The Tortoise That Needed a Surgeon and the Team That Figured It Out

His name is Teetle. He is an 80-year-old California desert tortoise, and last year he came to UC Davis with a large mass growing into his shell. The mass turned out to be an osteosarcoma. Treating it required removing a portion of his upper shell while carefully preserving the supportive muscles of his lower back, vertebral column, and hind limbs — a novel surgical approach developed collaboratively by exotic animal specialists and soft tissue surgeons who, between them, had probably never operated on a case quite like this one.

Teetle recovered well. His owners report he has more energy now than before the surgery.

This is a fairly typical week for the Companion Exotic Animal Medicine and Surgery Service at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, which is among the most comprehensive exotics services of any veterinary hospital in the world. Dr. Krista Keller leads the service alongside five other exotics specialists, and together they see a caseload that most veterinarians would spend a career never encountering: rabbits, ferrets, koi, guinea pigs, chinchillas, rats, hamsters, snakes, lizards, chickens, toucans, parrots, tortoises, and whatever else walks, slithers, or is carried through the door.

The Bond That Drives the Work

Ask Dr. Keller what draws her to exotics medicine and she does not lead with the clinical complexity, though the complexity is undeniable. She leads with the clients.

"While each patient has a unique story, I am always drawn to the bond between a family and their older parrot or tortoise that was raised by my client's grandparents," she said.

That framing matters. Exotic animal medicine has historically operated at the margins of the profession — underfunded relative to companion animal medicine, underrepresented in most practices, and underestimated in terms of the emotional weight that owners carry into those appointments. A parrot that has been in a family for four decades is not a novelty pet. It is a family member with a longer memory than most of the humans in the room. The owners who bring these animals to UC Davis are not casual about it.

The service has built its growth on that recognition. As the caseload expands, so does its capacity to serve both exotic animal owners seeking primary referral care and the veterinary colleagues who need a specialist to call when a client's bearded dragon stops eating or a pet rabbit presents with GI stasis at 4 p.m. on a Friday.

A Dedicated Emergency Line

One of the most practically significant things about the UC Davis exotics service is something that sounds simple but is genuinely rare: dedicated emergency coverage. A specialized exotic animal veterinarian is available specifically for emergencies from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays and from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends and holidays.

For anyone who has worked in a general practice that occasionally sees exotics, this context is not lost. Exotic species emergencies are among the most logistically difficult situations in veterinary medicine. The pharmacology is different. The anatomy is different. The physiologic stress response is different. A rabbit that has been in distress for two hours is in a categorically different clinical situation than a dog that has been in distress for two hours. Having a specialist on the other end of a phone line during those hours is the kind of resource that changes outcomes.

What It Takes to Build a Service Like This

Six board-certified exotic animal specialists in a single service is not a number that happens by accident. It reflects an institutional commitment from UC Davis to take exotic animal medicine seriously as a discipline, invest in the faculty who practice it, and build the infrastructure that allows novel cases like Teetle's to be handled well rather than referred out or declined.

Teetle's case is instructive on that last point. An 80-year-old tortoise with a shell osteosarcoma is not a case with a protocol in a textbook. It required the exotics team to collaborate with soft tissue surgery, work through the anatomical constraints of operating inside a chelonian shell without compromising the structures underneath, and develop an approach on the fly that was specific to this animal's anatomy, age, and tumor location. That is what tertiary referral exotic medicine looks like when it is done at the highest level.

The service's growth also signals something about where the profession is heading. Exotic animal ownership has expanded steadily over the past decade, and with it, owner expectations about the level of care available for non-traditional pets. Clients who would once have been told that options for their rabbit or reptile were limited are now arriving at referral centers expecting the same diagnostic rigor and treatment sophistication they would expect for a dog or cat. Services like UC Davis's are building the capacity to meet that expectation.

For the Profession

Exotics medicine has long attracted a particular kind of veterinarian — someone drawn to the intellectual challenge of practicing across dozens of species with fundamentally different biology, and someone who understands that the clients on the other end of these appointments often carry a depth of attachment that surprises people unfamiliar with the field. Dr. Keller articulates it through the image of a parrot that outlived the grandparent who raised it, now living with the grandchild who brought it to the appointment. That is not a small thing to be trusted with.

For veterinary students and early-career practitioners considering where exotic animal medicine fits into their future, the UC Davis service represents the ceiling of what this specialty can look like when it is fully resourced and fully committed. Novel surgeries on 80-year-old tortoises. Dedicated emergency lines for ferrets and koi. A team of six specialists who chose this work on purpose and keep choosing it.

Teetle has more energy than ever. That is a pretty good summary of what this specialty can do.

Source: UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, Companion Exotic Animal Medicine and Surgery Service feature. UC Davis Veterinary Medicine communications.