A Pet’s Best Friends : Animals: Stitching up wounds, comforting owners--it’s all in a day’s work at two off-hours emergency vet clinics.

Dr. Bill O’Connor was scrambling to take care of a dog that had been hit by a car, a kitten with a bad cold, a cat with liver problems and a little black-and-white dog who couldn’t stand up.

After he finished stitching the neck of a sheltie that had been attacked by another dog, Heidi Pedersen arrived with her Australian cattle dog Tonka, who was sick after feasting on a poisoned rat carcass in a compost pile.

O’Connor and a staff assistant at the Pet Emergency Clinic in Ventura quickly pumped the dog’s stomach. Without the treatment, the animal could have died, he said.

A sign on a wall at the hospital puts the situation simply: “Keep This Chaos Orderly.”

For more than a decade, the staff at the clinic has treated the sick and injured pets of Ventura County, and comforted owners while they’re at it.

The Ventura facility and another run by the same company in Thousand Oaks are the two places in the county where people can take their animals in the middle of the night or on weekends.

Clinic doctors O’Connor and Elizabeth Fernandez find themselves playing two roles: veterinarians and crisis counselors.

“It’s like all of a sudden the pet owner is hit with a bomb,” O’Connor said.

It’s late at night. The family pet gets out of the back yard and is hit by a car. Or maybe the animal has stopped eating.

The pet owners end up at the clinic, where a veterinarian and several assistants are on duty seven days a week, including holidays.

The clinic staff has seen its share of bizarre cases. Recently, a cat was brought in with a dart lodged in its skull. Fernandez removed the object with pliers. After a few stitches, the cat was fine, she said.

During the holidays, the clinic also sees several animals that have consumed too much Christmas candy.

But Fernandez said one of her favorite cases occurred several years ago.

A woman brought her dog in after it became sluggish.

Fernandez said she checked the animal’s stomach and noticed that it was lumpy, as if it were filled with small pebbles. The doctor discovered that the dog had consumed an entire jug of brandied cherries.

“The dog was drunk,” said Fernandez, who pumped the dog’s stomach and let it sleep off the buzz.

But many stories have sad endings at this hospital.

One night recently, a Ventura family brought in their brown dachshund Cruiser, who was in so much pain because of a slipped spinal disk that it could barely move.

The staff at the clinic tried to comfort the dog, gave it a painkiller and placed it on a blanket in a kennel. The dog’s owners went home to decide if they would go through an expensive surgery that might not fully correct Cruiser’s back.

The next day, the owners decided to put the dog to death. They simply could not afford the treatment, according to a clinic staff member. They searched for a way to break the news to their young children.

“The hardest thing about this job is putting animals to sleep,” he said. “I don’t keep track of the numbers. It’s depressing.”

The cost of care, at the clinic or elsewhere, is often a major factor in an owner’s decision. It costs $50 just to walk in the door of the emergency clinic. Surgery starts at $200.

“People say to me, ‘Do you think I’m a terrible person because I can’t spend the money?’ ” said Karen Abeloe, a veterinarian assistant and clinic office manager. “Money is tight for a lot of people. We try not to make them feel bad about that.”

Fernandez said she goes out of her way to counsel pet owners. She avoids recommending that they put their pets to death. She said she gives them the options.

“I want them to make the decision,” she said. “Most of the time, it’s not black and white.”

Whatever route pet owners take, clinic staff members say they try to help them feel good about their decision.

In some cases, Fernandez and O’Connor will donate their time to save the animals, regardless of the owner’s ability to pay.

Fernandez and O’Connor said they considered working solo in a day clinic, but they enjoy the pace of emergency medicine.

O’Connor, a graduate of the University of Illinois, joined the clinic two years ago after working as an emergency veterinarian in Alaska.

Fernandez, a graduate of UC Davis, has worked at the clinic off and on for about 10 years.

“It’s more challenging simply because we are seeing a lot more trauma and sick animals,” Fernandez said. “Sometimes it gets so busy here, the waiting room is full and there are animals in all the kennels.”

“It’s very life-or-death here,” assistant Deana Lancaster said. “It’s nice to know what we’re doing counts.”

FYI

Pet Emergency Clinics are open at the following locations weeknights from 6 p.m. to 8 a.m., weekends from noon Saturday to 8 a.m. Monday, and all major holidays:

2301 S. Victoria Ave.

Ventura; 642-8562 or 656-1772

2976 Moorpark Road

Thousand Oaks; 492-2436