All it takes is one simple deed… and you could win a PET PHOTOGRAPHY SESSION with CHRISTIE of CountryCreek or A DOZEN CUPCAKES – hand made by the incredible, CUPCAKES by HOPE !

If that doesn’t convince you, I’m not above leaning into good, ol’fashioned, guilt.

Through the year, outside of work hours, my phone dings—weekends, evenings, in movies, while I’m sleeping—messages creep in from social media or I get pulled aside in the grocery store.

Full transparency, I love pets, and I adore people who love their pets, so I don’t mind–honestly. I know my general advice can bring peace and comfort and this is why I do what I do. Heck, I’m a veterinarian, but when asked how to repay me for the tips and time, I’m quick to share…

“When my marathon comes round, sponsor me!” 

So, if I’ve answered your phone call, text message, or MSM to discuss what to do because you just ran over your dog or I looked at photos of your dog’s stool, or the possible tick attached to their leg… if we discussed the medical condition of your uncle’s dog, or your friend’s horse after hours, then your name is on my list and it’s time to sponsor me in the Muskoka Novel Marathon to raise money for ADULT LITERACY.

If you’re convinced… PLEASE DONATE HERE!

This isn’t your typical marathon. I’ve been training, but not as you expect. I’m not carbohydrate loading or running 5 miles each morning. I’ve been practicing sitting in one spot without my buttocks falling asleep and plotting the twist in my current novel.

On July 10^th 2025, I’ll be in the Muskoka’s, with an amazing group of people, to write for 3-days-straight to raise money for ADULT LITERACY.  

The links between adult literacy and overall wellness are concrete. Those of us empowered to read acquire jobs, leading to financial security, benefiting the reader and their families. People who can read are handed a map to their own happiness.

All funds raised in the marathon go directly to support ADULT LITERACY programs.

If this is what you needed to hear… PLEASE DONATE HERE!

And again, a bonus… 

Everyone who donates will be entered into a draw to win a PET PHOTOGRAPHY SESSION with CHRISTIE of CountryCreek or A DOZEN CUPCAKES – hand made by the incredible, CUPCAKES by HOPE!

So please, DONATE HERE!

Thank you kindly for your support!

Donna

The post Win a Prize… with One Simple Deed! appeared first on Donna Curtin.

I’M A WINNER and I’m announcing THE WINNERS to my contest, so read on.

Thank you for sponsoring my participation in the 2022 Muskoka Novel Marathon. Your overwhelming support helped me to raise much needed funds for adult literacy programs. Thanks to you, I was honoured with the Remington Award (for the writer who raises the most funds) by raising raising $1,270 from 27 donors.

I’m also thrilled to announce my novel writing creation won an Honourable Mention in the Best Novel-Adult Category. If you would like to know more about my novel writing experience, head over to my Ascribe blog. Here’s a small taste of what my latest manuscript is all about…

Further to raising funds to support important work in adult literacy, I’m pleased to announce that I wrote over 70 pages (that’s about 17,000 words) over the marathon and I can’t wait to get back at it!

Okay. Now for the fun part… my contest winners!

For every $10 donation to support adult literacy, your name was added to TWO separate draws. You should have seen me with all these snippets of paper, with doodled names, stuffed into jars! What a great procrastination project!

There are THREE WINNERS from the first draw. I’ll provide the winner with a character sketch and they will pick the name of a major character for my new novel.

• BERNICE MARSH
• CHRISTINE COGLAN
• SEANA MOORHEAD

And for the final draw, and the winner of a dozen Cupcakes By Hope…. the winner is…

• LAUREN MADER!

Thank you once again for your support.

I will be reaching out to the winners shortly to finalize the details.

The post Announcing the WINNERS! appeared first on Donna Curtin.

“Honestly, he’s so well behaved at home!”

Tre isn’t misbehaving, so much as wiggling. She attempts to smoosh back Tre’s lips to show me his teeth but he licks her fingers and then slathers her face. Tre is stunning. A two year old American Bully, with a sleek, black and brown coat stretched over bulging muscles. Technically he’s a fugitive in Ontario, persecuted under a breed ban—assuming that because of his breed alone, he’s destined for aggression. Which in my opinion is ridiculous. I’ve met more aggressive Shit-Tzu’s than Pitbull’s in my veterinary career.

Charlene, his owner and advocate, is overly sensitive to his every distress, as she’s been protecting him from people who would see him harm based only on appearances. She fends off glares and once, on public transit, a stranger approached and started lecturing her while pointing at her baby (Tre with his sad dog eyes) and declaring, “That dog should be destroyed!” –only because of his face.

His actions have never hinted at aggression towards humans, but his fierce red-headed pet parent might just go ballistic if someone tries to harm her precious Tre. I can’t help but respect her more for her passionate protection.

She finally manages to force Tre’s smile by lifting his thick lips and flashing his teeth my way and I appreciate the reason for our visit today. Tre is hurting because of my lack of advocating for his needs. As his veterinarian, I’ve managed to let both him and his owner down.

When I first met Tre, Charlene brought him in for me to examine his teeth. Fate (and maybe an unscrupulous breeder) dealt Tre a poor hand when it came to the genetic shuffle. He has a malocclusion where his lower jaw is too short. So, instead of his lower incisors snugging up comfortably behind his upper incisors, they are a good inch behind. This would normally be disastrous, if not for the fact he has somehow fractured off his lower canines. If his canines were full height they would impale into the soft flesh behind his upper canines, possibly eventually puncturing into his nasal cavity.

As a developing veterinarian, I learned a great deal from my mentors. One piece of advice I heard time and time again was in regards to these fractured and discoloured teeth in adult dogs.

Only a few short weeks ago, I passed this advice onto Tre’s owner.

Previously, when Tre’s owner saw me wince as I took in the dark pitting holes on the surfaces of his fractured lower canines, she said, “They’ve been like that since he came to us. He had separation anxiety as a puppy and tried to eat his way out of everything.”

I turned from side to side, noting four fractured canines with their muddy, less vibrant colouring in contrast to his other vital white teeth. It’s possible Tre had separation anxiety and chewed on his crate, but I also wonder if the pain and distress of not being able to close his mouth comfortably was confusing and distressing enough to sadly, make him break off his own teeth.

So, I passed on what I’d heard other vets say, time and time again, “It shouldn’t bug him. Let’s keep an eye on them.”

Now, Tre is here today to teach me how that advice was not the whole story.

I lift Tre’s lip and run my thumb over his lower right canine, the ivory of his tooth tan instead of pearly white, with a dark pit, like a cavity, on the flat surface. Behind this tooth, on the gum, there’s a raw, bright pink, fleshy hole and his lower lip is so swollen it’s as if he’s pocketing a plum for later. His eyes, normally bouncing across my face, searching for the next opportunity to please, are triangular and squinted in pain.

This is the limit to which Tre will complain. He will not lay on his bed and toss his paw over his head in agony. He will not search out a cold compress from the fridge to lay across his swollen jaw. He won’t wrestle into the Tylenol bottle to pop pain relievers and most of all, even though he has a fever and is in pain—he will not stop eating.

Pets don’t complain like we do.

He may not play with his toys the same. He may chew his food on the other side of his mouth. He may be a little quieter or in truth, he may not show any signs of discomfort at all. This is normal.

However, from the radiograph that demonstrates the destruction of his root tip and the swathed path of bone loss the infection has burrowed through his mandible to erupt out that draining hole in his gum tissue, I can hardly imagine the pain and discomfort this tooth has caused Tre.

When I place a dental probe into the hole on the surface of his fractured tooth, a well of tan, foul smelling puss spurts up and runs down over his tooth. Charlene’s eyes widen and she places the back of her hand over her slack mouth.

By not advocating for Tre, I’ve allowed this condition to get much worse.

Fractured teeth hurt. They hurt when they are broken, and then they hurt and ache afterward. If the pulp canal is open to the world, this can act like a straw for infection. Pulling bacteria into the root and then into the jaw bone.

I know now, that had I advocated for Tre, and advised Charlene earlier that these fractured teeth were at risk for infection, tooth root abscesses, bone loss and draining tracts, I may have prevented Tre’s discomfort and the suffering he must have been enduring these last weeks.

Advised correctly, Charlene could have taken action to prevent this suffering. For years I saw these damaged teeth and failed to educate owners of all the possible outcomes.

A couple weeks later, I literally drag our fourth year veterinary externship student into the exam room and introduce Charlene and Tre. Tre squiggles up to us, his body snaking from side to side. In his excitement he can’t decide if he wants to sniff us, or present his bum for scratches, so he dances sideways and then finally flops his whole body against my leg.

Charlene pulls on his leash ineffectually and calls out, “Tre, Tre!” laughing all the while.

Thoroughly licked clean of the guilt I still hold for Tre’s suffering, I introduce Tre to my student and share his entire story. Then I pause as I hold back Tre’s lips to show the healthy pink scar from the surgery where we removed his lower canine.

I release Tre’s lips and make eye contact with this future veterinarian, “We need to look in our patient’s mouths. We shouldn’t ignore these fractured and discoloured teeth. It’s up to us to help owners see and understand.”

Tre slides down my leg to expose his most vulnerable self, asking only for a belly rub, which I happily give.

The post What Tre Taught Me appeared first on Donna Curtin.

I instantly prepare to do deliver the classic motherly dismissal to calm her concerns with a phrase like “Oh, it’s probably nothing; a cut, a scab”, but before I can say the words, movement catches my eye and I zoom in closer.

It has moving legs!

I jerk back. My daughter’s eyes bulge and she demonstrates yet another reason why I love her so much, because instead of tossing the dog to the floor, she pulls him in protectively to her chest.

My daughter detests bugs on her person. Recently, while splitting and piling fire wood back at the bush, my son found an inch long, juicy white worm (it was disgusting mind you) and proceeded to fake placing the worm into my daughter’s hair. She ran about flicking her hair, screaming and flapping her arms. Yes, my son is a prankster jerk, but he was only faking. She was pissed. It was gross.

Our little dog is an adorable, big eyed, lap king. Jasper’s majestic breed, the Cavalier King Charles, descends from the dogs royalty acquired to sit on their laps. Granted, he is athletic, playful and charming, but his greatest skill is to find your lap, curl up and force you to stay put to pet him. His most favourite thing in the world is our Kubota side by side. He loves to stand in the back and bark at the world. When we get to the bush, he chases squirrels and our golden retriever through the bush, running ahead of the Kubota until he finally tires and then stands on the driver’s lap with his head stuck out the window.

He sniffs tree bases and snorts out critter paths, all the while dragging his curly, long haired ears through the leaves, forest litter and long grass.

He’s the perfect tick magnet.

I fake calm to my daughter and say, “That appears to be a tick,” but inside, my heart is racing and I’m stamping down the full body ‘that’s so gross’ shivers.

My bug fearful daughter is the queen of calm, as she helps to hold our little dog still. We trim the long hairs around the tick away with scissors and with a pair of tweezers (note to self – bring home a tick twister from work on Monday), I grasp the tick, as close to Jasper’s skin as possible, holding the tick firmly enough so he knows I mean business, but not enough to squish him and then I begin to slowly turn the ticks body, counter clockwise. It’s a trick to keep the tweezers engaged in full revolution and it takes a couple tries, but once I get over three hundred and sixty degrees (over a full revolution) I pull up firmly and the tick detaches.

I examine the critter to be sure he’s still alive and that he has a head. All his parts appear intact. You don’t want to leave tick parts, like his head, in your pet. Then I zoom in with my smart phone and take photos so I can identify him later. Now I let the heebie jeebie shivers take over my whole body.

There’s an app called eTick you can send your tick photos to for identification.

I may be a veterinarian, but that creature was sucking blood from my precious baby and Jasper spends most of his day curled up with one of us on the couch, touring our home, or sleeping tucked up against my husband, my daughter, or my side by night.

Yuck!

The experts have been telling us for years, that ticks are beginning to bloom in our region and they were right.

There are a few facts we should keep in mind;

• Many ticks are pretty harmless (but no less gross).
• Some ticks carry and transmit disease to our pets and to us.
• If you find a tick on your dog, once again your dog, man’s best friend, is protecting you. Like a canary in a mine shaft, they have now told you that you need to be more careful where you live, travel and play with your dog.
• Dogs are much more likely to pick up a tick. While you stay on the trail, they tromp through the bush, the long grass and anywhere but the beaten down trail. Also, dogs have the perfect long soft fur coats, like tick life lines, best for sweeping those searching ticks off the litter and grass.
• If your dog has had a tick – you may want to wear long pants in the bush and grassy areas of your property and check yourself and your family thoroughly for ticks. (Brad Paisley is so wise – “I’d like to check you for ticks.”)

The tick that carries Lyme disease, the Blacklegged or Ixodes tick, landed in our area off the back of birds and carried by deer. If you find a tick on your pet, you can have a simple blood test performed by your veterinarian to screen for tick borne diseases. We usually recommend this about 6 weeks after a tick attachment.

There are also effective/safe preventative products you can give your dog. The tick season in Ontario is longer than the flea season. Ticks are hardy. They like our cool, damp spring and fall. We can find ticks as early as six degrees Celsius in the spring. Therefore, if we get an early spring thaw, or winter comes late, ticks may be a risk to us and our pets year round, but the biggest risk is most likely from March to November.

Reach out to your veterinarian to discuss safe, easy to give preventatives for your region.

I don’t want to be alarmist.

It’s just alarmingly gross.

For more information, check out these references.

https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/diseases/lyme-disease/risk-lyme-disease.html

https://www.ontario.ca/page/lyme-disease

http://www.pethealthnetwork.com/dog-health/dog-diseases-conditions-a-z/dogs-ticks-and-tick-borne-parasites

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Yes, that’s right. A Snowy Owl rescue.

As I’m folding laundry–questioning if even half the clothing was actually worn or only scraped off my kid’s floor–my phone rings.

“Hello?” I answer.

and then the cringe worthy words, “Hey, Donna, I’m sorry to bother you on a Saturday…”

I’m not even half way into my first cup of coffee, but some calls I don’t mind answering, even on a Saturday.

Friends of ours, while out biking and running together in Grey-Bruce, came across an injured Snowy Owl and wondering what to do, they called. As a rural veterinarian, I’m not ashamed to admit we do our best to discourage calls to treat wild and exotic animals. We don’t see enough iguana’s or parrots to get good at treating them and frankly, we’re not licensed to treat wild animals. For wildlife, I keep emergency numbers on speed dial; the Ministry of Natural Resources, Rabies Response contacts, and Authorized Wildlife Custodians.

At the Hanover Veterinary Hospital, I work with amazing, energetic and dedicated veterinarians who have a passion for wildlife and zoo animals and as a team, we were able to set into action, Mission: Rescue Hedwig.

Our good Samaritan’s who found the Snowy Owl, were kind enough to abandon their long distance run/bike, to keep our feathered friend in their sites. They presumed the bird had a broken wing, or similar injury, as the owl was unable to fly.

I contacted Hobbitstee Wildlife Refuge and our vet clinic agreed to take custody of the Snowy Owl and transport the bird to them for care, as long as the injuries could be treated so they could return the bird to the wild. If a wild bird sustains a catastrophic fracture, one that is complicated or too close to the joint, or if a fracture is open to infection, or if trying to help, even with the best of intentions, is inhumane, then other options would need to be discussed.

Armed with a large locking lid Tupperware, a thick towel and a blanket, my daughter and I followed the detailed directions of our friends to find them parked along the road near a stream and scrub bush bordering a cover-cropped field. They pointed to where a large white owl sat on the ground… watching our activity.

The bird could hop and run along, quite well. It took some persistent and steady herding to get close. It was obvious by the fact the bird had yet to fly away, and the way it’s ineffectual wing couldn’t capture the wind, that there must be an injury.

“Mom,” my daughter whispered from the other side of the bird, “do you remember what I had on my Christmas wish list two years ago?”

“No.” I tried to lower my heart rate, as the owl’s head swiveled and round, yellow eyes took my measure.

“A snowy owl. Can I keep it?”

I chuckled. This must have been during her Harry Potter phase. If only this bird were carrying an invitation to Hogwarts and I could wave my magic wand to make everything better.

With a towel and a blanket, we were able to surround and cover the owl. The Refuge had been very helpful in providing clear directions. Thankfully, Snowy Owls have little contact with humans, so normally, our presence is enough to confuse them. They have two main weapons, the beak and the talons (long, dagger toe nails). My job was to immobilize the bird, keeping her wings tucked in, and avoiding the beak and talons, to place her into the box. Easy, right?

Although my hands were trembling, it was pretty easy.

Moments after being placed into the box, our feathered friend wiggled up from under the blankets.

I couldn’t help snapping a picture and sending it with a quick text to our Harry Potter fanatic veterinarian, who has a keen interest in zoo medicine.

‘Transporting Hedwig to you now.’

On the trip to the veterinary hospital, my daughter kept saying, “Wow, so cool, he can practically turn his head right around!”

I’m not sure how my daughter didn’t pick up this well-known-fact from childhood cartoons and books, but granted, it is much cooler to watch an Owl turn their head almost fully around in real life. Thankfully, the bird did not escape the box on the way to the practice.

At the veterinary clinic, I texted an update with a photo to the Refuge. Their response made me smile. ‘Gorgeous girl!‘

Hmmmm. A girl. Who knew? Could this actually be Hedwig? In J.K. Rowling’s novel, Harry Potter, Harry’s Owl, Hedwig, is a girl. Although, in the movies, Hedwig was mostly played by boy owls. Random fact there for you.

By the time we got our Snowy Owl back to the veterinary hospital, she appeared oddly dirtier. (see the new speckles on her previously white feathers?) But it wasn’t dirt.

A quick inquiry to the refuge brought this response, ‘Oh, ya, lice. Very common in all birds of prey.‘

Alright, two concerns here; #1, I was going to need to get close and personal with this lice ridden bird in order to examine her wing and #2, BIRD OF PREY! I’d almost forgotten, this is a bird who could quite reasonably scratch out my eye. Great.

With the help of two skilled and savvy veterinarians from our practice, we devised a plan to safely immobilize the Owl’s weapons in order to examine the injured wing. I’m a chicken farmer, so thankfully, I’m pretty good at holding chicken legs. This couldn’t be much different, right?

We got Hedwig, as she was now called in my head, with her legs and long talons, held between the fingers of my one hand, while I kept control of her head in my other hand.

Her toes stretched, so at times her talons wrapped fully around my finger, but on the whole she was as gentle with us, as we were careful to be with her. With a towel over her head to keep her quiet, my associate stretched out and examined each wing carefully. Thankfully there were no open wounds, no decaying flesh and our owl was alert and appeared otherwise healthy.

We took an x-ray of each wing, so we could compare the injured wing to the normal, as we frankly have very little experience assessing for fractures in birds and then we sent the radio-graphs off to the refuge.

We gave the owl an injection of pain medication, added additional breathing holes to the box and covered her up in a dark room to relax after what must have been a stressful experience. One of our veterinarians volunteered to transport Hedwig to the Wildlife Custodian for treatment and I went home to put my clothing through the laundry.

I had phantom itching all the way home… sure bird lice were crawling everywhere.

As I was leaving our veterinary hospital, located in a residential part of a busy town, right beside the local high school, I was met at the end our lane by a raccoon. Granted, it was a warm thawing day, the temperature atypically well above freezing, so I assume this critter awoke from his winter slumber, but I swear he smirked and waved as we drove past.

Then, stopped at a light as we were leaving town, and I KID YOU NOT, there was this car.

Alright, enough was enough. I shook my head and read the license plate again… I guess I will take this as Mother Natures way of saying, ‘Thank you’.

This adventure has been great fun, but we are still not licensed to practice veterinary medicine on wild animals, and although I’m a firm believer of ‘let nature be’, I’m glad we were able to help this special owl.

I have many things to thankful for;

• to have friends who are great enough to stop, to call, and to care for our wildlife.
• to have amazing associates, willing to give of their time and energy to help an animal in distress.
• to have organizations like Hobbitstee Wildlife Refuge to accept and care for these magnificent creatures.
• and to Hedwig, for not impaling me with her incredible talons.

Please see the Hobbitstee Wildlife Refuge website for continued updates on this Snowy Owl. I understand she is doing very well and they hope for a full recovery.

NOTE: If there is an eleven year old girl or boy out there, practicing magic in hiding, waiting for their invitation to Hoggwarts, I hope your letter will be delivered shortly, as soon as Hedwig is released to the wild once again (as my daughter will not be keeping a Snowy Owl for Christmas).

Please donate to help animals like this Snowy Owl and support Hobbitstee with their amazing work.

This image is credited to a local Grey-Bruce photographer, Connie Miller.

The post Hedwig’s Rescue appeared first on Donna Curtin.

I came upon a Twitter thread where a frustrated author was venting. This author, who I might add, is already at least a decade ahead of my writing success because she has a published book that in my imagination has a stunning hard cover hugging her words, was annoyed after being asked, “So, how many books have you sold?”

My first thought was, ‘what an honour—to have a book to sell’ but the author was quite upset by the question and expressed how she felt the person had blatantly asked, “So, how much do you make?”, as if the curious person had requested to see her undergarments and T4.

To read more, please visit the ASCRIBE website where this post lives.  Thank you.

The post HOW TO SUPPORT AN AUTHOR… other than buying their book appeared first on Donna Curtin.

My patient had been admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) and it was my job to see to her every need during her stay. The ICU at The University of Guelph’s, Ontario Veterinary College is amazing. They have extraordinarily skilled staff, dedicated interns, and twenty-four hour student slaves. The care in the hectic room could likely parallel the best human ICU’s. There were bells ringing, buzzers buzzing, oxygen flowing, interns flustering, students stressing and animals of all sorts, shapes and sizes resting, bleeding, or barely living. Each and every patient meant the world to someone, because they were willing to foot the considerable daily bill to save their family member by entrusting them with the best.

I couldn’t help but notice how ridiculous it might all seem. Bustling around the room were these elite individuals, focusing their energy and their very educated opinions -not to mention the owner’s great expense- to making pets healthy again. I tried to justify it all in my mind, as an extension of the human health system. These valuable creatures were emotional, physical and spiritual therapy for so many blessed humans. The black Labrador Retriever in the cage beside Miss Lindsay Scott, could boast of being able to get his retired investment manager owner to walk sixteen blocks each morning and night. Having been hit by a car, the dog had just returned from a four-hour femoral fracture repair surgery and his owner had driven seven hours to see him.

 

The Chihuahua, in the cage above the Lab, was not only the faithful friend to a forty-seven-year-old, recently divorced, dyed redhead powerhouse; but the woman also took great joy in telling anyone who would listen, how her little dog hated her ex-husband almost as much as she did. The little dog, now on intravenous fluids, had an immune-mediated disease and if he didn’t make it, then who would be left for his owner to complain about her ex-husband to? And when the huge St. Bernard, in the hydraulic cage at the end of the room, with blood pooled in the sac around his heart, was discharged after his surgery, his owners would take renewed joy, thanking ‘God’, instead of cursing, as they cleaned up his puddles of drool.

        I paused at the door, reluctant to engage into this, foreign to most, world. The room was overcapacity with people and there was too much equipment jammed into the small space. The constant bustle and clamour resembled the most successful kitchen in Guelph. Every once in a while there would be a frantic cry for help, as a dog tried to jump off a table or a cat clawed the student who was attempting to flush a catheter. I exhaled and regarded my palm where I’d scrawled, ‘ICU #12’.

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