Mixed practice in the 1970s and more
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The Last Cow in the Chute:
Widow Woman’s Ranch:
Lambs and Crab Legs:
D. E. Larsen, DVM
I had just settled into bed, glancing at the clock. It was just after 11:00. The morning will come soon enough. I thought as I rolled on my side and closed my eyes. The phone was quick to jar me back to my senses.
“Hello, this is Dr. Larsen,” I said into the phone.
“Hi Doc, this is Ed Collins. I think Apache has a problem. I have been watching him all afternoon, and he has been straining to take a crap, and nothing comes out. Now he is yowling, quite loud. I think you should get a look at him,” Ed said, very matter-of-factly.
“Ed, I think we should have looked at him this afternoon.”
“I know Doc, it’s late, but I would hate to have him suffer all night. Can we come down?”
“Don’t come too quick. I’m home in bed, and it is going to take me about 20 minutes to get up, get dressed, and get to the clinic. I will see you and Apache then. And Ed, you know there is an emergency fee at this hour?”
“I understand Doc, we will see you in 20 minutes.”
Apache was large gray tabby cat and probably the biggest cat I looked at in the practice, and he weighed about twenty-seven pounds. Ed thought the world of him and was proud of his size. He did not tolerate any discussion on weight loss. “He has all the neighborhood cats scared to death, and he beats the tar out of them all.”
Ed was a little man, well in his eighties, mostly bald with just a few gray hairs remaining. His nose was the most prominent feature as it was large enough to make one think he would be a large man if he would grow into his nose. Ed always carried Apache when he came into the clinic, and Apache was all he could handle. He would walk into the clinic holding Apache across his chest, leaning back, to keep from falling forward. We would usually lead him to the exam room right away, and he would flop Apache on the table, straighten up and take a deep breath.
When I pulled up to the clinic, Ed leaned against the door for some support, holding Apache as best he could. I would bet that he had been there for a good 10 minutes.
“Good evening, Ed,” I said as I unlocked the door. “Let’s take him right on back to the treatment table,” I said as I reached over the counter and switched off the alarm.
It was all Ed could do to reach the table with Apache. He lowered his shoulder, and Apache slid off onto the grated surface. Apache let out a low growl when he hit the table.
“Has he been painful,” I asked.
“Earlier today, he was straining a lot, and once in a while, he would yowl. But this evening, he has been pretty uncomfortable and growls every time I touch him. Really loud when I touch his belly.”
I did a real quick exam to make sure Apache was not critical yet. His hydration was satisfactory, and his membranes were pink with normal capillary refill. Heart and lungs sounds were normal. I took the temperature with an ear thermometer, normal. I stood him up on all fours and cupped his abdomen in my hand. Will, I sort of cupped his abdomen in my hand.
I could feel his entire abdomen with one hand in a typical cat, and Apache’s belly was a little too large for that kind of palpation. With a slight push on the posterior abdomen, I could bump his distended bladder. By Apache’s loud protest, it was also a painful bladder.
“Ed, Apache has a urinary blockage, and he can’t pee. The straining you witnessed this afternoon was him straining to pee. It is a common mistake for people to think he is straining to have a BM.”
“What do we need to do, Doc?”
“I will sedate him and flush out his urethra. This bladder is painful enough that I will put a catheter in his bladder and put him on fluids for the night. He will need to stay here until morning.”
“No, that ain’t going to work, Doc. Apache has never stayed away from home. I am not going to leave him overnight.”
“This is a serious condition, Ed. This is something that could kill him at the worse, or if his urethra gets damaged, it could require some major surgery.”
“I am not going to leave him, Doc!”
“Okay, let me see if we can get lucky, and I can flush his urethra with him awake. If so, we will empty his bladder, give him some subcutaneous fluids, and plan to recheck him first thing in the morning.”
The good thing about fat cats is that they all have a flat back. I rolled Apache onto his back, and he was sort of like a turtle. He laid there, still as could be with all his legs spayed out to the sides. It probably took some pressure off his bladder. He was really relaxed.
I filled a 12cc syringe with saline solution and attached a blunt 23 gauge curved lacrimal needle. I laid my forearm along Apache’s chest and abdomen to provide some restraint. With my thumb and index finger of my left hand, I pushed the skin of his prepuce down, exposing his penis. The penis of the cat is short and pointed, with a small urethral orifice. That small orifice is the cat’s downfall. When crystals form in the urine, they will plug the small orifice. Once in a while, there will be a stone, but there are usually just crystals, almost sand-like.
I could see a small glob of crystals on the end of the penis. We were maybe going to luck out. I washed them away with a squirt of saline from the syringe. Then, carefully, I inserted the tip of the blunt needle into the urethra.
Apache did not move, almost like he knew what he needed. I flushed some saline into the urethra, and I could feel the plug of crystals loosen. I pushed the needle in a bit further and flushed again. With that came first a bunch of sand and then a big squirt of urine that flew halfway across the room. I reacted a little, making sure the stream of urine missed me.
Ed jumped back in amazement. “Wow, he really had to pee.”
“That was easy. Most cats aren’t this good. I will put a catheter into Apache’s bladder to make sure I can empty it. Then I will take it out, give him some fluids and send him home. But you have to promise that you will be back in the morning and plan to leave him with us for most of the day.”
I flushed a half cc of lidocaine into Apache’s urethra and then easily slid a tomcat catheter into his bladder. I withdrew over nearly six ounces of urine from Apache’s bladder. Then I instilled twelve ccs of saline into the bladder and sort of rolled Apache back and forth a few times before withdrawing the saline. I did harvest a good collection of crystals with the saline.
***
Apache was feeling much better when Ed brought him to the clinic in the morning.
I palpated Apache’s bladder. It was somewhat thicker than normal, but a little squeeze caused Apache to pee. There was no pain response to the urine flow. When I put a drop of the urine under the microscope, no crystals were present.
“I think you got lucky, Ed,” I said. “I think Apache is free to go home, and I will send you home with a special diet to keep these crystals from forming again.”
“Now, Doc, I don’t want you sneaking no diet food on me that will cause Apache to get skinny,” Ed said. “There are a couple of new cats on the block, and Apache needs all the weight he has to teach those guys who’s the boss.”
“Okay, there are a few foods to choose from that will solve the problem,” I said. “The best one to start with is S/D. It will help dissolve any crystals that are present. Then we can change to C/D or W/D. For cats that are a little overweight, I like to use W/D.”
“That’s fine, Doc,” Ed said. “I will take a small bag of S/D, and then I will pick up a bag of C/D when I need it. I know you think Apache is
overweight, but he is just a big cat. And he needs that extra pound so he can continue to terrorize the other cats in the neighborhood.”
Ed and Apache went home with a four-pound bag of S/D cat food. I never saw Ed come back for more food. Apache never had another urinary issue, but he was still grossly overweight when Ed passed away.
Photo by Callum Wale on Unsplash.
D. E. Larsen, DVM
Joan was a new owner on a ranch on Brush Creek. Joan was an older lady and had a ranch in Eugene. When we first met, I thought she seemed knowledgeable about cows. But in the last few months, Joan has been moving more cows from her ranch in Eugene. At this point, she has more cattle here than this ranch can support. She must be bringing feed from other sources, as the pastures are already starting to look barren.
Today she has a cow with a prolapse. The girls in the office didn’t get a complete history, or more than likely, Joan wasn’t entirely sure about just what she was looking at, but she knew she had a problem.
The hired man had the cow in the chute when I pulled into the barnyard. She looked like a young black baldy.
“Hi, I’m Bob,” Bob said as I stepped out of the truck. “Joan couldn’t be here, but she gave me instructions to have this cow in the chute before you arrived.”
“Bob, I’m Doctor Larsen,” I said as we shook hands. “What can you tell me about his cow.”
“Not much, Doc,” Bob said. “Joan doesn’t keep records much, and the bulls run with the cows all the time. This prolapse just popped out this morning, and I figured we needed to get you to take a look.”
“I will do a rectal exam on her first,” I said. “My guess is she is at some stage of pregnancy if the bulls run with the herd all the time. Do you know if anyone has talked with Joan about running a breeding season and a calving season?”
“I have talked with her some,” Bob said. “You have to understand, Doc, Joan is not in this business to make money. She has plenty of money. She is just giving as many cows as she can a place to live.”
I was deep in thought about how I would manage this herd when I ran my left hand into this cow’s rectum. I didn’t have to go in very far. There were feet and a nose at the brim of the pelvis. This was a full-term calf.
Vaginal prolapses in the near term are always tricky to handle. Getting the prolapse back in place is no problem unless it has been present so long that the tissue has dried. I worked on one of those with Clint Johnson when we were seniors at Colorado State. Keeping it in place is the problem because of the pending delivery.
An old veterinarian in Enumclaw told me he used a wine bottle as a pessary. I had used that in a llama once, and it worked great. But who travels with an empty wine bottle in the truck.
I devised a method to suture the vulva closed to allow the cow to deliver the calf in most cases. I was never absolutely confident that there would not be problems, so close monitoring for pending labor was mandated.
I would place hog rings down each side of the vulva, a couple of inches out. They were placed just about out at the hairline on the thighs. Then I would close the vulva by lacing some quarter-inch OB tape through the hog rings like one would lace up a boot. I placed these hog rings with just a slight pinch on the skin. Just enough of a bite to maintain the closure, but little enough that the push of the calf in labor would tear out the hog rings and all the cow to deliver the calf.
“Bob, this cow is going to calve sometime in the next few days,” I said. “I am going to put this prolapse back in place, and I am going to close up her vulva in a manner that will allow her to pee, and most of the time, it will allow her to push the calf through the closure. But she is going to have to be monitored closely until she calves.”
“There might be a problem with the monitoring part, Doc,” Bob said. “I am leaving in the morning, and I will be gone for a long week. Joan will be here, but just between you and me, she is not very good at keeping an eye on anything.”
“Will you be able to check her in the morning?” I asked. “If you could do that and give me a buzz, then I will check with Joan in the evening. Or, if I have the time, I will just run by and check the cow myself. Where will you have her?”
“I will fix her up in the little corral by the barn,” Bob said. “That way she can get under cover is she wants, and she will have hay and water. You will be able to catch her easily.
“That will be great,” I said. “In the morning, you don’t need to do anything other than let me know she is not in labor. If there is any question, I will just run by and check. You can be off.”
“Joan should be here sometime in the afternoon,” Bob said. “I will call her this evening and make sure she checks the cow. But, Doc, like I said, I don’t know how much trust you can put in her observations.”
***
“Joan, this is Doctor Larsen. I was just wondering if you have checked the cow that Bob has in the little corral next to the barn?” I asked when Joan answered the phone.
“Bob talked to me about her last night,” Joan said. “I checked her, but I don’t see any problem.”
Bob’s words were ringing in my head. I had a strange feeling that I needed to run out and check this cow this evening.
“That’s okay, Joan,” I said. “I have some free time this evening, and I will drop by and check her.”
“Okay, if you think that is necessary,” Joan said. “You know where she is at. I will be fixing our dinner, so you can just come and go as you please.”
I didn’t run my practice on strange feelings, but this cow was very close to calving. After Bob’s comments, I had little trust that she would be rechecked until tomorrow afternoon. I checked the water tank in the truck and loaded up to go.
The cow was up and walking around the little corral when I pulled into the barnyard. Her tail was elevated, indicating labor had started. Now I was relieved that I decided to come to check on her.
I threw a rope over her head from the top rail on the corral and jumped down into the corral. After I pulled a loop of rope over her nose to form a halter, I tied her to a post.
I tied her tail out of the way with twine tied around her neck. After scrubbing her rear end, I unlaced the hog rings. I washed up and ran my left hand into her vagina. Her cervix was open, and the amnion was bulging through the cervix. I poked my finger through the tough membrane with a stiff push and pulled the flexed finger back to rupture the amnion. The thick mucoid fluid gushed out.
From that point, I attached my nylon OB strap to the front feet and pulled the calf with manual traction. The cow stood for the entire process.
I removed the hog rings and checked the cow for another calf, and there was no calf. While I was in there, I gave the membranes a firm tug, and they came out, splattering on the calf.
I gave the calf a BoSe injection and treated his navel. This guy will be and bouncing around the corral in the morning.
I didn’t stop at the house, I will call her in the morning. I suspected that the cow would have delivered the calf through my closure. But I will be able to sleep tonight, thinking that I avoided a potential wreck.
Photo by Kat Smith on Pexels.
Memoirs of a Country Vet