D. E. Larsen, DVM

Egor was a large mix breed dog.. He was large enough that he could have had some Saint Bernard in that mix. His massive head sat on a body with a broad flat back that reminded one of an aircraft carrier’s flight deck. He weighed over 110 pounds and was generally treated on the floor of apparent reasons.

Joe first called for me to see Egor in September of 1976. I was doing house calls, then as the clinic was still several months from completion. Egor was 9 years old at that time, and he was beginning to show his age.

“Good morning, this is Joe, I was hoping you could look at my dog, Egor. He has a torn toenail.”

Joe and Kathyrn lived in a small house. The living room was cluttered with knickknacks, mostly old clocks, and antiques. Then, when you put a couch and two chairs in the small room, there was little room to work on a large dog. We moved to the front yard.

“This toenail is broken back into the quick,” I explained. “This is going to be painful for a couple of days, even after I clip it. We are going to have to do a nerve block on this toe, and that might be painful also. Hopefully, Egor is going to let me do this.”

“Egor is a tough dog,” Joe said, breathing hard from the short walk to the front yard. “You can do anything to him, and he won’t move.”

I had Egor sit and picked up his paw. When I inserted the needle in each side of his toe and injected a good dose of Lidocaine for a nerve block, he did not even flench. We waited a few minutes to make sure the nail was numb. Joe’s breathing was improved with the short rest, but you could still hear every breath as he struggled to exhale. 

I wiggled the broken portion of the toenail, watching Egor closely. If he felt anything, he was not showing it. I took my nail scissors and snipped off the broken portion of the nail. The blood flow was enough that I was glad we were outside. I held a cotton gauze on the bleeding nail for a moment and then put a silver nitrate stick on the point of bleeding. It took a couple of minutes, but finally, the bleeding stopped.

“What if that starts to bleed after you are gone?” Joe asked.

“All bleeding stops, eventually, one way or the other,” I replied. Joe did not understand the comment, or he didn’t think it answered his question.

“If it starts bleeding, you give me a call, and I will come back, I am not too busy yet, and I live just a little way up Ames Creek,” I replied.

That was the first of many visits with Joe and Egor. It was always a sight to see Egor coming to the clinic door with Joe hanging onto the leash, struggling to keep up. They would come through the door, and Joe would grab a chair, entirely out of breath. Egor would be wagging his tail as he went into the exam room. Joe always waited in the chair.

In April of 1978, Egor developed acute kidney failure. His prognosis was poor.

“He means the world to me, Doc,” Joe said. “I can’t give up on him. If you can do whatever is possible to save him, I will find a way to pay you.”

“He is a huge dog, Joe,” I said. “There is less than a 50% chance he can survive, and treatment is going to be expensive.”

“My wife has all sorts of antique clocks,” Joe said. “You can have your pick of the collection.”

“Okay, Joe, we will do as much as we can. But you must know, there are no promises. Sometimes, all the money in the world cannot buy a cure.”

“I understand that, Doc,” Joe said. “But without Egor, I won’t last a week.”

“We will keep him, at least 3 days, probably more likely a week,” I said. “I will keep you posted on Egor’s progress.”

“I can’t take him home at night?” Joe asked.

“I am going to be running IV fluids around the clock,” I said. “He is going to need to stay if we are going to have any chance of saving him.”

Egor was a great patient. He was very ill, had IV tubes hanging everywhere, and we were coming at him with needles for a blood draw or an injection multiple times a day. His tail always wagged. He hated the bland food he was allowed, but he would lick your hand when the bowl was put in the kennel. 

After three days, he greeted me with a bark and a bounce when I came into the kennel room. He was feeling better. His kidney numbers edged back toward normal. When I called Joe, I tried to instill only cautious optimism.

“Good morning, Joe,” I said into the phone when he answered, only allowing a single ring. “Egor is improved this morning. His kidney numbers are close to normal this morning, and his urine has some concentration to it. He is not well, but much to my surprise, he is improved.”

“Does that mean I can take him home?” Joe asked. “I have been worried to death that he is going to die down there, Doc. I know we all have to go some time, I would just like to be with him when it is his time.”

“I would like to keep him one more night,” I said. “I will take him off the IVs, and we will see if his kidneys can maintain him on just water.”

Egor bounced out of the clinic the next day. He almost knocked Joe over, he was so happy to see him. Joe had no understanding about how incredibly lucky we were to be seeing Egor go home. We loaded him down with a case of kidney diet food and oral antibiotics. I was not confident that Joe would have the strength to keep Egor on the special diet for an extended time, but for today, everybody was happy.

“You and your wife come by the house this evening and pick out a clock,” Joe said as he and Egor went out the door.

“Do you think they have a clock that is worth enough to cover this bill?” Judy asked.

“I guess the value of an antique is based on perceived worth,” I said. “Seeing those two go out the door together, is a pretty precious event in its self.”  

Sandy and I dropped by Joe’s house that evening. Egor greeted us at the door as if he hadn’t seen us in weeks. Sandy and Kathryn looked over the clocks as I sat and talked with Joe and Egor.

Sandy selected a modest mantle clock. Kathryn had some large clocks that she felt had a higher value and tried to get Sandy to make a better selection. We had discussed our needs before we stopped, and we needed a clock that we could display, not one that took up a lot of space.

Egor did well over the next months. Not perfect, but pretty well. The bland, low protein, diet required in Egor’s long term management did not appeal to either Joe or Egor. My guess was that Joe tried but likely cheated some.

Egor was losing a lot of protein in his urine and losing weight. His kidney numbers continued to hoover close to normal, and he maintained his high spirits. But when he would drag Joe into the clinic, it was evident that neither one of them were their old selves.

Joe died in October of 1979. The family decided that Egor was too ill, and too lonely without Joe, to go on. They brought Egor to the clinic for the last time a couple of days following Joe’s death. We were busy that day, and Egor was left in a kennel for a short time before I could find a few minutes for him. This should have been nothing for Egor.  He had been in this very kennel for days at a time in the past.  

Egor sat in the kennel and howled a loud, mournful howl, as I have never heard a dog howl before or since.

If ever a dog knew his fate, Egor knew!

Photo by Jozef Fehér from Pexels

D. E. Larsen, DVM

      Dixie opened the exam room door to check on Bill and Peanut Digger. We moved them into an exam room as soon as they came into the reception room.

Bill was a large man. He carried a few extra pounds on his massive frame, but his muscle mass had served him well in a lifetime of hard work. He was older, approaching retirement, and his hair, in a short crew cut, was graying. 

Peanut Digger was a Brittany Spaniel. Brittanys are the most hyper of all the Spaniel breeds. And Peanut Digger was the most hyper example of a Brittany Spaniel that I knew. He bounced off the walls the entire time he was in the clinic. If they were left in the reception room, there was total chaos by the time they were called into an exam room.

Bill was totally aloft to the chaos. He would just sit there, arms folded across his chest and feet extended and crossed at the ankles. Peanut Digger would continuously circle the exam room. Jump up with his front feet on the counter to check out the items there. Tongue out and panting, with saliva dripping from the corners of his mouth.

Peanut Digger would only slightly slow down when placed on the exam table for an exam or treatment. He was a good dog, he was just absolutely unable to calm himself.

“You know, Bill, we might be able to calm this guy if we neutered him,” I said.

“Neuter him! No way, in fact, I am planning on raising a litter or two,” Bill replied. “I bought a female Brittany a couple of weeks ago. She is already in heat.”

“You might have your hands full with a bunch of puppies running around,” I said. “What are you going to do is you can’t get rid of them?”

“Brittanys are pretty popular dogs,” Bill said. “I don’t think I will have any problems.”

The next time I saw Peanut Digger, it was to sew up a gash on his muzzle. It was a typical scene when I entered the exam room, Bill seated in the chair, and Peanut Digger going nuts. We wrestled him onto the exam table, and I looked at a deep wound on the left side of his muzzle.

“They don’t get along so well,” Bill said. “I think she wasn’t quite ready for his attention. She sure surprised him, I hope it didn’t ruin their relationship.”

“This is a deep wound,” I said. “We will have to sedate Peanut Digger to get it cleaned up and closed. I don’t think he will hold still for it any other way.”

“I don’t think he will hold still for anything,” Bill said.

“If we are going to sedate him, I will make you a deal on a neuter,” I said, hoping that Bill would reconsider that option.

“Oh no, we are going to get this litter of pups even if we have to resort to artificial insemination,” Bill said.

Artificial insemination in the dog was one of my worst nightmares. The problem was collecting the semen from the dog. People requested the procedure, usually because they could not get the dogs to breed naturally. So then they bring them to a vet clinic, a real relaxing environment for most dogs, and expect someone to collect the male dog via some form of masturbation. In my experience, it just didn’t often work. And with Peanut Digger, I could not imagine getting it done.

“I don’t think AI would be an option with Peanut Digger,” I said. “We will sew up this wound, then you keep them apart. Put them together once or twice a day, with some supervision. Maybe have her on a leash. When she is finally accepting his advances, you breed them every other day for as long as she will accept him. That usually results in a pregnancy.”

It was no small feat, getting an IV catheter into Peanut Digger. But once that was done, sedating him was no problem. We gave him some IV Pentathol and some gas via a mask. I shaved the wound with a straight razor. Wound healing in animals requires a close shave of the wound edge. If you can do nothing else, shaving the wound will do a world of good. After scrubbing the wound, I closed the deep tissues with a continuous suture of Dexon and then sutured the skin with Nylon.

A couple of weeks later, Bill was back with Peanut Digger to get the sutures out. The wound had healed well, there will be no scar once the hair grows back. Trying to get the stitches out was something else again. Getting the hook of the suture scissors under a suture was little like hunting birds, you had to anticipate where his nose was going be because holding him still was impossible. But we got the job done.

“The wound is well healed,” I said. “Did you ever get him hooked up with his girlfriend?”

“Sure did, several times,” Bill said. “We should have pups in another 6 weeks or so.”

“Give me a call if you have problems,” I said. “Most of these dogs have puppies with no problems.”

It was a few months later when I noticed Bill’s name was in the last slot on the appointment book.

“I don’t know if I am up to Peanut Digger this afternoon,” I said to Dixie. “I am already worn out.”

“You’re in luck, it is the litter of puppies for vaccinations,” Dixie said. “That shouldn’t be any problem. But he said there were 7 puppies.”

I opened the exam room door to the most unbelievable commotion. There was Bill, seated in the chair as usual. And then there were seven Brittany pups, all males, running wild around the room. Seven male puppies, what are the odds of that. And every one of them was an exact replica of Peanut Digger.

Peanut Digger times 7, shouldn’t be any problem.

Photo by Anna Kimbell on Unsplash.