Animals Don't Blush

by David R Gross

  “This is great progress, Mrs. Baldwin, and his mange is improving too. See here, under his eyes, the hair is starting to grow back. Let’s keep up this treatment for two more weeks, and I’ll check him again. If he improves at this same rate, he’ll be back to normal by then.”

  “That dog training book is very good, Doctor. They had it at the library, and the bookstore has ordered me my own copy. Taco sits and heels on command pretty well, and he’ll stay as long as I have a hold of the leash. He’s been playing with my dad and hasn’t been aggressive with anyone. I think he’s going to turn out to be a good dog.”

  “How’s your thumb?” I asked.

  “Fine,” she said and flexed it for me. “I went to the doctor, and he told me to soak it in Epsom salts and water as hot as I could stand twice a day for two days. He also gave me a tetanus booster shot. We’re keeping Taco indoors, except when I take him for a walk on his leash to do his business.”

  “Great. It sounds as if everything is on track. Have you heard from your husband? Is he doing OK?”

  “Yes. He can’t tell me where he is, but I think someplace in Southeast Asia. He’s fine. He says his squad is a good group who follow directions and do what they are told when they are told. I wrote him a long letter telling him everything that happened with Taco, but I don’t think he’s received it yet. He’ll be happy that Taco is being trained. He’s very big on proper training.”

  “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t expect anything else from a marine sergeant,” I said. “Keep up the treatment, and we’ll see you both in a couple of weeks. Good boy, Taco.” I lifted him off the table.

  He pranced proudly out of the clinic.

  Part IV: Spring 1961

  Chapter 18: Turley’s Pigs

  Early march brought little change in the weather. We continued to experience cold and occasional snow flurries. I was standing in the middle of a large pigpen looking down at two dead pigs, each weighing about a hundred pounds. That day, the sun was bright, the temperature in the mid-forties. Except for the dead pigs, it would have been a glorious day. There were at least forty other pigs in the pen, of various colors and breeding, but all about the same size.

  I moved my feet. A mixture of mud and feces extended six inches over the top of my instep and sucked at my rubber boots. I was glad the rubber boots fit tight over my regular boots. It was a pain to get the rubber boots on and off, but that was better than ending up barefoot in the muck.

  “These the only ones dead?” I asked John Turley.

  Turley was a middle-aged bachelor who farmed a little over eighty acres of corn and alfalfa and worked as a minimum-wage gofer for Ike Williams and Jon Wilkins. He was honest, reliable, and able to complete simple tasks when they were explained to him in words he could understand.

  “Uh, yeah, Young Doc, but I think some a th’ others bein’ sick though. They not be eatin’ and just standin’ round.”

  “How long do you think these two were ill?” I asked.

  “Ill?”

  “Sick, don’t eat, just standing around.”

  “Oh, I dunno, maybe three, four days. I just put out the feed, and them that gets to the trough eats; don’t pay much mind. But I think these uns was hangin’ back, maybe a couple of other uns too.”

  I nudged one of the corpses with the toe of my rubber boot. “Well, Mr. Turley, we need to move these two out of the pen, someplace close to water and a hose. I’ll do a necropsy on them and see if we can find out what happened.”

  “A what?”

  “Necropsy. I need to cut them open, have a look at their innards, and see if I can figure out what killed them and if the rest are in any danger. We don’t want to lose the whole herd.”

  I grabbed one of the dead pigs by a hind leg and started pulling it towards the gate. “You want to bring the other one along, Mr. Turley?”

  “Uh, oh, yeah, Young Doc, I’ll do that.” He grabbed a hind leg of the other pig and followed.

  “Is there a hose bib with a hose attached nearby?” I asked.

  “Uh, yeah, straight ahead up by the barn.” He pointed with his chin to a structure trying desperately to remain upright.

  “OK, Mr. Turley, I’m going to get what I need from the truck. You can be a big help to me if you will put some feed in the troughs and move the ones that don’t come up to feed to a separate pen. Do you think you can do that alone, or do I need to help?”

  “Uh, no, Young Doc, I can do that. I’ll get me a gate and can move them into that other pen alongside the one we were in. I can do that.”

  “That would be great,” I said. “That will be a huge help. Meanwhile, I’ll cut these two open and see what I can find.”

  I returned from the truck with my necropsy instruments, hooked up the hose lying on the ground next to the barn, and tried washing the muck off the two dead pigs. The hose leaked at the connection to the hose bib and small geysers erupted along its length. A weak stream of water made it out the end of the hose. I put my thumb over the end, attempting to direct a stream of water onto one of the dead pigs. The extra pressure increased the flow from the multiple lacerations along the length of the hose and stopped the flow from the end.

  Using my long-handled boot brush and the dribbling hose, I managed to wash off one side of each corpse, turn them over, and wash off the other side. Next, I held each of the pigs on their backs to wash off the underside. They were stiff with rigor mortis, so I was able to clean most of the muck off them. A decent hose and a strong jet of water would have made it easier, but you work with what’s available.

  Once I got the pigs cleaned off, the diagnosis seemed apparent. There were raised, purplish lesions on the skin of the ears, snout, and abdomen of the first pig. The second animal had unmistakable diamond-shaped, raised, pink lesions on both sides and over the top of the rump.

  When I opened up the first pig, I found enlarged lymph nodes, a swollen and congested spleen, and edema of the lungs. The second pig had fewer changes in the spleen, lymph nodes, and lungs, but I found granular growths on the mitral valve of the heart. I put samples of spleen, lymph nodes, heart valves, and lungs from both pigs into specimen jars half-filled with formaldehyde, marked the jars, and made certain their lids were tight. As I was cleaning the necropsy instruments, I heard a pathetic squealing from the pen where Turley was separating the sick pigs.

  I walked over to the fence of the big pen and watched as Turley moved three pigs. He was herding them with a small wood gate towards an opening in the five-board fence and into an adjoining smaller pen. Four other pigs were already standing uncomfortably shifting their weight from foot to foot in the small pen. The three new arrivals were all reluctant to move. One of them squealed with pain every time Turley forced the three to move toward the opening. All three walked very stiff, up on their toes.

  When the three pigs were finally in the pen, Turley shut them in by replacing the gate and turned to me. “That’s all of ’em, Young Doc, I think. None of them others hung back from the trough. Hadn’t seen these bein’ so lame an’ all.”

  “Well, Mr. Turley, I’m almost certain they’ve got a disease called erysipelas. I took some samples, and I’ll check to see if I can find the organism after I get back to the hospital, but you need to keep a close watch on all the ones in the big pen. If any more of them stop eating or start to limp around, you need to move them into that pen with the other sick ones. This disease usually responds well to penicillin so I’ll give the sick pigs a shot today and come back every other day to give them another shot. If you find more that act sick, call us, and I’ll come treat those as soon as you find them. OK? They usually recover quickly after being treated, but we will need to give them at least four treatments to make certain the disease is under control. Do you understand what you need to do?”

  “Uh, yeah, I watch ’em real close. If they don’t eat or start limpin’, I call you. Got it.”

  “Have you got any sows that are about ready to farrow?” I asked.

  “Yup,
got two o’ ’em in the barn; should be any day now.”

  “Well, you need to keep a close watch on them too. If they stop eating, they could be coming down with this, and they could abort their piglets.”

  “Do what?” He asked.

  “Abort them—the disease kills the piglets inside the mother, and then she gives birth to the dead babies before their time,” I explained.

  “Oh... OK, I’ll watch ’em.”

  I went back to the truck and filled a syringe with long-acting penicillin. Turley helped me crowd each of the seven pigs against the fence, and I gave each a dose of the antibiotic.

  “While you’re here, Young Doc, think you can cut my boar? I’ve got me a new boar, and the old one’s goin’ for sausage after he heals from bein’ cut and loses his boar stink.”

  “I’ve got some other calls to make but, let’s have a look at him,” I said. “Maybe there’s enough time.”

  He led me around the barn to a pen where a huge Yorkshire boar calmly peered at me through the boards of a pen that barely contained him. When I came close to the pen to get a better look, the beast snorted, charged two steps, and banged his head into the second board up. The whole pen reverberated. I was happy that the pen was well made of rough-cut three-by-eight boards and six-by-six posts sunk deep into the muck.

  He must weigh close to a thousand pounds.

  “Well, Mr. Turley, I think castrating this guy will take a little more time than I have today. How would it be if we do this day after tomorrow when I come back to treat the others? Maybe I can talk Dr. Schultz into coming out to treat the sick ones and take care of the boar for you. This guy looks to be a handful, and Dr. Schultz knows a lot more about pigs than I do.”

  “Yeah, well, Old Doc knows his pigs aw right.”

  I didn’t have a clue about how to go about castrating a boar that size. Dr. Schultz was the pig expert, and I hoped he would be willing to take care of this so I wouldn’t have to. Under any circumstances, I was not particularly fond of pig practice, too muddy, too dirty, and way too smelly. Castrating this huge boar was not something I considered a necessary challenge.

  ***

  That evening, Rosalie and I celebrated a lonely Passover Seder.

  “I invited the Rosensteins,” she told me, “but they are going to a Seder with some members of Beth Aaron who live in Glendive. Mrs. R. said she was certain that the other two families would welcome us, but with your schedule, I didn’t know if you could get away.”

  “You’re right. If we’d agreed to go, I would probably have had several calls to go on and we wouldn’t have made it. They would be upset we didn’t show, and we’d miss out completely. Where did you get the Haggadahs and the matzos? The Haggadahs look familiar.”

  “They should. I called your mom and she sent a care package, the Haggadahs and the matzo. She said she wanted the Haggadahs back in case we can all be together again some year.”

  I led an abbreviated Seder service for the two of us but got all the important stuff covered, especially the four different times to drink wine. As the youngest at the table, Rosalie asked the four questions, and it cost me five bucks to get the afikomen back so we could complete the service. I couldn’t remember ever getting more than a quarter for the afikomen from my dad.

  ***

  I caught Dr. Schultz before he left the hospital the next morning and showed him a stained slide containing Erysipelothrix rhusiopathiae from one of the lymph nodes I had gathered the previous day.

  “Good work,” he said. “Turley’s place has been endemic for erysipelas for as long as I can remember. I’ve told him about spotting the sick ones early and getting them treated, but he’s like a duck—every day is an entirely new experience. Did he ask you to castrate his boar?”

  “Yeah, that thing is huge. How the heck are you planning to restrain it?”

  “I’m not,” he responded. “You are. I’ve dealt with Turley enough for a lifetime. You need the experience.”

  “Well, I don’t have a clue about how to restrain a boar that size. He’ll kill both Turley and me.”

  “Naw, it’s simple. You fill a sixty-milliliter syringe with pentobarbital. Get Turley to put a rope over the boar’s snout and move him into the corner where the gate hinges. That gate opens into the pen, so you just open the gate and trap the pig in the corner. You can lash the gate to the fence to keep him pressed in. Then you inject the pentobarb into one of the testicles, refill the syringe, and inject the other testicle. By the time you get back from the truck with your instruments—and don’t forget your emasculator; you’ll need it for certain—he should be down. When you cut out the testicles, you’ll remove any pentobarb that hasn’t been absorbed, and he’ll wake up on his own within a half-hour or so.”

  “You’re kidding me?”

  “Nope.” He raised his right hand, palm facing me. “My hand to God, it’ll work. I kid you not.” He smiled, but I was skeptical. I didn’t trust that particular smile.

  The next day, there were two more sick pigs. I treated them and then it was time to tackle the monster boar. I followed Dr. Schultz’s instructions verbatim, and it worked like a charm.

  “That’s the way Old Doc does it too,” Turley observed. “Slick.”

  Chapter 19: Calving Season

  It was a few minutes past eight in the morning, mid-March, when I arrived at the hospital. The practice was still stuck in the winter lull. The previous week, I had treated a few cases of pneumonia, three colicky horses, and two horses and one dairy cow that injured themselves slipping on ice. There was also an outbreak of respiratory disease in both dogs and cats. The word was out that the new vet liked to work on small animals, so the practice was, in fact, busier than in previous years.

  “You had best rest up as much as you can now,” Don told me. “When calvin’ season starts, there won’t be time for sleep.”

  It started that very afternoon. By eight in the evening, I had treated four cattle dystocias, cows with calving problems. In all cases, the owner had tried to get the calf out, without success, so the cases required extra time, skill, and effort.

  Don and Dr. Schultz were an experienced team. Schultz slept while Don drove. When they arrived at the farm or ranch, Schultz would tend to the dystocia while Don slept. Dick told me they could keep going for four or five days that way, if necessary. Their record, he said, was six days in a row.

  For the next three days, I got less than four hours of sleep a night. If I got into trouble with a delivery, Dick linked the two-way radios so I could talk to Dr. Schultz or to Don and get some advice. The fourth day, we handled twelve calls between us, but we each also had owners haul two cows into the clinic for caesarian sections. That night, I got home just after nine thirty and got a full five hours of sleep before the phone rang.

  “This is how you want to live?” Rosalie complained. “This is nuts. You are going to fall asleep, drive off the road or worse—into someone and kill them and yourself.”

  That night, I took her along for company. I delivered a calf and dried him off. The animal got to his feet, ready for his first taste of milk with Rosalie watching.

  Back in the truck I said, “That’s what keeps me going, honey. Without my help, probably both the calf and the cow would have died, the calf for sure.”

  She smiled. “Yes, I understand. I love you even more, if that’s possible, but you’ve got to figure out some way to get more rest. You can’t keep up this pace.”

  “Yeah, I know. We just have to get through this calving season. If we keep the practice growing, I think Dr. Schultz will take me on as a partner, and we could hire another associate. He’s been hinting at that.”

  The next day, Rosalie volunteered to take over the driving so I could sleep between calls. She napped while I was delivering the calves. We had been going for sixteen hours when we arrived at the Joneses’ ranch at one in the morning. John and Skipper came out of the house to greet us.

  “What’s with Skipper?” I asked. “Sh
e’s limping.”

  “The cold seems to be affecting her,” John answered. “Ferdie convinced me to spoil her. We’re letting her sleep in the mudroom.”

  We took off our boots and coats and entered the glowing kitchen. Kathy was waiting for us with hot coffee. There was also a huge pot of hot water on the stove.

  “Jeez, Doc... Rosalie... you both look like shit warmed over,” Kathy said. “I’m glad to see you Rosalie; didn’t expect you to come along at this hour. This the only way you get to spend time together these days? Sit and have a cup-a. The heifer will wait another fifteen minutes.”

  “Hi, Kathy,” answered Rosalie, hugging her. “I’ve been pressed into service driving the big galoot all over the country.”

  I collapsed onto one of the kitchen chairs. Kathy held out a mug of hot coffee. I took it from her and smiled. “Thanks. Got sugar?”

  “I thought you took it straight.” She pushed over a sugar bowl and a teaspoon and watched with concerned humor as I spooned in five teaspoons, stirring while dozing. “How long have you guys been going?” she asked.

  “About ten years, I think,” Rosalie said. “Actually just...,” she consulted her watch, “sixteen hours.”

  Both John and Kathy shook their heads. “You two had better give it up before you fall over dead. Just forget the heifer and get some sleep,” said Kathy.

  John agreed. “You guys take our bed. Three or four hours of sound sleep, and you’ll both be a lot better off. You’re going to end up in a borrow-pit, upside down.”

  “Nope,” I said. “Rosalie can get some sleep while I get this calf out.” I stood up.

  “Where is she? Inside the barn, I hope?”

  “Hardly. She’s out in a calving shed in the south forty, half a mile from here. You sit back down a minute, Doc. Tell me where your bucket is in the truck, and I’ll fill it with hot water,” John answered.