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.

George and Martha Washington, From the Archives

D. E. Larsen, DVM

The girls raced ahead of Sandy and me as we walked down the aisle at the Fort Collins K-Mart. They were headed to the pocket pets. We had just moved into an off-campus apartment, and we could have pets.

That was a big decision for a student family. We were only going to be here for another couple of years. What our living situation would be after school was anybody’s guess. But we had decided on a couple of guinea pigs. We were lucky. Had Dee been older, we would be picking out three.

“Brenda, you pick one, and then we’ll let Amy pick one,” Sandy said.

Brenda made her selection in a snap. “I want the fluffy yellow and white one,” She said, pointing to a young male in the bottom cage.

Amy was standing, jumping up and down and pointing a little tricolored female in the upper cage.

“Be patient. We need to find a clerk. We have to buy a cage and all that kind of stuff,” Sandy said as she entertained Dee in the shopping cart seat with her left hand.

***

I entered the apartment the next afternoon through the utility room door and discarded my clinic clothes.

The cage was set up on the dryer, and the two guinea pigs seemed well adjusted to each other and their surroundings. I could see that Amy and Brenda had been pushing carrot sticks into the kennel through the wires.

“What are we going to name these two?” I asked.

“I have been talking with the girls, and we have decided on George and Martha Washington,” Sandy said.

So George and Martha Washington became a part of the Larsen family. The girls enjoyed playing with them, especially when we would allow them out of the cage. A few times, I would have to retrieve one of them from under a bed, but that was the biggest issue with them.

***

Some months later, when the girls were having some floor time with George and Martha, I noticed that Martha was getting a little heavy.

“We might have to deal with a litter of guinea pigs before too long,” I said to Sandy when the girls were out of earshot.

“I guess that shouldn’t be a surprise. After all, we knew they were male and female when we got them.”

“Yes, but what are we going to do with six guinea pigs?” I asked.

“Do you think she will have four babies?” Sandy asked.

“I know nothing about guinea pig babies, but the cages at the store are pretty full all the time. That would suggest that they are pretty prolific.”

“Maybe you better do some reading in some of those expensive textbooks stacked in there on your study table,” Sandy said.

***

It was probably 2 weeks later when I parked my bicycle and stepped into the utility room. Both Amy and Brenda were there to greet me.

“Look what we have now,” Brenda said.

“We have Betsy Ross,” Amy squealed.

“Betsy Ross, who is Betsy Ross?” I asked. 

The girls pointed at the third guinea pig, running around the cage. Only a half a dozen hours old, she was fully functional and nearly half Martha’s size.

“Who came up with that name?” I asked.

“Mom thought it would fit nicely with George and Martha Washington,” Brenda said. “She made our flag.”

“Yes, I know Betsy Ross,” I said. “But I didn’t expect her to be half-grown at birth. I guess I have some reading to do.”

So, it turns out that guinea pigs have an average litter of four babies, but that number can vary between one and thirteen. A standard litter weight is typical. A litter might weigh four ounces. If there are four babies, each one will weigh one ounce. 

If there is one baby, as was the case with Betsy Ross, the baby will weigh four ounces. Also, as was the case with Betsy Ross. She was, indeed, half-grown when she arrived.

It turns out that we managed our guinea pigs correctly, even if it was by accident. Young females reach sexual maturity at two months of age, and they must be bred before they are six months of age.

After six months, their pelvic bones will fuse, and giving birth to a large baby, like Betsy Ross, will be impossible without a C-section.

The young Martha’s pelvic bones were able to disarticulate and allow a large single baby’s birthing. The babies nurse for several weeks but can survive without nursing after about 5 days. I never witnessed Betsy Ross nursing on Martha Washington. It could have happened at night. But I suspect that Betsy Ross was large enough to survive on her own from day one.

Three guinea pigs became a burden on the tight quarters of the utility room. With my school completion on the near horizon, we were forced to find new homes for our patriotic group. That was a difficult day for the girls but little did we know that Ralph would be waiting for us in our new home in Washington.

Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash