Animals Don't Blush

by David R Gross

“No, I understand. Thank you, Dr. Gross. James and I will get him in shape. He’s the only baby we’ve ever had.”

  “I understand,” I said. “If he seems lethargic or loses interest in eating or has any shortness of breath, call and bring him in right away. Otherwise, let’s see him again in two weeks, and we’ll have a better idea how he will progress. It is diet time for Checkers, though. He’ll feel better, act better, and it will be a lot easier on his heart. I’ll let you know if his kidney function tests are abnormal. If you don’t hear from me tomorrow, you’ll know he’s OK.”

  Chapter 17: Mangy Taco

  Over the years, I have known many Chihuahua dogs. They come in three flavors—fearful and aggressive, protective and aggressive, mean and aggressive. That’s not really fair. They are often very loving and faithful and tend to bond to one person. Rarely, I have encountered individual Chihuahuas who were good with all members of a family. However, when these little dogs find themselves in a strange or even mildly threatening environment, say a veterinary clinic, the unwary veterinarian is apt to sustain a bite wound.

  Taco was of the protective and aggressive ilk. He was light tan in color with bulging, wide-spaced, eyes, three pounds of pure aggression. I knew what havoc his needle-sharp canines could cause, but because he was so tiny, his demeanor was actually comical. If I was willing to accept him biting me, I could strangle him into submission. The idea appealed to me, but it was not an acceptable way to build a strong client/clinician relationship.

  Louise Baldwin carried him into the clinic and sat holding him close while waiting for me to finish vaccinating the most recent batch of kittens brought in by Ike Williams and his partner Jon Wilkins. When I finished with the kittens, I picked up the new patient record that Dick laid on the counter and looked up.

  “Taco Baldwin,” I read off the record. “What can I do for Taco today, Mrs. Baldwin?” I gestured toward the open door to the exam room.

  Mrs. Baldwin stood and walked toward the exam room passing within a few feet of me. Taco did his thing, snarling, snapping at the air in my direction while growling, all the while shaking.

  “I’m sorry, Doctor. He’s very protective of me. Whenever a man comes close to me, he acts like this. He’s really very sweet.” She was all but shouting so I could hear her over the commotion her protector was creating.

  “I understand,” I said. “Chihuahuas are very protective of their people. I assume you’ve brought him in because of the skin condition around his eyes, muzzle, and…,” I peered at the top of the dog’s head, “head?”

  “Yes. He started losing the hair around his eyes when he was only six months old, and it has been gradually getting worse and worse. For the last month, I’ve been busy moving here, and I just haven’t had the time to get him in to a vet. My husband’s a marine sergeant, and three months ago he was posted overseas. He’ll be gone at least a year and a half, we think. He bought Taco for me after I had a miscarriage. He knew he was going to have to leave for overseas duty, and he thought Taco would be company for me, and he is, but this skin thing keeps getting worse. He’s losing hair around his mouth, and this morning I found this crusty spot on top of his head. That’s how it seems to start.”

  She held the dog out towards me with her finger pointing to the spot on top of the head that I had already noticed. Taco took advantage of the opportunity to lunge at me, teeth snapping. She quickly brought him in close again.

  “Taco, stop that. I’m sorry, Doctor. He seems to be getting more and more peevish.”

  “It’s OK,” I said. “If you’ll just put him down on the exam table I’ll cover him with this towel, and we should be able to control him. Usually once we get them away from their mistress and into a non-familiar environment, they’re not as aggressive as they are when held by their human.”

  She put Taco on the stainless steel top of the exam table, and the dog scrambled furiously trying to dig his toenails into the table for traction. He slipped, fell hard, jumped to his feet, slipped again, regained his balance, and leaped at least two feet back into the safety of Mrs. Baldwin’s arms. It happened so fast I never got close with the towel.

  “OK,” I said. “Let’s try that again, and this time I’ll have the towel spread out and ready. Try to hold onto him until I get him wrapped up.”

  I held the towel out lengthwise, by the opposing ends. Mrs. Baldwin placed Taco in the middle of the towel, and while she still held the animal, I covered him with the towel and managed to wrap it around him. She was still holding him on either side of his chest.

  “OK, Mrs. Baldwin. You can let go. Then I’ll have you hold him with the towel while I examine him.”

  She started to pull her hands away while I held the dog. She got her left hand out from under the towel. While extracting her right hand, she got too close, and he bit down on the base of her thumb.

  “Yeeough!” she screamed. “He’s biting me! Taco, STOP... NO!”

  The dog’s head was now out of the towel, and he still had her thumb trapped in four canines. I grabbed him over the muzzle with my left hand, holding the towel tight around him with my right. I pressed him down against the table while he squirmed and continued to gnaw on the thumb in his mouth.

  Mrs. Baldwin was screaming and crying. Dick rushed into the room just as I managed to push the dog’s upper lips over his teeth and force him to let go. I held onto his head forcing it down against the table with his body. He was trying to chew my fingers but his lips were between my fingers and his teeth, so the attempt was not nearly as forceful as he would have preferred.

  Dick and I managed to wrap the towel completely around little Taco three times, leaving his head exposed but with enough towel around his neck that Dick could hold him. The thickness of the roll of towel around his neck prevented him from reaching Dick’s hands.

  “You got him?” I asked, releasing my grip.

  “Uh, huh. Yeah, I’ll hold the little SOB. Feisty, ain’t he?

  I nodded my agreement and turned to attend to Mrs. Baldwin. She had slid to the floor and was holding her punctured thumb with her good hand and crying.

  “It’s too much,” she sobbed. “We were only married for a year and a half when I lost our baby. Then Jimmy finds out he has to ship out. He gets me this little tiny puppy, and everything seemed better. Then because I can’t find a decent job in San Diego, I can’t manage the rent and living expenses, so we decide I should come back and live with my folks until Jimmy gets back. Moving was a disaster; the car broke down before Taco and I even got out of California. We finally get here and start to settle, and Taco starts losing his hair and trying to attack everyone who comes near me. He even snarled at my dad a couple of days ago. Dad said if the dog ever bit him, he’d wring his neck. He could and would. Now he bites me. It’s just too much.”

  The tears were running down her cheeks, and I could see blood oozing from between the fingers of her left hand.

  “Here, let me help you up and have a look at that bite. We need to wash it off and disinfect it. It’s a good thing when puncture wounds bleed; that washes them out.”

  She looked down and saw her blood for the first time. “Shit, I can’t believe he did that. Oh, now it’s starting to really hurt.”

  I helped her to her feet by her elbows and then took her to the sink. She cried out when I milked blood from each of the puncture wounds.

  “It’s really important that we get blood to flow out of each of these,” I explained. “There will be much less chance of infection.”

  I helped her soap and wash her hands and then rubbed some antibiotic ointment over the wounds and bandaged her thumb with some gauze.

  “Have you had a tetanus shot recently?” I asked.

  She stopped crying and was wiping at her face, her makeup coming off on the damp paper towel I had given her to dry her hands. “Not since I was a kid,” she answered.

  “Well, you need to see a doctor and get a tetanus shot. I suspect he’ll want you to soak that hand in warm
Epsom salts and water or something to draw out any possible infection. Taco’s teeth are needle sharp, and puncture wounds can be dangerous. I don’t think we’ll have to quarantine him to observe for rabies. I’ll call and see if it’s OK for you to just keep him at home, but you’ll have to keep him inside. Are you OK now?” I asked. “Why don’t you go sit down in the waiting room? Dick can hold Taco for me. I need to do a skin scraping and examine it under the microscope. I think I know what the problem is, but I have to make certain.”

  I walked with her into the waiting room and made certain she was comfortable. When I went back into the examination room, I closed the door, making certain it was tight.

  “OK, Dick, you still got a good hold on the little shit? Neither of us needs to get bitten.”

  “Yeah, I got him, Doc. Do what you need to.”

  “OK, but don’t squeeze his scrawny neck too tight. These buggers can actually pop their eyes out over the lids. It’s usually possible to replace them, but I don’t want to have to explain how it happened.”

  Taco was no longer struggling. He appeared to be smart enough to realize he was no longer in charge of the situation.

  I took a used scalpel blade and scraped some skin from the edge of the lesion around his left eye and a second scraping from the new lesion forming on top of his head. Then I spread the material from each scraping on separate microscope slides, added a drop of mineral oil, and covered each with a cover slip.

  “Yep, there they are,” I murmured. Moving about in both scrapings were the microscopic alligator-like mites I had expected to find.

  Dick followed me into the room that functioned as our pharmacy, small animal treatment room, X-ray room, and clinical laboratory. He was holding Taco, still wrapped in the towel, in the crook of his left arm.

  “It’s demodectic mange, Demodex canis. Want to see them?”

  He looked briefly into the microscope. “Is this the one called red mange?” Dick asked.

  “Yep, it is. I’ll go talk to Mrs. Baldwin.”

  I found her reading a magazine, still holding her thumb. She looked up when I came into the exam room.

  “Well, Taco has a skin disease called demodectic mange, caused by a microscopic parasite that can be found on almost any dog if you look long enough and hard enough. We think some young dogs don’t have a strong-enough immune system, and that kind of turns the parasite loose; they multiply like crazy and cause these skin lesions. Sometimes the dog can lose hair all over its body, develop secondary bacterial infections, and the disease can become a rather severe problem. However, I don’t think that will happen with Taco. We should be able to treat him and get him better without too much problem.”

  “What about him being so nasty and biting? What can I do about that? My dad will probably want me to put him to sleep for biting me.”

  “That’s a whole other issue,” I explained. “Taco doesn’t know he’s a dog. He thinks he’s the alpha male in a pack, and that behavior is reinforced whenever you pick him up, carry him around, and allow him to become aggressive whenever anybody comes close to you. He considers you his, and he’s protecting what’s his.”

  “How do I make him stop?” she asked.

  “It’s a matter of training,” I said. “You’ve got to treat him like a dog. Make certain he understands that you are the alpha, not him.”

  I stood and reached over the counter taking one of Dick’s message pads and a ballpoint pen from the reception desk. I wrote out “The Kohler Method of Dog Training by Kohler” on the top page, tore it off, and handed it to her.

  “This is a very good book on how to train dogs. The author trained war dogs during World War II, and his methods work. I used them to train my own dog. I’m certain the bookstore can get it for you, and they might even have a copy in the library. If you can’t find it any place, let me know, and I’ll lend you my copy.

  “The first thing you can start doing, even before using the book and training him properly, is to treat him like a dog, not a baby. Don’t carry him around unless you have to. If he wants to jump into your lap to be petted fine, but make him get down when you are done. Make him walk whenever possible. You train him using a leash and a choke chain. He must learn to heal, sit, and stay on command. Most important, he has to learn to stop whatever he’s doing when you tell him no. You tell him only once. If he continues, you grab him by the scruff of the neck, shake him, and say no again and then put him down on the floor.”

  “What if Taco bites me?” she asked.

  “I don’t think he will,” I said. “I think this bite was an accident. He was in a very tense, strange situation. He was fearful and didn’t know what was happening to him. Your thumb just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I don’t really think he would bite you on purpose. Nevertheless, biting anyone is bad behavior. If he acts as if he’s going to try to bite you or acts aggressive in any way towards you, be very firm with your command. If you have to, grab him and shake him hard. You must make him understand you are the boss. If you come on very strong, he will get the message and won’t try it again. You must not allow him to challenge you. If you don’t think you can do this, you might as well get rid of him. You don’t want a dog you can’t control.”

  She seemed to ponder these ideas and then nodded her head. “Yes, I see what you mean. Once, just after we got him, he snapped at Jimmy, but just that once. Jimmy grabbed him and shook him. From that time, he did what Jimmy wanted. If he was chewing on something he wasn’t supposed to, all Jimmy had to do was frown at Taco, and he would stop and kind of crawl on his belly over to him.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “You want Taco to be happy and playful, not cowed, so play with him, even rough house, but don’t let him get away with challenging you. If you have to correct him about something, do it immediately and then get him to play. If he’ll chase and retrieve a ball, that’s great; maybe just play tug of war with one of his toys or an old sock, any kind of play that he seems to like. Always praise him when he does something good, comes when he’s called, stops doing whatever it is when you say no. You can give him a treat to teach him tricks like shaking hands, rolling over, that sort of thing, but don’t teach him obedience commands with a treat. He has to learn to do those things because you gave him a command. His reward for obeying is verbal praise, maybe a pat on the head. It’s just as important to reinforce good behavior as to correct bad behavior.

  “Now, do you want to look in the microscope and see what’s causing his skin lesions?”

  “Yes.”

  I showed her the mites.

  “Those are really ugly,” she said. “They look big and nasty in the microscope.”

  “Actually they are very small.” I took a ten-centimeter ruler from a drawer below the microscope. “Each one of these larger divisions is one centimeter, about two and a half centimeters to an inch. On the ruler each centimeter is divided into ten millimeters. The mites are about one-fourth of a millimeter long.

  “So,” I continued, “here’s what we’re going to do.” I reached up and took down a bottle containing a 1 percent solution of rotenone off a shelf. While Dick held Taco, still wrapped in the towel, I demonstrated how to apply the solution with a cotton ball, rubbing it into the lesions on his head and around his mouth. I showed her how to apply it around the eyes without getting any in the eyes. The dog seemed resigned, perhaps from the soothing sound of my voice telling him what a big brave fellow he was... but not likely.

  Dick looked at me and shook his head, rolling his eyes.

  Mrs. Baldwin smiled at our behavior and then asked, “Dick, do you have a leash and choke chain to fit Taco?”

  “You bet,” he responded. “Here, you hold him on the table, and I’ll get them.”

  He returned quickly with a tiny choke chain and a very light leash. “These should do the trick.” Dick made a loop with the chain and placed it over Taco’s head, adjusted it on his neck and attached the leash.

  “OK, tough guy,” I sai
d, “you’re all set. Why don’t you put him on the floor?” I instructed. “Let’s see what he does.”

  Mrs. Baldwin removed the towel from around Taco, who licked her bandage, perhaps apologizing for his brutish behavior.

  “You’re sorry for what you did to me, Taco?” she asked. “You should be. I’m going to put you down now.”

  She placed the dog on the floor. He sat and looked up at her. He seemed confused about her not holding him. Then he scratched at the choke chain with his right hind paw, yelping when the paw caught in the chain. Mrs. Baldwin squatted to extricate him, and he immediately tried to climb into her arms.

  “No, Taco,” she said.

  The dog, confused, sat down, cocking his head to look at her.

  “That’s very good,” I said. “He knows what ‘no’ means. He’s a smart dog. With a little work and consistency from you, he’ll catch on fast.”

  “I’m also going to send these vitamins home with you. Give him one a day; just crumble it into his food. Dick also has some high-protein, canned dog food. You should feed him a couple of tablespoons, twice a day. I want to see him again next week to evaluate how he’s progressing. Do you have any questions?”

  “No, I don’t think so, Doctor. Thanks. Come on, Taco,” she said.

  At first, the dog resisted, pulling back against the leash. The choke chain tightened around his neck as he resisted. Mrs. Baldwin looked at me.

  “Just pull him along. He’s on a slick floor. He’ll get the idea.”

  After just a couple of steps, Taco gave up and trotted ahead of his mistress. She settled the bill with Dick, and she and Taco got into her old, two-door Chevy while I watched from the door. After pushing Taco off her lap, she raised her eyebrows and shrugged at me. I gave her the thumbs-up sign and retreated to the office.

  ***

  The following week, Taco was significantly improved. Mrs. Baldwin brought him into the exam room on the leash. She bent over and lifted him to the table. I approached and offered him the back of my hand. He sniffed it and then wagged his tail. Now he was my buddy. I petted and praised him. He wasn’t the least embarrassed about his unacceptable behavior during his previous visit.