A Yorkshire Vet Through the Seasons

by Julian Norton

  ‘Only little bits,’ shouted Beryl. ‘They look like bits of sheep poo,’ she continued, as if she were informing the neighbours at the other end of the village.

  ‘Do stop shouting, Beryl!’ pleaded her sister. ‘Everyone in the village doesn’t want to know about the toilet habits of our cat!’

  So, it was clear that Cedric was, indeed, constipated. But to what extent, I could not establish without capturing him. The next challenge was to get him out from his hiding place from either under or behind the piano.

  ‘Right, ladies, I need to examine Cedric. Do you think we will be able to get him out?’ I asked with false optimism.

  ‘Mavis. Can you get him out?’ shouted Beryl.

  It was obviously the job of the younger sister to get down on the floor to persuade the reluctant Cedric out from his hiding place and into the open space of the sitting room carpet.

  ‘Well, I’ll try, but he doesn’t look keen to come out and say hello,’ Mavis said, not sounding very hopeful.

  Tempting a shy cat from his hiding place is not an easy thing to do and the tactic of using tasty treats or fancy cat food does not work. I knew that the sisters’ plan of lining up various saucers would not tempt Cedric. An old cat is a wise cat and he sensed something was amiss. So the next twenty minutes, which were filled with the opening of lots of packets and tins, were a complete waste of time. Cedric could not be tempted. We needed a plan B.

  I peered behind the piano with my head pressed against the musty wall. Using just my left eye, I could make out the vague form of a black and white face, with wide, mottled eyes staring back at me. There was not much space in the hiding place and his feline face was just as contorted as the human one staring, hopefully, down at him.

  ‘I don’t think I can reach him, Mavis,’ I explained, once I had assessed his position.

  He was right in the middle and my arms were not long enough to even touch the tips of his ears. Even if I could have reached, there was no space to grab him and Cedric would surely cling to the carpet or the back of the piano with his claws if I did manage to get him.

  The piano was heavy and impossible to move more than just a few inches, so it could not be shifted easily. Maybe I could shuffle it out, just enough to reach him? It was worth a go. But after some grunting and groaning, the gap behind the piano had opened up only enough for me to see Cedric with both my eyes rather than just one. He had shuffled further backwards so he was actually further away from me than he had been before. Clearly I couldn’t examine him, and certainly administering an enema from such a distance was not going to happen.

  Plan B would not involve grabbing the cat from here. The three humans had a conflab to discuss what form plan B should take. It would either involve using the handle of a mop to poke the cat out, or the stealthy tactic of me leaving, waiting for Cedric to emerge in his own time and then the sisters shutting him in a room without a piano. I didn’t want to prod the cat with a mop handle if I could avoid it, and with discretion being the better part of valour, we opted for the latter plan B. Admitting defeat, I skulked out of the cottage and retreated back to the surgery. I had achieved nothing useful so far this morning and I would have to wait for the phone call telling me that Cedric had emerged from his hiding place and had been shut in the kitchen, from where I could lift him onto the kitchen table, check him over and stick an enema up his bottom.

  The phone call came about five minutes after I had arrived back at the practice. Cedric was now in the kitchen, so I was soon back on the road, winding my way to Kilburn again. I couldn’t help thinking that people would pay to travel up and down these beautiful roads on such a glorious autumnal day. I got to call it work. Even if I was unlucky at catching cats, I still considered myself very fortunate.

  It was déjà vu, knocking on the cottage door again, although this time Beryl recognized me immediately. I was pleased that I had not been forgotten.

  ‘We’ve got him in the kitchen,’ Beryl bellowed. ‘He’s behind the fridge!’

  ‘Oh bugger!’ were the first words to pass through my mind. At this rate, my whole day would be wasted trying to retrieve this pesky cat from his various hiding places behind pieces of furniture and household appliances. I was not amused. However, as I put my box of equipment on the table, I realized the fridge would be easy to move. It was also one of just a few hiding places. It didn’t take long to grab him, and soon Cedric was on the kitchen table.

  He was not exactly relaxed or happy to be there, but from here on things were fairly plain sailing. My usual examination of a cat starts at the head end, checking mouth, teeth and gums and looking for any signs that might alert me to underlying disease – pallor of the gums, ulcers in the mouth and so on. Next comes the chest. I listen with a stethoscope to check the heart for rate and rhythm and for murmurs or irregularities, and the lungs for abnormal noises. Then I palpate the abdomen. In a cat, because of its size, it is possible to feel all the different abdominal organs. Today, even the untrained fingers of Mavis or Beryl could easily have identified the problem. Cedric’s large intestine was, as I expected, full of rock-hard faeces, with the texture of concrete embedded with small pieces of pebble. He was well and truly constipated, and in need of an enema. I reached into my box of equipment for the little carton that said ‘Micralax’ on the side. I had never administered an enema on a kitchen table before, but it seemed better than doing it behind the fridge or under the piano.

  The name Micralax suggests that the product is small – and it is, if you are a human, for whom it is designed. However, it is not so small if you are a four-kilogram cat. The result of a Micralax enema can be dramatic and highly effective at relieving constipation in any of our small animal patients. I squirted the enema up Cedric’s bottom, without any problems. As he jumped off the table, in equal measure disgusted and surprised at what I had just done, I explained to the sisters what would happen next and, in particular, how important it was that Cedric either went straight outside or had constant access to a litter tray. Beryl, who could not hear anything I was saying, promptly opened the sitting room door just as Cedric trotted towards it. My last glimpse of him was of the end of his tail, as he shot back to his favourite hiding place under the piano.

  I just hoped the effects of the enema would not be immediate, for the result would be as impossible to remove as its depositor was earlier this morning, and no amount of tasty cat food would tempt it out!

  ‘Hello, Dougie’

  Dougie’s reputation for being difficult to handle preceded him. As soon as I set eyes on this handsome Amazonian Green Parrot, I knew that trying to do anything with him would pose a somewhat frightening challenge.

  I hadn’t met Dougie or his doting owner Margaret before. However, I had come across Margaret’s ex-husband John several times, with his brilliant little terrier, whose name was Ozzy. John had rescued Ozzy when he was about eight months old. He was a leggy Jack Russell terrier with a rough, wiry coat and was just my kind of dog. Some terriers like to try to show the vet ‘who’s the boss’, and an examination can be a confrontational affair, but there was none of this with Ozzy. He would stand confidently on my consulting room table, wagging his tail, quietly letting me examine him all over and give him his injections without a hint of concern. I congratulated John on giving a home to such a wonderful little dog.

  ‘You’ve got a grand one there, Mr Hullah,’ I commented, although it was clear that any such words were unnecessary. John knew this already.

  ‘Yes, he’s a beauty, isn’t he?’

  Ozzy was a picture of canine health, and rarely needed my veterinary skills, but I looked forward to seeing him once a year for his annual vaccinations. When our patients have significant illnesses or they need regular attention at our clinic, for example after an accident or a big operation, we get to know their owners very well and often become great friends. But although my appointments with Ozzy were infrequent, I felt I had a rapport with John and his dog, as John always made his appointment s
pecifically to see me. Since Ozzy never needed much in the way of veterinary attention, our ten-minute appointment slot was mostly filled with chat. On the occasion of our latest meeting, Ozzy was just as healthy as ever. The only difference I noticed was that John’s address had changed. He had moved house to Northallerton, a bustling metropolis compared to the village that was their previous home.

  ‘I see you’ve moved house, John. What’s it like living in a big city?’ I joked.

  ‘Well, it’s okay. I miss my little village, but we had to move. You see, my wife and I have got divorced,’ he explained.

  This seemed a strange thing to have done at John’s time of life. He was surely in his seventies and it seemed an odd time to end a lifelong partnership. John must have sensed my surprise.

  ‘We didn’t fall out or anything and we’re still good friends – we meet for coffee and lunch twice a week. It’s just that we didn’t really want to carry on living in the same house. It’s fine. Ozzy and I have moved to Northallerton and Margaret, well, she’s got Dougie for company. To tell you the truth, she thinks more about that blooming parrot than she ever did about me!’

  My ears pricked up. We were in the middle of filming for series three of The Yorkshire Vet and I had come to realize that any animals that strayed away from the norm were a hit with the cameras. A bright green parrot with a doting owner had the makings of a good story.

  ‘Wow! That sounds interesting!’ I probed, trying not to be too insensitive to John’s marital situation. ‘What did Ozzy make of the parrot?’

  ‘Not a lot!’ replied John, rolling his eyes. ‘The dog and the parrot never got on. That was one of the reasons why we split up.’

  It sounded as if the bonds between the humans and their animals in this household were stronger than those between husband and wife. This is not as uncommon as you might imagine – I have heard many stories of a husband being relegated to the sofa so that the dog can sleep on the bed, and in some extreme cases, the dog being so protective of one or other spouse that husband and wife cannot have any physical contact at all.

  ‘And what about Dougie?’ I continued. ‘Is he okay? If ever he needs anything doing, let me know. I’m not a parrot specialist, but I’d be happy to help.’

  I was not sure what I was letting myself in for, but it was all in a good cause.

  ‘Well, it’s funny you should say that. His claws and beak are very long and Margaret keeps getting injuries to her shoulders and head when he sits on her. She had him to a vet near where she lives but he got so stressed that he nearly died. The vets had to put him in an oxygen tent for nine hours. She is a bit worried about taking him back!’

  That sounded serious. Either the nail clipping had caused Dougie to have a serious panic attack, or the vets were being extremely cautious. Nevertheless, I reaffirmed my offer to help.

  Margaret was on the phone the very next day, delighted to have found a vet who was prepared to see her beloved parrot. I just had one final question.

  ‘Margaret, I just have to ask – we are filming at the moment for a television series on Channel 5. Would you have any objection to being on telly?’

  And so began another fantastic relationship with a member of the Hullah family.

  I made Margaret and Dougie an appointment to come into the surgery the following week. We chose a quiet time so that there would be very few people and no terriers in the waiting room that might be a source of stress for the parrot. John would bring Margaret in his car and leave Ozzy at home. The plan was to give Dougie a general anaesthetic in a calm, quiet and quick way, then clip off his sharp bits and pop him back into his cage, to wake up in familiar surroundings with minimal handling, which would hopefully prevent a repeat of his previous near-death experience.

  I knew that Laura, one of the producer-directors of The Yorkshire Vet, would be very excited about the prospect of filming a parrot, even though the veterinary part of the procedure would not be particularly technical. She arranged to call and see Dougie and Margaret at their home, to get some preliminary shots and make sure they were happy to be involved. Later that day, I received a text message from Laura, brimming over with excitement.

  ‘Dougie is AMAZING! Margaret is lovely and everything in her kitchen is bright green, to match the parrot. And DOUGIE SPEAKS WITH A YORKSHIRE ACCENT!’

  A week later, Margaret and John brought Dougie to the surgery, ready for his pedicure and beak trimming. He was in a bright green basket, and Margaret was wearing a bright green coat and colourful parrot earrings. I ushered them into the consulting room, and right on cue, as if following a script, the fantastic green bird looked at me, then looked straight into Laura’s camera and shouted, in the broadest of Yorkshire accents, ‘Hellorr, Dougie!’

  Not for the first time, Laura’s camera started wobbling uncontrollably as we all fell about laughing.

  When you are a veterinary surgeon, you never have a conversation with your patient – well, not one that involves them actually talking to you in words, anyway. I wasn’t quite sure what to do next. It seemed rude not to reply, so I introduced myself.

  ‘Hello, Dougie, I’m Julian.’

  ‘What’s up wi’ you then?’ he responded!

  Dougie’s chatter continued constantly as Kate, one of our very experienced nurses, manoeuvred him carefully into a smaller basket which we then enveloped in a large plastic bag, to make it into an oxygen tent. In this way we could pipe anaesthetic gas into the cage, so he could gently go to sleep with the minimum of stress. Although we couldn’t see him inside the bag, Kate and I both knew when he was asleep. Once the talking stopped, he was ready.

  Claws clipped and beak trimmed, Dougie was soon awake, safely in his cage, sitting on his perch and chatting with anyone he met in the waiting room. Margaret was delighted, as was I. The procedure had been uneventful and I had escaped without injury from that powerful beak and those fearsome talons.

  Dougie, for his part, became a TV sensation. The most famous parrot in the county. The parrot with a Yorkshire accent!

  The Calf that was Automatically Scraped

  Autumn was drawing to a close and Simon had just brought his cows in. As soon as the nights cool down, the grass stops growing and the days shorten, dairy cows need to come inside. If the weather stays reasonable, they just come in at night for a few weeks, but by the end of October, they are in all the time. The pastures need to rest and recover, and dairy cows, with their thin skin and sensitive dispositions, need to be protected from the impending change in the weather.

  Simon’s herd was impeccably organized and the health and welfare of the cows was paramount. These days, some dairy farmers keep their cows inside all year round in an effort to maximize their milk yield, at a time when milk prices are so ridiculously low that it is otherwise almost impossible to make ends meet. Not so on this farm. Each cow had her own name, sometimes inherited from her mother, like ‘Daisy the Third’ or ‘Buttercup the Second’ or sometimes unique, like ‘Sally’ or ‘Justine’. This was the way that Simon recorded the identities of his animals when I undertook his fortnightly fertility visits. It made a nice change from a list of numbers. These visits were to ensure that his cows were pregnant and that they went on to calve and restart another ten-month lactation, with as little loss of time as possible. To this end, every cow was scanned for pregnancy, five weeks after she had been inseminated.

  The traditional method of pregnancy diagnosis in cattle was to palpate the uterus, per rectum, to feel for a calf (the typical ‘hand up a cow’s backside’ image of the large animal vet), but only the most experienced vets could diagnose a pregnancy reliably as early as thirty-five days. The use of ultrasound scanning has removed the element of doubt, although unfortunately for the vet and the cow, the scanning probe still has to go in by the same route. The uterus can be seen, in black and white and various shades of grey, as can the presence of a calf, floating about in its little sac of amniotic fluid.

  During my visit, I would also check cow
s that had recently calved and scan their ovaries for signs of activity or inactivity. This would tell us if and when they were likely to come back into heat (the term for this in cows is ‘bulling’). Once a cow came bulling, it was ready to get back into calf. A cow’s ovaries range from the size of a pea to the size of a ping-pong ball. Some are as big as a ping-pong ball but with structures on their surface the size of a pea. The standard size is about that of a broad bean. Every cow has two. Part of the routine examination of a cow for fertility involves finding and feeling each one. I remember, as a student, the daunting prospect of having to find and palpate each ovary, in the never-endingly cavernous insides of a bovine, repeatedly and accurately, cow after cow. It seemed an impossible task, but it is one that a large animal vet needs to be able to do with ease.

  There would usually be twenty-five to thirty cows to see when I came, every second Thursday morning. At least, that was what Simon would have told the receptionist when he phoned the surgery, and what it would say in the daybook: ‘About twenty. Maybe twenty-five or thirty tops.’

  I knew, though, from years of experience that the number he had specified bore very little resemblance to the actual number of cows that I would be examining. I usually packed an extra box of plastic arm-length gloves and another bottle of lubricant, because Simon would always have found some extras by the time I got there.

  So as I drove down the bumpy track towards the farm on this foggy autumn morning, I was expecting a raft of ‘while you’re here’ jobs to do either before or after I started the action with my scanner. At this time of year there was usually a bunch of little calves with pneumonia to deal with. The damp fog that descends on the Vale of York in October provides perfect conditions for pneumonic bacteria and viruses to linger, and young calves, taken away from their mothers and put into groups with others of a similar age, are always at risk, in the same way that children in a nursery are constantly sharing a cold.