Mostly here's how we saved animal X accounts, even the few stories that don't end well for the patient leave the vets wiser for the next problem to come. Some intriguing saves and treatments. ( )

I like reading about veterinary work. This collection about wildlife vet care is light reading (ie: not the highest writing quality) with brief, intriguing chapters. The twenty-eight stories are each related by a different veterinarian, with a preface by the editor team to each of the five sections they're arranged into. Most, but not all, of the stories have happy endings. In a few the medical mystery presented by an ill animal was never solved. Among them are the titular rhioncerous with chronically sore feet who got a custom set of aluminum shoes, a panda with digestive issues, dung beetles infested with red mites, stranded dolphins, a hippo with an infected tooth, polar bear with a hernia, tiny poison dart frog with an injured eye, a young giraffe that needs a leg brace, elephant injured by a poacher's snare, a malnourished bear cub with weak bones, a goldfish with a tumor and weedy sea dragons that suffered "the bends" after an airline flight from Australia to Florida. I think my favorite though, was the story about a moray eel donated by a bartender to a public aquarium when it outgrew its home tank. The eel hid in the rocks of its new home and refused to eat for weeks on end. The aquarium staff finally called the original owner to ask what might tempt the eel to eat. He came to visit the aquarium and when the eel saw him, it came out of hiding and swam up and down the tank glass in front of the man, finally taking food when he offered it. That story warmed my heart.

from the Dogear Diary ( )

This fascinating book offers a rare glimpse into the world of zoo and wild animals and the veterinarians who take care of them. The book contains a compilation of 28 stories written by the veterinarians involved in each case. Each story is fairly brief, which makes page-turning very easy. As with any compilation, the writing style and quality changes from one story to the next, but the various authors were able to bring us along on their adventures in an appealing way. The book also does a good job of tying together the clinical aspects of zoological medicine with the conservation and public health roles within the realm of wildlife health. Including such stories as a hippo with a tooth-ache, a giraffe with splints, an elephant in a snare, dolphin rescues, a rhino with sore feet, dung beetles with parasites, fish with the bends, and many more stories, this book manages to entertain and educate.






( )

How does someone know when an animal in a nature preserve or in the wild or in a zoo gets ill? What can be done to help it?
In THE RHINO WITH THE GLUE-ON SHOES, the authors point out that since animals can’t talk and sometimes hide from people, diagnosis can involve a lot of time. Someone may report that an animal’s behavior changes: It may stop eating or stay hidden. It may limp or have a bodily change, such as swelling or a growth.. The animal must be observed, sometimes for weeks, to build up enough trust to let a vet come close enough to inspect it. Sometimes the animal will stop eating after being moved but before it is treated. Anesthetics are often administered via a dart so the vet can actually examine the animal as well as transport it or operate. Quite often, there is no medical history for diagnosing or treating the condition so the vets must be creative.
In THE RHINO WITH THE GLUE-ON SHOES, we meet twenty eight animals ranging in size from a limping elephant, a hippopotamus who needed root canal surgery, a rhinoceros with severe foot problems, and a giraffe who suffered a hip injury shortly after birth which affected its leg to a dung beetle covered with bugs, a poison dart frog whose eye (the size of a blunt pencil tip) was punctured in a group fight, and an orinda goldfish with a tumor.
Human interference also causes problems. In one case, two women found an infant fawn, decided it had been abandoned, had it’s ears pierced, inserted faux diamond crosses, and drove around with it in their car for several days.
Among the surgical challenges is determining how to safely anesthesize the patient and how to devise the items necessary, like splints, braces, or patches, to aid in the healing process.
Large sea mammals sometimes wash up on shore. That is often caused by shallow water, possibly the result of sea level changes due to global warming or by human activity such as drilling, boat engines, mining, and military operations which cause underwater noise and interfere with the animal’s ability to navigate. Sometimes people try to just put it back into the water. They don’t realize that as soon as the animal is out of the water, it needs more help than just being placed back.
Each short chapter is written by a different vet. There is a little repetition because some of the issues overlap, such as the type of medicines used.
THE RHINO WITH THE GLUE-ON SHOES offers a glimpse into the animal world that most people rarely see. It’s easy to read and raises the reader’s level of understanding of problems suffered by animals and how human doctors and care takers work together to resolve them. ( )

Interesting, but not quite as engaging as the charming title implies.  Easy for laypeople to read, but still most selections read more stilted, almost academic.  And they're short, so one doesn't get a chance to get to fall in love with the individual animals.  Still, if you're interested, I do recommend it... just don't get your hopes too high. ( )