Mutt and Jeff

D. E. Larsen, DVM

Here they come, I could see them walking over from Safeway. My memory fails me to remember their names. Maybe a gap in my memory, but more likely, it was because of the nicknames I attached to them. I only used those names privately, mostly between Sandy and myself. But they fit the roles perfectly.

I think I probably reversed the names from the cartoon classics. I called the short one Mutt and the tall one Jeff. Mutt was shorter than I, maybe 5 feet 4 inches. He was stocky, and he had the face of a prizefighter, or perhaps a barroom brawler. His nose was squashed flat, and the deep wrinkles told of a rough life. Jeff, on the other hand, was tall and sort of thin, with a bit of beer belly. Jeff did most of the talking.

They were frequent visitors, mostly just after free information. But they would bring their dog in to visit a couple of times a year. 

I freely gave advice and instruction to established clients. I felt that education was part of my responsibility to my clients. Most clients respected this, and almost nobody abused my generosity. In those early years, I only sent a bill for consultation on a couple of occasions. Both of those small fees resulted in loud screams, but they served the desired purpose.

Jeff pushed through the door with Mutt right on his heels.

“Good morning, Doc,” Jeff said. Mutt nodded his head.

“Good morning,” I replied. “What brings you in today?”

“We have gone in partners and bought a steer,” Jeff said. “We got an outstanding deal, and he is a nice steer. We are planning to save a lot of money on meat when we butcher him.”

“You will probably do well if you take advantage of the Spring and early Summer grass and feed him a little grain also,” I said. “If he gains well, butchering him in the fall will save on buying a lot of winter feed.”

“He has a little problem this morning, and we are pretty worried about him,” Jeff said.

“He drooling slobber all over the place,” Mutt added.

“Yes, and he is not eating, holding his head funny, sort of extended,” Jeff said. “I think he might be bloated, but Mutt here doesn’t think that is the problem.”

“Well, I can’t tell you what his problem is without looking at him,” I said. “But it sounds like he is choked. Do you have an apple tree around?”

“Yes, we have him in Mutt’s sister’s orchard,” Jeff said. “There are apple and pear trees everywhere.”

“Maybe I should come out and get a look at him,” I suggested.

“If it is just an apple, maybe we can get it out. I think we will try that first,” Jeff said as they turned and headed out the door. 

Just as the door was closing, Jeff leaned back in and said, “Thanks, Doc.”

“Give them an hour, and they will be back,” I told Sandy. “You better mark me off for a farm call in the afternoon.”

“They never call, they must not have a phone,” Sandy said.

It was less than an hour, and they were back at the clinic. Pulling up to the front in their old pickup this time.

Jeff was talking even before he got through the door, a little excited this time.

“Mutt thinks you need to come to look at this guy right away,” Jeff said. 

“I think he is bloating,” Mutt added. “And we don’t want to lose him now.”

“Okay, I will come now and eat a late lunch,” I said. “Where do you have him?”

“You can follow us,” Jeff said. “It is almost to the top of the hill on Turbyne.”

As I headed out to the truck, I stopped and grabbed a wire coat hanger from the coat rack. Jeff sort of looked at that a little funny but did not say anything.

The trip up the hill only took a few minutes, and we pulled in a driveway that leads to a level spot where the orchard was located. The steer was tied to the corner of a small shed in the middle of the orchard.

It only took me a couple of minutes to ascertain that the steer was indeed choked. There were apples on the ground everywhere. Most of them were small.

“How are you going to get the apple, Doc?” Jeff asked. “Mutt wants to know.”

“This one is going to be easy,” I said. “It is just in the back of his throat. They are more difficult and even life-threatening if they are stuck in his esophagus in his chest.”

“Do you think you can get this one?” Jeff asked, anxiously. 

I went to the truck and retrieved the wire coat hanger and the nose tongs. I stepped on the coat hanger and stretched it out, leaving a bend in the middle about the size of the toe of my boot.

After securing the steer’s head with the nose tongs, I slide the bent end of the coat hanger down the roof of his mouth. I could feel the loop slip over the apple. One quick jerk on the hanger and the apple popped into the steer’s mouth. A loud belch of rumen gas followed the apple. It would be fine, but I looped it one more time and pulled the apple out of his mouth.

“He will be fine,” I said. But I would pick up these apples or at least cut them into a pieces. You don’t want to have me up here again.”

“That looked pretty simple,” Jeff said.

“Everything is simple when you know what you are doing,” I replied.

We didn’t see these guys again until an early morning in October. They pushed through the door, and Jeff had both elbows on the counter.

“How much do you charge to neuter a tomcat?” Jeff asked.

“By the time we vaccinate, deworm, and neuter him, it runs about forty dollars,” Sandy said.

“That’s a lot of money for a tomcat,” Mutt said. “Maybe we should do it ourselves like my grandfather used to do.”

Jeff looked at Mutt for a full minute. “You really think we can do that on him,” he said.

“Okay,” Jeff said, “We are going to do it ourselves.” And they turned and were gone in a flash.

Sandy came back to the treatment area and related the story to me.

“They will be back in a couple of hours, probably with the cat,” I said.

Sure enough, in the early afternoon, their old pickup pulled up to the front of the clinic. They were struggling to get a large box out of the cab.

I came up and stood behind the counter. I didn’t want to miss this story.

“We are just going to leave this cat here, Doc,” Jeff said, almost out of breath.

“You just take care of him, and we will be back in a day or two to pick him up,” Mutt said.

“Yes, we tried to neuter him,” Jeff started. “Mutt here figured he would do the cutting, and I would do the holding because I was taller. So I sat in a chair and clamped this guy between my thighs. I have ahold of the back of his neck and his tail. I am hold him real tight. Then Mutt, here, takes his pocketknife that he had just sharpened, and grabs the nuts of this cat.”

“Doc, I am telling you, it started as a low rumble, then it just sort of exploded. I am telling you, Doc, for a couple of minutes there, I didn’t know who was going to get neutered. This cat damn near ruined me.”

“Jeff, you go take care of yourself,” I said. “You might want to see a doctor if you have bite wounds. We will take care of the cat until you get back to pick him up.”

My Pocket Knife

D. E. Larsen, DVM

I have a vivid memory of having only a single request for a present for Christmas in 1950. I was five years old, and the only thing I wished for was a pocket knife. I was delighted when I opened the small package. It wasn’t much of a knife, small and thin with a single blade and fake pearl on the handle. But it was a pocket knife and for me, probably my first rite of passage. Virtually everybody in my life carried a pocket knife, my brothers, my father, my grandfather, and all my uncles. Now I was closer to that group of men.

I carried that knife, or others, every day since that Christmas. I don’t remember the pocket knife being much of a thing at school until about the third grade. At that time, skills with the knife became essential to the other boys (and a few girls) and me. Being able to ‘stick’ the knife when thrown, at the ground, at a wall he or in the chest of invading Russian, became a valuable skill.

  We played knife games before and after school and during recess. Mumbly-Peg was the main game played. We would stand to face each other, maybe 3 feet apart. The object of the game was to throw your knife a distance out from your opponent’s foot. If the knife stuck, the opponent would have to move his foot to the knife and then retrieve your knife. Then it was his turn. If the knife did not stick, then you lost a turn. The winner was determined when someone could not spread his feet far enough and could not retrieve your knife.

We also played a Cross Country game where you would throw your knife from a starting point, and you could advance to the knife if it stuck. There was a goal line, usually the fence around the schoolyard, and the first to reach the goal line won the game. 

In those years, 3 – 6 grades, I would go to school with my knife and a pocket of marbles. Marbles were also huge in the lives of most of the student body. There are not many pictures that survive those school days at Broadbent Elementary School. Cameras were not in every pocket in those days. 

      You can tell from this picture that the economic status of the school students was far different than what you see today. If you look closely at our shoes, you can read a lot into the picture. Jimmy was from a family less well to do than ours; he is in rubber boots. My shoes are new and too large for my feet. We got new shoes only at the start of the school year, and they were sturdy, work shoe types, and always large enough to allow the growth during the school year. These shoes would become my work shoes next year. The funny thing is that we were all poor, but we didn’t realize it. 

From these humble beginnings, most of us turned out pretty good. Jimmy became a minister of a church in Washington. Like so many men in my age group, he recently died from liver cancer from Agent Orange exposure in Vietnam.

As the years have passed, I have continued to carry a pocket knife. Even today, I feel naked if I don’t have one. Naked to the point of returning to the house to retrieve it if I get to town and realize that it is not in my pocket.

With the urbanization of our culture and the advent of political correctness, I have come to strenuously resent those who would call my pocket knife a weapon. To me, it is an essential tool that I use daily. In recent years that might be limited to opening boxes, but in the past, I have used it to kill fish, gut deer, peel oranges, open cans when camping and slice meat. The blade usually gets cleaned by a good swipe across a pants leg when necessary.

I have used my knife professionally also. Not often, but I can remember saving at least one life with my pocket knife. It was in the early winter when I was called to look at a backyard goat who was down and could not get up. Wintertime was often a time when those animals who were not fed well started to suffer from environmental stress. Backyard goats were often expected to survive on berry vines growing in the back yard. The first freezing weather would show the ones who had no reserve, and they were essentially starving to death.

We received a call to look at a goat who couldn’t stand. Arriving at the house, the driveway was packed with cars. We had to park some distance from the house. Dixie was with me on this call. Dixie was a short, trim, blonde girl who had worked for me almost from the beginning of my practice in Sweet Home. We walked up the driveway to the open garage, where a group of men was working on something. At the outside corner of the garage was a small, pitiful little goat laying flat out.

I knelt and did a brief exam. This gal was pregnant; you could see the kids kicking at her belly. She was skin and bones. I didn’t think there was any hope for her. The owner came over as I stood up. Jim was a young man with a full head of dark hair, the hand he extended was smooth and had no sign of a callous.

“What do you suppose is her problem?” he asked as we shook hands.

“Agroceryosis!” I said. “She is starving to death. I know everyone thinks you can tie a goat in a brier patch, and they will do well, but this little gal is pregnant and still trying to grow a little herself. I doubt if we can save her.”

No sooner than the words were out of my mouth, and she took her last breath. We stood for a moment and looked at the lifeless little goat. Then there was a noticeable kick on her belly. 

Dixie and I exchanged glances. “Run,” I said, “get a scalpel blade.”

Dixie was off like a shot. I watched her, and the kick in the goat’s belly. It is too far, I thought. She will not make it in time. I reached in my pocket and pulled out my knife. I hope it is sharp enough.

With a stiff swipe, I opened the abdomen. I pulled the uterus to the edge of the wound and opened it only slightly more carefully. I grabbed one kid by the neck and pulled him out of the open uterus. No pulse, hopefully, the next one will still be alive. I reached into the uterus and found a foot; it retracted from my grasp. I reached deeper and grabbed the kid by the back of his pelvis. He came out with one pull.

About this time, Dixie returned with the blade. A little out of breath, she was quick to turn her attention to clearing the airway of the little surviving kid. It took a deep breath, shook its head, flapping his ears, and then let out a short bleat.  

We took care of his navel, gave a dose of BoSe, and milked out what little milk was in mama’s udder. We gave him the milk with a stomach tube.

“You got lucky,” I said to Jim. “This kid will give your kids something to for a few months.”

Then, with a little bit of my Army voice, I said, “You need to drop by the office in the next hour or two. We will discuss what you need to do to raise this little guy and how to care for him later. We can also hook you up with a goat lady in Brownsville who has a herd of goats and will be able to help you out with some milk and more advice.”

Dixie smiled as I wiped my knife blade on my pants leg, folded in closed, and returned it to my pocket.

“I will remember that the next time you offer me a slice of apple off that blade,” she said.

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.