Michael Ferguson W A U C H O P E
V E T S
Michael Ferguson is a local veterinarian at Wauchope Vets. His love of caring for animals started early and he now has years of experience in looking after our beloved family pets.
H
i Michael. What inspired you to become a veterinarian? Was there a particular moment or experience that shaped your decision?
I have always loved nature and being outdoors, preferably with animals. I grew up surrounded by lots of big dogs as we lived in Colombia and they doubled up as guard dogs. We had one of the very few female dogs, and she would attract male dogs to our house, so it was chaos as 11 of our neighbours dogs would descend on our house looking for her... so I had to help a few vets patch and bandage up my other dog who kept getting beaten up! I spent several holidays in western QLD helping on a cattle station which convinced me I wanted to be a vet. Can you share some highlights from your journey into veterinary medicine, from your education to where you are today? At high school in Colombia I volunteered to help out at the local zoo, preparing food and feeding the animals on the weekends. It was pretty wild, with minimal OH&S with many exotic wild animals that would be dumped there after being snatched and illegally traded but it was very 110 GREATER PORT MACQUARIE focus
rewarding work.
We highly recommend socialising and learning how to train and build your pets confidence and that starts long before you collect your puppy!
I didn’t get straight into vet school which was actually a blessing. I had a year of doing traditional science subjects at university and that really cemented my desire to get into vet school. Vet school was some of the best times of my life.
What is the most rewarding part of being a vet, and what challenges do you face on a daily basis? The most rewarding aspect is helping people by treating and keeping their best mates alive and thriving. We all invest a lot into our pets and they are very much a part of modern families, so to be able to help treat and reassure people their beloved pet will be ok, is very gratifying. It is often quite hard and we face lots of different challenges to achieve these outcomes, particularly as we have to achieve it without any Medicare or financial backing that we take for granted in our human medical system. The hardest part is trying to keep my hard-working team continually positive and be engaged when we unfortunately have to deal with pet
owners who don’t always share the same concerns or have unrealistic expectations.
What are some of the most common health issues you see in pets, and how can pet owners prevent or manage them? We see a real variety of issues, from leukaemia in young dogs, complex medical cases like Cushing’s disease, to itchy scratchy pets. But sadly we are seeing a lot more behavioural cases since COVID19 as a whole raft of pets grew up in virtual isolation and they are now struggling with the fact that their owners, (who were with them 24/7), are now back at work. These pets are often very anxious and uncertain of how to behave or how to deal with being left at home on their own. We highly recommend socialising and learning how to train and build your pets confidence and that starts long before you collect your puppy! We see a lot of seasonal issues, like Tick Paralysis which sadly are mostly when owners forget to apply the correct products, so we have reminder systems and new long lasting products to help avoid this.