Dog Versus Train

OK I admit it, once upon a time in the distant past I did work on dogs and cats. And with that came seeing dog and cat emergencies, and monkeys, and birds, and snakes. It was that kind of a clinic. The strangest ever was the guy who owned a rat and a small bird called a Parrotlet. He came in late one night with a bite wound. The bird was bitten by the rat. I still can't figure that out.

It seemed like the dog and cat owners were more likely to call very late at night than the horse owners. I think most people are in their house at night and don't notice problems with their horse. If I do get phone calls from horse owners in the middle of the night, I always wonder what they were doing out in the barn at that time anyway.

So I get paged sometime after midnight on a Saturday night for a dog hit by a train. Somehow the owners have convinced the answering service to patch them through directly instead of waiting for me to call back. I'm barely awake and already have these very scared owners on the phone. They are being very adamant that I must meet then at the clinic immediately. Even though I'm still asleep I have the presence of mind to ask where they are - they are much further from the clinic than I am - so I will be able to get there first.

When they arrive at the clinic, I find out that these owners are not just scared, they are drunk too. In fact they have the perfect trifecta: scared, drunk, and LAWYERS! The way I found out the occupation of this unhappy dog's owners was unforgettable. I briefly looked at the dog's wounds which were impressive (he couldn't walk) and discussed with the owners the need to admit the dog and anesthetize him to take x-rays and have his wounds cleaned and closed surgically. He had a wound that extended from the back of his thigh, up over his tail to the middle of his back. Altogether the wound was over 12 inches long and contaminated with gravel and grass. In order to admit the dog and do the surgery, I asked that they sign a standard release for surgery. They came to the reception counter, looked at the release form and laughed. The guy says 'Oh, I'll sign anything you want me to sign because I can get out of it later.' This seemed like an unusual reaction to me, even though I had only been in practice for 6 months, so I asked what he meant. Then he informs me that both he and his buddy are lawyers and they can make that measly little release form invalid with barely any effort. I don't know if that was true or just drunken bravado, but it terrified me. I had him sign the form anyway.

It took some doing but I convinced the owners to go home, or at least go away. So now I am in the clinic with an elderly dog that has been hit by a train and I have to keep him alive. His x-rays didn't show any major injuries or broken bones so it was time to anesthetize him. I was really worried about the anesthesia in this old guy, but he did ok. It took a lot of flushing to clean all the gravel and grass out of his wound. Finally it seemed clean enough and I started to close the huge hole in his rump. I was really glad when that dog woke up. The next morning he was able to get up and walk. That was a big surprise. I had given him pain medication, but I didn't really expect him to be able to move on his own so soon. The only problem seemed to be that the old guy couldn't control his bladder or bowels.

The owners were at the clinic bright and early. They looked a bit worse for wear. They waited outside (fresh air) while I brought their dog out to visit. The dog wasn't able to go far so they came in to see him in the front waiting room. I had talked to the owners after surgery was done, so the only news I had to deliver was that the dog was incontinent and I couldn't predict how long that might be a problem. I was trying to explain this very thoroughly to the owner since he had been so threatening the night before and I didn't want to have any misunderstandings. He did seem much more subdued in the morning though. I was almost done with my complete explanation of the possible causes for the dog's incontinence when the owner started to fall towards me. He was passing out! He was a big guy and all I could do was steer him so he fell on the row of chairs in the waiting room. I had to take the dog back to his spot in the kennel and leave the owner's friends to resuscitate him.

That is were the visit ended that day. The owner kept a pretty low profile after that and I only had to talk to him on the phone until the dog went home. As far as I know the dog did fine and it's a good thing because I didn't have much faith in that release form.

Unpleasant Surprises

Being a vet out on the road can lead to all sorts of unpleasant surprises. Like coming to a client's barn in the spring and finding it flooded. Not in a dangerous sort of way. More in a really annoying need to tip-toe through the water 10 times kind of way. Turns out this particular barn floods every spring. It sits at the bottom of a hill and in April the snowmelt runs down the hill and into the barn leaving several inches of ice cold water. The horse's stalls are raised slightly so they don't mind.

Cats in the vet box are almost never a good surprise. Sometimes it's because they are covered with mud and have climbed over every piece of equipment and medication bottle. The worst is when I'm working on an emergency in the dark. Usually I'm running back to the truck every so often for supplies. Since I pretty much have everything memorized that is in the box, I might just open the door and reach in and that is when the semi-wild barn cat explodes out the door at me! That is always followed by lots of cursing in the dark. Then the clients get concerned that I have hurt myself and I have to explain that I am fine, just very shocked.

Arriving to find my patient anesthetized on the ground was a surprise. Especially since I thought it was dead, never suspecting another veterinarian would have dispensed so much tranquilizer for the owner to give, that it would cause the horse to lay down.

Unpleasant surprises can really slow down the day too. Bad driving conditions are kind of normal in my part of the world, but a flat tire is really a pain. Road detours are always challenging because I don't just need to get through the area, I need to get to an address and the detour signs never say if the road is closed before or after the farm I'm going to.

Surprising stunts by other pets on a farm make for good stories but are usually dangerous at the time. One year I was trying to ultrasound mares in February for breeding. The stalls had nice heaters in them that hung from the roof. We would position the mare under the heater since I needed to take my coat off to do the exam and it was often about 10 degrees. I was in the middle of an ultrasound one day and noticed a barn cat watching from the top of the stall wall. It seemed to be watching with more than a casual interest. It started to size up the distance from the wall to the back of the horse. I pointed out the accident waiting to happen and the client assured me the cat would not jump on the mare. WRONG! The cat made the leap and landed right where it meant to - on the horse's back. Somehow I got lucky, the horse didn't really react and the owner plucked the cat off immediately.

Loose dogs that don't like visitors are no fun. At one farm there is a Rottweiler that is protective enough of her turf that the UPS man just throws the packages out the door of his van rather than get out. (If you've been reading along, no this is not the same driver I have.) I had to figure out how to get along with this dog, since I had to get out of my truck in order to do any work. The owner says I had an advantage since I wasn't a man. I think the dog treats I was carrying around for the first 12 months helped a lot too.

The one unpleasant surprise that hasn't happened to me, is the pet that runs out in front of the truck and gets hit. I really hope it never happens.

Getting Kicked For Being Dumb

So it seems like most people think getting kicked is just part of being a horse vet. Might be true, but it seems like I only get kicked when I do dumb things. Dumb things like try to ultrasound a horse while it is in a trailer and has clearly made me understand it isn't going along with the plan.

When I was a new graduate from vet school at my first job, appointments would be scheduled for horses to haul in to the clinic. That would have been fine, except the clinic was right in town and we were not allowed to unload the horses. Any work that needed to be done had to be done in the trailer. It was summer time and a fair number of these haul in appointments were for pregnancy exams. To determine pregnancy in a horse they can be ultrasounded to visualize the embryo between 14 and 20 days after the last breeding. The scary part is the the ultrasound exam is done rectally. Yes, that means a big plastic sleeve and lots of lube. Because horses are so big, and ultrasounds can only penetrate so far the ultrasound probe needs to be held in the vet's hand rectally. Then the scanning is done through the rectal wall and down towards the uterus.

On this particular morning I was the only doctor working. I have had a full morning of appointments and have just this one ultrasound to finish. The office gets a call about a horse in a barn 30 minutes away that has reared up and hit it's head before falling over backwards unconscious. It is really serious for a horse to hit it's head so hard that it becomes unconscious. I promise to go see it just as soon as I finish the last appointment.

The horse for the pregnancy exam arrives late and I rush out with the ultrasound machine. It's a little Arab mare in a 2 horse straight load trailer. These are the trailers that you can actually see the horse's tails hanging out the back of sometimes on the road. I can't really get in the trailer next to the horse because of the divider, so I climb up on the very back of the trailer behind the mare and start to palpate her before ultrasounding. Palpating first is necessary both to remove manure from the rectum and to get a feel for where the ovaries and uterus are. The mare tries to wiggle away, but can't because the trailer is so small. I keep having problems hanging onto the back edge of the trailer because there is so little room and having to step back down to the pavement. I persist and the mare gets more annoyed, until she fires a hind hoof at my legs and just grazes my knee leaving a green poop smear on my pants. I figure if I just get the ultrasound done quickly she will be fine and I can get going to see that unconscious horse. So I pick up the ultrasound probe and climb back onto the edge of the trailer. About this time my husband stops by to see how things are going.

It's pretty obvious how this is going to turn out. I could just stop writing now. These days I would slow down and find a safer way to finish the ultrasound, probably with some sedation. Unfortunately it took awhile to learn to move slower when the horses are anxious even if it destroys my schedule.

So I attempt the ultrasound and the mare lets me have it. She connects right in my groin and shoots me out the back of the trailer. My husband saves the day by catching me and preserving the $5000 ultrasound probe that I am still holding in my hand. I never did find out if that mare was pregnant or not. I think the owners felt pretty bad, but really I missed my chance when she just grazed me, it was my fault.

I was young and dumb. I went to see the unconscious horse before I went to the ER.

The Big Melanoma Scare

Jamie's horse had lumps. Several lumps under the skin on the neck and chest. She was a teenager and loved her horse, of course. The horse was a middle aged grey and most likely the lumps were melanomas. Melanomas can be benign, meaning that they won't spread to other locations or they can be malignant and spread. Malignant melanoma is a type of cancer. Grey horses frequently have melanomas and mostly they aren't malignant. Jamie needed to know which type her horse had.

The hard part for me was to get one off the horse to send to a laboratory for histopathology. The histopathology would tell us which type of melanoma it was.

I chose a golf ball sized lump on the horse's chest to remove. It was in a easy area to get at and there were no vital structures nearby. With the horse sedated and local anesthetic around the lump, I got ready to remove the mass. One fairly nervous teenager holding the horse. I made an incision over the mass and found nothing but muscle. It turned out that mass was buried under a fair amount of muscle. I had no choice but to keep going and remove the mass preferably in one piece. Twenty minutes later, with a good sized pool of blood under the horse (muscle can bleed quite alot), I got the melanoma out. I started closing up the muscle and skin in separate layers. The whole time we had been standing in the barn aisle hunched over this horse's chest people had been coming and going for lessons. The instructor happened to come by and I said 'look at this, we finally got it.' I reached down to pick up the shiny black mass off my sterile glove wrapper to show her and it was gone! I was stunned, I hadn't even finished closing the incision yet. I hadn't left the horse the whole time. Did I bump it with my foot? No. Not on the ground. Then I remembered seeing the instructor's dog wandering around. 'Where is that dog?' I yelled. No one seemed to understand why I was so anxious to find the dog. I had to explain (with expletives) that I thought the dog had stolen the mass I just spent a half hour removing from Jamie's horse and I had to have it back for the laboratory otherwise it was all a waste of time. I spotted the dog on the other side of the barnyard and charged up to it. It was still chewing on the melanoma. Fortunately melanomas are a bit gritty and tough and this dog wasn't too eager to eat it. I got the melanoma away from the dog and put it into a jar of formalin for safe keeping.

Back in the barn Jamie's horse was still dripping blood and she didn't seem too happy that I just ran off like that. Or maybe it was the language? I finished closing the incision without any more interruptions.

The pathologist's report came back that the melanoma was benign and Jamie didn't need to worry anymore. Funny, the laboratory never said anything about the teeth-marks in the mass.

The Horse That Hasn't Left

'Yes, I can pick him up. But I can't KEEP him'. My famous last words. Most veterinarians have too many animals. It seems like one more isn't really going to make that much difference. And it doesn't, but caring for animals in herds is diferent than caring for them as individuals. In this case, any care at all would be a big improvement for this young colt.

We had been getting phone calls reporting a loose horse for weeks. High school kids almost hit him on the way to school. A client called that he was in the middle of the road one morning on her way to work in the dark. He was tied to some heavy object by a 30 foot piece of rope. Apparently the owner didn't consider dragging this weight down the road 'loose.' This went on for awhile then the reports started to include a horrible wound on a leg.

The local humane investigator went out to the owner's farm to see about the horse in question and check on the others. The others seemed to be alright (and even inside a fence of sorts). The colt was still tied but in the yard this time. There was a bandage of sorts on a hind leg. The wound smelled terrible and was obviously draining.

For some reason the horse owner wanted to know if the humane agent was armed, when he replied that he wasn't, the horse owner was pleased to announce he was. Maybe he thought it was legal to shoot humane investigators if they're on your property. Or maybe he thought intimidation was the way to go. Seems to me it was time to call the local police but the humane investigator is obviously more experienced with crazy people than I am.

The humane investigator pointed out that the horse needed veterinary care. The owner declared the horse wasn't worth what the vet would charge to look at it. They negotiated. The owner offered to shoot the horse right now. The humane investigator offered to take the horse off his hands if he would sign it over. I guess it was too much trouble to shoot the horse - even if he was already packing the gun - the owner signed it over.

That's when I get the call: 'Do you know anyone that can pick up this horse right away?' 'I suppose I could, my trailer is hooked up.' The humane investigator wanted the horse moved right away, just in case the owner decided it was a good day to use his gun.

We were allowed to take the horse off the property, but not his 30 foot rope. Probably needs that for another horse. So I put one of my ropes on him and tried to lead him to the trailer. He didn't lead so well. Pressure on his head was no big deal after pulling that chunk of metal around for months. I'm tugging on him, anxious to get the heck out of the yard, and he decides it is time to bite this annoying human. This colt didn't see what the hurry was. He did decide to come along peacefully though. That bite was the first and last bad thing he did to me. I showed him the trailer. He thought it was interesting to look at, but not get into. Then I realized he's pretty skinny, grain might be just the thing. I found a bucket and some grain in the trailer (lucky), and showed him that. FOOD? He didn't need to think about it, he got in the trailer. I set the bucket of grain in a manger so he could eat while we drove. I figured lets make the trip fun for him anyway.

That was the start of a long project. The wound was big and exposed a lot of bone. The bandage that was on the leg when we picked up the horse was so tight I worried his lower leg had been deprived of circulation. I didn't send him off to the rescue because I didn't want them stuck with horse that might have of hoof slough off. When he was past that scare, I noticed the exposed piece of bone in the wound (about 4" long) was loose and wobbling when I cleaned the wound. That led to radiographs and concerns that the bone might fracture or be too infected to heal. Eventually the loose piece of bone popped off and the wound continued to heal. By that time the little guy had lived with us for 6 weeks. He was always trying to please. He would stand still for bandage changes, didn't spook at anything, learned how to be brushed and always seemed very surprised that we kept bringing him food. He didn't ever try to bite again and that is unusual for a colt.

Eventually we tried to find him a home, but the people didn't adopt him because they thought we were too attached! The more we explained everything he learned how to do, the more they thought we liked him. So he now lives with all the other horses. He is the baby in the group and they are teaching him how to behave. Most mornings when I come out to feed hay I see him way out in the pasture trying to find old dead grass to eat. He whinnys and runs in when he sees that hay is coming. The leg is getting better and doesn't seem to bother him. I just wonder when he'll realize that the hay will always show up.

UPS package delivery...sometimes

UPS, Big Brown whatever you want to call them. They aren't my favorite package delivery service. Running a small business is fun enough, crushed and frozen supplies are just extras. Extras that make you decide to start a blog and vent.

Not that I blame the driver. It sure doesn't look like a fun job and I guess my dog did try to bite one of them. At least that's what I heard. I wasn't there at the time. My employee went out to see if he needed help and the driver told her the dog had bitten him. She was truly concerned! She asked him if he was ok, was it a serious bite? Thoughts of Rabies vaccination status, liability, and dog euthanasia all running through her head I'm sure. All the crabby driver could say is 'What, you want me to show you my butt ?' Well no blood was shed and the dog lives on.

Well I guess that nasty Banty rooster I used to have assaulted a driver too. How much damage can a little rooster do? I heard he had some nasty scratches since he was wearing shorts and the rooster had some serious spurs.

But really, is that any excuse for crushing my boxes, freezing my drugs and always making the deliveries after 5:30 pm?

Last week when the Big Brown Box on wheels pulled in at almost 7 pm, I thought oh great now I have to go put those boxes in because it's -10 out there and everything will freeze really quick. It seemed like the truck was here longer than usual. I kind of wondered about that. When I got out there it was an interesting sight. I had 3 boxes. 2 were intact. 1 was empty and crushed and torn. The crushed box had contained 4 gallons of mineral oil. That's a heavy box. Next to the box were 3 gallons of mineral oil. I'm not a detective so I will never know what actually happened in the dark that night. Apparently the driver tripped in the dark carrying the box of mineral oil and fell. Or the box tore open and he tripped over the gallon jugs. I like to imagine the UPS driver on the ground surrounded by rolling jugs of oil. Anyway, I found the last gallon of oil dented in, lying at the bottom of the hill by the horse pasture.