Bicycle Mishap for Tucker, From the Archives

D. E. Larsen, DVM

June and her two boys, Joe and Josh, were waiting impatiently in the reception with what looked like a rather painful Tucker.

Tucker was about a three-year-old Springer Spaniel who was usually bouncing off the walls in the clinic. Today he was standing, hunched up and reluctant to move. Something must be terribly wrong.

Dixie had them in the exam room, but Tucker was so painful that he was still on the floor.

“What’s up with Tucker?” I asked when I entered the room.

“Joe ran over him with his bicycle a couple of hours ago,” June said as Joe held up his elbow to show me a road rash he had sustained. “He seemed okay when it happened but then started getting painful. Just a little painful at first, but then it started getting worse. He doesn’t want to move now.”

I squatted down to look at Tucker, and he snarled as I reached out to touch him.

“I think I had better fashion a little muzzle for him,” I said. “He is so painful he doesn’t want to be touched.”

“He won’t bite,” June said.

“Under normal circumstances, that may be true,” I said. “But when a dog is painful, he will bite, I assure you. So just to be safe, I am going to tie his mouth with a loop of gauze.”

I took about three feet of roll gauze and made a loop in the middle with one throw. I placed the loop over Tucker’s muzzle and pulled it tight with the throw on top of his muzzle. Then I crossed the gauze under his muzzle and tied the ends behind his head.

Then leaving Tucker on the floor, I carefully started to run my hands over him to find the source of his pain. Tucker snarled at my very touch.

Tucker showed no response as my hands started at his nose and moved over his head and down his neck. There was no pain in his front legs or chest. I stood up and moved behind Tucker to carefully palpate his back and hips. He tensed and growled when I started to palpate his hind legs, but that growl stopped when I reached his knees and lower legs. I carefully pushed on his abdomen, no pain was detected. I moved back to his hind legs, and the growl started again. I lifted his rear up to look closer, and there it was.

Tucker’s right testicle was almost twice the size of his left testicle. I reached to touch the swollen testicle, and Tucker sort of exploded. Without the muzzle, I would have been bitten. Tucker maintained contact with my left arm with his muzzled mouth, just to make sure I wouldn’t try to touch that again.

“Well, it looks like I found it,” I said. “Tucker must have gotten a testicle ran over.”

“I am shocked,” June said. “I have never seen him act like that before.”

“Don’t hold it against him,” I said. “When these guys are really painful, that is their only defense.”

“What do we need to do with him,” June asked.

“I need to get him under anesthesia and figure out what happened to that testicle,” I said. “My guess is that it is going have to be removed. I just need to make sure there is not a hernia involved.”

“It looks like that is our only choice,” June said. “Can you do that right away?”

“I have a couple of things to do first, but we will give him some pain stuff while he waits for surgery,” I said. “The best thing would be to take both of those things while we are doing this. It really wouldn’t add anything to the surgery bill and would make a better dog out of him.”

“I will ask Jerry, but we have talked about neutering Tucker before, and Jerry is pretty dead set against it,” June said. “Sort of a guy thing, I guess.”

“Okay, but just between you and I, Tucker’s life will be much happier if he is neutered,” I said. “He won’t be worrying about that little chippy down the street. Or fighting with the big dog down there with her.”

“I know,” June said. “But I’m afraid there is no changing Jerry’s mind.”

“Okay, I will plan to only remove the injured testicle unless I hear from you,” I said. “We will be getting to surgery in an hour or so. Is that enough time for you to talk with Jerry?”

“I think so,” June said. “But if you don’t hear from me, just remove the injured testicle.

I gave Tucker a dose of Innovar for pain and put him in a kennel while we finished things up so we could get him into surgery.

June called the clinic just before we started into surgery with Tucker to confirm that Jerry did not want to remove both testicles unless necessary. 

“You could tell him a little white lie,” Dixie said with a smile. She knew I would not do that.

“I have to be able to live with myself,” I said. “Telling little lies makes that hard to do, and it leads to bigger lies. Pretty soon, you can’t remember what you said to whom.”

We prepped Tucker, and I made a mid-line incision in front of the scrotum. Then, pushing the injured testicle into the incision, I incised the soft tissues over the testicle and pushed the testicle out of the incision.

The problem was immediately apparent. There was a full two twists in the cord of the testicle, a testicular torsion. There was no saving this testicle. The bicycle wheel must have spun this testicle as it ran over it.

At this point, I opened the tunic covering the testicle. I completed a standard orchiectomy, removing the injured testicle and closing the incision.

We recovered Tucker from anesthesia, and we had the old Tucker back, bouncing around the kennel. He was ready to go home.

I called June to give her the news. 

“June, Tucker can go home anytime this afternoon,” I said. “He had a complete torsion of his right testicle. The bicycle wheel must have spun it around a couple of times. There was no saving the testicle, but Tucker is wide awake and bouncing around like the old Tucker we know.”

When Tucker was picked up, he was jumping up and licking at the faces of both Joe and Josh, showing no remorse for the accident, if he was even aware of it at all.

Photo by John Debrey on Unsplash

Run for Your Life, From the Archives

D. E. Larsen, DVM

Joe always wanted Comet checked for one thing or the other. He was waiting for his turn in the exam room with Comet on his lap. Comet was a young Whippet. There was not an ounce of fat on his entire body. I could about define every muscle on him, just looking.

“What’s up with Comet today,” I asked as Joe placed him carefully on the exam table?

“I have been reading about heartworms, Doc,” Joe said. “I thought maybe I better have you check Comet and get him on some medication.”

“We have just completed a statewide heartworm survey,” I said. “One of the drug companies paid for it. Most of the clinics in the state collected blood samples from 100 dogs. They ran all those samples, and they say we have about a two percent incidence of heartworms in native Oregon dogs.” 

“That doesn’t sound like it is too serious,” Joe said. 

“Not too serious at this point, but they claim that is pretty standard for how heartworms invade an area. It will be in low numbers for several years, and then all of a sudden, it is a major problem.”

“Well, even if it is a low-risk thing, I think I want to get Comet on some medication,” Joe said. “You know how I am about him. He means as much to me as any of the kids.”

“I know, Joe, you have him with you all the time,” I said. “The kids come and go.”

“Now, don’t you tell my wife that I said that. She would be upset with me,” Joe said.

“Let me get a blood sample from Comet, and we will see if we can get him on some medication,” I said. “This new drug, Ivomectin, is a little bit of a problem with Greyhounds and Whippets. But the dose used for heartworm prevention is low enough that it is not an issue.”

“Whatever you think, Doc,” Joe said. 

“The risk of the medication causing a problem is very small, Joe. But then, the risk of infection is also minimal. At this point, where you live out on a hillside with few neighbors, I think it is your call.”

“That hillside is one of my concerns,” Joe said. “We are getting into quite a coyote problem. They are getting so brave that they come right down into the yard and bother Comet. I don’t him catching anything from them.”

Comet tested negative for heartworms, and we started him on a new preventative medication. 

“You give him one of these tablets once a month,” I said. “Try to give it on the same day of the month, but you have a few days leeway if you forget.”

It was several months later when Joe returned to the clinic. He was distraught, and his body odor told that he had not bathed in several days.

“Doc, Comet is gone,” Joe said as he leaned hard on the counter, tears welled up in his eyes. “Those coyotes ate him, I am sure.”

“What happened,” I asked?

“Three of those damn coyotes came into the yard and started to attack Comet. Before I could do anything, Comet took off like a shot. You know those Whippets can run. The coyotes were right on his tail.”

“I doubt that those coyotes could catch Comet. I know of ranchers in Colorado who keep Greyhounds to hunt coyotes. Those Greyhounds just run them down.”

“Maybe a half-hour after they left the yard, the whole pack of coyotes were yipping up a storm. I am sure they got him. And he hasn’t been home, and that was four days ago. I don’t know what I am going to do without him.”

“Joe, you need to go home and take care of yourself. Take a shower and get cleaned up. Maybe have the kids help you build a little memorial in the yard of Comet. Then go out for a good dinner. Comet would want you to have a normal life.”

“Yes, you are probably right, Doc,” Joe said. “I brought this package of pills back. I only used a few, and maybe you can give them to someone who doesn’t have the money to afford them.”

“We are not supposed to do that, but we keep a few things in the cabinet, just for such a client.”

“That poor man,” Sandy said after Joe left. “That dog was his whole life.”

“He will be okay,” I said. “It will just take a little time and some diversion.”

It was only a few days later when Joe exploded through the door. Exuberant, he had a smile from ear to ear. He had combed his hair, and he was well dressed.

“Doc, I want to thank you for your advice,” Joe said.

“You look happy,” I said.

“Let me tell you the story,” Joe said. “I went home the other day and tried to take your advice, but I couldn’t get myself up to it. I laid around another couple of days. Finally, I looked at the yard, and boy, it needed to be mowed. So I went out and started the lawnmower, mowed the yard, and then I took the boys down to Hoy’s Hardware to buy stuff for a memorial. And what do you know, when we got home, there was Comet, sitting in the middle of the driveway, waiting for us. I was so happy. I almost ran the pickup into the house.”

“That is great news,” I said. “I bet that Comet ran so fast and so far that he didn’t know the way home. When you started the lawnmower, you probably gave him some bearings on how to get home. I didn’t think a coyote could catch him.”

“You are probably correct,” Joe said. “This time of the year, I mow the lawn at least once a week, maybe twice, if I get bored. So Comet would know the sound for sure.”

“I would give you those pills back, but I gave them to an old guy this morning,” I said with a smile on my face.

“That’s okay. I will gladly buy some more,” Joe said.

“No,” I laughed. “I will grab them for you. I was pulling your leg a little.”

Photo by Mitchell Orr on Unsplash

The Coffee Break

D. E. Larsen, DVM

I come from a large extended family. My mother was one of ten children. I was one of twenty-nine grandchildren. I was sort of leading the bottom third of that group age-wise. 

We were a relatively successful bunch for a group of grandchildren of a farm family rooted in the narrow Catching Creek valley out of Myrtle Point. My oldest cousin had a Ph.D. from Cornell and worked for IBM in the early days of computer production. He ultimately became the Dean of Engineering at San Jose State University. He was sixteen years my senior.

There were many teachers in the group and a scattering of professionals. Most importantly, there were a few storytellers. Not authors, just storytellers. You know, the ones who could hold the entire group’s attention for a few minutes as they would weave their tale.

My favorite was Bill Davenport. Bill was probably twelve years older than me. He was in the Army just after the Korean War and spent a tour with the occupation forces in Europe.

One of his stories often told was of his train ride across the country as he was on his way to Europe. His mother had made him two tuna fish sandwiches for the trip. The train ride took several days, and on a private’s pay, he couldn’t afford any of the food on the train. He damn near starved before he reached Boston.

He talked of the fishing season on Catching Creek starting when the fish started biting. And the limit was when you got tired of catching fish. 

But my favorite story, often told during our annual family gathering for the fourth of July at the Davenport Grove, located on the home ranch on Catching Creek, was The Coffee Break.

After he was out of the Army and married, Bill started with the Oregon State Police. His initial station, which he called his internship, was at Gold Beach, Oregon. Located on the southern Oregon Coast at the mouth of the Rouge River.

In the mid-1950s, Gold Beach was a sleepy little coastal town. There were some loggers, fishermen, and a few prospectors, but not much else. It was a pretty quiet place to start learning the ropes of a state trooper.

But there was a bank robbery in Myrtle Point one afternoon, and the robber escaped out of town on the back roads through Arago and across Lampa Mountain to Bandon, where he started down the coast.

The State Police in Gold Beach set up a roadblock. Bill was not involved in the roadblock. He was probably too green. There was a shootout, and the bank robber was shot and killed.

The law required that the coroner examine the body. The nearest coroner was in Coos Bay, a two-hour drive on the crooked coastal highway in 1950.

They called the coroner, and he was busy. He told them to bring the body to Coos Bay in the morning, and he would take care of it. Bill and another young trooper were assigned to take the body to Coos Bay.

So, in the morning, they loaded the guy into the back of the pickup and threw a tarp over him. Then, they started out of Coos Bay.

Langlois, a small community with a little more than a wide spot in the road, was about halfway to Coos Bay. They stopped at a little cafe to take a coffee break.

The cafe was full of their morning coffee crowd, and the news of the shootout with the bank robber was the talk of the town that morning. There hadn’t been that kind of excitement on the south coast for a long time.

It didn’t take long, and the crowd asked these two young state cops if they had been in the gunfight.

“No,” Bill said. “We are just taking the guy to the coroner in Coos Bay.”

“You have him out in that truck?” one of the coffee drinkers asked.

“Yeah, we have him in the back of the truck,” Bill said.

One thing led to another, and you have to remember this was mid-1950 in southwestern Oregon, but the cafe soon emptied. Everyone stood around the pickup as Bill pulled the tarp off this dead guy. Quite a show and tell.

After that, they completed the trip to Coos Bay. There was no fallout from the event. Bill retired as a major in the State Police in charge of the Portland District. He has been dead now for nearly ten years. He is missed by many in the family. And I, for one, really miss his many stories.