What is the 3:3:3:1 ratio in helping sick animals?

I was doing a big overhaul and re-categorising of our blogposts for the past few days. Due to the upgrade of WordPress and an inevitable change of theme for this blog, many past blogposts were somehow wrongly categorised. I’m talking about over 6000 posts! Well, I’m an OCD stickler for order when it comes to these things, so I sat for hours re-categorising the thousands of affected blogposts (still not finished yet).

In doing so, I chanced upon many treasured blogposts and photos from the past. So, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise, after all! I had a chance to revisit old photos and what I had learnt in the past.

Here’s one from 2011: https://myanimalcare.org/2011/05/05/the-3331-ratio-in-helping-animals/

I remember I learnt this 3:3:3:1 ratio from a senior vet at that time. Copying and pasting:

There is this 3:3:3:1 ratio involved when it comes to helping animals.

30% – what the vet can do.

30% – what the caregiver can do (and this includes lots of love and tender loving care).

30% – what medicine can do.

10% – “faith”, “belief”, “guardian angels”, “the universe”, “sheer luck”, “pure chance”, etc.  (whatever we want to call it!).

For me, the above rings very true indeed.

And sometimes, the percentages run a little here and there, giving more weightage to the last 10% of sheer luck and pure chance. Nowadays, I don’t attribute it to faith, belief or even “the universe” anymore. I think “the universe” is too busy taking care of the big things! Faith and belief don’t help much either; it’s effort that matters the most. But sometimes, no matter how much effort we put in, how skillful our vet is, how good the medicine is, that component of sheer luck and pure chance reign supreme.

I have come to a simpler ratio these days: 1:1

50% – effort (this includes the vet, the medicine and the caregiver)

50% – chance

Give it all you’ve got, by all means hope for the best, but be prepared for the worst.  Give it everything you’ve got but expect nothing because sometimes life deals us a lousy hand and we’d just have to live with it.