Father and 12-ish daughter came in yesterday, hauling a giant pink cat carrier with a fatish tabby cat outfitted in a pink rhinestone collar. They were new clients, just moved to our area from some state on the other side of the country. The cat was a 10 year old spayed female, due for annual exam and other such fun. Her name was Princess Muffykins or something along those lines. Yay.
We went through the usual speel of extracting a fecal sample, giving vaccines, recommending senior bloodwork and urine tests, and watching their eyes glaze over at the mention of dental care and weight loss. In other words, the usual.
Then came the good part.
Associate Vet was finishing her usual painstakingly thorough exam - we moved from the head to the heart and lungs to the abdomen, rolled the cat over on her belly, etc etc etc...then for the last part, she lifted the tail to check the rectal and genital area.
I'm not so good at writing suspense, so let's just say she paused, grabbed the chart, then went back and picked up the tail again. Then something to this effect took place:
Vet: "Have you had her since she was a kitten?"
Father: "Yup yup"
Vet: "Well..."SHE" is definitely a "HE""
Father: "Huh? What? That's impossible!"
::Vet flips cat around and shows father the small and empty but very real scrotal sac::
Father: "But we had her spayded! She had a big incision on her belly and everything!"
Vet: "Uh huh, I see, but he's definitely a boy. A neutered boy, but a boy."
Father and daughter sputter on in disbelief as to the impossibility of this matter.
Father: "But they charged us for a spay! They didn't do a spay?"
Ah, yes. Yes they did. How? Any variety of ways - the kitten gets sexed wrong at the first visit, and no one doublechecks before the surgery, or maybe the owner tells the clinic the cat is female without really knowing, and no one corrects his assumption during the exam. Either way, some one screwed up and instead of telling the owner, apologizing, and charging for the correct surgery, they just quietly neutered the kitten and hoped that no one would find out for awhile. I would really have liked to have seen the alerts in that patient's chart - "ALERT - CAT IS MALE, OWNER THINKS HE'S A FEMALE BECAUSE WE SPAYED HIM/HER. DON'T TELL OWNER. ALSO, MUST KEEP OWNER AS A CLIENT FOR LIFE OF CAT, OTHERWISE OTHER VET MAY SPILL THE BEANS AND THEN WE'LL GET OUR PANTS SUED OFF." He he. Whoops.
The best part is, the family still refers to he as a "she", and has yet to re-name him. Poor Mr. Princess Muffykins.
If in doubt:
http://www.thepetcenter.com/exa/kitx.html
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3 comments:
LOL--this is funny to me because I don't know how many times our family had trouble figuring out the sex of our cats. We had a "Darla" that had to be changed to "Darwin", a "Sally" that became a "Sam"....thankfully our vets always told us at least!
LOL indeed, esp. on the chart comments.
I guess they where also hoping the owner will never actually see the cat's chart...
I have a copy my cat's chart. I guess I should appreciate my vet more, as the clinic probably didn't hide anything in it (unless the chart can have comments that don't get printed out with the rest).
Ha. Too funny!
I guess this happens more than I thought (the boy-girl thingy....not the hiding it.)
I have a lovely orange tabby(which I now know should have been a HUGE clue), originally thought a SHE & named "Abbie", whom (thanks to my vet) we later discovered was a HE.
By this time he was 7 months and quite attached to her/his name and to save all the confusion (and future kitty self-discovery therapy) we decided to opt for "Albi" since it was close and which was the much shorter version of "Albi Darned... Your a Boy!"
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