FRONTLINE VETS: HEROES TO THE ANIMAL RESCUE S3 – E3 | Véto de choc | W9

In France, nearly 20,000 vets devote their lives to saving those of animals. Stephanie Renouvin relates the unusual daily lives of these dedicated men and women. Olivier is not a soldier like others. He is vet to the 450 horses of the Garde Républicaine. His role: to recruit and to take care of them. In order to save a mare’s career he will have to operate on a tumour just inches from her eye. A delicate operation that does not go as planned…  For Virginie, a country vet, one intervention follows another, but none is like any other. In a cowshed she has to take care of a cow with an alarming deformity on its cheek. Then, in her clinic, she tries to save a bichon dog that has been violently attacked. Performing medical feats is Philippe’s daily routine. He’s an expert ophthalmic surgeon at the Veterinary Medical Centre in Meaux. In order to save a dog’s sight, he will carry out a cornea graft. An extremely rare operation that requires a watchmakers’ skill when the thread used is no thicker than a hair. At the Beauval ZooPark in Val-de-Loire, keeper Delphine is holding her breath. She’s on tenterhooks as she waits for female panda Huan-Huan to give birth. After a wait of five years, this unusual gestation has left the zoo’s teams stressed. To lend them a hand, two Chinese experts have travelled to attend the birth of the first baby panda in France.