November, 2000

Volume 2,Issue 11

Inside this issue:

Pick-up and Delivery Service

Pick-up and Delivery is a service our clients really Appreciate. This service is offered Monday through Friday and is usually done by our long time employee Herbert Mack. Medications and food can also be delivered. Please contact Julie Plauche, our head receptionist, at the hospital (835-4266) to coordinate pick-ups and drop-offs.

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Volume 2,Issue 11

Employee of the month

Shawn has spent most of his life in the New Orleans area.  He has been an employee of  MSAH for the past year.   Prior to that he had spent the previous seven  years  in  the Navy and National Guard.  He is currently attending Nunez Community College and will graduate in May, 2001 with an  Animal Care and Technology

Certificate. He is also one of the three  members  of the current Metairie Small Animal Hospital  Technician Training Course.

In his free time, he enjoys spending time with his girlfriend, Stephanie and any outdoor activity.

Dog Guides for the Blind  Cont:

attempt the training of intelligent German Shepherd dogs to serve as guides for the blind. So quickly did this work develop, in fact, that by 1923 there was formed the organization of "guide dogs for the civilian blind."  The training center for these dogs was in Potsdam, under the direction of trainers Ruecker and Wecherling. It was here that Mrs. Eustis (who herself had been breeding and training dogs for certain specialized duties with the Swiss Army) first saw the possibilities of such dogs to be trained to aid our own American blind. Responding to the challenge of Morris Frank, a blind American who had read her article in The Saturday Evening Post, Mrs. Eustis undertook the development of a dog guide at her place in Vevey, Switzerland.

This was Buddy I, heroine of the book FIRST LADY OF THE SEEING EYE. Buddy was the first Seeing Eye dog to be trained by an American for use by a blind American, although blind Senator Thomas Schall of Minnesota had made use of a German-trained dog guide a year or two earlier. Today there are ten or more other dog guide centers located in the United States, each under a different name, but so strongly did Mrs. Eustis' story catch the heart of the American public, that many persons today refer to all dogs leading blind people as Seeing Eve dogs. The Seeing Eye, Inc., located at Morristown, New Jersey, is the largest school of its kind in the world, and only its products are correctly termed Seeing Eye dogs.

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Volume 2,Issue 11

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"Thou art the Great Cat, the avenger of the Gods, and the judge of words, and the president of the sovereign chiefs and the governor of the holy Circle; thou art indeed...the Great Cat."

~ Inscription on the Royal Tombs at Thebes

The only  fully  developed cult of the cat  existed in Egypt and it lasted over two thousand years. No one knows when the Egyptian cat was first sanctified, and it was never officially considered to be divine. But such a distinction was too subtle for the general public, and Egyptian art provides ample evidence that the Egyptians treated these sacred animals as gods.

The cat was considered very early on to be sacred to the Egyptian goddess Isis. It gradually came to be recognized as an incarnation of deity, and it was as the daughter of Isis and her husband, the sun god Osiris, that the great cat goddess Bastest (Bast or Pasht) emerged. Egyptian gods and goddesses have a confusing way of merging into one another, and  it  is  important  to remember this in

considering myth and ritual with which Bastet is connected. For instance Osiris, Horus, Ra and Ptah were all different forms of the sun god. Isis merged with Hathor, the cow goddess, and with Mut, the Theban mother goddess. Osiris, Bastet's father, was not only a sun god but also a moon god and god of the underworld; while Isis, her mother, was a sun/moon/earth goddess.

The worship of Bastet overlapped that of Isis, Hathor and Mut, and also that of the lion goddesses, Tefnut and Sekhmet, according to the district and to which of Bastet's many aspects were being stressed. The cat goddess had a solar son, Nefertem, by the sun god, Amen-Ra, and Khensu, the lunar god, was her son by Ptah.

Update On Last Month's Case Of The Month

Lucy Ann, last month's case of the month, is doing well and will, in all likelihood, make a full recovery.  Her cast was removed just two weeks ago and her limp is barely visible.  She runs plays and wrestles with her foster parent's cats, which also pamper her with licks.

Lucy Ann is a striking kitten, a dilute (pastel) tortoise shell with white (blue, cream and white).  Because she got a lot of attention while recovering from her broken leg, she is very friendly and will make a wonderful pet.  If you know of someone interested in adopting this special rescue, please have them inquire at Clinic  on West Esplanade Ave .


Jack

Metairie Small Animal Hospital
101 Metairie Rd             (835-4266)
5040 West Esplanade     (455-2345)
4041 Williams Blvd.       (443-4400)

Phone: 555-555-5555
Fax: 555-555-5555
Email: xyz@microsoft.com

        Case of the Month

                  Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

Sally, a 13 year old female Springer Spaniel, was presented in October of 1999 for her annual exam.  An abdominal mass was found on exam and a follow-up ultrasound revealed an enlarged spleen. Using an  ultrasound guided needle biopsy, samples were taken of the spleen and liver and submitted to the pathologist. The biopsy results came back with a diagnosis of Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia with   marked   spleenic  involve-

prognosis.  Sally's white   Blood    Cell    Count   was > 400,000 (Normal 8,000-16,000). Chemotherapy was initiated as the owner felt Sally's quality of life was still good and wanted to give her a chance .It is now over a year since the original diagnosis and Sally has turned 14 years old and is still eating and enjoying life. Her white blood cell count has decreased steadily over the past year and is now 48,000. Congratulations to Mr. C. and Sally.