Rising Popularity of Exotic Pets Opens Up New World for Veterinarians

Dr. Joni Edwards knows that a balding tarantula is not sick--just in the mood for love.

Her veterinary office treats the hairy arachnids and other “exotics” like iguanas, cockatoos and ferrets, along with cats and dogs.

As pet owners seek low-maintenance companions, veterinarians with small practices are challenged to keep pace.

“The fastest-growing is reptiles, including snakes, iguanas, turtles and lizards,” said Marshall Meyers of the Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council. The council holds educational seminars around the country for veterinarians, breeders, pet store workers and hobbyists.

The number of pet birds is also on the rise, with an estimated 31 million in the United States, according to the American Veterinary Medicine Assn.

Although hard data is minimal, the change has revolutionized veterinary medicine, said Dr. Priscilla Dressen, instructor at Colorado State University in Ft. Collins.

“When I was a student I had to beg, borrow and steal to get information on exotics,” Dressen said. “Today, just about 100% of the current senior class will go through a two-week intensive course on exotic animals.”

CSU’s veterinary students get hands-on experience--from giving ferrets chemotherapy to removing the kidneys of chimpanzees.

Dressen said veterinarians today need to know about such animals, if only to refer them to specialists.

“What I’m reading in a lot of veterinary medicine magazines . . . they’re finding exotics encompass 20% to 30% of a practice,” Dressen said. “If a vet is not trained in that field, they’re losing a large volume of their business.”

Kent Mount of the Colorado Board of Veterinary Medicine said veterinarians stay current by taking 16 hours of board-approved courses every year. He said they need to school themselves on animals they see frequently. “Some vets limit their practice to certain species, but in rural settings, they see everything,” he said.

Outside the traditional school setting, the pet industry council attempts to bridge the gap between what consumers buy in pet stores and the knowledge of the veterinarians who will treat those animals. They hold five veterinarian-taught certificate seminars: birds, canines, freshwater fish, reptiles and small animals. Attendance is highest at the bird and reptile seminars, said Geri Mitchell of the council. “A lot of veterinarians have told us unless they do a lot of specialized study, they don’t learn too much about reptiles and birds; they learn about dogs and cats,” she said.

The Assn. of Avian Veterinarians holds annual weeklong seminars, focusing solely on winged creatures, said Dr. Jan Strother of Huntsville, Ala. Strother’s small practice, which emphasizes birds, brings in patients from neighboring Georgia and Tennessee.

“When I opened my practice in 1987 in a small, rural Alabama town, I thought I might starve to death,” Strother said. “But once the word got out--that there was a veterinarian with a special interest in birds--I could have worked 24 hours a day and still not caught up.”

At VCA Anderson Animal Hospital, Edwards delicately handled the frisky tarantula.

“If you drop one, they’ll shatter,” she said. “The way their chitin, or skeletal shell, is constructed makes them very fragile.”

Like canine and feline patients, exotic animals are given physical exams and anesthesia.

“We take blood, we do surgery, we do dental work on them,” Edwards said.

But every veterinarian has stories about treating unusual patients. For instance, Edwards once enlisted six people to handle an ailing snake.

In reptiles the only response to pain is often a slight change in heartbeat, Dressen said.

In New York City, Dr. Ernie Vine has treated crocodiles. One three-footer swallowed a rubber ball, which had to be surgically removed. “The exotics challenge your mind all the time,” Vine said.