Treating our furry friends on BBC ALBA

Throughout the series we see a number of vets in actions, including Colin Scott who looks after the animals at Blair Drummond Safari Park near Stirling; Graham Hunter at the equine hospital near Aberdeen; Jane Harley at Highland Wildlife Park; David Mackenzie from Vets Now in Aberdeenshire; Romain Pizzi who visits the Wildlife Rescue Centre near Alloa once a week and Iain MacLean, the Wick based vet.

Coming up over the first few episodes:

At Blair Drummond Safari Park, thirty macaque monkeys have come over from Gibraltar where they were causing havoc with tourists and Colin has to treat some of the younger females who aren’t in a hurry to cooperate.

In Wick, Iain is called out to a farm in the middle of the night to perform an emergency caesarean section on a cow and has a race against time when the calf is born not breathing.

Meanwhile, at the out-of-hours service near Aberdeen a 15 week old Lhasa Apso dog is in trouble and needs help, whilst a Pekinese style dog is fighting for her life after giving birth to three puppies.

The dart gun is out at Highland Wildlife Park so that vet Jane can rasp a Kiang horse’s teeth and trim a Markhor’s hooves, whilst another one of Jane’s arduous tasks is to take some blood samples from a young female bison who is going to be moving to pastures new.

At the equine hospital at Ardene House near Aberdeen, Graham carries out an endoscopy on a horse, and he extracts a tooth from a budding racehorse – a task that takes a long time and a lot of patience.

Vet Romain Pizzi visits the Wildlife Rescue Centre near Alloa once a week, and in spring they are exceptionally busy as the staff are saving injured and orphaned newborns.

The keepers often take the young animals home so that they can get provide round-the –clock care. Romain has difficult decisions to make as he assesses which will make it and which will not.

In the series we also meet two young vets based in Wick who are working long days during the calving and lambing season.

It is only a few years since Kiri Harvey and Pete Cameron graduated but they are handling the pressure like seasoned pros.

A sheep heavy with triplets arrives in a serious condition and they battle to save the mother and the lambs.

Treating all creatures great and small, the new vets series brings viewers stories of joy and some of sadness as we follow vets throughout the country as they endure some tough battles to save lives.

Vets: Gach Creutair Beò’ series three starts on Tuesday 26th January at 8.30pm.