[fluttering]
Oh, oh, oh.
Sarah’s trying to restrain a Great Horned Owl named Snappy.
I don’t know, doctor.
What do you think?
He serves to kind of fuss around, and Sarah freezes.
The advice I got from Maya earlier was commit to it.
You know, I under–
I get that.
Like it can be really intimidating, especially
knowing that Sarah was previously injured by Snappy.
Oh.
There’s an angry, angry bird.
Just–
Yeah.
That’s it.
You got gloves on.
Grab him.
Grab both of em?
– If you can. – With a finger in the middle?
Yeah. Finger in the middle.
DR. OAKLEY: Once you’re in there, you’re in there.
You got to commit.
You’re in it to win it.
You got to just finish it.
Like a boss.
Sarah Howard.
All right, let’s bring him here.
I’ll give him his injection.
Thankfully, Dr. Oakley’s standing by
to give me a little bit of verbal encouragement.
I’ve got his feet, so–
SARAH HOWARD: Apparently I just need to commit,
’cause it’s that easy.
Injection time.
Mark it.
Great Horned Owl in the house.
DR. OAKLEY: My biggest concerns working with Snappy
is all about safety.
Whoopee, whoopee, whoopee, whoopee, sorry,
sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.
You still got his feet?
Yup.
DR. OAKLEY: He’s got three different weapons–
his beak and, you know, his two sets of talons.
He can really quickly grab somebody,
and it would be very painful.
Make sure we’re not squishing him too much
so that he can breathe.
We want to carefully restrain him,
and that’s because birds don’t have a muscular diaphragm
to kind of move their chest and they
have to do that to get air in.
So if you hold them too tight they can smother, just
because they can’t kind of move any air
in and out of the lungs.
Wanna look in his mouth, and that all looks good.
There’s his eye.
So these are not his ears.
That’s what’s important about Great Horned Owls.
You see these little fluffy feathers?
It’s for intimidation.
Those are not ears.
You want to help with the ratchet?
OK.
So basically I’m holding kind of right
at the toes where they bend–
OK.
Then I’m going to go–
and I’m committed.
You got to commit.
And you’ll feel it like– rachet all the way back.
Snappy has some amazingly strong talons, and each one of those
has like a little bit of a ratchet
system that helps him kind of grab it and hang on.
It’s going to feel like you’re breaking it.
So it’ll go– – I know.
– Tic, tic, tic, tic, tic. – It scares me.
OK? So you go ahead and do it again.
OK.
I’m not guaranteeing that he’s out completely.
Good.
Come on, Chandelle.
Put your muscle into it.
The advantage for us is if we open
up that ratchet system it helps him hold his feet wide open.
There you go.
There you go.
That makes it safer for me to get in there
and feel around and check out his foot carefully.
OK.
And he has beautiful feet, like literally the best captive owl
foot I’ve ever seen.
And there’s no like sore spots, like even there.
That’s nice.
Awesome.
Lovely.
So Snappy looks great.
His feet are in fantastic shape.
His talons were a little overgrown,
but we just kind of trimmed them and moved them out a bit.
So these– these guys are captive,
so, you know, they’re not using their talons
as much to go out and grab stuff and fiddle around.
Overall his physical exam is– body condition is excellent.
That was nice.
Snappy’s never been such a good patient.
Yeah.
Good job, Snappy.
OK.
OK.
OK, buddy.
In you go.
He’s about ready.
Yup.
He’s ready.
There’s the Snappy we all know and love.
SARAH HOWARD: It’s really encouraging that Dr. Oakley was
really impressed with his feet.
You know, we worked really hard to reverse what– we thought
Snappy’s feet were going.
So I’m really proud of my staff, and I’m just proud of– proud
of Snappy.
[music playing]
