Episode 8 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.

Got him!

..they're passionate about their patients.

It's always very tempting to take more animals home.

You're a terrifying dog, aren't you! Yes!

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, vet Sybil carries out emergency surgery

to save a horse's eye.

40 or 50 stitches altogether, by the time I've finished?

Farm vet Erica is called to a difficult birth.

This calf's coming backwards,

it's going to have to come out the side door.

And it's birth time in Dunfermline too,

as vet Angela helps a distressed new mum.

It's important to not interfere as much as you can

so, but it's also important to try and keep them calm.

The rolling moors and lush farmland of Teesdale,

home to the rural practice of Castle Vets.

Good lad, good lad.

With over 1,500 equine clients on the books,

there are plenty of patients for the team to look after.

Come on, Bobby. Pay attention.

Out in the country,

and at the equine hospital,

Senior vet Sybil is always ready for a challenge.

The things that make me most excited

are putting horses back together.

It's really satisfying to be able to do an excellent surgical job

and make an animal who was falling to pieces back together again

and know that that animal's going to go on and do really, really well.

It's early morning, and while Sybil is out on her rounds...

..back at base, an emergency has arrived.

Equine vet Claire is holding the fort.

When did he do it, do you know?

He's been in the stable all night. I don't know how he's done it.

It's all right, calm down, we're here now. Deep breath. It's OK.

Michelle and dad Vince have brought in Denzil.

He's ripped his upper eyelid during the night

on something in his stable. It's a serious injury.

The longer we leave them,

the more the dead tissue shrivels up and shrinks.

It's already quite swollen, it's not going to be an easy job at all.

Denzil needs immediate reconstructive surgery,

so Claire calls the more experienced Sybil back to the practice.

Michelle and Vince wait anxiously.

At their stable at home,

20-year-old Denzil is part of the family.

Devastating when I found him like that.

Made me feel sick that he was hurt.

I wanted to protect him and I couldn't, really.

I think I was round about 12 when we got him.

I used to sit on top of a bucket in the corner of the stable

and do my homework while he was eating his tea.

They've been through thick and thin, enlisting together in the Army.

When I moved to Sandhurst, he came to the army barracks with me.

He lived indoors in the army barracks,

among all of the black army horses.

He's just...part of my life.

There's a lot resting on Sybil's shoulders.

With the inflammation and everything,

I'm not going to actually touch it. Right!

I will attempt to put that back together.

It's absolutely vital to try to keep the eyelid.

Without the eyelid, the eye will die

because it needs the tears

and the eyelid's the only structure to provide the tears

all the time in the right places -

a bit like a windscreen wiper on a car.

But the surgery to fix the tear is very delicate.

The front of the eye is only about 15 to 20 cells thick,

so very, very thin,

very susceptible to damage.

Suturing so near the eye carry a risk of lacerating the eye.

Denzil could go blind and lose his eye.

It's a challenge for even the most experienced vet.

Across the County Durham countryside,

the farm vets of the practice are out on their rounds.

-Good morning.

-Nice to see you.

So, I'll just have a listen on the other side.

26-year-old vet Erica has been at the practice three years.

Just going to take a bit of time.

Just keep an eye that she's filling herself up.

She's just set up home with fellow farm vet, Graham.

-She's had some calcium, then?

-Yeah, of course she has.

-Oxytocin?

-Yeah.

-Go on, then!

But being on call means they don't get much time there together.

Being dragged from your bed at two in the morning,

to go out on a cold, dark night.

If you're not on call and the phone rings, it's fine,

because you know you can go back to sleep

but you do feel sorry for the other person having to go out.

It's Erica's turn today to be the vet on call

and she's heading out to a cow having trouble giving birth.

Probably the most common reason would be

that the calf is relatively too big

to the size of the cow or heifer's pelvis.

The cow is part of a herd of 50 beef cattle owned by farmer Robin.

His family have farmed here for three generations.

-Hi, Erica.

-Hello, how are you doing?

This is a heifer that's been on calving a little bit,

and this calf's coming backwards

so doesn't come through the pelvis quite as easily.

The calf can't be delivered naturally,

so Erica must perform a Caesarean.

It's going to have to come out the side door.

We've blocked her up so she can't feel anything down her side,

and I'm just about to make the first incision.

Right...

She'll feel it a bit when I'm pulling the calf out,

but she won't feel, like, the cutting.

So, when I cut into her, she won't feel it.

And in under eight minutes, he's out.

-You all right, Robin?

-Yeah.

Erica needs to quickly stitch up the mother, so Robin revives the calf.

He's taking a few breaths there, so that's great.

He's doing great. That's a very successful Caesarean.

He would not have come out backwards. Too large a calf.

He's only just been born,

but the calf will soon try to get on his feet.

Tend to have a little race with them,

try and get stitched up before they stand up.

He keeps having a fidget, but he's a big lad,

so it wouldn't surprise me if he'll take a bit longer.

He won't stand up until he gets some milk inside of him.

He needs his mother's first milk, called colostrum.

Its first milk's like the most important milk for it.

That will give it its protection against any bugs

that it's going to meet in its next few months of life.

I have some already in a container

from a previous cow that's been in the freezer.

This is just mother's first milk off another cow...

..and hopefully he'll suckle.

You have to give it some form of antibodies

and, of course, the natural ones are always the best.

That's probably enough for now.

A cow will produce around nine gallons of colostrum in the first few days.

It's four times richer in antibodies than human colostrum.

Minutes after his first feed, the calf's on his feet.

He's got the message.

We'll pop him in the pen down there.

That's great, cos he's really good and lively.

This is what we aim to achieve every single time,

and it is a wonderful thing.

Births, we shape our cow's calves.

It's an amazing thing. We'll pop him down in the pen, I think.

He wants to be with his mum, but Erica must finish stitching.

So, these stitches will hold her skin together until it heals

and within a few days, the skin starts knitting together.

Lovely silver spray.

With aluminium spray protecting the wound,

Mum can now meet her calf for the first time.

She's just having a little look round cos it's all new to her.

She's doing some vigorous licking at the moment

which is the best stimulus a calf can get.

-Bonding is the key.

-She's having another look.

She's not quite bonded with it yet.

She's not quite ready to let it suckle

because she's turning on the spot.

She needs time to get used to her new baby,

but her calf will start to suffer if she leaves it too long.

Back at base at the equine hospital,

Sybil is preparing for a more delicate operation.

Michelle discovered Denzil had torn his eyelid during the night.

Devastating, when I found him like that.

I wanted to protect him and I couldn't, really.

Senior vet Sybil will have to carry out

major reconstructive surgery to save his eye.

Absolutely vital to keep the eyelid.

Without the eyelid, the eye will die.

I will attempt to put that back together.

General anaesthetic in horses is risky.

Sybil will attempt the delicate repair with local anaesthetic.

Denzil will be conscious, but heavily sedated.

Lovely and floppy, he can't do anything about that now.

If he stays like this, it'll be great and then,

I'm going to start stitching... I'll put this bit back together

and start stitching from the inside up to the end.

It certainly looks like we'll be able to put him back together

with him standing if Claire manages his sedation.

He could spring back at any moment, but she can do it.

Claire must sedate at just the right level.

Too much and Denzil will become unsteady.

Too little and he could pull away during the op.

Even if he can't feel Sybil stitching his eye,

he will be able to see her.

So, even just having someone come near him

with something sharp might be enough to wake him up a bit.

I feel under enormous pressure before I start an operation.

But, once I start, to be honest,

I'm entirely unaware of anything else except the horse and myself.

World War III could break out around me.

One of the temptations that people always have

when things are this severe

is to simply chop the offending bit off.

But if you remove an eyelid at all,

you will lose the eye.

And so all attempts should be made to put it back together

and to put it back together as physically perfect as you can do.

Sybil is stitching with thread as fine as human hair.

40 or 50 stitches altogether, by the time I've finished?

Michelle mustn't stand too close.

Her presence could rouse Denzil.

I have to be quiet because he can hear my voice.

He looks much better.

I can't believe...

He doesn't even look as though he's had a piece missing.

Hopefully, when the swelling goes back down,

it will be all right.

And finally after almost an hour of intensive surgery...

OK, so Denzel's eyelid is now...exactly back together

and the rest of the eyelid is coming together nicely.

So all we have to do is put some sutures in the skin

to hold it together.

-Thank God for that, cos he was beginning to lean on me.

-LAUGHTER

HE SIGHS

At last Michelle and Denzel are reunited.

The swelling is just massive,

so the circulation won't come back to there fully for another day or so.

So lots of things to happen, lots of support for the eye.

We've now got a pirate horse. MICHELLE LAUGHS

The worst is over, but now the wound needs time to heal.

It'll be a few weeks before Sybil can tell

if the eyelid is functioning like it used to.

Across the Firth of Forth at Inglis Small Animal Hospital...

-So we've got two new additions?

-Yes.

..vet Angela has a day of consults.

Nip some many points off them.

Her patients can be flighty.

You are going to tire yourself out, big guy.

-Yes.

-But they've captured her heart.

A world without pets would be a really, really horrible,

much sadder place.

And some are particularly cute.

It's always nice when you get new live babies being born.

It is always one of the nicer things.

Today's new arrivals have not had the easiest start in life.

-This one is doing really well.

-She's taking it straightaway. Brilliant.

That's good.

They're minutes old, but some of these German Shepherd puppies

have been rejected by their mum.

Yummy! Is that good? LAUGHTER

There we go.

Nurses Kelly, Kerry and Leanne

are making sure they're getting their first essential feed.

First-time mum Quiz is being looked after in a separate ward

by head nurse Louise and vet Angela. She's very distressed.

This is her first litter.

Unfortunately, the first one was born dead,

the three after her have all been thankfully alive.

She doesn't quite understand what's going on with her

and she had a little issue where she had tried to eat the dead pup,

which isn't an uncommon thing.

In the wild, mother dogs will often eat their stillborn pups,

it's a natural instinct but it was shocking for her owner Electra.

Quiet a distressful labour for her. The first puppy was stillborn

and then the second one was a little girl and when she licked off

the afterbirth of that pup, she then started to attack the pup.

I think she'd basically gone into panic and stress mode.

So I took that one away from her

and then rang the vet to see what I should do about it,

because I couldn't get the puppy to latch onto her to suckle

and I couldn't get it to bottle feed either.

So on the way to the vet,

we then pull off on the roundabout at the top

and she has another puppy in the car.

If a mum has rejected some of the puppies in her litter,

there is a worry that she will go on and reject the whole litter.

That is a concern, that's why we have to keep a close eye on them.

While Quiz is so upset and confused,

she can't be trusted with her newborns.

The nurses have to feed them every hour.

It's a full-time job.

There you go.

Just going to give her another wee check and see how things are progressing along.

German Shepherds regularly have litters of eight.

Quiz may have more puppies to come.

Sometimes the only way to tell for definite how many pups are left

is to take an X-ray

or to do an ultrasound scan.

We have decided that we think that might just be too stressful.

I do think I can feel another pup here actually.

I'm going just check inside her pelvis as well,

make sure that there's not one stuck there.

Good girl. This is a wee bit uncomfortable, so I'm sorry, poppet.

QUIZ WHINES

It's OK. It's all right.

No, there's nothing there. OK.

Good.

So there's no pup there, but her pelvis still is nice and wide and open,

so it's not closing up.

So I think we just need to give her time and rest

and see how she gets on and try and keep her nice and calm.

Nurse Louise will stay with Quiz while her owner keeps away.

Her anxiety won't help.

Obviously, my stress levels are just completely off the wall at the moment,

which is then rubbing off on the dog.

She's picking up on my stress and vice versa

and it's just ended up in a big mess really, to be honest.

That's a baby. That's a baby!

In Teasdale, farm vet Erica is on her way to check if her new mum is adjusting to motherhood.

A week ago, she helped a cow give birth with a Caesarean,

but the mother didn't bond with her baby straightaway.

She's not ready to let it suckle because she's turning on the spot.

Today, Erica is back to check the mum's wound

and to make sure she's feeding her calf.

The last time I was here, I left the cow and calf,

the calf was yet to suckle... but it was almost there

and it should probably have grown quite a bit,

I would think, in a week.

Well, they look like they're doing well.

-And her appetite looks good.

-It is, it's fantastic.

And her wound is amazing. I can't believe...

I've never seen one not weep at all.

-We'll just leave those stitches in, another couple of weeks really will be fine.

-Yeah.

Well, I don't think we need to get in close to examine her.

I think we're more likely to upset her.

I'm pleased with how cow and calf are doing.

She looks like she's a good first-time mother.

Yeah, she's bonded really well.

It's a good sight to see, really, the healthy feeding calf.

I think we were maybe expecting a little too much last week.

It's good to come back and see him filled out and grown

and doing what calves should be doing.

Erica's mother and baby have settled into their new life together.

CATTLE LOW

And across the rolling hills, equine vet Sybil is checking up on her patient too.

Four weeks ago, Sybil carried out emergency surgery

to repair Denzel's torn eyelid.

40 or 50 stitches altogether probably by the time I'd finished.

His owner, Michelle, watched anxiously.

Hopefully, when the swelling comes back down, it'll be all all right.

Today, Sybil is finding out if Denzel's eyelid is healing well

and she hopes to remove his stitches.

-Hello!

-Hi!

Where's our mission for the day?

But before checking Denzel,

there's a new mum here too and lots of puppies

-Oh, wow! How old are they?

-Five weeks.

Oh! Look at you! Aren't you lovely!

Aren't you lovely?! PUPPIES YELP

-LAUGHTER

-Don't you dare!

Back on the job, the first signs look promising.

Oh, wow! You've done well.

Move your head over here for me.

Oh, it's excellent, isn't it? Look at that muscle function, it's all come back.

So I'm just having a little look along here.

I'm really looking specifically at how the edge of the eyelid

is contacting the eye all the way around.

Denzel has to be patient one final time

as the last stitches are taken out.

Just relax. I'll get it for you.

There.

This eye is working just as well as it did before

and as well as the other one, so that's...

As he tried to remove it completely...I'm really pleased.

Out riding, he's just back to his normal self.

He's still got a cheeky little face, cute eyes.

Eh?

-He's lovely, isn't he?

-Yeah.

-MICHELLE LAUGHS

Yes, you are.

You try and be good.

With his eye saved, Denzel keeps a close watch on Sybil.

Hopefully that will be the last he sees of a vet for a while.

Good boy. Yes, I know. I know

I know.

BIRDSONG

In Dunfermline, Angela and nurse Louise are still waiting

for their anxious mum to give birth to her final puppy.

It's important to not interfere as much as you can,

but it's also important to try and keep them calm.

Quiz is still too upset to be reunited with her three newborns.

It's not that she's a bad mother in any way,

it's just sometimes when they are so stressed,

they can have a reaction to things

that we wouldn't think would be normal.

-OK.

-Everyone is waiting to see

if she'll accept the last puppy of the litter.

Good girl.

I'm just making sure that she's...licking the pup.

Just because she had issued the first puppy,

make sure she's not damaging the pup at all.

They also... In humans you cut the cord, whereas they do it themselves.

She's done really well.

She's just cleaning everything up and being a good mum.

PUPPY YELPS

Quiz's mothering instincts are looking strong.

Now she may be ready to bond with the rest of her pups.

PUPS WHINE

BOTH: Aw!

-Good girl.

-It's nice to see mum accepting them

and giving them a clean and stuff like that.

And one's suckling already, so that's promising.

Her owner, Electra, can now be reunited to.

-Here she is.

-Hello, baby.

Oh, look! Fantastic!

There's a good girl!

-Aw!

-It's mum.

LAUGHTER

Beforehand when she was a bit stressed,

we were a bit worried about her pups,

now she's gone the other way, she's really protective of her babies.

Oh, I'm so happy that she's accepted them, I really am.

I just can't wait to get her home now and see them all grow up.

The puppies need a basket for their journey in the car,

but Quiz has other ideas.

-Give it back!

-LAUGHTER

-Oh, Quiz!

-LAUGHTER

LAUGHTER

One goes in, one comes out.

She's trying to take her babies back out the basket and put them back in her bed.

She doesn't want them in here. That's OK.

-"Why are you trapping them?"

-LAUGHTER

-There we go.

-You can have this one.

-Good girl. Well done.

Quiz, thankfully, has settled down

and hopefully now we're going to go on

and have four growing, healthy, happy puppies and a happy mum as well.

Are we ready?

Checking her puppies are safe,

doting mum Quiz can take her family home.