I got him, because he wasn't very friendly towards people,

I've managed to gain his trust over the years that I've had him.

And he's now... When I come, like, through the front door,

he's there to come and see me, whereas before he never used to.

So we've built, like, a good friendship between us.

I've never left him at the vet before, so this is quite worrying.

I'm very worried about it.

So we're going to pop some antibiotics in there.

And then I'm going to

turn him over and do exactly the same on the other side.

With cleaner ears, Alfie sleeps off the sedative.

A few hours later, he can go home.

-There he goes.

-Thank you.

OK, so he's still very sore, but you can see there's a lot less hair.

-So what I've done is a big clean up today.

-All right?

-Yep.

But it's not over yet for poor Alfie.

Ian hopes to operate in three weeks' time.

Mornings are a busy time for the farm vets in Barnard Castle.

Graham is out on his rounds.

Five days ago he delivered a calf.

Just get that leg going round, see if we can just wake him up a bit.

The Caesarean was a success,

but the mother didn't seem to bond with her calf.

Would like to see some motherly instinct

and then the calf will up and... You know, he needs to get up and

suckling within six hours.

Now Graham has been called back to the farm.

Mum and calf have still not bonded.

But more worrying, the calf can't get up on his feet.

The farmer thinks there's a problem with his tendons,

that they're too tight in the back of his legs,

and that's preventing him from stretching his legs out properly

and getting onto his feet.

We sometimes find that a very big calf perhaps doesn't have a lot

of room to move about inside the cow,

so, you know, tendons don't develop very well

and they don't have the flexibility that they should.

Farmer Geoffrey's son, Peter, is meeting Graham today.

Right, I see he's just trying to get up there, isn't it?

But he's not making it.

-Better on his back legs, then, than his front.

-Yeah, his back legs

-are better now.

-Well, maybe get him down on his side.

Let's try and get his legs under him.

That's it.

The tendon starts there, goes down the back of the knee

and all the way down over this joint here.

So if it is slightly tight,

the whole...the whole lot starts to bend.

What we want to do is try and get this straighter,

which is going to involve lengthening the tendon.

But it's going to have to do that itself, we...

There's no surgical means of lengthening a tendon.

We will be able to apply a splint to the front of this

and get it strapped down so that at least

he should be able to stand up and bear weight

on the bottom of this foot.

The action of him putting his foot down on the ground there

will help at least the bottom half of the tendon get to work.

They struggle to get their bodies up to begin with.

Once he's got these on, you're going to need to straighten them yourselves

-like this, and hold him.

-Yeah.

And, you know, get him to start bearing some weight himself.

At the moment, he's starting to get used to the idea

-that he can't stand on his legs.

-Yeah.

These temporary splints and bandages will be changed regularly,

but that's only the beginning of Peter and Geoffrey's work.

-So, physio.

-Yeah.

At least a twice a day, but the more you can, the better.

I'd like to see some improvement

really in the first three or four days.

Tendon and joint problems in such a big calf,

inevitably lead to complications, making it difficult for them

to ever stand up.

It's a shame, isn't it? Cos he's such a good, big calf.

His chances of survival are slim.

The Kingdom of Fife in Scotland.

Home to Inglis Veterinary Hospital.

Every day the vets here can see over 100 small animals,

of all shapes and sizes.

Senior Vet Adam never quite knows what to expect.

We could go from canaries, parrots, guinea pigs, hamsters, mice,

cats, dogs...

And I can pretty much guarantee you,

no day has ever been the same.

Adam's latest patient is a much-loved local celebrity.

-How are you doing?

-Hi.

-His name's Clive.

-Clive, Clive the peacock.

Clive the peacock.

Clive is one of only two remaining peacocks

still living in the town's park.

The peacocks are really important to Dunfermline.

And at the height, there was about 20 or so.

They are very much a part of the fauna and flora

and the whole personality of this area.

Big pressure, because there's only two peacocks left now

and they need to... You know, if there's not a peacock in the park,

it feels like the ravens have left the Tower of London

and the whole of the city walls are going to fall.

The park attendants are worried because Clive's been limping.

He's just got an infection in his leg, we think.

We think, don't we?

Hello.

-How are we getting on?

-Well, his leg,

he's not been able to put it down now,

so we think it could be another infection.

Come on, boy.

All right. OK, thanks for the present.

-He's stressed.

-He is stressed.

-And which one is it that he's holding up? The left one?

-Yep.

It's definitely something which is quite swollen.

He did get chased by a dog.

-So I don't know if he's landed awkward.

-Yeah.

The key thing is

to get him in. And what we'll do is we'll give him a puff of anaesthetic.

Just have a much better feel on that leg.

Take an X-ray of it and we can go from there.

But first, Nurse Debbie needs to catch him.

-Well caught, Debbie.

-Watch his...

-You have the dangerous part.

-Well caught, well caught.

To get a closer look, Adam anaesthetises him.

All right, young man.

I know, I know, I know, I know, I know... OK.

They've got a very high metabolism,

so therefore, they do tend to go to sleep quite quickly.

They also wake up really quickly as well.

And he's just starting to relax.

He's such a beautiful looking beast. Aren't you, eh?

This is the good leg, or the good foot.

There's good movement there. Here is the leg which is slightly swollen.

That swelling is really hard.

So that's just something that has not just happened overnight.

OK. Right, let's get some X-rays.

I think, we do that one first

and then can you do the other one for me as well?

Adam's beginning to suspect Clive may have a more serious problem

than an infection.

If this is arthritis, which it's looking like, in a peacock,

how we can treat that long term. Because, obviously,

an infection is something which we can address,

we can treat with antibiotics and it goes away.

But if it's arthritis, there are a lot of changes there

which aren't going to go away overnight.

-Here he comes.

-We're waking up.

-Go, go, go, go, go, go!

-Watch your face.

Clive's not used to confined spaces,

so Nurse Debbie will sit with him while he comes round.

-You all right, Debbie?

-Yeah.

I'll see you in about half an hour.

He's like a little hot water bottle.

He's really hot.

This is Clive's X-rays from today.

And this is the right leg.

And we can see a nice, clean joint here.

Nice, clean bones, no furriness.

If we go look at the left leg, you'll see that there's

real jagged edges to it,

and that means when... It's really grating,

as the joint goes over each other. So every time Clive moves his toe,

it's going... Uf, ow! And it's really sore for him.

That suggests a really chronic inflammatory issue,

which has caused arthritis.

So, painkillers today, painkillers for the next couple of weeks,

and then we'll re-X-ray it and reassess then.

Arthritis is not great news, but managed with painkillers

Clive could be back roaming in the park soon.

120 miles south in Barnard Castle,

Vickie has returned to the practice with her rescue dog Alfie.

He's had seriously infected ears for two years.

Some very, very red, sore tissue in there.

Three weeks ago, vet Ian gave them a good clean up.

Oh, dear, flower, your ears are bad.

Now it's time for Alfie to have a major operation.

It's an anxious day for Vicky.

Bit scared.

When Ian said what he would have to do, like...

He's going to have to take the ear canal away. That was a bit scary

because I was thinking the worst.

We are taking away the external ear canal.

It's quite fiddly in so much as we are getting deeper and deeper

in towards the dog's skull, and then we're actually at Alfie's...at

the level of his skull as well.

I just need to take a little bit of the bone away from his middle ear

so that I can actually get in and clean the middle ear out.

It sounds extreme,

but it's the only way to stop Alfie's horrible pain.

I'm going to be keeping him overnight, told you that.

All right? Don't worry. So he's got his little blanket.

All right.

I'm going to carry him because

it's actually quicker and easier.

-All right, I'll speak to you later.

-All right, thank you.

-OK, bye.

This is Alfie's anaesthetic.

It goes through a tube and into his vein on his leg, hopefully,

and we do it nice and slowly.

Alfie's hearing will be drastically reduced, but as dogs hear

up to ten times better than humans, he'll still pick up some sounds.

However, the operation is far from routine.

It's quite complicated. It's quite fiddly.

We are taking away the external ear canal

and there are some major structures...there's a major nerve

that comes out from behind the skull, behind the ear

and runs round the ear canal

and is very close to where I'm cutting.

And I definitely don't want to cut that.

One slip could result in facial paralysis or a stroke.

I'm just slowly clearing my way down to the cartilage

of the vertical ear canal.

There's a lot of important structures in the side of your skull.

There's his...a salivary gland,

that is on the outside of a dog's face.

I don't really want to go cutting through it,

I'd rather push it to one side.

30 minutes into the surgery, Ian reaches the ear canal.

I'm actually down to where I need to be.

Now I'm down to the canal.

And he removes it.

And it's very thick and very diseased.

Push me glasses up, I'm sweating.

All that remains now is for Ian to stitch up the wound.

Close the skin and that's it.

It went very well, there were no unexpected issues.

I'm just the worst person under the sun. I'm sorry, mate.

It's been a huge ordeal for this little dog,

but at least his left ear should no longer get infected.

A couple of hours later, Vicki pays a visit.

Very anxious.

It's been horrible.

Really horrible. But Ian said everything went all right.

Come on, your mum's here, flower.

Up you come, steady away. Steady away. Good lad.

Up we go.

Oh, that's it.

Sorry, just have a noisy dog in there.

There you go.

-OK?

-He's looking a lot better than what I was expecting.

Seems quite happy.

I was expecting him to come out crying.

Going to have five minutes and then I'll let him go back,

cos he'll be needing his tea soon.

It's been the right decision to do. Definitely.

Alfie needs to be monitored overnight,

so for now, Vicky must leave him behind.

But not every animal makes such a good recovery.

Three weeks ago,

vet Graham helped deliver a large calf by Caesarean section.

He needs to get up and suckling within six hours

so he gets that first milk.

A few days later, the calf wasn't suckling from its mum

because it couldn't stand.

At the moment, he's starting to get used to the idea

that he can't stand on his legs.

Geoffrey and his family have been doing everything possible

to help the calf.

But it's not recovering the way Graham had hoped.

I'd like to see the calf being able to get up on his own

and suckling from his mother,

but maybe that's a little bit too much to ask yet.

Might be that there's nothing more we can particularly do to help him.

The calf can't stand on his front left leg

and his condition has got worse.

Chances of him recovering are quite slim,

so... And it's a bit disappointing.

And sadly, the calf deteriorated further.

To stop his suffering, he was put down.

But thankfully, another patient is recovering.

Alfie may need his other ear fixed, too,

but for now, he is well on the mend and Vicki has come to take him home.

He'll still have some hearing

and should soon have a pain-free life.

Diminished hearing in a dog is almost certainly better than

a human's hearing.

They have got tremendously acute hearing.

They have got a fantastic ear trumpet,

which concentrates the sound and amplifies it.

Then it goes into this lovely amplification chamber.

I'd say their hearing is just tremendous normally.

While I've decreased that considerably,

but it's probably still better than mine.

Hi.

He's doing brilliantly. He's still doing brilliantly.

So, um, you go home today, you just treat him basically as normal.

-You've got more antibiotics. You've got a few left at home?

-Yeah.

OK, I'll see you in a bit.

Missed him. It's been very quiet without him.

You could tell he wasn't there.

Mind the doorway.

"Hi, Mum. Hi, Mum, they've been nasty to me."

Definitely got a better future.

Definitely, you can just tell.

He just looks more lively,

even though he only had the operation yesterday.

See you, Alfs.

And in Fife, there's another patient hoping to go home.

Clive the peacock had a painful foot.

It's definitely something which is quite swollen.

An X-ray revealed Clive has arthritis...

There's real jagged edges to it.

..which Adam has been treating with painkillers.

Two days later, park attendants Ian and Cliff

want to take Clive back to the park.

First, Adam needs to see

how well Clive is responding to the treatment.

-Sort of goose stepping a bit, isn't he?

-Yeah, yeah.

Of course, he's been in the cage all night as well.

And it looks like this peacock is ready to spread his wings.

I'm really pleased with that.

Debbie!

You are the chief peacock catcher.

To keep on top of the arthritis,

Ian and cliff will continue to feed Clive his painkillers.

Back at the park HQ, Clive's been missed.

But it's not long before he's back strutting his stuff.