Ashtons Story

Aston McCabe walked willingly out of his crate. He surveyed the exam room and looked disdainfully at each of the occupants. Then he sat on the examination table facing his owner and with his back, squarely directed towards me. Ashton had visited my office frequently over the past year and a half. Ashton is a cat and he was not going to embarrass himself, he would cooperate, have his blood drawn and blood pressure checked, but he did not need to be happy about it.

Ashton is one cool cat alright, but about a year ago he was at my hospital in renal failure. After renal biopsies, blood transfusion and intravenous fluids he went home. We monitored his progress closely with regular check-ups and blood tests. Now his visits are every 6 months! A few weeks after Ashton’s initially hospitalization his owner mentioned that he felt badly that Ashton had become so ill. He went on to explained that he should have recognized that Ashton was getting more sick based on the data he was recording. In fact, he had spreadsheets (he was an engineer) with recorded dates and parameters such as Ashton’s body weight, appetite, etc. You could actually appreciate when Ashton began to decline as his body weight gradually dropped once by once, just a few weeks prior to his hospitalization. I explained that this sort of data was fantastic and we could use these observations to our benefit to avoid another illness. The clients keen observation skills and meticulous record keeping was just what we needed to be sure that Ashton remained healthy.

One of the frustrations every person that lives with an animal experiences is their inability to communicate verbally, particularly when it comes to their health. In many cases we rely on intuition, wives tails and we anthropomorphize. Some of this is helpful and some of these techniques can get in the way of the observation skills we all have.