Low Dog on the Totem Pole

Bob was standing at the front counter, waiting to talk with me. Bob had been into the clinic several times. He would usually go through the office girls with no problem. I thought this must be something serious or embarrassing for him to be waiting to talk with me.

I motioned him back to the lab area to talk.

“What can I do for you this morning?” I said as I extended my hand.

“Good morning, Doc,” Bob said as he shook my hand. “I think I probably made a big mistake.”

“What up?” I asked.

“I cleaned out our chest freezer yesterday,” Bob said. “There was a bunch of old lamb meat in there that was well past its prime. So I figured I would boil it up and feed it to the dogs.”

“Now he has a bunch of sick dogs,” I thought to myself.

“After boiling it, I let it cool and then went out and dumped it in the gravel driveway. And boy, did the dogs like that. They slicked up every bit of it in no time.”

“So, are they okay this morning?” I asked.

“Yes, they are all okay except the old dog,” Bob said. “She was sort of crowded out of the group while they were eating. I don’t think she got much of the meat at all. But she is in pretty bad shape this morning.”

“Is she vomiting or what?” I asked.

“No, she is painful and hardly moving,” Bob said. “I was hoping I could get you to look at her.”

So, here it comes. Bob has no money, that is why he didn’t want to talk with the girls.

“I feel terrible if I made her sick, Doc,” Bob said. “But she is an old dog. I don’t want to have to sell the farm to take care of her.”

“Well, let’s get a look at her, and then we can talk about what we are going to need to do,” I said. “We are a little busy this morning, so if we need to take some x-rays or do some blood work, you might need to leave her or wait here for the results.”

As soon as I picked Dolly up to get her on the exam table, I could tell this was no simple issue. Dolly was old enough that she was almost gray-headed if that can happen in a Golden Retriever. She groaned audibly as I sat her on the table.

Working through a clinical exam, she was very painful when I palpated her abdomen. My first thought was we were probably dealing with a case of pancreatitis. That is often the result of an inappropriate meal.

“Bob, Dolly is pretty painful in the abdomen,” I said. I think we should get an x-ray of her abdomen and do some blood work.”

“How long will that take?” Bob asked. “I have to pick up a few things from Hoys. Maybe if I do that and check back, do you think that would work.?”

“We will have the x-ray by then, but the blood will probably take a little longer,” I said. “But you do your shopping and check back. We will have the x-ray to look at by then. That might tell the most of the story.”

Dolly was painful enough that we had to sedate her to get her on and off the x-ray table.

The x-rays were just coming out of the darkroom when Bob came through the front door. So when I called him back and put the films up on the viewer, I hadn’t seen them yet.

“Wow! What is that?” Bob asked.

There was Dolly’s stomach, stuffed full of gravel. It made for a pretty dramatic x-ray picture.

“That is her stomach, Bob,” I said. “Completely full of gravel.”

“How do you suppose that happened?” Bob asked.

“My guess, if she was pushed out of the way by the young dogs, she cleaned up all the drippings that were left,” I said. “That meant that she was licking up a lot of gravel.”

“Can we do anything?” Bob asked.

“If this has been since yesterday and all the gravel is still in the stomach, I don’t think it will pass on its own,” I said. I think I need to open the stomach and remove the gravel.”

“You talk like that is a simple process,” Bob said.

“Well, it is not an everyday procedure for me, but it is something that I have done pretty often,” I said. “I think we are well equipped for this surgery. I would almost call it a simple surgery, but all surgery carries risks. Especially when we are doing it on an old dog.”

“Okay, since I am the one at fault,” Bob said. “Let’s go ahead and do the surgery. When is this going to happen?”

“I have a busy afternoon, so it will be at the end of the day,” I said. “I need to autoclave a large spoon or a scoop of some sort to use in removing the gravel. Other than that, the only thing I need is time. We will have Dolly ready to go home tomorrow. She will be on a liquid diet for a day and then on some special food mixed into a slurry for the rest of the week.”

We got Dolly on the surgery table sometime after four in the afternoon. Her stomach was easy to find but almost impossible to bring up to the incision. It was packed with gravel.

I packed off the incision area with moist lap sponges and made an incision in the stomach wall that was about two inches long. Removing the gravel, one spoonful at a time, was a little time-consuming.

After about half the gravel was removed, I was able to elevate the incision up through the abdominal incision. I could feel better about preventing any spillage of content into the abdomen.

After getting the last of the gravel out of the stomach, I closed the stomach in a two-layer closure using Dexon. We rinsed the area liberally with a solution of saline with some gentamicin added. The abdominal incision was closed with a routine, three-layer closure.

The surprising thing was the about of gravel that had entered the small intestine. It was all of the size that would pass with no problem. The x-ray taken following surgery showed all the gravel was out of the stomach. The fact that none had passed when the stomach was packed, it just surprised me that some had entered the gut during surgery.

***

The following morning, Dolly was up and wagging her tail. I think she thought she was going to get something to eat. That was going to have to wait until this evening. I went a called Bob.

“Bob, Dolly feels much better this morning,” I said. “I think we will send her this afternoon, around three or four. That way, we can keep her on IV fluids all day. You can start some oral fluids this evening and a slurry of food tomorrow afternoon.”

“You got all that gravel out?” Bob asked.

“All the gravel is out of the stomach,” I said. “There is some that entered the small intestine during surgery, but that will pass with no problem.”

***

Dolly healed with no problems and lived for several more years. Bob learned not to feed the dogs on the gravel driveway.

Photo by Nicolas from Pexels.

Note to my Readers

I am a couple of months short of the 2 year mark on this blog and I enjoy a broad international readership. I am working hard to get Book 3 and 4 available before Christmas. Book 3 – Lambs and Crab Legs and Book 4 – The Daughter’s Horse are both awaiting covers and then proof reading.

Big Cat Encounter 

D. E. Larsen, DVM

“Doc, I know it is late, but I have three dogs who just tangled with a cougar,” Lon said. “They all have large gashes on the top of their heads. The worse one has three slashes that are really deep and long. The other two are not as bad. My wife, she’s a nurse, you know, she thinks we need to sew them up tonight.”

“How do you know it was a cougar, Lon?” I asked.

“I was pretty obvious,” Lon said. “They were making a hell of a racket. They were down by the road in a group of trees, right across the street from the school.”

“My hound clients say that cougar behavior has changed since they are no longer hunted with dogs,” I said. “They have dogs that get torn up by the big cats all the time. Those dogs run across a cougar a lot when they are hunting bobcats. The top of the head is a common target for the cats.”

“Can I bring them in tonight?” Lon asked.

“Yes, I can meet you at the clinic in about thirty minutes,” I said.

Lon’s three dogs, all grey pit bulls, came through the door with tails wagging and tongues handing out of their mouths, still excited from their encounter. They were utterly oblivious to their injuries.

Samson, the dog who took the brunt of the assault, had three long slashes that covered the length of the top of his skull. These slashes were deep and into the muscles. They were evenly spaced and perfectly aligned, about one and a half inches apart.

As I looked at these slashes, I remembered Dr. Adams told me about sewing up a horse in Africa that had been attacked by a lion. He had said those wounds all fell apart, heavily injected by the cat claws. His advice would be to treat these wounds as open wounds. Closure may be futile.

“Lon, these are definitely wounds from a large cat,” I said. “I had a professor who told a story of closing wounds like this on a horse in Africa. Those wounds were from an attack by a lion, and they all fell apart after he sutured them. We might be ahead to treat these as open wounds.”

“I don’t think you want to have that discussion with my wife,” Lon said.

“I know, but you just remember what I said when these things fall apart,” I said. “And Lon, just between you and me, medical doctors and nurses, make the worse veterinarians I know.”

Large dogs were always so easy to work with. They had enough self-confidence that you could usually do things with them that you could never accomplish on a small dog.

I injected these slashes with lidocaine, and Samson never fletched once. After shaving and prepping the wounds, I applied an antibiotic ointment to the exposed tissues and then wiped most of it out.

“The experts will tell you that I should never put anything into a wound like that,” I said to Lon, who was holding Samson and trying not to watch too closely.

“Why is that?” Lon asked.

“They think they have seen wounds in this situation, but in reality, they live in a different world,” I said. “They probably allow for system antibiotics for these wounds, but they do approve of locally applied antibiotics. But I say the truth is in the pudding. If I close contaminated wounds, I apply antibiotics to the exposed tissues.”

I sutured the fascia covering the muscles to close the deep tissues and then closed the skin of each slash with a two-layer closure. We put Samson down on the floor and chuckled at the three neat rows of sutures on the top of his head.

The other two dogs were a snap compared to Samson. One short slash on the top of one head, and on the other, a longer slash came close to his left ear and then just a nick closer to the middle of his skull. There was no muscle involvement in any of these wounds. I closed both of these with local anesthesia.

“I am apprehensive about this cat,” Lon said.

“My guess, Lon, is that three pit bulls got their licks in during the battle,” I said. “That cat probably made his exit as soon as you got the dogs into the house.”

“Those trees are directly across the road from the elementary school playground,” Lon said. “Do you think I should call the sheriff or someone?”

“I will call Fish and Wildlife in the morning,” I said. “I doubt that they are going to be very responsive, but I will give them a call.”

***

In the morning, I called the regional office of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. I was shuffled through a couple of different phones until one of the ladies on the line offered to connect me to the biologist.

“Hello, this is Doctor Larsen. I am a veterinarian in Sweet Home. I was calling to let you guys know that I sewed up three dogs last night,” I said. “They were in an altercation with a cougar on their property. That property is located across the street from the elementary school here.”

“How do you know it was a cougar?” the lady biologist asked.

“For one thing, the owner heard the commotion and was sure it was a cougar,” I said. “The second thing is I have been in this business for a few years. I have worked on several hounds with similar injuries from hunters who encounter the cougars by accident while chasing bobcats. All these wounds look the same, and most of them are on the top of the dog’s head, just like the wounds last night.”

“Well, I guess we are all going to have to do a better job at convincing owners to keep their pets in the house,” the esteemed biologist said.

“You’re not worried about the proximity to the school?” I asked.

“That cat is long gone. There is no danger to the school,” she said.

***

When Lon brought the dogs in for suture removal, the wounds had healed well.

“I guess you were right about the antibiotic in the wound,” Lon said after I removed the sutures.

“When they regrow their hair, you won’t be able to see a scar,” I said. “By the way, I did call ODFW. They weren’t very concerned, just like I suspected.”

“Well, I’m concerned,” Lon said. “Those cats belong up in the hills, not down here around houses and schools.

“I agree,” I said. “When I came to Sweet Home, I would hear a cat story once or maybe twice a year. Then they stopped hunting them with dogs, and the Forest Service quit harvesting timber in the National Forest. Now, most of the logging is done on private land. Clear cuts are the major source of browse for the deer and elk. And private land is close to town. The cats follow their food source, and that puts them close to people. And they start doing a lot of hunting in towns after they learn that cats and dogs are easy prey. Now I hear cat stories every couple of weeks. It is just a matter of time before some kid goes around a corner and runs into one of them.”

“Well, in town or not, if I see one in the future, I am going shoot it,” Lon said.

“It is a problem that needs a solution,” I said. “I am not sure what is going to have to happen for that solution to be found.”

Photo by John Borrelli on Unsplash.