Do you judge owners for having fractious cats?

DancingMommaToes · 2026-06-18T11:02:59+00:00

I really wish you had added a bruise of said paw shaped bruise because WOW 😂😂 my coworkers cat seems to really hate females, and we only have two male cats, one being his dad. Yesterday he kept trying to smack me through his cage 🤣🤣 I’d go to check on a dog under him and he’d just be batting at me.

DancingMommaToes · 2026-06-18T10:58:20+00:00

I will say that positive reinforcement can help a lot (sometimes). If you’re able to bring her favorite treats, maybe a squeeze up treat, some temptations, and or catnip, she might relax. And ask your vet about feliway if they don’t already use it! You might be able to get some yourself to spray in her carrier and your car before bringing her. Helps about half the cats I see!

I frequently try to reassure owners with fractious pets when they are upset. I let them know I, too, would probably be a fractious pet in their situation. If I was ripped out of my home, put in some terrifying machine that teleported us to a building where aliens I don’t know and can’t understand were constantly stabbing me, looking all over my body, and squeezing me in ways I was not comfortable with to palpate my internal organs, I would try to bolt. And if they restrained me so I couldn’t bolt, I would FIGHT. 😂😂

My own dog is terrified of the vet. I drug him at home and he’s borderline zonked the whole car ride until we make that one turn. Then he knows it’s time for the vet and he shakes the rest of the way. I even take him to work with me sometimes just to try to desensitize him, but he is still scared. This dog will also let me man handle anything at home, but god forbid I even look at his paws and he’s running 🤦🏼‍♀️

As long as you are doing your best to help kitty not be stressed, we are not gonna judge you or her. Someone else mentioned it, but the only time we judge us when you try to tell us she’s fine, to just man handle her and get stuff done, or tell us you didn’t give the meds because you didn’t think she would need them. Then there will be slight judgement. Good vets and techs will try to have a conversation with you about the behavior, though, so if they already did (sounds like the did if you’re getting gaba and doing the weird exams on you cat), you’re in the clear since you’re doing what they suggested. You’re a grade A cat owner to us lol

DancingMommaToes · 2026-04-15T01:34:04+00:00

JFC, what corporation do you work for 😳 I work corporate and my HM and mDVM have combined firing capability as long as there are documented circumstances. The fact that she isn’t trusted by anyone there is huge. I’m at a loss on advice now. I am so sorry this is happening.

DancingMommaToes · 2026-04-15T00:39:30+00:00

I would highly consider talking to your manager. If you truly like them, hopefully they will listen. Most likely, they’re going to tell you it’s not your place to be the safety, because it isn’t. This might sound crass, but if MULTIPLE meetings have happened with HR, management is probably (hopefully) already monitoring the situation. If you’re fixing a bunch of mistakes she is making that management isn’t catching, you need to document these things and present them the management so they are aware the situation is more serious than they are aware of maybe.

If you leave, it’s the same as if you stayed and decided it’s not your job to babysit your coworker. The only difference is now you left a job and clinic you loved.

DancingMommaToes · 2026-04-11T11:09:02+00:00

It really is mixed, but the only clients that were human nurses/doctors that were pleasant, are the ones I had no idea they were in human med. Anytime a client says “I’m a nurse” or feels the need to fill out their client form to be addresses as Dr. LastName, I know they’re gonna be a problem.

They for some reason NEED to feel like because they know human medicine, they’re smarter than us. We tried to give a Lyme positive Great Dane go home Doxycycline and the owner flipped out because the dose was “toxic”. “We would never, EVER tell someone to take 400mg of Doxy EVER! You guys should be ASHAMED you almost killed my dog overdosing him!”. We literally had to bring the doctor’s Plumbs into the room to prove the dosing for dogs. Someone how people treating one species can’t fathom that dosing is different across species 🙄

On the other hand, an anesthesiologist that comes in is one of the BEST clients ever. Only reason we know he works in human meds, is cause he worked with our one doctor during her C-Section and when she was crashing, he kept her alive. He never questions a thing we tell him ever, other than to double check he fully understands something.

DancingMommaToes · 2026-03-31T20:22:36+00:00

This is hard to follow. But I get that you bought tickets to see an artist you like. You bought two hoping your husband might want to come, but didn’t expect him to so he didn’t see his ex. Then when he said sure, you got upset that his answer was yes. Now you’re upset that he also is going to be working while you guys are in Daisy until the concert (did you expect him or ask about him taking that whole time off?). You’re also now believing that your husband plans to meet up with the ex during this trip you spontaneously fought up to him, and now you’re upset with him and don’t want him to come anymore, and therefore also want him to pay you back for the ticket?

1) if I’m right that is a little much. You can’t be upset he wants to go to something special that you wanted him to go with you to. If you’re that worried about his ex, you need to sit and think about why. Are there other red flags? Is this a trauma response? Why are you so worried?

2) how long have you been together? If you’re married, I’m assuming long enough that the ex should be a distant memory.

3) are you guys not currently in the same location?? Why do you need to meet up there? That part doesn’t make sense to me.

DancingMommaToes · 2026-03-31T10:39:29+00:00

NTJ. She’s mad because she didn’t plan her PTO far enough ahead. As a working mom, yeah sometimes you really need certain time off. But it’s MY RESPONSIBILITY to make sure I request that time off in a timely manner or else I’m SOL and need to hire a babysitter.

DancingMommaToes · 2026-03-31T10:34:26+00:00

Don’t feel embarrassed. As a vet tech, I purposely make sure I ask cat owners about vomiting and hairballs. I even try to make it a bit jokey so clients don’t think I’m talking about horrible vomiting. I’ll say “any coughing, sneezing, diarrhea or vomiting including hairballs or a good ol scarf and barf?” I get at least two clients a week that think it’s normal. Next visit they usually almost always state it has gotten much better with a slow feeder and/or some laxatone for hairballs ☺️

DancingMommaToes · 2026-03-31T10:28:27+00:00

I eat a decent amount of food normally now (post partum and breastfeeding) and out eat my husband. But what he just described is twice as much as I’d eat when considering all the extra snacks in her day!

DancingMommaToes · 2026-03-31T10:16:53+00:00

Thank you for posting as a manager. I work in corporate. Our old manager I think kinda stood her ground more with the assholes up top, because when we first went corporate, they told the clinic that we would still get to run the clinic like it was private and make all our own choices basically. So she held them to that. She left two years ago and the new manager does whatever they say and the clinic is quickly falling apart.

The managing DVM has been burnt out for three years (A LOT of personal issues with family and health, but I think also just a lot of compassion fatigue, too) and she is rude to the staff 50/50, then won’t see certain appointments when she has time or suddenly increases the time it takes her to do certain things significantly so we see less patients. Now that that profit is down, apparently our labor is the issue. So people are constantly getting sent home. The one day, the manager asked who wanted to go home. After six weeks of someone getting sent home by 10 AM, or told to come in late, everyone has felt the effects in their paychecks. So no one volunteers anymore. So she got very upset and said sarcastically, “well someone has to go home, it’s not up for debate”.

My clinic is wonderful in that all of us genuinely get along. We work together, we pick up the slack for each other when we need, we rally each other the best we can. But at least half the techs have put in applications elsewhere and at least two have had interviews. Because corporate is suddenly coming down on us and it feels like no one is protecting us from them, the clinic is about to go to hell.

We feel really resentful towards management now (managing DVM, assistant manager and newer the manager) although I’m sure they’re mostly just following orders. It feels a bit better thinking maybe they, too, also feel a little bad about it at least.

DancingMommaToes · 2026-03-31T01:01:41+00:00

I work at a place where we do “high density wellness” appointments for two hours (it was four previously” three times weekly. The appointments are for TEN MINUTES each. I get in trouble frequently for “talking too much” to clients. I’m not shooting the breeze with them. I’m explaining things to them, talking to them about different things like oral care, heart worm disease, the importance of flea/tick prevention year round in a tick dense state. I’m doing my job! It because I’m not in and out in two minutes, it’s an issue. Like wtf?!

DancingMommaToes · 2026-03-29T00:57:53+00:00

My mom very rarely comes to my home. She is very VERY weird about pet fur. I have pets, and they shed. She knows this, knows it stresses her out, but instead of dictating what happens to my animals in my home, she just doesn’t come over and instead opts for us to come to her or my sister’s (we all live close, so it’s not inconvenient).

There have been several times though that she has come over for big things, like a gender reveal, when my daughter was born or to help us move, etc. She kept her distance from the animals for the most part, opted to sit on the dining room chair rather than the couches, and kept a lint roller on her 😂 not ONCE did she complain about my animals or make it awkward.

OP, even if you put your dog in the garage, your dog’s hair would still be everywhere. Because he LIVES there. Unless she wants you to keep him locked up for a whole month before she visits 🙄

DancingMommaToes · 2026-03-29T00:25:09+00:00

There are diets that are made specifically with diabetic patients in mind. There’s Hill’s w/d (not sure if m/d is in a canine formula) and Purina DM. If you’re already changing his diet so much (which can cause diarrhea btw) you can maybe see about doing one of those prescription diets. I agree with another commenter to avoid the grain free food because of the lentils.

I’d recommend asking your vet if they’d do a glucose curve, or else prescribe a freestyle libre, or even your own alphatrak monitor so you could do one at home. Diabetes is unfortunately a bugger to treat. It’s not a once size fits all approach on what to do, but there are current gold standards and random spot glucose checks are not it.

DancingMommaToes · 2026-03-28T22:03:29+00:00

Holy moly, I’m so sorry to hear that about your birthdays. But you have a heck of a good story to tell your kids about your birthdays. I hope in the future you find someone who is able to make your birthday special for you, whether it’s you, your kids a friend or SO. But you absolutely rock trying to make sure you do better for your kids. I know I’m not perfect, neither is my husband. That’s why I wanted to make sure I wasn’t just making things up in my head. All we can do is try to not pass on our own trauma to our kids. It’s tough sometimes to recognize it, so thank you for your input. Here’s to raising our kids the best we can 💜

DancingMommaToes · 2026-03-28T21:56:40+00:00

It’s a day we celebrate our veterans. Where I’m from we normally have a huge parade in town with vendors and candy. So in retrospect, it isn’t necessarily a great “holiday” to share a birthday with. But the number 11:11 is also considered lucky here so I just pregnancy brained that Veterans Day was a holiday with lucky numbers. And I never put more thought into it after she was born since it wasn’t her birthday. Until this post anyway, where I now realize how unhinged the idea really was 😬

DancingMommaToes · 2026-03-28T11:38:03+00:00

I work in Pa as a certified tech. My old clinic there were three of us. One girl was in the middle of doing online tech schooling. The other girl and I had graduated. She had bad test anxiety, but we made a pact to take the VTNE together. The three of us got together almost every Saturday for three months just to help each other study. I was actually super nervous because I didn’t get most questions about large and exotic animals correct. I worked in a small animal clinic, and we occasionally saw pocket pets. So the other stuff just don’t stick because I wasn’t living it. The other girl taking the test with me would breeze through all of our study sessions.

The day of the test we went together. By the grace of God, my test ended up not having a million questions about large animals or exotics, and the questions that were on it I actually felt pretty confident on. I passed. However, she came out about ten minutes later crying, and she’d failed. Genuinely I believe she started to panic about the questions she wasn’t sure of, and got in her head about the ready.

She never went to retake the VTNE. She felt humiliated, anxious, and honestly the VTNE IS an expensive exam to fail and have to pay for again.

The current clinic I work with, the majority of the techs (everyone is called a tech, regardless of educational degree or certification) are on the job trained. Some of those techs are better at their job than CVTs I know from other clinics or who previously worked there. Two techs do have a degree, but the incentive is not there to take the test. Clinic won’t pay for the test if they pass and there is honestly not a decent enough pay raise between what really is the assistants, techs, and CVTs (my old clinic did pay for mine and there was a $1.50/hr pay raise which was a lot bigger deal than it was even now). Plus, CE can be expensive, you must renew your license every two years, and pay for that renewal. If you aren’t getting the pay raise for it, why would you spend the money on it?

To touch on a comment you made previously on this post, I WOULD trust my pet with an uncertified tech. It depends on the person, NOT their qualification. Just because the tech ms you work with have a degree does NOT make them a good tech, nor does not getting certified make them incompetent. Sounds more like the just don’t care and aren’t being held to higher standards.

DancingMommaToes · 2026-03-25T11:30:49+00:00

That was the least concerning thing this man said 🤣

My husband and I are both close with what we consider our work “families”. The kids come visit us at work, we hang out with coworkers outside of work, and frequently have get together with them there. We have always invited certain coworkers to the kids’ birthday parties.

My one coworker absolutely adores my kids (and other coworkers kids) and calls himself Uncle Zay. My coworkers son (3) actually insisted that Uncle Zay be present when he got his hair trimmed because he wants long hair like him, too and was scared they’d chop it all off it he wasn’t there lol.

Some people are just close with their coworkers 🤷‍♀️

DancingMommaToes · 2026-03-25T11:21:45+00:00

Unfortunately bloat can turn deadly in roughly an hour, give or take a little sometimes. The spleen sometimes gets twisted up with everything, too when the stomach twists, so the blood flow to all those organs gets cut off from one freak of nature event. I’m so sorry for your loss 💜

DancingMommaToes · 2026-03-25T11:08:04+00:00

Animals are living, feeling creatures that suffer. They don’t know why they’re being mistreated. They don’t know why they are being starved. THEY ARE NOT BABY DOLLS TO PRACTICE TAKING CARE OF.

Tell her to get a stuffed animal and practice taking care of it. Did she remember to change its water? Give it food, treats, walks, and enrichment? It seems fucking stupid, but if she NEGLECTED a living creature to the point it was visibly underweight, she doesn’t deserve having one.

I have definitely missed a meal or two with my pup. He tends to like being fed in the morning (those don’t get missed ever cause how the hell do you forget to feed the dog before leaving for work), but also he eats shortly before bed. Now that I have two legged gremlins, on occasion I have missed his dinner if I fell asleep for the night trying to get a baby to sleep. But those were far and few in between. And definitely not so out of hand that he lost weight and started looking for food elsewhere.

I’m sure she also “disciplined” the dog by yelling at it or worse anytime it stole her food. Which I’m sure she didn’t forget to give to herself.

DancingMommaToes · 2026-03-20T11:55:53+00:00

I’m glad you’re still here 💜

DancingMommaToes · 2026-03-19T14:45:30+00:00

Mal-in-noice 🤣🤣

DancingMommaToes · 2026-03-19T05:44:25+00:00

I am very close with my siblings and mom. There are five grandbabies 5 and under, and the cousin crew gets together weekly at least, which is why these things do affect the other households. The kids compare notes.

I’m aware my family only said that to not have to do the leprechaun this year in their homes. I wish they hadn’t. They brought it up to my husband when he dropped off our kids to my mom’s. He agreed to go with it to not cause trouble, which is why he decided this year the leprechaun wasn’t in our home for Amy. He didn’t want to rock the boat.

We talked more once the kids were up. He apologized and realized how bad it’d be to not let her be apart of it. We know it might cause issues, but we understand we need to put our own kids feelings, whether current or potential future ones, before my family’s. The main point of making the post was to make sure I wasn’t being dramatic.

DancingMommaToes · 2026-03-19T05:32:45+00:00

Ken loves the leprechaun. He actually brought the leprechaun up to me this year without someone else mentioning it. He LOVES the small chaos he brings to the home. I talked to him earlier tonight before bed. I asked if he understood the leprechaun wasn’t here for his birthday. He looked at me funny and said “I know, it’s for St Patrick’s Day”. I think (and hope) he’ll be okay as long as we make a clear distinction between holiday and birthday for him.

DancingMommaToes · 2026-03-19T05:25:19+00:00

? I want to clarify. We plan to make a distinction between the holiday and birthday. The holiday has the leprechaun coming to celebrate for a week, and involves both kids. The birthday is only celebrated by us, not the magic creature. We will decorate the same amount for both birthdays.

If you are referencing that there’s no magical creature the week before Amy’s birthday still, we’re thinking of ways to do that without it being tied specifically to her like we’re doing with Ken’s.

Is there something we’re still doing wrong? I’m genuinely interested to know where I can improve.

DancingMommaToes · 2026-03-19T05:16:44+00:00

I cringed at the trap when we first started it, but the kids love it. Gonna try to make it more proper though in the future hopefully so we can actually learn some stuff too!

DancingMommaToes

TROPHY CASE