D. E. Larsen, DVM

George was a large man, and he always seemed impatient. He was a retired police officer from California who moved to Sweet Home and built a new house out on North River Drive.

I had seen Charlie, his Corgi, on several occasions. Charlie was more enjoyable to work with than George.

“How long has Charlie been sick?” I asked.

“He didn’t eat last night,” George said. “I mean, not a bite. I tried to force him a bit, and he acted like he was going to throw up. Then this morning, he passed this foul-smelling diarrhea. Doc, I mean, I haven’t smelled anything worse, and all over my garage floor. He has never done that before.”

I lifted Charlie onto the exam table and placed a thermometer in his rectum. I just glanced over him as I waited for the thermometer. I picked up the skin on the back of his neck, and it was slow to return to normal, a little dehydrated. A couple of lymph nodes were swollen. I opened his mouth wide and looked at his tonsils. They were swollen and red, and his tongue was wrinkled from dehydration. 

I retrieved the thermometer. It showed a temperature of 104°. There was a drop of watery stool at the end of the thermometer. I quickly grabbed a microscope slide from the drawer and let the drop fall onto the slide.

“What do you think, Doc?” George asked.

“Give me a couple of minutes, George,” I said. “I need to get a look at this slide.”

“Come on, Doc, I was watching you. You already have an opinion,” George said. “I spent twenty-some years watching people. I know when they are keeping something to themselves.”

“George, when I see a dog who is not eating, has diarrhea, an elevated temperature, and swollen tonsils,” I said. “In my mind, that dog has salmon poisoning until I prove it otherwise.”

“No way, Charlie has never even seen a salmon,” George said.

“You want to know how many times I have heard that line?” I asked.

“Can bass cause it?” George asked. “I fish a lot. Foster Lake is full of smallmouth bass, and nobody fishes for them. So Charlie is in my boat a lot, but never a salmon.”

“This disease is carried by salmon, trout, and steelhead, not by bass,” I said. “If Charlie is out around the lake, or at the boat ramps, there are a lot of people who clean their fish and fish guts lying around. It doesn’t take much to cause an exposure.”

“Trout?” George asked.

“Yes, trout around here are usually infected,” I said. “It is a pretty complex disease. I will go over it with you after I get a look at this slide.”

“So, if you are pretty sure that this is salmon poisoning, why are you going to look at that slide?” George asked.

“You have a bit of a point,” I said. “The slide can confirm the diagnosis, and that’s important. But there is an old saying among northwest veterinarians that goes something like this: ‘If you see fish, you treat fish.’ Basically, what that means is I am going to treat Charlie like a dog with salmon disease, even if I don’t confirm the disease.”

“So, you are just padding the bill,” George said.

“If you want to look at it that way,” I said. “It’s only a couple of bucks, I could do it for no charge if you like, and add ten dollars somewhere else. It would still be a song compared to your bill at the hospital.”

I added a few drops of flotation solution to the slide, then slipped it onto the microscope stage. It only took a glance to see dozens of Nanophytes fluke eggs covering the slide.

Back in the exam room, I handed George a handout on salmon poisoning.

“That little sample is covered with fluke eggs,” I said. “Charlie has salmon disease. The good thing is, he is early in the course of the disease. Getting some IV fluids and a couple of injections into him, and he will be back to normal in no time. That is, in most cases, a dog will die from salmon disease, despite treatment. But that is rare.”

“While you were at the microscope, I was thinking,” George said. “Last week I  had a guy fishing with me in my boat. He caught a few trout. No, Charlie never ate one, but he did lick up some blood and stuff from the bottom of the boat. Do you think that could have done it?”

“It doesn’t take much,” I said. “I have seen sick dogs from when somebody hoses out a boat or the back of a pickup, and the dog licks up some blood from the driveway.”

“What do we do now?” George asked.

“Best thing is for you to leave Charlie with us overnight,” I said. “We will run a couple of bags of fluids through him, some IV doxycycline, and an injection to eliminate the flukes. I would expect him to be well in the morning, but once in a while it might take a couple of days.”

“Nothing about your place, Doc, but I really don’t want to leave him overnight,” George said. “Can we do this another way?”

“If you can leave Charlie for a few hours so we can get some IV fluids and antibiotics into him, we could send him home and recheck him in the morning,” I said. “That might increase his risk slightly, but in this case, I think we would be fine. The other problem, though, is a housekeeping problem. We have a dehydrated dog with explosive diarrhea. We are going to bring his hydration back to normal, and sometime this afternoon or tonight, he will have a blowout. If that happens in your house, you will have an unbelievable mess to clean up.”

“Charlie would never let that happen,” George said.

“You want to know how many times I have heard that line?” I asked.

“Well, let’s do it that way,” George said. “I can leave him till about four this afternoon. Then I can have him back here in the morning. Do you think that would work?”

We hung onto Charlie and got him started on some IV fluids. I gave him a dose of IV doxycycline and an injection of Droncit for the flukes. The liter of fluid was not quite complete when George returned, so we gave the remainder under his skin over his shoulder blades.

“I will see you in the morning, sometime between nine and ten,” I said as I handed George the leash. “And, I would recommend you let Charlie sleep in the garage tonight, just to be safe.”

“We will see you in the morning, Doc,” George said as he led Charlie out the door.

***

Nine o’clock, and George was at the door with Charlie. Charlie looked bright and alert. George looked a little tired.

“How is he doing this morning?” I asked George.

“He was looking for breakfast. I hope that was a good sign,” George said. “I didn’t know if I should feed him, so he is still hungry.”

We put Charlie on the exam table and gave him a good exam. Things looked great. Sandy came with a couple of bites of bland dog food. Charlie downed it in a single gulp.

“He looks great,” I said. “We will give him another IV injection of doxycycline and send you home with some pills. I think Charlie is well. How did things go last night?”

“You sort of amaze me, Doc,” George said. “You seem to know just what is going to happen. Charlie was feeling pretty good last night, so we decided to let him stay in his bed in the kitchen. Then, about three this morning, my wife and I woke up with a headache. The house smelled so bad that I knew something had happened. I was half expecting to find Charlie dead. When we stepped into the hallway, Charlie had made an unbelievable mess. There was diarrhea all the way down the hall, and even on the walls in a couple of spots. It took us hours to clean it up. My wife is still not talking to me because I didn’t leave Charlie here last night.”

“Will, that is all behind you now,” I said. “Charlie is doing fine, and you shouldn’t have to deal with that again.”

“That handout you gave me said something about lifetime immunity, but with a couple of hedges,” George said.

“Yes, the experts say there are three strains of salmon poisoning,” I said. “So it is possible for a dog to get it three times. I think in most cases, they probably get all three strains at the same time. I have seen a dozen or so cases where dogs have gotten it twice, and I think three dogs that have gotten it three times. However, in the three dogs, at least one infection was based on clinical signs rather than a confirmed diagnosis. So it is just not a good idea to let your guard down. Dogs can live without eating fish.”

“Don’t worry, Doc,” George said. “There is not going to be another trout in my boat.

Photo Credit: Julia Khalimova on Pexels.

D. E. Larsen, DVM

I first experienced a lesson completely devoid of textbooks or blackboards during my first year of veterinary school. I was with Doctor Davis in a horse stall. I learned more in that hour than in any classroom hour in my life.

Dr. Davis had cared for the mules in Merrill’s Marauders’ march across Burma during WWII. He couldn’t carry a library, not even a textbook. He had the knowledge and the will to add to his database when he encountered new problems.

I should not have been surprised when I kept learning things once I started in practice. I shouldn’t have been, but I was. Most of the time, it is called experience.

It came in many forms, and usually at unexpected times. They were lessons that, in most cases, were never forgotten.

Some were simple, common-sense things. Things I should have known from the comic strips I read as a child.

Don’t use a plastic feeding tube on an old goat; he will eat it. I kicked myself on that one as I looked at the missing end of the esophageal feed tube. Thankfully, someone designed the rumen with a reticulum to handle such carelessness.

Other lessons were learned from listening to the voice of past instructors. “If you haven’t accomplished the task in twenty minutes, rethink what you are doing, and try a different way,” Dr. Aness would say.

That voice came to me many times, mostly during difficult deliveries when sweat was dripping off my eyebrows and clouding my vision. I was usually well past twenty minutes before my mind would allow those random thoughts to filter through. I often learned I could accomplish things of my own invention, often these were better techniques that I would continue to use in practice.

Probably the hardest lessons for me to learn in practice, and the most expensive, were in judging people,

Life was simple when and where I grew up. Men were mostly good, and women. But there were a few bad apples. A man’s handshake was stronger than any lawyer’s paper. Once a man was categorized, there was little that could change his position.

It took me a long time to learn that there are men who can look you in the eye, shake your hand, and lie through their teeth.

Ed brought in a dog with a fracture of the femur, the thigh bone, on its left hind leg. The dog had been in the pasture chasing Ed’s horse. Ed shot at him with a twenty-two, trying to scare the dog enough for it to quit chasing the horse.

The problem was that Ed was a poor shot and hit the dog. Probably lucky he didn’t hit the horse. That should have been my first clue. I shook my head in disbelief as Ed told the story. How could anyone be that stupid, I thought.

We reviewed the X-rays of Wolf’s fracture together. I explained that the fragmentation at the fracture site made this a difficult repair. And I explained that it was probably at the edge of my capability with what I had to work with at this clinic. He might be better off seeing Dr. Barclay Slocum in Eugene.

“That might be over my budget,” Ed said.

I thought that was a bit of honesty,

“It is not going to be exactly cheap here,” I said. “And I have to work on a cash or check basis.”

“What do you think your fees will be?” Ed asked.

“I think we will be looking at something between five and six hundred dollars,” I said. I knew this was a high fee for Sweet Home in 1977. Often, if the bill was over one hundred dollars, we would end up talking about euthanasia. “I am going to have to wire those big fragments together, place an intramedullary pin in the bone, and to help stabilize everything, I will use a Kirschner half-splint. That is going to involve a lot of surgery time and a lot of follow-up visits, both surgical and medical.”

“Okay, when can you get it done?” Ed asked.

“I can do the surgery this afternoon,” I said. “If everything goes well, Wolf can go home in the morning. We can get things started if you can leave a check with the front desk.”

“I left my checkbook at home,” Ed said. “Is it okay if I bring it in the morning?”

“Okay,” I said. “I will give you a call when I’m out of surgery, and you need to call in the morning to make sure Wolf is ready to go home. Call about mid-morning.”

“Sure, and I will bring a check in the morning,” Ed said as he extended his hand.

I shook his hand and felt better about the ‘check coming in the morning’ comment.

Surgery went well. It had not been too long since I was in school, so the repair was fresh in my mind, but it was definitely the most difficult fracture repair I had been involved with.

The following morning, Wolf was up and looking for breakfast. He was using the fractured leg more than I would like, but I got him ready to go home.

Ed came to pick him up. No checkbook again.

“I’ve run into some problems, Doc, but I should be able to get you paid at the next visit,” Ed said as he extended his hand again. I shook his hand, knowing that he had probably taken me to the cleaners. I couldn’t undo the surgery, and keeping the dog was not an option for the clinic at this point.

Making a long story short, Ed never paid. Each visit, he had an excuse. When Ed walked out the door the last time with a normal Wolf in tow, he never looked back. The collection agency didn’t have any better luck.

That was a significant loss for a new clinic still working to get our feet on the ground. I wish I had learned, but there were several more episodes very similar to it before I finally realized that not everyone was raised like me.

Photo Credit: Markus Winkler on Pexels

Prologue: This story was first published on March 6, 2023. It was inspired to be republished by a recent post by equipsblog titled Dockmaster in Charge. Mine is a somewhat sad story the illustrates man’s inhumanity to life around him.

D. E. Larsen, DVM

It was the third week of the fly-tying class I took through Linn Benton Community College. The course was conducted in the evening at Sweet Home High School.

“Tonight, we are going to tie a popular nymph, the tied-down caddis,” Red said as he laid out his materials. “Most of the skills you need for this fly have already been covered in the first two classes. We are going to learn one more skill tonight. That will be dubbing fur. Actually, we dub a lot of different materials in this day and age. But tonight, we will be using rabbit fur that is dyed yellow. It’s a simple technique useful for the bodies of many flies you will tie.”

Red was almost famous among the Sweet Home fishermen. He fished with flies exclusively, and this class not only covered the tying of those flies, but it also covered a lot of fishing techniques and local secrets.

We quickly reached the point where we waited for Red to demonstrate his fur dubbing.

“Before we wrap the body, we need to tie in the back feather,” Red said. “This material I will give you tonight is precious to me. I came across a dead blue heron on the river some years ago. I gathered his flight feathers. That is illegal, but like many things, only if you get caught. These feathers have proved perfect for the tied-down back of this nymph. The feather’s barbules collect small air bubbles, making this nymph more life-like. The fish just can’t resist it.”

Red carefully dispensed five or six barbs from his feather supply to everyone in the class. The law protecting birds extends to dead birds. This is to prevent people from shooting a bird for its feathers, claiming they found it dead. So, if you find a dead bird, you should just leave it in place.

“A lot of guys get a little fancy with their dubbing, and they make a long thread loop that they use to hold the material a little firmer,” Red said. “I consider that unnecessary. I just apply wax to the thread and roll the fur onto it between my two fingers. Then you wrap the body. Many bodies you wrap will be tapered, but we want an even body over the entire length of this fly.

We tied in the blue heron feather’s barbs at the fly’s tail end. After we dubbed a body of yellow fur and wrapped the body, we tied the thread in at the head, then bending the backing feather over the top of the dubbed body, we tied them down and wrapped the head.

The fly was finished with glue applied to the head. A perfect tied-down caddis. A common insect in the local streams and a trendy food item with the local fish.

I started fly fishing when I was eleven years old, at the suggestion of my newly acquired brother-in-law. I purchased a fly rod, reel, and a double tapered fly line, size H-G-H. That sizing system went by the wayside years ago.

Following this class, I tied flies for many years. I tied fly rods for the kids from fiberglass blanks, and we fished local waters and the high lakes for years. 

***

A year or two following that class, June called the clinic. I heard Ruth on the phone.

“Doctor Larsen doesn’t do birds except for farm birds like chickens, turkeys, geese, or ducks,” Ruth said.

After listening again, Ruth sat the receiver down and stepped back to talk with me.

“It’s June on the phone,” Ruth said. “They caught a blue heron at their pond. It has a broken leg and is in pretty bad shape. I tried sending them elsewhere, but she would like you to look at the bird for them.”

I rubbed my forehead with my left hand. I didn’t want it known that I would look at birds and I was not authorized to treat wildlife. But June and Bob were good clients, and this could be considered a farm bird, with a little stretch of one’s imagination.

“Okay, tell her I will look at the bird as a special favor,” I said. “But make no promises regarding treatment.”

“She sounds like this bird is in bad shape,” Ruth said. “I can’t imagine one of these birds just letting someone pick them up.”

It wasn’t long, and June was in the reception area with a frail blue heron in her arms. 

When I got to the exam room, the bird was lying on the exam table, his right eye following my every movement.

“We have seen him several times in the last week,” June said. “But today, he was in the small pond by the house, and Bob just went out and picked him up. He is skin and bones, and that leg looks beyond repair to me, but I will leave that decision to you, Doc.”

June’s assessment was pretty accurate. This bird was, indeed, skin and bones. I am not sure that I had seen a bird this emaciated before. And his right leg was not only fractured, but it was hanging by a strip of tissue on the medial side of the leg. It looked like it had been shot, and judging from the curvature of the remaining bone, I would say it had been shot with a thirty-caliber rifle. The bone was black on both sides of the fracture, and if there was any circulation in the distal leg, it was marginal at best. There would be no repairing this leg.

“This leg is toast, and this bird is starved to death,” I said. “I think it needs to be put to sleep.”

“That was our thought,” June said. “We didn’t want to do it and then get into trouble.”

“I’m sort of in the same boat,” I said. “I have no special protection from prosecution for a wildlife violation. I guess I better make a telephone call.”

I called the Oregon State Police office in Albany, and with luck, I was able to speak with the game officer.

“This is Doctor Larsen in Sweet Home,” I said. “I’m a veterinarian, and I have a client who brought in a blue heron this afternoon. This bird is emaciated and has had one leg nearly shot off. It is hanging by a thin strap of tissue. From the look of things that happened several weeks ago, it looks like a wound from a thirty-caliber bullet.”

“That sounds pretty bad for the bird,” the officer said. “We always seem to have a few idiots around that think it’s fun to shoot something like that.”

“This leg is not repairable, and this bird is not going to live long in its present condition,” I said. “I think I should put it to sleep.”

“If you are asking permission, I can’t give you that, but I will assure you that I won’t ticket you for doing it,” the officer said.

“Fair enough,” I said. “I would feel better if you were here so I could shake your hand on that, but I guess I trust your word.

“You have my word,” the officer said. “How do you dispose of the body?”

“All the animals that die here are either returned to the owner, or they go to the county for cremation,” I said.

“That’s good; send the bird for cremation, don’t return it to the client,” the officer said.

“Thanks for your time. That is what will be done,” I said.

“The game officer agreed that euthanasia was the best option for this bird,” I said. “I will put it to sleep and send it for cremation.”

I returned to the exam room and told June what would happen.

“Do we owe you anything?” June asked.

“No, I can’t charge you for something that I am not authorized to do in the first place,” I said. “Thanks for bringing in the poor guy. His end of life will be more pleasant than starving in a pond somewhere.”

June left, and Ruth stayed with the bird as I retrieved a dose of euthanasia solution. Finding his heart was no problem, with no muscle on his breast. I steadied the heart with my left hand and inserted the needle with my right. The bird was gone before the injection was complete.

“I will grab a bag for him,” Ruth said. “I think we already have the county coming in the morning. The freezer is almost full.”

I stood at the table, remembering Red’s comments about his blue heron feathers. “This guy will be cremated tomorrow,” I thought to myself. “Who would know.”

Photo by Diego Madrigal on Pexels.

Anatomy of a feather: https://askabiologist.asu.edu/explore/feather-biology