Waring: Mousie doing well thanks to urgent care
It was one of those busy weekends at Animal Urgent Care.
The waiting room was packed with pets and their anxious owners. There was Blaze, a brown-and-white bulldog puppy that had recently undergone surgery for a congenital hernia. There was Timmy, a 14-year-old yellow tabby cat. Timmy suffered two seizures during the middle of the night.
Kitty, a 2-year old, 90-pound white American bulldog, had yelped loudly and suddenly fallen over limp in the yard, her owners said. A family of four sat patiently with their recently adopted lab-mix puppy. They suspected that their new puppy had a broken leg.
My husband and I were sitting in the waiting room, too. Our little dog, Mousie, became critically sick over the weekend. She needed emergency surgery. Without a Sunday afternoon operation, Mousie would have more than likely died before Monday.
Animal Urgent Care is a local after-hours emergency clinic for sick and injured animals. The clinic is located on Sycamore Dairy Road in Fayetteville.
It is open on weekends, holidays and throughout the week from 6 p.m. until 8 a.m. after regular business hours of most veterinary offices.
Three full-time veterinarians rotate shifts in order to ensure that one of them is present at the clinic at all times. There are a total of eight vet technicians that staff Animal Urgent Care. The clinic has a seven-member governing board of directors made up of local veterinarians who oversee its operation.
Dr. Timothy Staudt was the vet on call the Sunday afternoon that Mousie was rushed to the clinic. What he did, coupled with the follow-up care provided by my regular vet and the staff at Dogwood Animal Hospital, saved her life. Exactly two weeks after her emergency surgery, my husband and I took a fully recovered Mousie back to the clinic to thank Dr. Staudt and the rest of the staff of Animal Urgent Care.
Dr. Staudt says that one of the greatest rewards of his job is being able to see and to follow up on success stories, like Mousie's. Most of the time after being treated at Animal Urgent Care, the pet is taken to its regular veterinarian for care so it is not often that they get to see the results of their efforts.
"They leave here, and we don't hear back," Staudt says. He says they often wonder how the pet does after they leave and if what they did at the emergency clinic made a difference.
When it comes to caring for your pet, Dr. Staudt subscribes to the old adage that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. He says many of the serious problems he deals with at the emergency clinic could be easily prevented with routine care. It is frustrating when the owners are unable to afford the medical costs to help treat their sick pet, especially when you know the problem could have been prevented in the first place, Staudt says.
Courtney Faircloth works as a vet technician at Animal Urgent Care and at Southern Oaks Animal Hospital in Hope Mills. Faircloth says that interested pet owners can apply for a care credit card at the clinic, which is like a healthcare card for pets. Having that option does help some with the financial burden of costs, Faircloth says. To keep your pets healthy, Dr. Staudt recommends that pet owners spay or neuter their pets if they do not plan to breed them. They should also practice routine preventative health care and schedule regular checkups with a veterinarian. Doing so will reduce the likelihood your pet will experience serious preventable health problems, he says.
Hopefully, our pets will remain healthy and not require an emergency visit to Animal Urgent Care. But if your pet does become sick or injured when your regular veterinarian's office is closed, it is really nice to know they are there.
Animal Urgent Care is located at 3635 Sycamore Dairy Road. The phone number is 864-2844.
Lisa Carter Waring is a retired educator and consultant who lives in Hope Mills. She can be reached at LCart99@aol.com.