It's summer, so certain conditions are much more common in the surgery than at other times of year. Fleas are once again causing a lot of problems, as are pollen allergies. Snake bites, diarrhoea bugs, and drinking seawater all frequently necessitate a trip to the surgery.

'Foreign bodies' abound at this time of year. Fishhooks stuck in lips or tongues; grass-seeds stuck in ears, feet, eyelids or other orifices; the cob part of corn-on-the-cob stuck in bowels;and grass blades stuck up the nose of cats; all are seen regularly.

This cat had a slightly different foreign body - an airgun pellet was found under his eyelid. We do see airgun injuries from time to time unfortunately, but they are usually embedded somewhere under the skin or an incidental finding on Xray.Occasionally they can kill a cat. This poor cat had a really sore eye, unsurprisingly, but it resolved quite quickly with treatment. I hope the gunman sticks to tin cans in future.