MYVET’S EMER MAKES A SPLASH TO SOLVE KOI CARP DILEMMA

A veterinary surgeon who specialises in exotics at one of Dublin’s leading practices had to trawl for solutions when handling an unusual case of a stricken fish.
Unflappable vet Emer O’Reilly cast her trained eye over the four-year-old Koi Carp to ponder on why the prized pet had lesions on its scales and hadn’t eaten for two months.
The qualified exotic animal practitioner at Linnaeus-owned MyVet in Lucan, soon diagnosed that the fish, called Gráinne, had a bacterial infection and prescribed a course of antibiotics, the first of which she had to administer by injection.
Emer, who graduated from University College Dublin in 2007, said everything went swimmingly after the diagnosis, with the necrotic scales soon being shed and replaced by healthy new ones.
She explained: “Gráinne’s case was one that was really out of the ordinary, as most of our MyVet team had never handled a fish before.
“We also had to try to understand why Gráinne hadn’t eaten in almost two months and why she hadn’t gone into a torpor (semi-dormant state for fish) like her two companions.
“Her owner had noticed white, fluffy lesions on her scales and we suspected a bacterial infection was causing the necrotic scales.
“Like myself, our vet nurse Paulina Tumielewicz has a real passion for caring for all exotic species, so she volunteered to hold Gráinne while I gave the antibiotic injections.
“The owner then had the great idea of increasing the salinity (salt concentration) of her pond water to reduce stress on Gráinne’s body and help kill the infection.
“It all worked well. In a few months, Gráinne had shed her diseased scales and grown new ones in their place and is now back to her old self.”
Gráinne’s owner, Marisa Lanning from Maynooth, Kildare, is delighted with the outcome and that MyVet’s Lucan branch proved the perfect place for expert care.
Marisa said: “Gráinne had become infected while we were on holiday and was in a bad way when we returned.
“We initially tried home treatments and they worked a little, but she still had open sores and necrosis, so I wasn’t confident she would live.
“Emer was a star, though, and treated her as a beloved pet and not as a bother or oddity. While she was also worried about the sores and necrotic scales, she didn’t once suggest putting Grainne down.
“It all made me feel secure that Gráinne would definitely get the best care possible there. I never once was made to feel awkward or like my pet wasn’t as special as a dog or cat.
“That’s why I would definitely recommend them. My regular vet is the excellent MyVet in Maynooth but they don’t see fish, so sent me to their MyVet colleagues in Lucan where Emer and her team did the rest.
“The course of antibiotic shots, salt baths and an isolation tank did the trick and Gráinne has fully recovered.
“She shed her dead scales, slowly healed from her sores and, although the new scales were white at first, she has now started to return to her full golden-orange colour again.”
For more information of MyVet, which is owned by Linnaeus and has three clinics across the Dublin and Kildare area, visit https://www.myvet.ie/.
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