A Yorkshire Vet Through the Seasons

by Julian Norton

  Swans are very graceful when they are on the water, but not graceful at all when they are walking on land. Swanny lumbered along to the lake in a very ungainly fashion, then fell headlong into the water with an undignified splash. After this initial dunking though, she did look pleased. We all held our breath, as she regained her confidence and took a few tentative dips of her head into the water, as if to wash away the veterinary smells that she had picked up from the surgery. As the sun rose over the lake, it was a wonderful sight. The bird was clearly delighted to be back where she belonged.

  Then, from the far side of the lake, the male swan appeared. He made his way very slowly, but very purposefully, to near where we were standing and directly towards Swanny. As the two birds got close together, the male let out a peculiar noise, as if to say, ‘Thank goodness you’re back. I didn’t know where you had gone.’ Then the most amazing thing happened. The two swans entwined their necks, and, silhouetted against the rising sun, this embrace made a perfect heart shape.

  Swanny had made a fantastic recovery and it was wonderful to see her back where she belonged and happy with her mate. This type of work is very rewarding, and there is an unwritten agreement amongst veterinary surgeons that we will all do whatever we can for injured wildlife, absorbing the costs ourselves. So, much as it was lovely watching the two swans swim off together, my morning appointment list was beckoning and I could put it off no longer.

  The swans glided into the distance, away from us and into the sun. For the onlookers on the bank, it was the perfect way to start the day.

  Malcolm

  November was always the month for my annual inspection of Malcolm’s racing greyhound kennel. Malcolm was a larger-than-life character, and I came to know him well over the years. Not only was he a successful greyhound owner and trainer, but he was also the proprietor of a roadside café near Thirsk. It is difficult to describe the man properly. He had the appearance and sense of humour of the 1980s comedian Les Dawson, and was a kind man and a loyal friend. He was bursting with energy. Behind the grill of his café, he could flip a fried egg with abandon whilst holding an animated conversation on the mobile phone that was perennially glued to his right ear. However, it was the passion he held for his dogs that stood out more than anything to me, and it was through his greyhounds that I knew him.

  Aside from his annual inspection, there were regular visits to check the dogs, to confirm that they were in the best of health and in peak condition. Behind the counter of the café, amongst the plastic trays of mushrooms which were a vital ingredient in the enormous fried breakfasts Malcolm conjured up for hungry lorry drivers, were numerous trophies and photographs of handsome, winning dogs. For all his own lack of athleticism (although he had, apparently, been a semi-professional football player for a team in South Yorkshire in his younger days), Malcolm obviously knew how to get his greyhounds to perform at the highest level. He was always looking to us, his vets, to confirm his latest idea, endorse his most novel feeding regime or comment upon the new potion that had been recommended by the Irish vet he had met at a race meeting.

  The November inspection was always a cold affair, once the steaming environment of the café was left behind. On one occasion I left the café and walked into the most vigorous of storms. I was sure that the lorries parked in the enormous and distinctly uneven car park would soon be lying on their sides. Not a single leaf was left clinging to the trees, but all the kennels were warm and immaculate. I had to inspect each one, as well as checking on the health of the animals. Every kennel was deeply bedded in thick-piled carpet and paper shavings. The dogs were warmer than the humans, as each one had its own heat lamp, glowing red in the early winter gloom.

  As I looked through the medicine book, to make sure all the greyhounds had been vaccinated at the right time and had received de-worming and flea treatment, Malcolm would keep up a running commentary, showing me his latest machine to massage the muscles of his dogs, presenting his newest treadmill or asking for my thoughts on his most recent tonic.

  ‘Rocky! Look at this! It’s from my mate in Ireland. His dog – beautiful dog he was, half brother to my old bitch – just came second in the Irish Derby. What d’ya reckon? It’s supposed to improve the blood! Is it worth a go? What d’ya reckon? Any good or complete waste of time? I’ll try it if you think it’ll work.’

  But before I could come up with an answer, Malcolm had always moved on to his next idea, usually a pot of tablets or a new vitamin supplement.

  Malcolm always called me Rocky. He also called his dogs ‘Rocky’ or ‘Rebel’ or ‘Flash’. These were their pet names, because the best dogs – those that made it past the ‘flapping’ tracks of the north of England – all had racing names. The only other pet names he would use for his dogs were ‘Peter’ or ‘Julian’. Peter is my work colleague and the senior partner at our practice, Skeldale Veterinary Centre, in Thirsk. Peter and I were the only vets to whom Malcolm entrusted the care of his greyhounds, but he saved our names especially for those dogs which he perceived had no chance of winning anything. I could not imagine seeing a photo behind the counter at the café, emblazoned with the winner’s name ‘Peter’ or ‘Julian’, although at this place, anything was possible!

  There was greyhound miscellany in every direction and I was never surprised by any of the unusual things that I came across around the kennels. On one occasion I arrived to vaccinate a litter of puppies, all of which were, according to Malcolm, destined to be winners of the Derby when they grew older. Malcolm was sitting outside the kennels on a massive chair that was painted gold. It looked just like a throne. All he needed to complete the image was a crown, orb and sceptre. Instead he held a cigarette and a mug of tea. And, of course, his mobile phone.

  On this inspection day though, there was no throne. After my usual perfunctory trawl through the checklist, peering into cabinets and scrutinizing records, we got onto the best bit – looking at the dogs. As always, the animals were handsome and healthy. Any instances of illness or injury were brought into the clinic immediately, with great urgency, always preceded by a loud telephone call from Malcolm, succinctly explaining the details of the problem. He expected Peter or me to see every ailment, however minor, within half an hour, which was the time it took him to lift the dog into the back of his estate car and race to the practice.

  ‘Raight. I’ll be there at half ten,’ were his usual parting words, after which the line would go dead. All other work would have to be shuffled around to make way for the larger-than-life Malcolm and his poorly dog.

  Happily, today nobody was ill. The dogs were paraded out one by one for me to inspect.

  ‘Andre, fetch that brindle bitch from up top!’ Malcolm would bellow at the Eastern European kennel lad, who looked about ninety years old and always wore a confused expression. Andre would saunter away and, belying his confused expression, would usually return with the correct animal.

  Finally, the last dog was summoned.

  ‘Rocky, can you bring me James?’ Today’s Rocky was Malcolm’s son, who also helped out in the café and the kennels and was proudly following in his father’s large footsteps. He wasn’t called Rocky either – I think his name was Greg.

  A beautiful adolescent black dog stood in front of me.

  ‘That’, pronounced Malcolm, ‘is James.’ He stood back with his hands on his hips, bursting with pride. ‘James Pool.’

  ‘Wow!’ seemed the right response. He did indeed look handsome, but no more so than the other twenty-nine dogs I had just seen.

  ‘That is a lovely dog – and an interesting name,’ I commented.

  ‘Well, Rocky’ – Rocky being me, this time – ‘we expect great things of him. His father won at Sheffield the other weekend. That’s why we called him James Pool.’

  ‘Okay. Who is James Pool?’

  I had never heard of him.

  ‘I don’t know, but I thought it sounded like a grand name. The name of a winner!’

  I admired and then inspec
ted ‘James Pool’ with the thoroughness that Malcolm expected. He did seem splendid and, once he had eaten the right food and moved through the ranks, I assured Malcolm that I thought he was a future champion.

  ‘Hey, Rocky. Look at this!’

  ‘What now?’ I thought. Was this to be an even more imperial greyhound, and if so, what on earth would this one be called? But I was not presented with another dog. Instead, I was ushered into the food preparation area. It was part of the kennel inspection process – I had to make sure the kitchen was clean and tidy, and that all the food was either in a fridge or a rat-proof container. However, Malcolm was not showing me his hygiene status. He was gesturing at a veritable mountain of meat, which was hiding under a tarpaulin on one of his kitchen units.

  ‘That, Rocky, is pure, prime beef! That’s got to be good for ’em, eh? Pure meat. No waste. What d’ya reckon? It’s good stuff, you know!’

  Its provenance was obscure, apart from that Malcolm knew a man who ‘fetched it in a lorry all the way from Middlesbrough’. I tried to explain that the basis of a balanced diet for any dog, but especially a performance one, involved an intricate balance of calcium and phosphate that might not be met by this pure meat. But my cautionary words fell on deaf ears. Malcolm was back on his phone, no doubt organizing his next delivery of beef.

  * * *

  There is a common misconception that people who own a lot of animals must have a reduced affection for each individual. Surely it is impossible to have equal measures of affection for each of twenty dogs? For Malcolm, though, this could not have been further from the truth. Despite having many dogs at this time and many more previously, he treated each as his one and only beloved pet.

  I saw him one morning after answering a typical phone call from him, urging me to see his dog immediately. He had been racing at Sunderland the previous evening. The dog had pulled up on the final bend, finishing lame and last. The veterinary surgeon attending the track had patched up the hobbling greyhound with a bandage of monstrous proportions, which gave no indication of the extent of the injury underneath. I suspected it would be serious. So did Malcolm, although he always feared the worst.

  I admitted the dog (this one called Flash) to our hospital, and set about rearranging my morning visits. Once this was done, I sedated him so that I could take off the huge bandage and examine his leg.

  As I suspected, there was a large amount of swelling in his right hock, and instead of being held together firmly, there was a marked slackness to the joint. Before Malcolm and Flash had even appeared, I knew it would be the right hock that was the problem – it always is in a racing greyhound. The dogs run around the track in an anticlockwise direction, so the right hind is subject to most of the stress. It is the hock (the equivalent of our ankle joint) that bears the brunt of this stress. The joint comprises many small bones, held together very tightly and very specifically by ligaments, which keep everything in the right place. Even a tiny misalignment causes the joint to be painfully unstable and renders the dog very lame and unable to race. I took an x-ray, and it quickly became clear that one of the bones – the central tarsal bone – was severely out of position. It was either the end of Flash’s racing days, or possibly even the end of his days altogether – most dog trainers do not even consider keeping a lame greyhound for a pet.

  I telephoned Malcolm who answered immediately. I told him the bad news about the extent of the injury and the likely prognosis. Even if we operated, it was far from certain that the injury would heal well, and it would be complicated surgery. For most racing dogs, the outcome of this injury would not be a happy one, but Flash belonged to Malcolm.

  ‘Well, he’s been a good dog for me and he’s a good mate. Do what you can for him. If he doesn’t race again, I’ll keep him as a pet. I’ll pick him up this evening.’ With that, characteristically, the phone went dead and I did not have the chance to explain the various potential complications and problems.

  It was a good thing I had rearranged my morning’s work because the repair of Flash’s injury was both fiddly and time-consuming. I needed to cut over the joint, realign the bones that had been squeezed out of place and then, whilst keeping them in perfect alignment, apply a tiny bone screw to attach two of the bones to one another. This would keep them in place and stop the main central bone from slipping out of position.

  The operation went well and Malcolm arrived that evening as promised, to collect his dog. Flash was bundled into the estate car, soon to be back to the luxury kennel and heat lamp from where he came.

  A neat post-op x-ray, a tidy bandage, a happy dog and a firm handshake from Malcolm were all I needed to make this day another satisfying one.

  ‘Thanks, Rocky! See ya next week!’

  And with that he was off, mobile phone clamped back to his ear.

  Out in all Weathers

  The work of a veterinary surgeon in a mixed practice such as Skeldale is inextricably linked to the seasons. In some professions, people can be oblivious to the weather. The short walk to the car in the morning, the walk from the railway station to work, or the trip to the sandwich shop for lunch might be the only exposure they get to whatever is happening outside the office window.

  In Thirsk, winter has set in by the end of November. The bitter cold is never far away, either in the dense fog that rolls up the Vale of York, or with the biting wind from the top of Sutton Bank. All the cattle are brought inside, not only to protect them from the harsh weather, but also to protect the fields, which would otherwise be churned up into muddy swamps. The grass is needed when spring comes back around and it is once again ‘turnout’ time.

  But in November, with the cows all housed in farm sheds and buildings, and therefore much easier to handle, it is time to set about the list of jobs that has been saved up for this time. Dehorning of young stock, castration of calves, vaccination against pneumonia, trimming of hooves, blood testing and more are all to be done once the cows are in so, in this first part of the winter, the practice is very busy.

  Whatever might be coming out of the sky, and from wherever the wind might be blowing, routine visits that have been arranged weeks in advance, often necessitating the drafting in of extra help, proceed whatever the weather. Through some sort of machismo on the part of the farmer or the vet, or both, we plough on regardless. No one wants to be accused of being soft.

  The only time I can ever remember a job being cancelled on account of the weather was when the collecting yard at the farm was covered in a thick layer of ice, across which the cows would have found it impossible to walk without injury.

  This was the winter during which arctic conditions descended over the whole country, from December 2009 until February the following year. It was also the winter during which John, who owned a beef suckler herd near Thirsk, had used a bull to serve all his cows that turned out to produce calves of enormous proportions. Every single calving was a challenging job, and nearly all of them required assistance from the vet. The snow ploughs and gritters had abandoned the road to the farm in favour of the more frequented routes, so the four-mile journey down an icy Newsham Road was as much of a challenge as delivering the oversized calf at the other end.

  The entries in John’s wife’s diary told the tale:

  Saturday 26 December

  Dogs out. Cattle checked. Geese fed.

  Fire still burning in sitting room.

  Silage to sheep in wood.

  Bottled calf born last night (vet out).

  Cow calved in New Shed overnight.

  David and vet out at midday to cow calving.

  Sandwiches for lunch.

  Another cow calved in New Shed in afternoon.

  Did all outside jobs, cattle checked 11.30.

  John up in night to check – 2 cows calved in New Shed. Vet out again.

  Sunday 27 December

  Up at 4.45. Caesarian on cow in fold yard. Live calf. Kicking cow.

  Busy morning.

  Vet and David here again by 10 a.m.
>
  Children built snowman. Trixie frightened of it!

  Did feeding on my own – John snoozing on sofa.

  Two vets here. Two cows calving – both caesarians.

  Bottled new calf.

  Bed at 12.30.

  Fire in sitting room all day.

  We were seeing an awful lot of John and his son David. Despite the terrible snowy conditions, the biggest challenge we faced was the unruly behaviour of the cows and heifers that needed our help. It is interesting that the diary entry only seemed to note that one of their cows was a ‘kicking cow’ because my recollection of this winter on Newsham Road was that nearly all the cows could be described in that way!

  * * *

  By mid December, it was always time for the annual pregnancy test on Alex’s herd of Simmental cows. Everything about it was wild. The farm was in a wild place, up on the moors near Black Hambleton – a formidable hill on the Cleveland Way, where nothing much lives except grouse. Even the cows were wild, for they had spent their whole summer roaming on the edge of the moor.

  All two hundred cows had just been rounded up and brought inside for winter. They had not been handled since they had produced their calves in the springtime. They were, therefore, quite cross. Their tempers were made worse by the fact that their calves, with which they had spent the last nine months, had been taken away that morning before sunrise. There was much mooing and bellowing and there were many attempts to escape. These big, strong cows were determined to get back to their calves and back out onto the moor. They were certainly not in the mood for veterinary attention.