Our interview series have given new insights into different aspects of our community, from small business owners to newspaper staff. Now, we'd like to showcase the work done by those who care for our four-legged, winged and even scaled companions. For this series, we're interviewing animal care specialists.
This week, I spoke with Charissa Morris who is a licensed veterinary technician at Edgewater Animal Hospital in Buena Vista, Va.
What services does this location provide?
We provide veterinary services for small animals, mostly dogs and cats. We offer preventative care: vaccines, wellness exams, supplements, preventative medications. We also do a wide range of surgeries, dental procedures, cleaning, and senior wellness care as well.
Does this location have a high volume of animals?
I would say yes, just based on what we see on a daily basis. I would say, probably, we average about 20 to 30 appointments per day. Right now, we only have one veterinarian working so we stay very busy. We do see new patients, if not daily, definitely weekly.
How does this location handle the volume of animals?
We just try to see as many as we possibly can in the span of a day. We do only have one veterinarian but we have three licensed veterinary technicians and two assistants. They're able to jump in and help get things started, do as much as they can for the veterinarian to support her, and take care of the pets that we see daily.
A licensed veterinary technician, in the state of Virginia, is essentially kind of like a human nurse: we're licensed to take care of pets in the capacity of working under a veterinarian. So, we are able to do almost everything the veterinarian can do. The only things that we are not licensed to do is perform surgery, prescribe medication, or provide a diagnosis. Other than that, we can assist in surgery, we can provide treatments under the direction of a veterinarian, we can do vaccines, draw blood, give medications and treatments as needed.
A lot of the times we do require that some of our clients drop their pets off, so that they are there for the majority of the day. That just gives us time to see them, evaluate them, run diagnostics, and provide treatment. Sometimes it just takes a little bit longer than usual, but we're able to get more done that way.
What do you like most about working with animals?
It's just something I've always enjoyed. I don't know exactly how to describe it. It's just something that makes me happy, just being able to help them, you know? They can't tell us exactly what is wrong with them, or what's going on, so it's always kind of a learning process to investigate and figure it out. Part of the fun is doing the science, the work, figuring it out, and then being able to provide the treatments that they need and make them feel better. They're always thankful and happy and loyal. They can't really complain too much, so that's always a nice thing too. I just grew up loving them and just always wanted to work with them. So I just followed that dream and it's worked out for me.
What is a major challenge for animal care in our area?
I would say the biggest challenge, obviously with most things, is going to be cost. Veterinary care is becoming more expensive, along with everything else. Just the cost of having a pet in general is expensive, even if you don't have any emergencies or don't have any medical issues come up. Just the preventative care and maintenance - vaccines, flea and tick prevention, keeping them feeling as good as they can. Their food is even expensive, especially living in this rural area that we live in. You don't have a high salary in our area, you know? It's hard for people to afford just general care. So that's our biggest hurdle that we cross basically every day. Just trying to provide the best care that we can, at the lowest cost, that still gives us the ability to be open every day and have the medications on hand that need to be given.
What is the most common animal seen at this location?
More dogs than cats in general. We have probably a bigger cat population in our area, but we don't see a lot of them. Mostly because they are feral or owners just have them as outside pets that they aren't able to bring for their illnesses. Dogs probably are bigger, probably about 60 to 40 ratio. It's not a big difference but we see more dogs than cats on a daily basis.
What was the most unusual animal seen at this location?
We did have somebody bring in a fawn once, that their dog unfortunately had attacked. We aren't able to provide care for wildlife, technically. We can provide emergency critical care when needed. What we did was just put the fawn on some oxygen and waited for somebody to be able to pick it up and take it to the Wildlife Center.
Other than that, we really don't see many cool pets. We just don't do exotics. There's just a lot more information that other places can provide and help with the exotics. It's just a lot for us to undertake. We'll do nail trims on guinea pigs, we've done some bird nail trims and wing clippings before, but it's very rare. We haven't done that in a while.
What advice would you give to new animal owners in this area?
Probably the biggest advice that we give to most of our new pet owners is: look into getting pet insurance. It's becoming more popular and we have seen it help our clients tremendously. Mostly unexpected calls or, you know, illnesses and injury, but it can help with other aspects as well. Just like human insurance, you don't usually need it everyday but when you need major help. Pet insurance, especially with a new pet that's going to live for 10+ years, it's becoming a bigger thing and something everybody should be thinking about when they're looking to get a new pet.
