Just for @MSUAlexis

george
1

Just for @MSUAlexis :slight_smile:

Enjoy! :slight_smile:

Opposable Definitions
Extra Stupid, Pets & Animals, Texas, USA, Vet | Healthy | April 2, 2018

(We are in a mostly rural area. A client has brought in her new dog, a recent adoption from the shelter. The client is a middle-aged, very traditional, southern woman. The doctor is from New England and has found that pretending to be just a dumb Yankee that doesn’t know how things work in Texas is an effective method of calming angry clients.)

Owner: “I’m very disappointed at the shelter; they promised he was already fixed, but I can see that he is not. If you don’t get dogs fixed, they get aggressive and can attack.”

(The vet starts his exam.)

Vet: “His scrotum is empty and there is a surgical scar here; this dog has been castrated.”

Owner: “Well, that’s nice and all, but I’m here to talk about getting him fixed.”

Vet: “Um, he has been fixed.”

Owner: “No, he hasn’t; just look at him!”

Vet: “I did; he has no testicles.”

Owner: “Why are you so focused on his manhood?! That has nothing to do with being fixed!”

Vet: “What does being fixed mean to you?”

Owner: “YOU ARE A VET! HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW WHAT GETTING A DOG FIXED MEANS?!”

Vet: “Ma’am, clearly there has been a misunderstanding, because where I grew up, getting the dog fixed is a euphemism for castration. Clearly that is not the case here, so please, explain what that phrase means in Texas.”

Owner: “It’s where they do a surgery to remove the dog’s thumbs, because thumbs are what separates us from the animals. You have to get them removed so the dog knows it is just an animal. Honestly, you can see his thumbs from here.” gestures at the dog’s dewclaws

(The doctor had to excuse himself from the exam room to laugh. He sent in the techs, and after 15 minutes they finally convinced her that she was misinformed. Apparently, when the owner was a young child she was told that definition of the phrase by a parent that didn’t want to explain what castration was, and she never questioned it as she got older. The dog still has his dewclaws.)

8 Likes
2

People never fail to amaze me. Never.

2 Likes
3

I’m with MSUAlexis, who could probably fill a thread of her own. I just volunteer at a shelter, and it’s about this bad.

Guy looking at a cat: Do they need to eat? Like, do you have to feed them something?

4

No, of course not! I only feed my cat on a diet four meals a day because she gripes at me otherwise. :roll_eyes:

2 Likes
5

My favorite, and it was an honest question by someone who never had a pet growing up or anything and truly wanted to do the right thing by her dog was this gem: “So, like, what do dogs do all day? Do I need to entertain him, or find him friends?” I swallowed my laugh because she was truly trying to do her best. I explained that the little fluffy dog she had adopted (poodle, shih tzu, something like that) pretty much just needed fed and petted and some toys for enrichment if he felt like it, and that basically they lay around all day or follow their owners around. I told her she could teach him lots of tricks or take him for walks or do agility or things like that, but that it wasn’t a must. She was amazed. I’m still not sure what she thought the answer was going to be.

(Typed as my dog lays against me while I’m working. Love fluffy little dogs. :blush:)

1 Like
6

How do you not know that animals need to eat?

2 Likes
7

I truly do not know why he needed to ask. That guy was just as sincere as MSUAlexis’s example above. I also let him know that “everybody poops,” and that turned into a revelation (for him) that no, cats usually don’t use a “people toilet.”

1 Like
8

Because cats catch mice and eat them.

9

But Some Humans Don’t Have Brains
Colorado, Extra Stupid, Pets & Animals, USA, Vet | Healthy | April 5, 2018

(This was heard by my friend who works as a janitor in the vet hospital:)

Customer: “Dogs have lungs?!“

10

It’s a well-known fact that dogs pant through their spiracles.

11

My wife’s favorite is when she has to describe to male owners how to get a semen sample from their pets for insemination and such. She always wants to throw in phrases like, “You probably know this part better than me…”

4 Likes
12

$Wife’s clinic apparently had a turkey wandering the parking lot this morning. I asked, “Returning Client or walk-in?”

(Actually I said “Client or loose?” but the above line is funnier.)

2 Likes
13

As God is my witness i thought Turkey’s could fly.

Probably PTSD.

1 Like
14

I didn’t know they couldn’t. Or can’t. Whatever. Is it because they get too fat or something?

Just looked it up. They can. Wild turkeys roost in trees, they just don’t necessarily fly well or high. The domesticated, eatin’ turkeys, however, are too fat, but that apparently is because they are being fattened.

15
2 Likes
16

Are turkeys those things that go gobblegobblegobble? :smile:

1 Like
17

Dude, blast from the past! Yeah, I remember that episode. I have a feeling that some of the SNAFUs on that show were inspired by real life events.

18

$Wife had a client with a dead bird come in, which made me show her the Monty Python Dead Parrot sketch she had never seen…

4 Likes
19

Dang it! Turkeys Away" was on last night on MeTV. Anyway, I’ve had it bookmarked for several years and read it every so often: “Turkeys Away: An Oral History”.

1 Like
20

I heard that in one of Borland’s product manuals, somebody managed to slip in a reference to the parrot skit. Cannot verify the authenticity of this…

Dead, See Parrot
.
.
.
.
.
Parrot, see Dead