The Orange Kitten 

D. E. Larsen, DVM

Don stepped on his brakes and pulled his pickup to the side of Bellinger Scale Road. 

“I think that was an orange kitten,” Don said to himself as he stepped out of his pickup.

Don looked for traffic before starting across the road. Being an EMT, he didn’t want to become a statistic. He trotted back up the road to where he thought he saw the kitten in the ditch.

The little kitten turned on his back and hissed, with his paws spread wide and claws out, when Don stepped down in the ditch beside the kitten.

“Oh, aren’t you a mean little guy,” Don said as he pulled on his gloves before scooping up the kitten.

As soon as Don got back into his pickup with the kitten, he wrapped the kitten in his sweatshirt and took a moment to look him over.

This kitten was an orange male with extra toes on every paw. Don tended to collect orange cats with many toes. This little guy was going to need some help. He was skin and bone, covered with fleas, and his rear end was soiled from diarrhea.

“I wonder if you were dumped out here?” Don asked himself and the kitten out loud. “Whatever, it looks like I am going to drop you off with Doctor Larsen before taking you home.”

“I’m sorry to drop in on you guys unannounced,” Don said to Sandy as he came through the clinic door. “But I found this little guy in the ditch our on Bellinger Scale Road just now, and it looks like he is going to need some help.”

“I’m sure the Doctor will work you in with no problem, Don,” Sandy said. “Is this a kitten you are going to want to keep, or do you want to get the KATA group to take him?”

“If he survives, he will fit right in with our group,” Don said. “He’s an orange male, and he has a lot of extra toes. But I think he must have been dumped out there. He is in pretty bad shape. A little kitten like this can’t fend for himself out in the wilds. He is probably lucky that I found him rather than a coyote.”

“Let’s get you in an exam room, and I will get the doctor,” Sandy said as she ushered Don and the kitten into the exam room.

“This guy is lucky to be alive,” I said as I did a quick exam of the kitten. “I would guess he was probably out there on his own for a week or more. He was either dumped, or mom got run over or something. Someone could have dumped the whole litter. Five-week-old kittens cannot fend for themselves in the wild, and they have no hunting skills until mom teaches them. When I was growing up on the farm, the momma cats would take their litters up on the hill for a week or two when they were six or eight weeks old. Those kittens would become good hunters. But at five weeks, with no access to food, this guy is probably the sole survivor, and he is close to the end of his rope.”

“That’s what I thought,” Don said. “Why don’t you hang on to him for a day or two. Do whatever it takes to save him. Just give me a call when you think he is ready to go home.”

We collected a blood sample and a stool sample before placing the kitten in the kennel to wait for treatment.

“Should we give him something to eat,” Joleen asked. “He looks starved to death.”

“Open a can of a/d and give him just a teaspoonful for now,” I said. “We need to get his gut straightened out a bit before we give him too much to eat, and it will just shoot right through him now.”

I made a smear on a microscope slide from the stool sample and diluted it with floatation fluid. Under the microscope, the slide was covered with both roundworm eggs and hookworm eggs. Hookworms were a little unusual to see in kittens around Sweet Home. His blood showed some anemia, but not severe. 

“The anemia should resolve when we take care of the parasitism,” I said to Joleen. “So we will give him a dose of Nemex liquid for the worms and a bath with a flea shampoo to clean him up and take care of the fleas.”

“He just about ate the spoon when I put the a/d in his kennel,” Joleen said.

We gave the kitten a dose of Nemex and bathed him with a mild flea shampoo. It was difficult to comb the dead fleas out of his hair coat. Then when he was dry, we returned him to his kennel, where Joleen had made him a bed of warm towels.

He devoured another spoonful of canned a/d, and we put some dry kitten food into his kennel to hold him overnight.

“We will see what morning gives us,” I said to the kitten as we closed the kennel door. “I will give him a vaccine in the morning if he is doing well.”

***

The kitten was screaming when we came through the door in the morning. He was reaching his paw through the kennel bars anytime someone was close. He was hungry.

Joleen quickly warmed a couple of teaspoonfuls of canned a/d and set the dish in the kennel. The kitten literally dove into the plate with both front feet, and he devoured the a/d. His dry kitten food we had put in the kennel last night was gone. And his litter box had a soft stool, somewhat formed, that was full of dead worms.

“I think he is well,” Joleen said with a laugh.

“I think so, too,” I said. “Give Don a call, and we will send him home this afternoon. We need to get a vaccine into him sometime this morning.

When Don arrived, he was pleased with the appearance of the kitten. Joleen had it pretty well tamed down, and he loaded into Don’s carrier with no problem.

“I think just some groceries and TLC is what he needs now,” I said. “We should see him at the end of next week to repeat his worming and then in four weeks for booster vaccines.”

“I’m pleased,” Don said. “I thought it was going to be a struggle for him, but he must be a tough one. After all, he survived out there, all on his own.”

“Just for the record, Don,” I said. “What are you going to call him?”

Don lifted the carrier and got eyeball to eyeball with the kitten.

“I think I’ll call him Wazzu,” Don said.

***

When Wazzu came back for another dose of Nemex for his worms, he had increased his weight by almost a full pound. He had fat on his ribs and was a happy kitten.

“I think you can probably consider Wazzu a normal kitten at this point,” I said as we loaded Wazzu back into his carrier.

“Do you think he will have any lasting problems from those days of starvation?” Don asked.

“I don’t think he will have any physical problems,” I said. “But, we see cats who are rescued from a feral situation that have a real problem with overeating. Some of those cats will eat food until it is gone, and if the owner doesn’t regulate their portions, they will get heavy.”

“He will get enough to eat at our place, but he has enough competition at the food dish that he won’t have much of a chance to overeat,” Don said.

Fate served Wazzu well. Rather than becoming a boney morsel for a coyote, he fell into a household of multiple cats and attentive owners.

We neutered him when he was old enough, and he lived for many years. 

Photo by Rudy van der Veen on Skitterphoto

Charlie and Betty Land, Breeding Mares, From the Archives

D. E. Larsen, DVM

 I pulled the fingers off a plastic OB sleeve and pulled it on my left arm. After the fingerless sleeve on my left arm was in place, I pulled on a latex exam glove. Then I pulled on a second OB sleeve, also with the fingers removed. This would allow excellent protection from the ‘elements’ and still all for excellent sensitivity at my fingertips. I applied a good squeeze of KY to my hand and arm. I struggled to maintain a safe position behind this large quarter horse mare. She moved from side to side as I eased my gloved hand into her rectum. Standing at her right hip, I held her tail with my right hand and lean hard on my elbow firmly planted on her rump. It was apparent who had the most muscle as we danced from side to side in the stall.

 “How many times have you bred this mare?” I asked Charlie as I advanced my arm into her rear end.

 “This is the third visit for her this year. I had problems with her last year and didn’t get her pregnant. The owner really wants to get her in foul with Carbine,” Charlie answered.

 Charlie had related the problem when he stopped by our house on Ames Creek yesterday. I was out front with the kids, picking some corn in the garden, when Charlie pulled into the driveway in his old blue Chevy pickup. He was on his way home from work when he saw us out front.

 “Hi, I’m Charlie Land, I have a little horse ranch up the creek. I just wanted to introduce myself and ask if you had time to look at a mare for me this weekend,” Charlie said as he walked across the lawn with his hand outstretched.

 “Dave Larsen,” I replied as we shook hands. “We are going to be home on Saturday, I could run up and look at her in the morning. Not terribly early, I am not much of a morning person and like to sleep in when I get a chance.”

     “This is a mare that I have been trying to get pregnant for a couple of years,” Charlie explained. “I lease this big quarter horse stud, Carbine. He is a pretty valuable horse and has a great record on the quarter horse track. I generally have mares lined up all spring. This mare didn’t get pregnant last year, and I only get paid for a pregnant mare.”

 My hand reached the brim of the pelvis, and I swept from side to side to find the uterus. I carefully ran my hand along the length of the uterus, starting at the tip of the right horn and continuing to the tip of the left horn. 

 “Not pregnant, and the uterus feels pretty normal,” I said, almost to myself as I reached the left ovary. “Normal left ovary,” I said, returning to the right ovary. “The right ovary is normal, and a large follicle is present, this mare should be in heat very soon,” I said as I pulled my arm out and peeled the OB sleeve and gloves off.

 I breathed a sigh of relief as I pushed myself away from the mare. I was always told the only way to be safe around a horse was to be in the right place at the right time. To be in the right place at the right time, you have to be in the right place all the time. Doing a rectal exam on a poorly restrained horse was one of the most dangerous positions to be in, both for the horse and for the examiner. It is easy to receive a kick, and ruptured colons are also possible for the mare.

 “If she doesn’t get pregnant with this breeding, she goes home,” Charlie said. “What do you think we can do to get her pregnant?”

 “Well, Charlie, I will be honest with you. I am much more of a cow doctor than I am a horse doctor,” I said as I pondered the problem in my mind. “The horse guys like to culture a mare and treat any infection according to the culture results. That procedure takes almost a week to complete if we start today. She is going to be in heat in the next day or two.”

    “This heat is her last chance this year,” Charlie said. “She goes home after her next cycle.”

    “In the cow, I do a post-breeding infusion,” I explained. “The day after breeding, I infuse the uterus with an antibiotic that is easily absorbed by the uterine lining. This clears any infection in the lining of the uterus and gets it ready for the fertilized egg, which reaches the uterus usually 3 days following breeding. My guess is if you call a horse vet, he will shudder at that strategy. I don’t know why it might be a money issue. Their procedure runs up quite an expense. Might just be that they listen to the experts more. In the cow, we are working a herd, not an individual.” 

    “You make sense to me,” Charlie answered. “I will breed her when she cycles and give you a call. Or just stop by your house. I thought, how lucky can a guy get when you came to town, then I thought I had died and went to heaven when you moved in down the road.”

    “Whatever works, you are more than welcome to stop by the house anytime. We haven’t been in town too long, people are just now learning I am around, so I am not too busy just now,” I said. “The clinic won’t be completed until this fall.”

   Charlie pulled into the driveway on his way home from work on Tuesday. I recognized the old blue Chevy pickup and stepped out of the garage, where I had been putting things away.

    “I bred that mare last night after work,” Charlie said as I walked up the driveway toward his pickup. “I was hoping you could come up this evening.”

    “It will take me a couple of minutes to get things ready,” I replied. “If you get home and get her in a small stall, I should be there by then.”

 It didn’t take long, I just needed to make sure everything was in the truck. I ran through a checklist in my mind as I looked through the back of the vet box. Plenty of water, a vial of IV Ampicillin, infusion pipettes, tail wrap, OB sleeves, bucket, boots, coveralls, Betadine scrub and solution, and plenty of lube. I ran into the house and told Sandy that I would back before dinner. Charlie’s place was only a couple of miles up the creek.

    Charlie was waiting in the stall with the mare haltered when I stepped through the open barn doors.

   “Push her over against the wall on her left side,” I instructed.

    I wrapped her tail, and the did a preliminary scrub of the rectum and vulva with Betadine surgical scrub. After mixing the 3-gram vial of Ampicillin, I did another scrub of her rear end and then flooded the area with Betadine solution. I drew up the Ampicillin in a 60 cc syringe and stuck it in the chest pocket of my coveralls. I held the infusion pipette in my teeth as I pulled on an OB sleeve and applied ample KY.

    Again, standing on her right hip, I eased my left hand into her vagina. She tensed a little but tolerated the intervention far better than the rectal exam the other day. I moved more behind her now, took the pipette in my right hand, and directed the tip into the palm of my left hand. I advanced my left hand and arm into the vagina until I encountered the cervix. Holding the pipette steady, I attached the syringe to the pipette with my right hand. With my index finger in the cervical orifice, I advanced the pipette into and through the cervix. Then I slowly infused the Ampicillin solution into the uterus.

   That accomplished, I withdrew my arm and pipette, moving out from directly behind her as I did this maneuver. I rinsed her off thoroughly and removed the tail wrap.

    “That’s all there is to it,” I said to Charlie. “Now we wait to see what the next couple of months give us. Since there is no rush to make a pregnancy diagnosis, I would wait at least 60 days before checking her. Obviously, if she continues to cycle, she is probably not pregnant.”

 “I doubt if the owner will be able to wait that long before a check for pregnancy. But that is his problem, she is going home this week. I will let you know when I get the news either way,” Charlie said.

    “Everybody is in a hurry for an answer, but if it doesn’t make any plans change, time will give you the same answer as an early pregnancy exam,” I said as I loaded things into the back of my truck. “I will be as anxious as everybody to hear the news, you let me know either way.”

     It was just short of 50 days later, and Charlie’s pickup skidded to a stop in our driveway. Charlie jumped out and ran to the door, getting there before I could navigate the way across through the toys scattered around the living room.

    “Good news,” Charlie said as soon as I opened the door. “You are my hero now, that mare is pregnant, and the owner is happy as can be. I think I like the way you treat cows.”

    Charlie pulled a wad of bills out of his front pocket and peeled two bills off the roll. He reached out his hand with two 100 dollar bills. “This is for your good work,” he said.

    “No, Charlie, I am no damn lawyer, I charge for what I do, I don’t take from your profits resulting from my efforts,” I said. “You just call me next time, that is rewarding enough.”

   “Call you next time!” Charlie said, “I am thinking that next year we should be infusing every mare. You will make me a lot of money if we can speed up the process and get more mares serviced and pregnant.”

    “That might be overdoing it a little, but we can work out the details next Spring,” I said.

 As time went by, my relationship with Charlie grew with every mare we treated. This was a simplified procedure but worked well. Mares were seldom bred more than one time, and the pregnancy rate was very high. Charlie remained a happy and loyal client.

Charlie and Betty Land continued tomorrow, #2 At the Track

All On Number One 

D. E. Larsen, DVM

We welcomed our first spring in Colorado. The Rocky Mountain winter had been hard for us Oregonians. Spring term gave me a light schedule in school since I already had taken the microbiology course while at Oregon State. And we had a few extra dollars since I was working at the University dairy.

“How do you bet when you go to the dog track?” I asked the janitor, Bob, as I was helping him tidy up after anatomy lab.

“There are a few guys who have a system, and then there are those who pick the dog who takes a dump going to the gate,” Bob said. “Actually, the dogs are worse than the horses. I think you have a chance on the horses, but with the dogs, it is all the luck of the draw.”

“My wife and I haven’t been out since school started,” I said. “I have a few extra dollars, and the neighbor lady said she would watch the kids. I thought I would take Sandy to the dog track.”

“If you want an evening of fun, and you aren’t worried about making a thousand dollars, there are a couple of strategies to use,” Bob said. “The one that I think works the best is to pick the top three dogs according to the sheet and bet two dollars to show on each of them. Doing that will give you the best chance of not running out of money. You won’t win a lot, but you should win a few dollars.”

***

The parking lot at the Loveland dog track was packed, and we had a long walk to the grandstands. A woman from Denver had won seventy thousand dollars last week, and everyone must think they can repeat the process.

Sandy and I were both a little excited. This was our first date night in some time. We worked our way through the crowd and found a relatively empty section of bleachers that was close to the starting boxes and close to the betting windows.

The first dogs for the first race were just starting their parade as I returned with a couple glasses of beer. Sandy had been scanning the cheat sheets and had the three dogs for us to bet on all picked out.

Our budget was limited. If we wanted to have anything left over for dinner, we needed to be careful with our betting. Otherwise, we were going to have a short night out. 

I took the list and headed to the betting window. There was no line, but the lady in the booth seemed rushed, and I stammered and had trouble getting the information out. She was spitting tickets out faster than I was talking, or so it seemed.

“That will be eighteen dollars,” the lady said.

“Eighteen dollars?” I said. “I only wanted to spend six dollars on this race.”

“There are no refunds,” the lady said. “That will be eighteen dollars.” She pushed the pile of tickets out toward me.

I paid her eighteen dollars. That was just about our entire budget for the night. We had set the babysitting money aside but had hoped to have some cash for dinner.

I was quiet as I seated myself on the bench beside Sandy. I carefully looked through the tickets the lady sold me. I had nine tickets, and they were all the same. They were two-dollar tickets for the number one dog to win, and the number one dog was not even on the list that Sandy had given me.

“I’m excited,” Sandy said. “And you’re sitting there like all gloomy.”

“It looks like I sort of mess up at the ticket window,” I said.

“What happened?” Sandy asked.

“I’m not sure how I did it,” I said. “But I put all our money for the evening on the number one dog.”

“The number one dog was not even on my list,” Sandy said. “What do you mean by all our money?”

“We have eighteen dollars on the number one dog to win,” I said.

“Look at the odds,” Sandy said. “The number one dog is way down the list. I guess we had better drink up and get ready to go home.”

“We need to watch the race first,” I said. “You don’t know. They say that those odds don’t really mean a thing in the dog races.”

They brought the dogs back down the track to load them in the starting boxes. We stood up on the bench to get a better view. The number one dog looked like the biggest dog in the group.

“I don’t know, Sandy,” I said. “I like the looks of that number one dog.”

“Sure you do,” Sandy said. “You put all our money on him. You are bound to say he is a good-looking dog.

Sandy grabbed my hand to quiet her excitement as they loaded the dogs into the boxes. The mechanical rabbit was on the inside rail of the track. The doors flew up, the rabbit took off, and the dogs bounded out of the boxes.

The number one dog came out of the box with half a link lead. By the time the pack hit the first corner, the number one dog was clear of the main group. He was almost leaving the other dogs in his dust. Sandy was starting to jump up and down on the bench. 

When he entered the final turn, the number one dog was running entirely by himself. I had a flashback to that sixth horse race in Boston where my horse almost came to a standstill and lost just such a lead.

But the number one dog was running strong. Sandy was in danger of breaking the bench now. She was jumping up and down so hard it almost made me jump a bit without even trying.

The number one dog finished the race a full two seconds ahead of the second-place dog. I jumped off the bench and helped Sandy down to the solid ground. We rushed to the ticket window to collect our fortune.

The odds paid out at nine to one, so we collected $162.00. That was no minor figure in the spring of 1972 for a struggling college student who got $212.00 a month from the GI Bill. We felt rich.

“I don’t think we are going to do anything but spend money if we stay here,” I said. “The chances of hitting another winner is slim to none. Let’s go find a good restaurant and then go to a movie.”

“That sounds great to me,” Sandy said as we started pushing through the crowd toward the exit.

We found a nice restaurant in downtown Loveland. We had a candlelight dinner with prime rib and all the trimmings. A treat we would not have dreamed of a few hours ago.

As we walked out of dinner, people lined up across the street to go to the movie. The marquee said Sometimes a Great Notion. I just glanced at Sandy.

“We have plenty of time,” Sandy said. “Judy said she was fine as long we got home before midnight.”

So we went to the movie. I would guess we were the only ones in the theater with any real connection to the logging industry in western Oregon or to the setting on the Siletz River.

What a great time we had, and entirely by accident. Or by design, as I liked to kid Sandy. After all, I worked with greyhounds in anatomy lab. 

Photo by Jannik Selz on Unsplash