Cock and Bull Stories

by Peter Anderson

  It was a lovely evening, the air was full of the sound of thundering hooves, happy voices and occasional shrieks of laughter as the mothers had another gin. I talked to some of the fathers, and had a cold beer as we discussed mostly farming and how dry it was. (It’s always dry.)

  The families were moderately surprised but then, I think, pleased to see me there and at 6.30ish as we were about to head for home, Jim Booth, one of my friends, invited us all to his place for a barbecue.

  Half an hour later we unloaded Pip’s pony in their paddock and joined the growing crowd at the Booths’. The party was going well, and I think someone had some duty-free high-octane gin. As we munched a delicious venison sausage, the night was still and beautiful.

  That was all to change.

  ‘Trevor’s crook, Pete.’

  It was Jim, and the anxiety on his face was real.

  ‘He can’t stand up, and he’s just spewed on the lawn. It must be 1080 poisoning.’

  I had a good look at Trevor, the family Labrador. He certainly was wobbly — ataxia is the term — and his pinpoint pupils gave me a clue. As I examined him he collapsed and descended into a minor seizure, which passed quickly.

  ‘Is there any 1080 around or have you been using sheep dip?’ I queried Jim. He said there had been 1080 put out two months ago, but there was no dip around.

  Now, 1080 is lethal to dogs, but even in Marlborough, after two months there had usually been a rain, which would render it ineffective. It looked more like organophosphate poisoning to me. OPs were a very common chemical group used from the 1960s to the 1990s to treat sheep against lice and flystrike. They were a successor to the very nasty chlorinated hydrocarbons, of which DDT is the most famous. These chemicals store for many years in the soil, and worse, accumulate in animals’ and humans’ bodies forever. They are very toxic, and the new OPs were seen as a saviour. Thirty years later they’re viewed as pretty nasty themselves, and have all but disappeared from the scene. But in the 1990s, there were still a few OP dips around.

  We’d had a few gins by now, you understand, but my brain was still sharp enough to assess poor Trevor’s symptoms.

  ‘I’ve got to get him back to the clinic and get some antidote into him,’ I said.

  Jim looked grateful, as did his wife Beryl.

  ‘Do anything you can, Pete,’ she said. Jim offered to come with me, a drive of 35 minutes, but he was in no state to drive. Neither was I, but Ally was OK.

  We agreed to leave the pony and Pippa with the Booths for the night. Pip was a friend of their daughter and was keen to stay. The pony had a nice paddock so that was fine by Pip.

  We put Trevor in the back of the car and Ally drove us to Blenheim. Trevor was very still and looked pretty crook as we traced our way back over the winding roads.

  We arrived at our clinic, right on State Highway One at the southern entrance to Blenheim, around midnight. As I opened up the back of the station wagon, a confused Trevor leapt to his feet and bolted into the street, charging along the centre white line. Holy Moses. I sprinted after him, calling for him, terrified a car would come down the road. Two hundred metres on, he stopped, thoroughly confused, then galloped back down the street and straight into my arms.

  Hugely relieved, but completely knackered, I staggered back down the road to the clinic. We got him inside, managed to get an intravenous catheter in and began to run in the life-supporting fluids. I found a vial of PAM, the best OP antidote, and injected that and plenty of atropine as well, another antidote. Then I dissolved some acetamide crystals, the antidote for 1080, in another bag of fluid and gave him that too, just in case. I didn’t believe it was due to 1080, but I wasn’t taking chances.

  Later I gave more PAM and more atropine and finally at about 2am when I was satisfied that Trevor would live, we drove home and slumped gratefully into bed.

  In the morning, Trevor was a lot better. I gave him another bag of fluids, and more atropine, and the following day he went home.

  Of course the moral of the story for me was, don’t go to pony club, but there was a sequel which created a lot of mirth.

  Some weeks later, Ally was at another social function, possibly connected with pony club. Beryl Booth was effusive in her praise. ‘That Pete Jerram is a wonderful vet,’ she gushed to the assembled throng. ‘He saved Trevor by sitting up with him and giving him anecdotes every hour all night.’

  We have imagined the scenario many times: ‘Now look here, Trevor, don’t go to sleep. Did you hear the one about …’

  COCK AND BULL STORY — PA

  Many of the events I recall readily occurred in my early veterinary days, probably for a number of reasons. Everything we did soon after graduation was ‘new’. We were on our own and we just had to make do. We remember many instances well and we learned from them all. One vivid memory involved brilliant diagnostic skills, conflict with the owner, skilful surgery ‘in the field’, and a patient with a successful outcome. Despite this there was no evidence of appreciation from the patient for having saved his life nor from the owner for having saved his bull, nor from the insurance company for saving them some money.

  It was a warm summer afternoon and I was driving up the Wairau Valley in my purple fourth-hand Holden Kingswood to check on a bull that had, I was told, broken his penis. Life was good. This should be easy. The callout was probably just for insurance purposes because apparently the farmer, Mr Fowler, did not often use vets. Even today there are still a few farmers who use vets rarely as they perceive us to be a cost rather than an investment. To them using vets is a sure sign of being an inadequate, incapable farmer.

  There was no sign of Mr Fowler or the bull, but the farmer’s son, Keith, was there. He knew the story — we were to look at the bull, which was still out with the cows over the hill. Off we went in the farm ute to find a young Angus bull and a handful of cows in heat milling around him. Anyone could tell, even a green young vet, and from a distance, that this was not a ‘broken cock’ but a prolapsed prepuce. The prepuce, the loose, flexible lining to the sheath which protects the penis but still allows its full extension during mating, was hanging out about 15 centimetres. A tear could be seen, which had resulted in some swelling and the prolapse. This was preventing protrusion of the penis. The more he tried, the worse things were getting. Many a young bull, especially a high libido one, in his youthful enthusiasm will attempt to mate a cow before she is quite ready. An overload of testosterone means power and speed rule, not subtle skills. Leaping onto the cow from a great height, over brambles, through fences and while racing downhill, often with weapon already extended, means there is a good chance of the penis and associated tissues receiving some damage.

  I told Keith we needed to give the bull a more thorough inspection before I could sign any insurance document and that I did not think it was a ‘broken cock’. He reluctantly agreed to bring the bull in with a handful of cows so the next half hour was spent driving a small group back to the yards. A closer inspection of the bull in the race revealed what I suspected. First dilemma: I can’t sign an insurance certificate; second dilemma: what to do. I couldn’t just leave it, as it would get worse. A simple remedy for a simple prolapse was a purse-string suture around the prepucial opening to hold everything in until the swelling went down and healing had taken place. But this one was past that stage. Surgery, that is, amputating the prolapse, was the way to go. Great — I was a veterinary surgeon and anything was on, even if I had never done one or seen one being done. I had read what you did, after all, and I had a kit of sterile shiny new instruments in the boot just waiting to amputate a damaged bull prepuce. I hadn’t spent nine years at university and vet school to not use some of my new skills.

  So out came the Rompun, down went the bull, out came the antiseptics, local anaesthetic, iodine, instruments, suture materials and, of course, a heft y dose of a long-acting antibiotic. All was going well with half the damaged prepuce neatly cut away and the edges sutured and a good supply of blood over bull, ya
rds and vet. The bull, in a state of peace and tranquillity, was breathing nicely and I was doing what I had spent far too many years at university training to do. Life was good.

  Suddenly the peace was rudely interrupted. ‘What the bloody hell is going on? What do you think you are doing, boy? Can’t you see he’s got a broken cock and you can’t do anything for that, eh boy?’ The bull lift ed his head, I jumped, the dogs scampered from the morsels of prepuce and blood, and Keith shut up. His dad was fuming. I don’t remember my reply but no doubt I came up with the perfect response — several hours later.

  The job did get finished after the boss had stomped off, muttering something about useless young, inexperienced vets just costing money. But the atmosphere in the yard had changed. From feeling I was a healer and achieving great things, I now felt chastised, inexperienced and unappreciated. He had really wanted to take the easy way out by having me write a certificate so he could claim insurance on the bull (the bull was insured for far more than he was worth in the works). However, his insurance covered death, or an injury that meant he was of no further use for breeding. If we did nothing he would never breed again, but we could do something and an operation would hopefully allow a useful breeding future. Because of the injury he might not have been accepted immediately at the works, and I could not leave him as he was, with a rather nasty and no doubt painful injury. So I did what I felt was the only thing I could do. But I did learn an invaluable lesson early in my career. Always explain the options, the risks involved, the likely outcome of any operation, whether they be small or large animals, and most importantly make sure the owner, invariably the payer, knows and makes the final decision.

  But that is not quite the end of the story. The one who appreciated me the least was the patient himself. Ungrateful bastard — if it hadn’t been for me he would have been in several thousand hot dogs in the US. I called in to check on him two or three days later and to pick up my nice new shiny scissors I had left somewhere in the bloody ooze in the yards. I found them and in my delight went into the paddock next to the yards, where my patient could be seen grazing contentedly along with his neatly shaved reconditioned prepuce. From 10 metres away, all looked well.

  He stopped grazing and looked at me and then something went ‘click’ in his tiny little testosterone-riddled brain. Whether it was my smell, the sight of me in my overalls, or just very good bull memory, there was recognition. Usually bulls give you some warning that they are not happy with your presence — they snort, shake their head, paw at the ground, and bellow a bit before making any advances. This one cut out all the preliminary palaver and just went straight into charge mode.

  Those who know me would have to agree that I do not have the build of a runner of any sort especially a sprinter, but that day I sprinted. I would have broken any world record for 25 metres if there was such an event. It must have been a sight to behold. But a 10 metre advantage was enough — just. Somehow I beat that bull, now bellowing and getting louder and much closer by the second, to the fence and got the fence between him and me, and God knows how I did that. It was a tight wired fence with the usual couple of barbed wire strands, and those who know me also know I’m not exactly slim, and it was high enough, and high jumping was not one of my strengths either.

  There I lay, on the ground, panting and still clutching my nice new shiny scissors. On one side of the fence, a mad bull with a nicely reconditioned reproductive organ, all ready to work next season, but still angry as hell at me; somewhere on my side of the fence, a disgruntled ‘cocky’ who would no doubt moan about the bill he was about to get.

  But life was great — I was still alive.

  NAUTICAL MATTERS — PJ

  Most Kiwis love the sea. We’re all born within 100 kilometres of it, and most of us grow up playing in some part of it. I was no exception. Growing up in Dunedin, we were always in sight of Otago’s fabulous harbour and peninsula, even if the waters were cold enough to freeze the balls off a billiard table.

  I have strong memories of shivering in the sand dunes at Dunedin’s southern beaches, St Clair and St Kilda, as a skinny kid, and for a long time the sea was an ambivalent creature for me — full of interesting things, but always cold.

  Our father took us sailing and taught us to row dinghies, and my sister Mary and I would hunt for the large blue crabs around the foreshore of the great estuary of Blueskin Bay, north of Dunedin.

  We had a crib (Otago/Southland speak for a bach) there, and I can remember the excitement as the community of Dunedin families who all had cribs at Doctors Point hauled on the large seine net for a catch of flounders, usually with a few red cod and dogfish included.

  One night we went fishing in the channel in our little dinghy, long after dark, and I can remember the excitement as Dad told us there was a shark following the boat. Later in my teens, that translated into a very real fear as Dunedin’s beaches and harbour were the scene of three fatal shark attacks in about four years. I’ve never felt very much at ease in the sea since then, but I’ve come to love being on it. I was given another savage reminder of the perils of the sea when, en route to a tournament with the Lincoln First XI, I was aboard the interisland ferry Wahine, which foundered in Wellington Harbour in April 1968 with the loss of 51 lives. Terrified, but in survival mode, I only felt comfortable once I was in the life boat — that was familiar territory, a small boat on the sea.

  As a post World War II child, that war and its naval history were very near as well, so when I had a call from a friend to take the First Sea Lord of the Royal Navy fishing in 1981, I jumped at the chance. A delightful man, Sir Henry Leach was happy to don a pair of my scruffy shorts, catch a few small rainbow trout in the Pelorus River, then help demolish a bottle of Chivas Regal. This was all in the same day he’d flown from San Francisco to discuss the sale of some frigates to the Royal New Zealand Navy.

  Four years later, Ally and I stayed with Sir Henry and Lady Mary at their home in Hampshire. He got me legless on his home-made sloe gin, while Lady Mary made me promise to have a look at her horse, an Irish Hunter, the next morning. Though I was never better than just competent as a horse vet, full of bravado, I assured her I would be just the man.

  Next morning, the tall, angular Lady Mary, aquiline to the point of being equine, purposefully led me to the stable. Her hunter, she told me, had been examined by the horse chiropractor, who had claimed that the animal had three vertebrae ‘out’. This has always puzzled me. I was pretty good at anatomy, topping the class in my second and third years at vet school, and I had a reasonable understanding of the intimate and necessarily tight association of the bones of the vertebral column. If there is sufficient trauma to move any one of them out of line, the likelihood is the spinal cord would be severed or so traumatised the horse would need to be destroyed.

  The claim that a horse has some vertebrae ‘out’ when it is standing, walking, eating, interested in all around it, but with a very slight lameness, or even a severe lameness, could politely be called bullshit. The horse industry thrives on this, however, and a large number of charlatans make a jolly good living propounding such nonsense, so who am I, a poor horse vet, to question them?

  However, I had dug myself into a hole, albeit with the aid of Sir Henry’s sloe gin, so hung-over and out of my depth, I examined the nag, prodded and hummed wisely and eventually proclaimed that it did indeed have a couple ‘out’ and that it probably needed more visits by the chiropractor, or possibly an acupuncturist.

  I consoled myself then and afterwards with the fact that I wasn’t registered to practise in the UK and was only giving a visiting layman’s opinion. But I have always been a bit ashamed of my capitulation to witch doctor stuff on the other side of the earth.

  Six years later in 1991, I had a further close encounter with the sea. A year earlier, I had answered an advertisement in some veterinary correspondence and had spent a couple of days in Wellington training on a MAF (Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries) officer course for live sh
eep exports.

  Saudi Arabia had been importing live sheep from Australia for quite a few years. The ships all left from Perth, making a 10-day voyage to a port in either the Red Sea or the Arabian Gulf. There were stories of animal welfare problems, and I recall a television documentary about the practice, but I didn’t take much notice until I did my own training for the job. In the late 1980s, the trade became lucrative, and some political or trade factors put New Zealand sheep in the sights of the Saudi importers, at the expense of the Aussies.

  In June 1991, I agreed to do a trip for a private New Zealand export company, MANZ. They particularly wanted a practitioner from private practice to accompany their shipment, and somehow my name came up. I wasn’t that keen. Pete A and I were working hard, we had plenty of debt and there were just the two of us. A month away for me was going to put the business and Pete A under duress unless we could afford to pay a locum to stand in for me. So I negotiated quite hard with Dick Mahoney, a veterinarian partner in the exporting company, and eventually we came to a deal that would provide Anderson and Jerram with enough to cover our expenses and a bit more. I think from memory, it was about $300 a day, twice the government rate and a reasonable sum in 1991.

  This was the year of the first Gulf War when Iraq invaded Kuwait. The US took a few months to muster its forces in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, then struck savagely. The war was over in a few short weeks, with the total rout of the Iraqis, but with Saddam Hussein still in control as George Bush senior put the brakes on, much to the disgust of most of the free world.

  My ship the Al Yasrah — 40,000 tons, Kuwaiti registered, but staffed by mostly Indian and some Palestinian officers, with a Bangladeshi crew — was to be the first commercial shipment after the war had ended.