The Gift of Pets: Stories Only a Vet Could Tell

by Bruce R. Coston

  From the wincing that began to be apparent on his face, I knew that the uterus was now starting to contract, inflicting viselike squeezes on his arm. Suddenly, the cow took a particularly deep breath and bore down with a mighty grunt. Unfortunately, the uterus was not the only thing that had not contracted for a long time. The cascade of fecal matter that erupted from just below the cow’s tail was epic in proportion and force. Wave after wave of brown and green poured forth over Dr. Boyd’s shoulder and back as he lay there. It flowed down over his ear, filling it before continuing down his cheek and caking his beard. It filled the space between his glasses and his eyes, which he squinched tightly closed. His head looked like a bust over which chocolate had been poured, like a chocolate fountain at a wedding reception.

  With some effort, he extracted his arm from the cow’s behind and stood, holding his breath to avoid inhaling the excreta that covered his face. First, he removed his glasses, and the dammed poo fell from his eyes to the floor. Then, using both hands, he squeegeed the poop from his face with his fingers and blew it from his nostrils with the force of a blast from a whale’s blowhole. Like a wet dog, he shook his head, sending manure in all directions, flecking my coveralls with it and leaving brown spots on the whitewashed walls of the barn some eight feet away.

  I could see the color building on his torso, redness creeping toward his shoulders as he leaned down and grabbed a clean towel from the stainless-steel bucket. With it, he wiped his face clean enough so that I could appreciate the redness of the mounting fury burning on his cheeks. The frustration was intense, building second by second. I could sense it in his clenched teeth and the taut lines of his lips. With concern, I realized that his pent-up vitriol would soon erupt into a cosmic outburst, and I glanced furtively at the farmer. His cheeks were trembling and I could see mirth behind the cloak of his eyes.

  Vibrations began emanating from somewhere in the neighborhood of Dr. Boyd’s liver. His great belly began to quiver with burgeoning anger, redder now than I could believe. A low, building groan started in his throat, his Adam’s apple pumping up and down like a piston. With difficulty, he kept his lips closed to prevent the predictable verbiage from spilling out. But the effort was just too much. The groan became a grunt, and the force within the human pressure cooker was reaching critical proportions. I knew he was about to let fly with an earth-shattering barrage.

  “Ggggggaaa…” it began. Then I noticed his gaze turn to the farmer, whose face was set in a grimace born either of righteous indignation or overwhelming laughter. The distinction was not clear, but apparently at that moment, Dr. Boyd decided not to risk offending this longtime client. As the tectonic pressures finally overtook him, he let loose with the strongest oath he felt he could unleash in the presence of this devout Lutheran.

  “Ggggg … GOLLY!”

  The utter inadequacy of the expletive broke the dam of restraint in both the farmer and me, and we were rendered completely helpless by the laughter that erupted from us. We melted, weak and blathering onto our knees, roiling in belly-aching laughter. After a few seconds, I was relieved to see the lines on Dr. Boyd’s face softening, and before long he, too, was helpless with mirth. The three of us laughed for quite some time. Only a long grunt from the patient and the plopping of a healthy, squirming calf at our feet finally stopped us. It was a satisfying end to a farm call, and a typical morning in dairy practice. It was also the end of any thoughts on my part of spending my life as a cow doctor.

  My Day with the Horse Vets

  After the debacle with Dr. Boyd and the cattle calls, he realized that cow medicine was not in my future. Squelching his disappointment, he approached me one day during my senior year in high school with a suggestion.

  “Say, Bruce, I was thinking,” he said. “I’m probably not going to get you pumped up for dairy practice, am I?”

  “I just can’t see myself spending all my time with cows,” I replied.

  “Your interest is in horse practice, right?”

  “Yeah, horses are really my first love,” I responded. “Why do you ask?”

  “I have some colleagues over in Maple Plain who have a very busy and successful equine practice. I bet they would be willing to have you join them for a day to see what a horse practitioner does. Would you be interested in that?”

  “Oh yeah! That would be amazing. I’d love that!” I exclaimed.

  It was several weeks before he was able to schedule my day with the horse vets, and I was impatient. Finally, the day arrived and I drove the thirty-five miles from Hutchinson to Maple Plain and located the hospital. I walked into the lobby and introduced myself to the receptionist behind the counter, who surveyed me carefully, seeming strangely confused.

  “The doctors are in rounds in the back room,” she said, nodding her head in the direction of the doors behind her. “Go on back. They’re expecting you.”

  With eager anticipation, I made my way to the back, where I found four men in blue coveralls sitting in a darkened room and staring intently at the X-rays of a horse’s foot on the view box. I could make out the unmistakable outline of the hoof surrounding an array of unfamiliar bones standing out in stark contrast to the darkness on the rest of the film. My entrance distracted them and they turned in unison and stared at me, seeming, if not annoyed, at least a bit surprised. None of them spoke.

  “Hello,” I said tentatively. “I’m Bruce.”

  Still they stared at me silently, taking me in from my head to my leather boots. I was arrayed, as they were, in the blue coveralls that Dr. Boyd had purchased for me to go on farm calls. I thought I looked like quite the professional.

  “Dr. Boyd worked it out for me to ride with one of you guys?”

  “Oh yeah, now I remember,” the oldest of the men said, breaking into a smile and offering his hand for a firm shake. “I’m Dr. Evers, the senior partner in this practice. And this is Dr. Conner, Dr. Vick, and Dr. Carroll.”

  I shook each man’s hand as he was introduced to me, honored beyond measure at their apparent pleasure to meet me. The pleasure, though, was all mine.

  “Virgil said you are interested in horse practice,” Dr. Evers said. “Is that right?”

  “Yes, sir, I am. I’ve wanted to be an equine vet for as long as I can remember.”

  This seemed to resonate with the group. I was enormously impressed by the four professionals in the room, who were doing exactly what I envisioned myself doing one day. But that was still a long way off. A minimum of eight and a half years of additional schooling stretched interminably ahead of me before I would be qualified to sit in their seats. They turned back to the case they were discussing but took the time to bring me up to speed on the details.

  “This is a five-year-old Thoroughbred gelding that has a non-weight-bearing lameness on the right front,” Dr. Evers said, recapping. He was obviously the attending clinician on this case. “This horse belongs to a woman who does dressage with him. He’s her best hope for the show circuit this season, so she’s pretty motivated to get this problem taken care of.”

  “I see,” I responded with as much confidence as I could muster, surrounded as I was by men whom I so admired.

  “What year are you in school, Bruce?”

  “I’m a senior,” I replied proudly. “I graduate this year!”

  Dr. Evers nodded his head and turned again to the X-rays. The room quieted and I could sense that a change had set in among the men.

  “So take a look at the X-rays and tell me what’s causing the lameness in this horse.”

  I felt my face begin to redden in the darkness. I wanted so badly to impress them with my prodigious horse knowledge, gained from years of reading outdated issues of Western Horseman magazine and my two summers as a camp wrangler. But nothing so far had prepared me for this grilling by four seasoned medical professionals.

  “I don’t know,” I said flatly, embarrassed by my ignorance. I saw a wave of disbelief wash over the group. Looks of helplessness flashed on their faces as t
hey exchanged glances. Dr. Evers raised his eyebrows and sighed heavily before continuing the questioning.

  “We don’t mean to put you on the spot. But can you come up with a list of differentials for a non-weight-bearing lameness in a five-year-old horse?” The room went silent again. I could hear the ticking of the clock on the wall. The four men waited for my response.

  “Well, I guess he could have a broken leg,” I offered weakly. The silence in the room was in stark contrast to the ringing in my ears. I was glad the lights were low, so they would not see the blushing of my face deepen.

  “Anything else?”

  “Maybe an abscess?” I added hesitantly. Dr. Evers nodded sternly. I continued: “Or he might have foundered. Or maybe there’s a nail or something that punctured the sole.”

  “Do you see a nail on the X-ray?”

  I surveyed the film carefully, then shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  One of the other doctors took over the interrogation at that point—kind of a good cop/bad cop thing, it seemed. I think it was Dr. Conner, though their names were already fading from my mind under the glare of their mounting displeasure. With an edge of frustration to his voice, he turned to me.

  “There’s no nail on the film, Bruce. Clearly this is a case of laminitis. You can tell it by the rotation of the coffin bone here away from the edge of the hoof wall. Can you see that?”

  “Oh yeah. That’s pretty cool.” I chuckled appreciatively. I had never seen an X-ray of a horse’s foot before and I found it amazingly exhilarating, despite the fact that these men were clearly becoming increasingly put out with me.

  “So what would you do for a case of laminitis this severe?”

  “I guess I’d call you guys,” I said, laughing at my ready wit, but slightly concerned when none of them laughed, too. There was another moment of awkward silence before Dr. Evers abruptly stood up.

  “Okay, so it seems we’re done here. We’d better hit the road. We’ve got a busy day. I guess I’ll take Bruce with me, unless one of you wants him.” There were no takers.

  I followed Dr. Evers to his truck, its gleaming white veterinary box filling the bed. We climbed in and set off on an adventure I had been looking forward to for many weeks. Our first call was to a breeding farm, where we were to perform an artificial insemination on a mare worth many thousands of dollars. The sire was a famous stallion who commanded a stud fee of $75,000. Both horses were on-site at the farm for the breeding and were to be evaluated beforehand by Dr. Evers.

  “If both horses are at the farm, why not just let them breed naturally?” I asked.

  “Because they are both too valuable to risk injury. It’s as simple as that.”

  “Will you need my help, or should I just watch?”

  “You can help. First, we’re going to collect the stallion. Then we’ll evaluate for abnormalities under a microscope before infusing it in the uterus.”

  None of this made a bit of sense to me. Why in the world would we collect the stallion? Hadn’t he just told me he was right here at the farm? And how would he evaluate the huge horse under a microscope? All will come clear, I thought. I was here to learn from the professionals, after all.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “I’ll show you when the time comes. Just remember, though, you have to be quick. Things happen pretty fast in the heat of the moment.”

  Once on the farm, Dr. Evers removed from his truck a three-foot-long plastic two-layered sleeve reminiscent of the arm of a thick down jacket. He filled the space where the feathers would have been with warm water. This left a hollow tubelike space between these water-filled layers. He lubricated this space generously with a slippery goo he squeezed from a tube. He attached an eight-inch-long plastic funnel to one end of this contraption, and to that he affixed a large test tube.

  “What in the world is that thing?” I asked.

  “That thing is what you are going to hand me when I ask for it. It is the most important piece of equipment in this whole process. Handle it carefully,” he said, placing it gingerly in my arms.

  The mare was brought into the aisle of the barn and cross-tied with a rope from each side. Dr. Evers carefully examined her, starting at the head but spending most of his time at the other end. His exam included inserting his arm up to the shoulder in one orifice or another—I wasn’t sure which. Apparently, she passed with flying colors because she was soon escorted back to her stall by a groom.

  The stallion was then brought out by another stable hand and led to an arena with a circumference of some one hundred feet. It was not clear who was in control of whom, but the groom seemed to have the upper hand, with the help of a leather lead with a two-foot length of brass chain at its end, which was snapped to one side of the halter, looped over the horse’s nose, and passed through the D-ring on the groom’s side of the stallion. Every step or two, the groom would give the lead a quick jerk. This reminded the powerful beast to follow directions despite the surging of his raging hormones. As an experienced stud horse, he knew exactly what his immediate future held.

  Dr. Evers carefully examined the stallion as well, concentrating his efforts on the animal’s reproductive apparatus. When he was satisfied that all was in order, he directed the workers to bring the mare into the arena and then positioned me to one side. In my arms I held the odd paraphernalia he had assembled. The effect of the receptive mare on the amorous stallion was akin to adding jet fuel to a Boy Scout’s campfire. He began to dance and whinny, his neck flexed so tightly that his chin nearly brushed his chest, sweat quickly springing to his neck and sides. It was only with the greatest of difficulty that the frantic groom could maintain any control at all on the glistening horse as he approached the mare.

  When it was clear that the stallion was about to commence operations, Dr. Evers called me close and took from me the six-pound water balloon. With one hand, he grabbed the stallion’s thrusting equipment and diverted it into the lubricated plastic tube he held in the other. That’s what that thing is for! There was intense activity for a few seconds, some loud grunting, and then the stallion was backing away. It was perhaps the most intense, frenetic, and injury-prone event I had ever witnessed. If these two horses were too valuable to risk injury doing a natural breeding, it made me wonder about the value of the veterinarian who had clearly risked life and limb to achieve an artificial one.

  Dr. Evers turned on his heels, cradling the contraption carefully in his arms like a newborn. The test tube was now full of a very valuable thick fluid, which he took to a table on which he had set up a makeshift laboratory with a microscope, several test tubes, slides, and papers. For a few minutes, he looked carefully through the microscope’s eyepieces, evaluating the shape, number, and motility of the great horse’s sperm. He even let me look through the microscope at the millions of squirming tadpoles while he made some notes on a pad of paper.

  He then sucked up the fluid in a syringe, which he attached to a three-foot-long thin plastic pipette. Guiding the advancement of this tube into the mare’s uterus with a gloved arm inserted into her, he had me infuse the entire aliquot of semen through the tube, depositing it just where it needed to be. It was a thrilling drama for me to play even the smallest of parts in.

  In the truck again, Dr. Evers turned to me. “Any questions?”

  Any questions? I was brimming with them. Everything that had just happened was completely new to me. Why let the stud mount the female at all if you were trying to minimize the risk of injury? What were you looking for when you studied the sperm under the microscope? How long did the sample remain viable? How were you able to find the right place to deposit the sample in the mare? But my mind froze. I simply could not organize my questions into a logical sequence. And when I opened my mouth, the question that actually came out was one I had not even considered.

  “How could you tell when the stallion was … you know … done?”

  Dr. Evers’s head sank in apparent disbelief tainted with what seemed lik
e disappointment and he shook it slowly. “You just know,” he said quietly. “You just know.”

  The next job was to geld a young horse on the same farm. We drove the quarter mile to the next barn on a tree-lined lane between beautifully groomed paddocks outlined by gleaming white four-rail fences. We pulled up in the stone-paved semicircular driveway and stopped under the heavy beams that supported the overhang by the front door of the barn’s stone facade.

  Carrying the necessary equipment down the wide aisle of the barn, whose stall doors bore brass nameplates announcing the four-word names of the horses within, a realization dawned on me. The gulf between these horses and the somnolent animals I was used to dealing with at camp, and between this rarefied air and the camp’s pole barn constructed with rough-hewn creosoted two-by-sixes, was akin to the space between South Central L.A. and Buckingham Palace. I knew nothing of the world these skilled practitioners inhabited every day. It was a humbling epiphany, and intimidating.

  In a ring at one end of the barn, several attendants were gathered around an impressive yearling colt, who eyed us apprehensively and circled his groom at the end of a rope. This, I knew, was our patient: a sixteen-hand bay stallion with four white socks and a wide blaze on his nose. He was in beautiful flesh and his coat gleamed with the sheen of perfect health and ideal nutrition.

  Dr. Evers laid out several thick ropes and a clean towel, on which he placed some carefully wrapped packs that had been recently autoclaved. He deftly slapped a large-bore needle into the jugular vein of the horse and quickly infused a syringeful of a clear fluid into the vein. Within a couple of minutes, the horse’s anxiety eased and he stood still, his great head sagging. Dr. Evers used the ropes to weave an intricate web around the colt’s legs in just the perfect pattern that a gentle tug on one end tipped him onto his side and prevented him from regaining his feet. Another injection into the bulging vein and the horse went still on the ground, though his eyes remained disarmingly open.