Old Mister Nielson, From the Archives

D. E. Larsen, DVM

Old Mr. Nielsen sat on a stump by the head of the squeeze chute, watching me closely as I cut a length of OB wire and attached handles to each end. He was s short, stout Norwegian. He covered his thinning gray hair with a tattered old ball cap that sat a little crooked on his head. His weathered face and hands told of uncounted hours of labor in the outdoors. Mr. Nielsen had milked cows for years but now used his farm to raise replacement heifers.

“How do you spell your name, Doc?” He asked. Of all his questions, this was the most important one for him.

“I spell it with an ‘en,’ Larsen,” I replied. “My Grandfather was a Norwegian sea captain who sailed lumber ships on the West Coast.”

That satisfied his curiosity. I was new to Enumclaw, and I was surprised at how ethnic the community was around here. Dr. Larsen could mean Norway, Denmark, or Sweden. Now I would be in solid with the Norwegians.

“What are you going to do with that wire, Doc?” was his next question.

The old veterinarian in the practice, Jack, dehorned these older heifers with the old fashioned guillotine type dehorners. These were almost a medieval instrument, and I had no intention of using them. Four foot long wooden handles attached to a cutting head that was positioned over the base of the horn. When the handles were closed, the guillotine blade half cut and half crushed the horn off. Local anesthesia didn’t help much. Blood would fly, and the heifer would bellower. It did a terrible job, and partial regrowth of the horn was common due to the incomplete removal of the base of the horn.

“This is what I use to remove the horns. It is a wire saw. I think you will be impressed,” I replied.

I think he was less than convinced as we loaded the first heifer into the chute. We had a dozen heifers to dehorn today. They were all yearlings, I hoped I would hold up to this number, but I was young and robust and calculated that I could get the job done. With the head secured with nose tongs, I injected each horn base with Lidocaine for local anesthesia. I seated the OB wire at the base of the horn. Then I started with long, rapid strokes. Smoke rose from the horn as the wire engaged the bone. It smelled like the old, slow dental drills. The process was brief, there was no apparent pain, and no blood as the hot wire seared the vessels. I grasped the exposed arteries with a forceps and pulled them slowly until they broke deep in the tissues and snapped back. This would allow a secure clot to form, and there would be almost no bleeding.

I repeated the process on the second horn. Then I applied some antibiotic powder on the wounds and into the open frontal sinus. The open frontal sinus made an impressive wound that alarmed the neophytes, but Mr. Nielsen had seen it many times before. After applying a good spray for flies, I released the nose tongs. Then I went back and sprayed the switch of her tail. Out of the chute, she ran, no pain, only a drop of blood and standing out in front of the chute like nothing had happened.

     “That is a pretty neat wire you have there. I think I like it, and that heifer acts like nothing happened,” Mr. Nielsen added. Obviously pleased with the job.

“Why did you spray her tail?” Mr. Nielsen asked. 

“Just to make it a little more effective against the flies,” I said.

The other heifers that followed were completed with an identical procedure. I changed the wire saw after every heifer to ensure the speed of the cut was not slowed by a dull wire. The last couple of heifers bled a little more as my strokes became a little slower, and the OB wire failed to sear the arteries. Even then, the bleeding was quickly controlled when the arteries were pulled. 

“This is so much better of a job than what that big old lopper does,” Mr. Nielsen said. 

After cleaning things up, I headed back to the clinic.

When Don, the other veterinarian in the practice, came in that afternoon, he had already heard the story of my dehorning job.

“I think you are going to be doing our dehorning from now on. Old Mr. Nielsen has told almost everyone about the job you did this morning,” Don said. “And your Grandfather’s story didn’t fall on deaf ears either. I think all the Norwegians will be lined up at the front door pretty soon.”

Photo by Lomig on Unsplash

Ayers’ Last Visit 

D. E. Larsen, DVM

I watched as Ayers struggled to get the large chicken wire cage out of the back seat of his car. His brother-in-law finally came around and helped him with it. The cage held the old tomcat from Ayers’ barn.

I held the door for them as they carefully fit the cage through the door. I had not seen Ayers since Nessie had died a couple of years ago.

Ayers had aged in that time. He was a shadow of the man he used to be. His shoulders were still square and broad, but he was thin. His face lacked the luster it once possessed. There was a space in his eye socket, and his glass eye no longer filled the socket. It looked like it would fall out if he bent over.

“What do we have here?” I asked.

“This is George,” Ayers said. “It took me a long time to convince him that we were friends. But now he lets me sit on his hay bale and talk with him. He is right there every morning, waiting for his can of cat food.”

“He looks pretty good for a tomcat?” I said. “You must be feeding him well.”

“He is the only animal on the place,” Ayers said. “I sold all the sheep and the cows. Then Nessie died, and I didn’t even have any chores to do. George and I have been fast friends for the last year or more.”

“What’s going on with George today?” I asked.

“He has abscess back by his tail,” Ayers said. “It has been there for maybe a couple of weeks, and it breaks, opens and drains, and then closes up. Just when I start thinking it is all healed, it will break open again.”

“That’s pretty common for that location,” I said. “We can clean it up and put a drain in there for a few days, and it will heal with no problem. Do you want me to neuter him at the same time?”

“Doc, you are getting way ahead of things now,” Ayers said. “For one thing, I’m not sure I will ever be able to get him in this cage again. It took both of us, and there for a while, I thought Allen here was trying to stuff me into the darn thing. Allen is only here for a couple of days. I don’t think there will be an option to bring George back to take a drain out.”

“I can work with that,” I said. “I will treat him like we did in the old days, nothing fancy. We made a big hole that would allow the inside to heal before the skin closed things up again. It works fine, but the ladies don’t like to look at that big hole.”

“Good, and I hope the antibiotics can go in his food,” Ayers said.

“Yes, we can try that,” I said. “But just in case George won’t eat it, I will give him a dose of long-acting penicillin. In fact, with the big hole, we could probably get by with that injection.”

“So we can pick him up this afternoon?” Ayers asked.

“Yes, we can be done with him pretty soon, and he will be ready to go home pretty much anytime this afternoon.”

Ayers and Allen stood up to go, and Ayers spoke to George. “You be good to this guy. He is really our friend.”

“What about neutering George?” I asked.

Ayers took a deep breath and looked at George for a full minute.

“Doc, I’m not going to be around for much longer,” Ayers said. “This old guy is going to have to fend for himself then. I would guess that my place will just fade into history and be cut up into a bunch of hobby farms for Californians. George will need all the help he can muster to survive out there. I don’t think I want to do that to him. You can vaccinate him and give him a worm pill, if you’re man enough, but let’s leave him with his nuts.”

“Why does this abscess appear to heal up and then break open again?” Allen asked.

“It is due to the location,” I said. “It is there on the flat of his back, and there is no way for the abscess to drain well. The cat’s skin grows over these wounds so fast that the pus just gets trapped under the skin again. These days, we put a little rubber drain in the wound. All it does is keep the hole open, so we get good drainage. We will just remove a large patch of skin from over the abscess with George. That will give the wound plenty of time to heal before it is covered with skin again. And with antibiotics, it should heal with no problem.”

“I will have Ayers back here around four this afternoon,” Allen said. “Will that work okay?”

“That will be fine,” I said. “George will be wide awake, and I should be able to worm him and get him vaccinated by then.

***

We took George in the back to get to work on him.

“Are you going to try to worm him before surgery?” Ruth asked.

“I think I will wait, maybe do it when he is a little sleepy still,” I said. “Sometimes, working with these mean-looking tomcats is surprisingly easy. They know if things get bad, they can tear you up, and then things over.”

We struggled to get George into a cat bag, but things went along okay once he was stuffed in there. 

Anesthesia was induced with gas via a mask. I shaved the abscess area with a straight razor and trimmed a quarter-size piece of debilitated skin from over the abscess. We flushed the wound with hydrogen peroxide and applied an antibiotic powder.

As soon as George was recovered, I grabbed his head with my left hand, holding it much like a baseball. I tipped his head back, pointing his nose straight in the air. This caused his mouth to gap open slightly. With the worm pill held by my thumb and index finger of my right hand, I opened his mouth wide with my middle finger. Then, with the precision of a bombardier, I dropped the pill onto the very back of George’s tongue. I allowed the mouth to close slightly, and he swallowed. A quick peek, the pill was gone.

I gave George a four-way vaccine for distemper and the upper respiratory viruses and a feline leukemia vaccine. We also gave him a rabies vaccine and a large dose of long-acting penicillin.

“It doesn’t sound like he will be getting any boosters,” Ruth said.

“No, but something is better than nothing,” I said. “The rabies vaccine will be effective for a year, probably more. The feline distemper vaccine is probably one of the best vaccines ever. I have never seen a vaccinated cat come down with distemper, even with only one dose. I think it will probably last a lifetime for guys like George, who will get some natural exposures along the way. The others are better than nothing.”

George was almost excited to get back into his cage. 

“He must know this is his ticket home,” Ruth said.

Allen came in and picked up George in his cage for Ayers. I went out and shook Ayers’ hand as they were getting ready to leave.

“Ayers, if you have any concerns about how George is doing, you let me know,” I said. “It is no problem for me to run out to your place to look at him.

***

True to his words, Ayers did not last long following this last visit. His farm was chopped up into five-acre parcels, and I would guess that George was back to fending for himself in the farm/forest zone.

Photo by Piers Olphin from Pexels.

Toby’s Bullet Wound

 D. E. Larsen, DVM

Ann rushed in the door with Toby clutched to her chest. After five, we were technically closed, but Ann had an emergency, plus she was a friend, a neighbor, and a long-time client.

“Toby has a broken leg,” Ann said to Sandy as she stopped at the front counter. “I think he has been shot.”

“Dave is in the back finishing up some treatments,” Sandy said. “Let’s get Toby in an exam room and see if Dave can get a look at him.”

Sandy got Ann and Toby settled into the exam room and came looking for Ruth and me.

“Ann is upfront with Toby,” Sandy said. “She thinks he has been shot, and his leg is broken.”

We had just finished treating a pup and quickly returned him to his kennel.

Ann was almost in tears when I entered the exam room. Toby was laid out on the exam table, curled up in Ann’s coat, and seemed as comfortable as he could be with a fractured femur. Toby was purring.

I carefully examined Toby, trying to leave him curled up in Ann’s coat.

“The leg is broken for sure,” I said. “It looks like a bullet wound, probably a twenty-two, based on the size of the hole. This leg seems a little limp to me, and I am a little concerned that there be some nerve injury.”

“Can he be fixed?” Ann asked.

“Oh, yes, he can be fixed,” I said. “There is an exit wound on the leg, so it doesn’t look like the bullet hit anything else. If there is a nerve that was damaged, that might not be fixable.”

Ann had been a nurse, and she knew what that meant.

“You are saying that he might lose his leg,” I said.

“We might not know that until surgery,” I said. “We will get an x-ray and prepare to repair the fracture. If I find significant nerve damage when we get to surgery, I will amputate the leg.”

“When are you going to do this?” Ann asked.

“There is no reason for Toby to wait until morning,” I said. “He is uncomfortable, even if he seems okay. I will do this right now.”

“Can I wait here?” Ann asked.

“Whatever you would like,” I said. “You can wait here, or you can check back in an hour or so. I guess Toby will recover pretty rapidly following surgery. He could probably go home with you tonight if I could recheck him in the morning.”

“That would be good,” Ann said. “Maybe I will just stay and bother Sandy if she isn’t too busy. You are generally pretty fast with your surgeries.”

Toby’s x-ray showed a bullet path through the leg with some lead fragments scattered in the tissues after the bullet struck the bone. There was a mid-shaft fracture of the femur, and the bone was broken up pretty bad. I couldn’t see any nerves on the x-ray, of course, but I was pretty sure there was significant damage to the nerves in this leg. 

I stepped out front and spoke with Ann before starting surgery.

“There is a nasty fracture of the femur,” I said. “It looks like the bullet went right through the bone. There is lead scattered in tissues, so it was definitely a bullet wound. The bone is repairable, but I think there is major nerve damage to this leg. I will look before doing anything, but I think we are going to have to amputate this leg.”

“There are no other options?” Ann asked.

“Based on the responses in the lower leg, I am guessing that the sciatic nerve is injured, maybe severed,” I said. “If that is the case, there is no other option other than amputation.”

“Okay, I guess he will do okay on three legs,” Ann said.

“A cat with three legs is not slowed down a bit,” I said.

Returning to the surgery room, Ruth was waiting with everything set out.

“Let’s not open the bone pack until I get a look at the inside of this leg,” I said.

After draping the hind leg for surgery, I opened the thigh on the lateral surface and dissected down to the femur by separating muscles. This was a fracture with many pieces of bone, and it would be a difficult repair. 

I explored the wound, looking for the sciatic nerve. There it was. The sciatic nerve was completely severed by the bullet. It made the decision easy. This leg had to come off.

“We go home early tonight,” I said to Ruth. “Finishing this amputation won’t take long. You can put all that bone stuff away. That bullet did half the job of amputating this leg. I will be done shortly.”

I ligated the vessels and trimmed up the jagged end on the bone with a rongeur. Then I sutured the muscles over the end of the bone to form a nice stump and closed the skin in two layers.

Toby recovered quickly, and Ann was happy to take him home for the night.

“Plan to bring him by in the morning and leave him for the day,” I said. “That way, we can make sure we have his pain under control and that the incisions will be okay.”

“Will he have to wear one of those collars?” Ann asked.

“I rarely use one,” I said. “If I use a half dozen of them a year, that is exceptional. Good tissue handling during surgery is the key to rapid and infection-free healing. Besides, the animals hate them, and so do their owners.”

“Okay, we will see you in the morning,” Ann said. “I am sure that Toby will enjoy the night at home other than in your hotel.”

•••

Toby looked great when Ann dropped him off at the clinic the following morning. It took him a few days to figure things out, but by the time we took his sutures out two weeks later, you couldn’t tell he only had three legs.

“I hate to think that there are people out there that get their jollies by shooting at cats,” Ann said. “And people worry about coyotes and the cougars getting their cats. I think people are probably the bigger problem.”

“Yes, it’s too bad that we will never know who was responsible,” I said. 

Photo by Oswald Yaw Elsaboath from Pexels.