Beardy, the bunged up bearded dragon, was brought into us by four-year-old Porter Hogan for treatment and the CBeebies programme “Ferne and Rory’s Vet Tales” recorded how a warm bath and a tummy massage from our vet Filipa Lyseight soon had Beardy back in business.

The big breakthrough brought a priceless response from Porter, whose reaction to seeing the transformation in his favourite pet was: “Well done, Beardy. That’s so much poo!”

Vet Filipa then advised Porter, and his dad Daniel, on how to prevent a repeat of the blockage, saying: “The right nutrition is very important. Beardy is an omnivore, so we’d like him to eat insects, lots of vegetables and fruit.”

Filipa also explained to programme presenter Rory Crawford how we deal with more exotic, unusual pets such as Beardy here at Southfields.

She said: “We examine them exactly as we would with cats and dogs. We start with the head, look into the eyes and ears to see if they’re dry or there’s any discharge which would tell us there’s a condition going on.

“In bearded dragons, we would also check the jaw, too, because they can be prone to bone disease.

“Then we’d check the body and feel for any masses, making sure there’s no lumps or bumps there.”

Rory also featured a couple of other cases from a busy day here at the practice, which highlighted our top-class facilities and care.

There was also the case of Diesel, the border collie, who was having samples taken from a lump in his mouth for analysis, along with Mile, a bichon frise, who underwent an ultrasound scan to check out an existing heart condition.

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