78 | May• 2019hamsters, guinea pigs and
the like), with a couple of
days allocated to reptiles
and birds, and maybe the
odd hour to amphibians
and fish.
This may seem woefully inade-
quate, but at a conservative estimate,
there are 8.7 million different spe-
cies on the planet, so in any typical
degree course we would have less
than 18 seconds per species to learn
everything there is to know about
their anatomy, physiology, behaviour,
therapeutic pharmacology, medicine,
surgery, dentistry, endocrinology,
oncology and reproduction. Howev-
er, the biggest part of the job is care,
compassion and counselling.
For those in general practice there
are several skills we have to learn to
mitigate this knowledge deficit.
Firstly, there is the principle of an-
imal comparisons. For example, to
most intents and purpos-
es, you can treat a rabbit
as if it were a miniature
horse: they are both
hind-gut fermenters,
doing most of their diges-
tion in their caecum [a pouch in the
large intestine], and have hypsodont
teeth, meaning that their teeth con-
tinually grow. Alpacas and llamas are
both ruminants like cattle and sheep,
and ferrets share many characteris-
tics with dogs. And, of course, if all
else fails, there’s always Google ...
I’ve often been asked what the
strangest animal I’ve ever seen in
the consulting room would be. There
are a few contenders – a Cuban frog,
a sugar glider and a skunk would
probably make the top ten – but one
consultation forever sticks in my
memory; an armadillo.
“How do you microchip an
armadillo?”L-R: Xi-Xi the panda
was cajoled into
having her photo
taken with bamboo
shoots; an armadilloPHOTOS: COURTESY JONATHAN CRANSTON