Dinner is in the Oven

D. E. Larsen, DVM

One of the most enjoyable things about veterinary medicine is the people you get to know and the trusting relationships that develop with those clients.

One young man was telling me about the first few weeks of his marriage. He was a logger, a choker setter to be exact. Anyone who knows anything about logging knows that these young choker setters work for a living. They burn a lot of calories during their day’s work, and they need a good meal to replace those calories in the evening.

Anyway, this young man was in love with this gal. They got married and took a few days off work for a short honeymoon on the coast. A few days was probably more than he could afford, but that is what happened.

A few days later, he brings his cat for shots. After the exam, he asks, “Doc, do you have a few minutes to talk,”

I have never understood how veterinarians become counselors. Still, people often seek our advice of problems far removed from veterinary medicine.

“Sure, I have some time, just don’t ask for marriage advice,” I reply.

And then he starts in on a long story.

“We got home to our new apartment on Sunday afternoon last week,” he said. “We had it pretty well ready to live in, but we needed to go to the grocery store. I needed lunch stuff for the morning, and we needed food for breakfast and dinner.”

“I was a little concerned when Susie filled the shopping cart with items from the freezer case,” he said. “Mostly justTV dinner type stuff. But, you know, Doc, I had a lot else on my mind, and I just figured she was going to make things easy for a few days.”

“I got up early on Monday morning, I made my lunch. Look in the refrigerator, there were no eggs or bacon. I just figured I would stop at Molley’s for a breakfast sandwich,” he explained.

“I got home in the middle of the afternoon. showered and shaved,” the young man continued. “I greeted Susie when she came through the door.”

“I am as hungry as a bear,” I said.

“She acts a little alarmed,” he said, ” but with that little twinkle in her eye, she says, “Okay, I will get dinner going right away””

“Doc, I sat on the couch and turned on the TV as she was busy in the kitchen,” he said. “In what seemed like no time at all, she is back from the kitchen and curls up beside me.”

“The timer is set,” she said. “My grandmother said it would be easy.”

“That seemed like a strange comment,” he said, “but I was engrossed in other thoughts.”

“It wasn’t very long, and the smoke detector goes off,” he said.
“Those new things were more of an annoyance than anything. We ignored it for the moment. Then there was real smoke billowing out of the kitchen.”

“I jumped up and ran to the kitchen,” he said. “Susie called the fire department.”

“They said they were only a couple blocks away and would be there in a moment,” he continued.

“When I got to the kitchen, there was one hell of a fire in the oven,” he said. “I looked for a fire extinguisher. Hell, I didn’t know what to do.”

“All of a sudden couple of firemen burst through the door,” he said. “They opened the oven and doused the flames.”

“What the hell were you cooking?” the fireman asked.
“Sue was peeking around the corner,” he said. “She says to the fireman, ‘Just a couple of TV dinners.'”

“Doc, the fireman looks in the oven and then he looks back at Sue,” the young man explained, “with as straight of a face as he could muster, he says to Sue, “You are supposed to take them out of the box before you put them in the oven!”, I thought I would die.”

“I tell you, Doc,” the young man said, “she can’t boil water.”

“Well, you obviously didn’t marry her to have a cook,” I replied. “That old wive’s tale, about the way to a man’s heart, is through his stomach, that was made up to use in polite company. I guess you already know that you are going to be doing the cooking.”

Photo by Kristin Vogt on Pexels.

Table Manners for the Old Dog

D. E. Larsen,DVM

   Frank pushed through the door with Harley. Harley was an old yellow lab, very overweight, and suffering from arthritis due to all the extra weight.  

   “I need to see Doc, right away if possible!” he said abruptly. “Old Harley, he is not eating much since Kara passed. I’m not eating much either, for that matter.”

   Frank and Kara had been very close and worked together on their small farm out at Liberty. Harley was always happy to see me when I would make a farm call, but in the office, he knew he was the one to get the shot, not the cows. Today he sort of looked confused, like he was not sure what was going to happen next. 

   “Let’s get a weight on him, and then I will get Dave to get him up on the table,” Sandy said as she started for the scale at the end of the hall.

   “Harley, you have not lost any weight, you still weigh 108 lbs,” Sandy said, patting Harley on the head as she ushered them into the exam room. “I will get Dave, it will just be a minute.”

   I came into the exam room and swooped Harley up with both arms under his chest and belly and landed him on the exam table.

   “One of these days, you won’t be able to do that, Doc!” Frank said.

  “What brings you and Harley in to see me today?” I asked Frank with some concern in my voice. I knew things must be hard on both of them, Kara was the world to both of them.

   “Will, I am telling you Doc, old Harley here is not eating. I tell you that, and Sandy tells me he is not losing any weight. Now, how can that be, Doc?” Frank asks.

   “He must be eating something. Maybe he is cleaning up the grain after the cows.” I said.

  “No! He doesn’t eat a bite of his dog food. The only thing he eats is what he begs from me at the table. Maybe I give him more than I figure,” Frank says.

   I do a full exam on Harley, something I do with every patient. Start at the nose and end at the tip of the tail.

   “Everything looks fine, he just needs to lose some weight, like ten pounds for a starter,” I said as I lift Harley off the table. He is happy now, no shot, and he knows a treat is coming. He snatches the treat out of my hand, and it is gone in a second.

“One thing I never understand about dogs,” I said, “that treat touches his tongue of a tenth of a second, but he thinks it is the best-tasting thing in the world right now.”

   “One thing I never understand about you Vets,” Frank says, “you tell me he needs to lose weight, and then you feed him. Now, don’t you go and try to sell me some of that damn expensive dog food you have. He won’t eat a bite.”

“I won’t sell you any dog food. You just have to stop feeding him from the table. And I give him a treat so he will like coming back here. You know I have some patients who don’t think well of me.”

  “Okay, Doc, I will quit feeding him from the table. But you know, Kara has been gone for over a year now.  There is not a lot of joy in our house, for Harley or for me. Feeding him from the table is something we both enjoy.”

   “I know you guys have gone through a lot in the last year or more, but you want this guy to be around for a while. Don’t kill him with kindness. You eat your dinner, don’t look at him, or put him outside. Then you go outside and throw the ball for him a little. Don’t get so vigorous that he tears out a knee, just a little exercise. Then you sit on the front porch with him while he eats his dinner.” I explain.

   “You think that will really work, Doc?” Frank asks.

   “It might take a few days or a week or so. If the ball isn’t his thing, go for a little walk with him. What you do is not important, just spend a few minutes with him. It might even make you feel better.” I reply. “Now you do that, and then you come back in a few months, and we will talk again while Sandy gets a new weight on Harley. It doesn’t have to be an office visit.”

   As is often the case, it was over a full year before I heard anything from Frank. He had called, wanting me to look at a cow that was not coming into heat. Frank had a small place and maybe a dozen cows. He usually borrowed a bull from one of his neighbors. Not the best practice, but they were all small farms, and most of the herds were very stable. So there was not a significant risk of introducing a reproductive disease. It also meant that he needed to get his cows all bred within 2 cycles, 3 cycles at the most. He had not seen this cow in heat since he picked up the bull almost 2 months ago. If she didn’t cycle soon, she would miss her chance to get pregnant, and Frank would have to send her down the road to the sale barn.

   When I turned into the driveway, I could see Frank and Harley down by the barn. It looked like they had the cow in the small corral. Frank did not have a squeeze chute, we would have to rope her and tie her head. That would make the job a little more difficult.

   Frank’s farm was neat as a pin. Spoke of his German roots. There was nothing out of place, any manure in the corral would be quickly picked up and placed in the manure pile at the back corner of the barn. When Kara was alive, I would have to be watchful when I was working on a cow. She would be picking up manure as it fell, I would have to dodge the pitchfork as best I could. The house was close to the road. It was a small house with a large front porch, painted off white and with new black shingles on the roof. The yard was large, both front and back, and unlike the majority of farmhouses around here and where I grew up, the front door was used as the main entry. Today I noticed a new car, a little blue Ford, parked outside the garage behind the house.

   Frank and Harley were quick to greet me when I pulled up to the corral. I opened the back of my truck and pulled out the rope.

“How are things, Frank?” I asked. “It looks like you and Harley are a little brighter than when I last saw you at the clinic. Harley is trimmer, too.”

   “Yes, things have been going pretty good lately. Old Harley expects me the throw the ball a little every night, just like you suggested, Doc. I think it’s has helped us both,” Frank said.

   “Let’s get this cow looked at,” I say as I crawl over the fence with my rope in hand. I toss the lasso at the cow as she turns to the left to avoid the throw.  The rope neatly falls over her head. I pull it tight and throw the free end over the fence to Frank.

  “Take a wrap around the post there and take up the slack as I pull her into the fence,” I say as I start to pull the cow toward the fence. She probably has a name, I think to myself. She is tame, almost seems halter broke, and getting her snubbed up the post is not a problem.

   “Give me some slack, Frank, and I will get a loop around her nose, so she doesn’t choke herself,” I say.

   Frank lets out some slack, and I pull a loop of the rope through the lasso and loop it over her nose. This essentially makes a halter and prevents the noose from tightening around her neck and choking her.

   “Okay, Frank, if you could grab that other rope in the back of the truck, I will sideline her so I can do a rectal exam without chasing her rear end.”

   Frank hands me the rope, and I thread it around her neck and between her front legs, so when I closed the loop with the quick release latch, it includes her right front leg. This also is to prevent her from being choked if she struggles. I string the rope down her right side and take a wrap around the next fence post. When I pull it tight, it holds her left side against the fence. This will allow me to do a thorough rectal exam with my left arm. I am right-handed, but we were trained to use the left hand for rectal exams, so your right hand would be free to make notes or whatever is necessary.

   “What’s her name?” I ask Frank.

   “Kara called her Flossy. She was a favorite of Kara’s. That’s one reason I am anxious to get her pregnant. Will, in reality, it probably doesn’t matter Doc, I wouldn’t sell her anyway,” Frank explains.

   I pull the fingers off a plastic OB sleeve and pull it on my left arm. Then I put on a latex exam glove on my left hand. Then I pull the fingers off another OB sleeve and pull in on. This will give me full digital sensitivity and protect my hand and arm from manure. 

   After applying ample lube to my gloved hand, I grasp Flossy’s tail with my right hand and ease my left hand into her rectum. I remove several handfuls of manure from her distal colon. Then I insert my hand and arm up to my elbow. Then I sweep my hand over the brim of the pelvis. This is going to be an easy exam. The uterus is full. Flossy is pregnant, judging from the size of the cotyledons, those ‘buttons’ where the bovine placenta attaches to the uterus, I would say she was 4 months pregnant. I remove my arm and pull off the sleeves, being careful to turn them inside out as I remove them.

   “That was quick,” Frank says.

   “What is the most common reason a cow doesn’t cycle?” I ask Frank.

   “How the hell do I know, that’s why I hired you,” he replies.

   “Flossy is pregnant, probably 4 months along,” I say.

   “Impossible, there hasn’t been a bull on the place since last year,” Frank says emphatically.

“There is no question about the pregnancy, and time will confirm that. Just have to wait about 5 months. So there had to be a bull here somehow. Are you sure a neighbor’s bull didn’t jump the fence?” I said.

   “No way, there is nothing here except the cows and a couple of steers. They are getting near market weight,” Frank replies.

   “How were the steers castrated?” I ask.

   “I banded them when they little, they are about 2 years old now,” Frank replied, a little defensive now.

   “You must have missed a testicle on one of them. That is a common error, you think have both testicles in the scrotum, then when you release the rubber band, one testicle slips through the band is above the scrotum. The majority of retained testicles will not be fertile, but in reproduction, 100% certainty is difficult to obtain,” I explain.

   “That is sort of academic now. Flossy is pregnant, and you might find you have one or two the other cows calving early this year. The steers with be at market soon, so that issue is fixed. Next Spring, give me a call and I will show how to castrate young calves with a knife. That solves this problem as long as you can count to two. Plus, you end up with some nice mountain oysters to fry up,” I say.

   “I don’t know about mountain oysters. We have enough problems with regular stuff around here anymore. Peg has been doing the cooking lately,” Frank says.

   “Peg?” I ask.

   “Margaret McFadden, we call her Peg, me and old Harley,” Frank replies.

   “Yes, I know Margaret. Her and Hank used to come into the clinic. I think Hank died a few years ago,” I say.

   “My neighbor talked me into going to the Senior Center downtown. You know, a man can’t walk into that place alone without being jumped on by half the old women in the place,” Frank says as he explains their meeting. “Anyway, Peg was sort of quiet, like me. We hit it off pretty well. She has been coming out here and trying to get things straightened out.”

  “So that must explain that new little car up at the house,” I say.

  Peg was a short woman, thin but rather striking for an older lady. Her gray hair still had streaks of black in it, giving a hint to her jet black hair as a younger lady. Her facial features were almost stern until she smiled. If she had a defect, it was the prominent mole on the right side of her jaw. I often found myself looking at it rather than at her eyes. I am sure it bothered her some because she would usually cover it with her hand when she was talking. I often wondered why she didn’t have it removed.

“Yes, that is Peg’s car. She doesn’t like to ride in my old farm truck. She is sort of a city girl, you know,” Frank says. “For the most part, we get along fine. We have been talking about getting married, or at least living in the same house. But you know what they say, a skinny woman probably doesn’t like to cook. You go into a restaurant operated by a skinny woman, and you get good salads,” Frank said.

   “You might have to do the cooking, Frank,” I said

  “Now, I’m not saying anything about her cooking, but she sure cured old Harley from begging at the table,” Frank says.

Photo by superloop on Unsplash

Cowboy Education

Cowboy Education

D. E. Larsen, DVM

During the fall of my junior year in vet school, I worked part-time for Monforts of Colorado. At the time I worked for them, they ran two feedlots with about 100,000 head of cattle in each lot. My job was to work in the hospital during the weekends. This was an excellent opportunity for me. I was able to see a lot of management of a large feedlot and a lot of feedlot medicine. I also learned that education happens in more places than in the classroom.

The hospital for the Greeley feedlot was small but well laid out. There was a crowding pen that led to the treatment chute. The cattle that stayed for multiple days were held in a series of small holding pens, arranged according to the treatment group they were assigned. Treatment protocols were established by the feedlot veterinarian. As a hospital technician, I just did the daily treatments called for by the established protocol.

For example, the pneumonia protocol (the most common) called for 5 days in the hospital with IV antibiotics each morning and often some supportive medication if needed. Steers were treated, and the treatment was recorded on their record. They were returned to the treatment pen after they were treated. Any steers with unsatisfactory progress were put into another treatment group, and the protocol was intensified.

Each morning the cowboys would meet in the hospital and get ready for their day. While they drank their coffee, they would assign the pens that each group would check. In the central feedlot, the steers were held in large pens of approximately 500 head each. Two cowboys would ride through each pen each morning and check for sick or injured steers. During these morning sessions, they would make sure everyone knew if there were questionable steers from the previous day’s ride that needed to be double-checked. It was also time for them to kid the young ‘doctors’ working on the weekends. I was a little older than most of the guys who worked in the hospital, and I could hold my own most of the time.

After the cowboys mounted their horses and started out for their assigned pens, we would start with the daily treatment schedules. Our goal was to get all the hospital treatments completed before the cowboys were back with the new steers for diagnosis and treatment.

During the ride through the pens, if they found any steers needing treatment, they would cut him out of the large pen and put him in a holding pen until they had a group of 10 to 12 steers. These steers were then herded to the hospital by a couple of the cowboys. They would help us get them into the crowding pen, and they would relay any particular information to us that would help with the diagnosis. They also took the time to make sure the young doctors were teased a little.

This one morning in November was a bright, cold late fall morning in Northern Colorado. It was frigid, and the hospital was the only warm place available to anyone. We had the doors closed, and the electric ceiling heater was turned up full blast. 

I was herding the last steer back to the hospital pens when the first group of new steers arrived from the central feedlot. The cowboys herded them into the crowding pen. When I got back to the hospital and warmed myself by standing under the heater blowing warm air, Eli Hernandez already had a steer in the treatment chute. Eli was the lead cowboy. He was a large Hispanic man, he towered over me. I considered him an old man in those days, that means he was probably in his early 50’s. His worn face told of his years of working in the sun. His large belly suggested that he drank a beer or two. I am sure his horse was enjoying the morning break.

Eli was anxious for me to look at this steer. “Doc,” he said, “what do you think about that mass on this steer?”

This was a test, and I understood that it was a test. Eli was really going to find out what kind of a cow doctor this kid was. I was going to have to make some thoughtful comments. This was a massive swelling on the right side of the abdomen. I had no idea what it could be, maybe a hernia, or could be a tumor. One thing I had been taught was it is okay to admit you don’t know something as long as you could illustrate a plan to find out what was wrong.

“I have no idea, Eli. We will probably have to stick a needle into it and get a sample under the microscope.” I replied.

Eli listened as he was cleaning his fingernails with a large pocket knife.

“Yeah, Doc, you get your needle ready, I have got to get back to the pens,” he said, half chuckling under his breath.

He looked down on me with a broad smile as he turned for the door. As he walked by the chute, he made a quick swipe at the bulging mass on the side of the steer. His knife was obviously very sharp, and it sliced through the skin like butter, opening a large gash in the belly of the steer.

The pus poured out of the swelling like you were pouring milk from a large pail. Eli made more look back at me as he opened the door. He still had a big smile, but there was no malice in his glance. Just like a professor who had provided a good lesson.

There was limited circulation of air in the hospital when it was buttoned up against the cold outside. The odor was suddenly overwhelming. Steam rose from the growing puddle of pus on the floor. There must be 5 gallons of pus on the floor, and it was reaching the drain very slowly. I headed for the garage door that had been closed all morning and pulled it open. The air was cold, but at least you could take a deep breath. Then I grabbed the hose and washed the bulk of the pus down the drain.

That taken care of, I turned to the steer. Eli had probably seen this type of abscess many times before and knew that drainage was the first line of treatment. The gash that he had made was maybe 6 inches long. That was good. This abscess needed adequate drainage to allow for the healing of the tissues on the inside of the abscess. This could take a couple of weeks.

The problem was the gallon of pus at the bottom of the abscess, below the gash. I shaved the area around the gash and down the abdomen so I could open the abscess at its lowest margin. I scrubbed the area with Betadine Surgical Scrub. Then injected some lidocaine into the gash and into the area of the planned opening. That done, I used a scalpel to open the abscess on its ventral margin. This time I caught the pus in a bucket. The smell still filled the room, but it was easier to clean up.  The open garage door provided some air circulation. With the drainage complete, I threaded a large Penrose drain through the upper gash and out the lower incision. I tied the drain in a loop so it would stay in place for as long as it was needed.

Next, I flushed the abscess with a bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide. This made a lot of foam and probably provided some mechanical cleaning. I followed the Peroxide with dilute Betadine. The large gash was large enough to allow me to reach my gloved hand and arm into the abscess. I removed several large chunks of consolidated pus and explored the body wall to ensure it was intact. Then I found the culprit, a large splinter laying in the bottom of the abscess. Probably from a fence rail or a feed bunk. This abscess grew so large before it was detected because the steer would act normal until the size of the swelling started to interfere with his function. When looking at 500 steers, the cowboys look for steers acting less than normal.

Next, I gave a hefty dose of Combiotic, a Penicillin/Streptomycin combination, an antibiotic combination in use at that time.  No worry about flies in this weather. This steer would be in the hospital for a week or two.

The diagnosis was an obvious abscess. This would be a common problem for me in the years to come. The size of the thing was what was exceptional. Turns out to be one of those once in a lifetime diagnoses. In over 40 years of practice, I have never seen anything to come close to the size of this abscess.