A Wander in Vetland

by John Hicks

  I still have reservations about blood sports and rip and yank fishing orgies. The boundaries between killing to eat, killing to eradicate pests and preserve the environment, and killing for fun, are sometimes blurred. Euthanasia confronts vets daily, and is distinctly different.

  Euthanasia should be a dignified act of mercy. It may appear callous to say, but I have felt absolutely right injecting an overdose of barbiturate into the vein of an old, arthritic Labrador or a paraplegic road accident victim. I am relieving suffering. It is more distressing if the animal is healthy, young and friendly and the procedure is being performed as a matter of convenience for the owner, but then, like most vets, we usually tried to find a home for it. Occasionally this was not possible, but at least the final process was humane. Better the owner who has faced up to their responsibilities in this way than dumped their pet somewhere in the wild in the hope that it will survive – often a cruel recipe for a slow death by starvation.

  In most cases euthanasia involves giving a lethal injection into the cephalic vein on the forearm of the dog or cat. It may sound simple, but it is one of the more demanding duties a vet has to perform. Finding the vein to inject an anaesthetic whilst under the bright lights of the clinic, with an experienced animal nurse holding the animal, is one thing; but sometimes it is either less stressful for the pet, or the owner’s choice, to have the vet call in and do the deed at home. As the vet concerned, you are usually very much on your own. It’s a matter of staff resources: the practice can’t spare the nurse to help you out when she is required at the clinic to assist with all the other ops lined up.

  When you finally reach your destination, you may find all sorts of obstacles to a pleasant outcome: the dog has cardiac failure and his veins are collapsed; he can’t move far, but he’s not going to take that prick in his leg lying down; the old lady can’t hold him; no, the coal cellar is his favourite place and there is no other lighting apart from a failing torch. If it’s a cat: he seems to know what’s going on and we can’t get him out from under this very low super king-sized bed; he’s just scratched my arm, see if you can catch him etcetera, etcetera. You have to cope, as in: “Well, you’re the vet. That’s why I called you.”

  Every vet will have a disaster story concerning euthanasia. One of my first memories relates to my days as a student filling in the summer holidays for the obligatory number of weeks of “seeing practice” before qualifying. I was commandeered by M~, one of the young Watford vets, to help him put down a Pyrenean Mountain Dog which had bitten a neighbour. In England in the early 1970’s these dogs were the latest fashion accessory for those who liked big dogs or wanted something large and white to lie on their shag-pile carpet.

  While PMDs may be ideal for bounding round the mountains and protecting flocks of sheep from wolves and bears, they are not exactly suited to life in a bed-sit. The monotony of such an existence and lack of exercise tends to make them grumpier than usual. This, combined with their massive size and guarding instincts, could present a formidable challenge to any visitor, let alone one smelling of vet.

  As a student I revelled in seeing how such jobs were handled. Seeing practice with an experienced vet was all fun and no responsibility. The current PC world of academia would rather students confined their extramural experience to model practices, preferably those handling referrals in a strictly approved, evidence based, scientific manner. It has always been my contention that we learn best from our mistakes, and nearly as well from other people’s – so the best learning opportunities often arise from the least likely sources.

  The block of flats certainly looked unpromising territory for a PMD. M~ and I pounded up the echoing stairwell trying not to inhale too deeply. The whole area had been liberally claimed by tom cats and they had been spraying within on an industrial scale. Ah, that ammoniacal reek and the brown dingy linoleum bring back memories; who could possibly choose to spend their life in small animal practice in the deprived areas of a big city?

  A fat and, yes, distinctly grouchy Pyrenean Mountain Dog weighing over 50 kg guarded the top of the final narrow flight of stairs that we ascended, by necessity, in single file – right to the top garret. M~, a strapping, young, rugby-playing vet led the way – confidently at first – expecting that PMD would be held back by his owner. Unfortunately, the latter fell into the seven stone weakling category. He had probably purchased PMD in the hope that people would stop kicking sand in his face. I’m sure they did for a while; but now our hero was terrified of his own dog and could do nothing to control him.

  M~ faltered near the top. By the lights of Sir Walter Scott we were now confronted by a very wrathful dog. Charles Atlas himself would have stepped back and beaten a dignified retreat; and so did we. A full frontal, bare-handed assault was not on. We considered our options. PMD was aroused and suspicious and, under these circumstances, seven-stone weakling informed us there was no way he would take food laced with drugs. Besides, the whole process would take hours.

  You can’t expect an England Rugby Union trialist to admit defeat in the face of such an overt challenge. M~’s dander was up. He managed to convey to seven stone weakling that we would be back with a dog catcher. In essence this is a long pole with a noose on the end. The idea is to slip the noose over the dog’s head and pull it tight. If you are strong enough you can keep the dog secure at pole’s length and unable to reach you. There are, however, a couple of drawbacks with dog catchers. One is that no dog enjoys a tight noose around its neck. Aggressive dogs become more aggressive and PMD was no exception. Once committed, you must have the strength and determination to win. The other drawback is that both your hands are fully occupied, so you need an assistant. The assistant needs to be able to reach the dog and on the narrow stairway this was not easy. Even super fit M~ was struggling to push PMD upstairs on the pole. PMD was choking, his tongue was going blue and he was more than ever determined to kill us. The blank eyes of a dog in kill mode are truly terrifying. He fought against the pole like a great shark threshing on the end of a gaff. He voided his bowels and bladder. Their contents were kicked and splashed onto us as we struggled beneath him. Barbiturates have to be injected into a vein, but finding the vein in such circumstances is impossible.

  We had anticipated this and planned accordingly. It was now my job to inject a morphine-based horse anaesthetic into any part of PMD’s musculature. I had to be supremely careful that I wouldn’t be knocked or in some other way accidentally discharge the injection into one of us. At last I found a piece of leg and carefully thrust the needle through the felted, mat of his ungroomed hair and into the muscle beneath. Keeping his distance, M~ carefully released PMD from the noose. Within minutes he relaxed and M~ was finally able to inject a lethal dose of barbiturate directly into his heart. He was dead in an instant.

  We were now faced with the nightmare of wrestling PMD into a polythene body bag and carrying him down the stairs and past the stares of the tenants in the lower flats. They had been summoned by the thumping melee above them but, habituated by a thousand gangster movies and perhaps (who knows?) similar comings and goings up and down those stairs, they seemed unmoved by the sight of two spattered, shabby men descending from on high with a full body bag.

  A dead weight is an awkward burden, and the dénouement was inevitable. Before their very eyes, the black polythene split, and a soiled, furry carcase cascaded onto the cat-pee landing. For some time M~ and I had been controlling ourselves and upholding, with some difficulty, the solemn standards of professionalism expected on such occasions. But, we had escaped from a surreal situation of some danger and our sense of relief eventually broke out in a very unprofessional outburst of hysterical laughter. We laughed so much that we came close to adding our own contributions to the urine drenched linoleum. That would have been triple whammy for our spectators, but they seemed to understand. One of them muttered: “Thank goodness someone’s at last done something about that bastard.” There seemed to be a general consensus about that.

>   ~

  As in so many other veterinary endeavours, the unpromising task of euthanasia can bring unexpected rewards.

  It was the end of a long day, but our receptionist, Karen, volunteered to accompany me and lend a hand. Cassie, an old and much-loved bearded collie had had a stroke. She was fully conscious but unable to walk. I had never met her before, but I knew that she was very special; indeed she had been a New Zealand champion. Her tail flapped weakly on the floor as I greeted her.

  The moment I clipped the hair off her leg I knew that I was in trouble. Cassie’s circulation was poor and the vein I would have to use was not visible. In circumstances like this it is sometimes a matter of experience to guess where exactly the vein lies; but alas, luck was not with me that day. I tried the other leg, irrelevantly wondering which part of my autonomic nervous system was responsible for the large beads of sweat running down my furrowed brow and blurring the inside of my glasses. I have had people poking around trying to find my own veins and I didn’t want to put Cassie or her owner through too much of that. So far I had only succeeded in getting enough into her circulation to make her drowsy. She lay peacefully as her owner stroked her.

  Fortunately there are alternatives, and I carefully slipped some of the solution into her liver. A routine euthanasia, which should have taken a few seconds, was now going to take half an hour. In fact over an hour passed before Cassie took her last breath and drifted away, across the rainbow bridge her owner talked about.

  During this time Cassie’s owner, initially distraught and thinking that I had, as she later put it, “stuffed up”, gradually adjusted to her loss. By the end of an hour the three of us had debated our beliefs, agreed to differ, and solved many of the world’s problems. Cassie’s prolonged but serene departure had brought us together,

  Financially it was an unrewarding exercise for all concerned. Time is costly. None of us has much to spare these days. However, sometimes benefits cannot be quantified financially. Opportunities for personal growth arise unexpectedly. We need to recognise them for what they are, and not resent the time they take when they come our way.

  ~

  One of our loyal and favourite farming clients seemed to live their home life surrounded by pet dogs. Their living area was a clutter of expensive but battered leather furniture, tumbled books, and the homely warmth of an Aga cooker. Though this was a solidly Southland family, they could have stepped out of Country Life magazine. Quite often, after a long job in their sheep yards, I was invited in for a cup of tea and, inevitably, irresistibly and undesirably, I enjoyed some choice home baking – followed by middle age spread. Finding a seat among the cushions, magazines and other assorted papers could be a problem. Humphrey, lazily reclined on “his” couch and, unless sternly reprimanded by Sue, his mistress, he refused to move out of the way, although his tail usually thumped the leather in welcome.

  Humphrey was a much favoured Labrador, but over the years he had slowed down and one day Sue warned me that his time was drawing near and please could I be ready to come and give him a dignified send off? Duly, that day came. The family gathered round, and Humphrey hardly stirred as he departed this world. After her final, farewell stroke of his soft ears, Sue brushed aside her tears and asked me if I’d care to join the family for a cup of tea. Invariably, on other euthanasia missions, I had refused such requests, and so I declined, saying that I thought it would be better for me to leave her and the family with Humphrey to get over their grief. Sue, however was insistent, “Please John, we’d love you to stay.”

  “But what about Humphrey?”

  She looked over to Humphrey’s peaceful hulk. “Oh, he’ll be alright. Humphrey can lie in state while we have our tea!” Sharing that cup of tea with Humphrey’s caring and humane owners was a rare privilege. If only we all had such a balanced attitude to life and death.

  Chapter 18

  Prussic Acid, Polecats, Possums and Tits

  These days vets are required to be very circumspect about the powerful drugs at their disposal. Things were far more relaxed not so long ago. In my university days it was entertaining for veterinary students, returning from the long vacation breaks, to trade stories about the more dramatic moments they had experienced while seeing practice with different vets in various parts of Britain.

  Richard, my friend from South Wales, recounted the unbelievable technique used by a very old and backward veterinarian for the destruction of aggressive cats. Admittedly, it is very difficult to restrain a cat in a demonic rage. Cat bites and scratches are painful and notoriously prone to infection. Finding small veins on a moving target can be an interesting challenge, even with the inventive use of towels and jacket sleeves for restraint. Often it is more humane to inject the cat directly into its heart or a kidney than persisting, as a matter of professional pride, in trying to find an elusive vein. These larger organs are easier targets, and also result in near instantaneous death, far better than vain vein attempts… but, in reality, such efforts may not be appreciated by nervous cats, nor the staff who have to try and avoid being bitten and scratched while trying to restrain them.

  Richard’s vet used Prussic acid. As the caged cat spat and snarled at him he squirted this lethal compound into its mouth, causing rapid death from cyanide poisoning. The danger to himself or his staff was appreciable. Prussic acid was one of the Nazi’s favourite chemicals for mass murder. Where on earth did he obtain it?

  Strange as it may seem, tight control over nasty chemicals is a relatively recent phenomenon. In Chaucer’s day (late fourteenth century) it was easy to obtain poison from an apothecary. In The Pardoner’s Tale one of the felons used the pretext of needing it to kill the rats and a polecat that he claimed were killing his hens. It all ended in mass murder.

  Control of drugs is much stricter these days and, despite occasional requests from members of the public, vets are not legally permitted to hand out powerful drugs like barbiturates for general use. If you, like the felon in Chaucer’s tale, want to “quell” your rats, or poison the polecat eating your chooks, don’t expect your vet to supply you with “strong and violent” poisons. And if you have a vicious dog you want out of the way, we cannot legally supply you something to “slip into his food”, because how are we to know you’re not going to slip it into a bottle of Pinot for your wife and her new boyfriend? Human nature doesn’t change.

  ~

  Polecats have powerful hold on our cultural memory. Their depredations on poultry were not confined to the pages of Chaucer; and they have been persecuted throughout history. In some parishes, rewards were offered for their destruction. The expression “stink like a polecat” was widely used in my childhood yet polecats had, by then, become extremely rare in the wild and were restricted to isolated corners of Wales. However, in a domesticated form they live on as ferrets – still used for rabbiting, and as pets. The fitch varieties, selected for their beautiful pelts, were farmed quite extensively in New Zealand in the 1980’s as farmers desperately sought ways to generate income while the sheep industry slumped. Several barns and sheds around Western Southland were set up with fitch cages. Vets quickly learned to anticipate their lightening reactions and avoid their needle-sharp teeth when they were presented for vaccinations (they are particularly prone to canine distemper) or with various ailments. The polecat stench became quite familiar to us. One local veterinary practice even specialised in de-sexing fitches and surgically removing the anal glands responsible for their quite overpowering scent. Thus prepared, they were exported to Asia as pets. Lithe, lively and intelligent: the very qualities that make them such lethal hunters in forest and field, suited them to the confined human warrens of Singapore.

  In the wild, polecats, ferrets and escaped fitches, like their cousins – stoats and weasels – kill indiscriminately and gratuitously. After the early settlers introduced rabbits to New Zealand they multiplied to such an extent that they threatened pastoral industries. The introduction of stoats and weasels to control rabbits was, in tu
rn, equally ill-advised. For stoats and their allies New Zealand’s unique ground-nesting birds – kiwi, weka, kakapo and takahe – were easier pickings than rabbits. And since these vicious predators are capable climbers even tree-nesting birds, which evolved without effective defence strategies against them, have suffered alarmingly as their nests have been plundered by them and other introduced pests such as rats, possums and feral cats.

  Sadly, the bush, once reverberant with birdsong, is now largely silent; yet in the nineteenth century teachers in Wellington complained that they had to close the school windows to exclude the bird song, so their pupils could hear them.

  I can sympathise with Sid who has emigrated from a country romping with spectacular wildlife, to New Zealand, where we carefully foster the twilight remnants of an ornithologically spectacular fauna in the hope that more effective pest management strategies will be developed for the future. “New Zealand is a beautiful country, John, with chocolate-box scenery. But when you open the lid you find that there never were many chocolates and that most of them have already been eaten.”

  Ferrets and possums are vectors for bovine tuberculosis, so it is fortunate that the interests of conservationists and farmers coincide. Few New Zealanders do not want them eliminated. Should modern technology give us the means, it is to be hoped that we can look forward to the restoration of our glorious dawn chorus and, for the best of reasons, that the voices of our teachers will be drowned out once more.