The Ugly Scab 

D. E. Larsen, DVM

Ed carried Cabby into the clinic, holding him like a fragile package. Cabby was a young male orange tabby cat. He was not neutered, and Ed always brought him on a small leash.

“Ed, one of these days, a dog is going to come through the door when you’re sitting there with Cabby, and Cabby is going end up sitting on top of your head,” Sandy said. “It would be safer if you brought him in a kennel, for him and for you.

“I knew you would scold me again,” Ed said. “But Cabby is pretty sore right now, and I didn’t want to try putting him in that kennel.”

“Let me get Terri, and we will get you into an exam room,” Sandy said as she headed into the back of the clinic to find Terri.

“Terri, Ed is out front with Cabby,” Sandy said. “He is holding that cat on his lap again. One of these times, we are going to have a royal mess. If you have a minute, you might move him into an exam room before we have a dog come into the waiting room.”

“That is probably the only way he will learn to put that cat in the kennel,” Terri said. “I will be right there, but Doc is tied up for a few minutes. I guess it is better that he waits in an exam room.

Terri went up front, helped Ed back to an exam room, and made Cabby comfortable on the exam table.

“What’s going on with Cabby today?” Terri asked.

“He has this wound on his side,” Ed said. “It has been there for several days, and now it has a good scab covering it, but he is pretty sore today. I just thought that I would get Doc to look him over.”

“That’s a pretty large scab,” Terri said as she took Cabby’s temperature.

“Yes, I was worried about the wound, but I feel a lot better now that it is covered with that scab,” Ed said.

“Cabby’s temperature is almost a hundred and three,” Terri said. “I want to warn you, Ed. Don’t get too attached to that scab because the first thing that Doc will do when he comes in here is pluck that scab off of Cabby. He is probably going to do that before saying a word.”

“Why do you think he would do something like that?” Ed asked.

“I have worked here for half a dozen years,” Terri said. “And I can guarantee that Doc will get rid of that scab first thing. If there is anything that he hates, it’s a scab.”

“What if I don’t want that scab gone?” Ed asked.

“Then you better leave now,” Terri said. “I am sure that Doc won’t treat Cabby with that scab there.”

I entered the exam and looked at Ed. Terri was holding Cabby on the exam table.

“How’s it going, Ed?” I asked. “And what is up with Cabby?”

I looked at the exam sheet and turned Cabby around on the exam table to get a good look at his wound.

“He has a good scab on that wound,” Ed said.

I palpated the skin around the scab. Cabby cringed somewhat from my touch, but there was no big abscess evident.

“Wrong, Ed, the word is had a good scab,” I said as I plucked the scab off the wound. A small amount of pus rolled down Cabby’s side, and I mopped it up with a couple of surgical sponges.

“You see all that pus, Ed,” I said. “That good scab was just trapping that in the wound. That is why Cabby’s temperature is up, and he is not feeling well. We will clean the wound, shave the hair away from the wound edge, and get him on some antibiotics. He will feel much better by this evening.”

“I misled you, Ed,” Terri said with a wry smile. “He did talk before he plucked the scab.

“Terri said you were going to pull that scab off,” Ed said. “I always thought a scab was a good thing.”

“I leave very few scabs in place,” I said. “All they do is hide what is going on under them. And, like in this case, they trap pus against the wound. Another couple of days, Cabby would have had a big abscess on his side.”

“I guess with some antibiotics, Cabby and I are free to go,” Ed said. “Now I just have to get past Sandy without getting chewed out again.”

“Don’t be too hard on her,” I said. “She has your best interest at heart. Have you ever noticed one of those scratching posts that cats use?”

“Yes, Cabby has one at home,” Ed said. “He shreds one of those things in no time.”

“Well, that’s what your chest and head are going to look like if a dog comes in and scares Cabby while you are holding him on your lap,” Terri said. “If you want, I can get you a box to put him in for the ride home. It might be good practice, just to see how he likes it. I think cats usually like to be in a secure place when they are traveling.”

“How much do those cost?” Ed asked.

“I’ll give you this one,” Terri said. “Of course, Doc might pad the bill a few bucks. They are not expensive.

Ed took the box, and Cabby had no problems getting in it. He stopped at the front desk and paid the bill. Sandy noticed the box.

“I see Terri gave you a box for Cabby,” Sandy said. “He will be much safer in that box, and so will you.” 

As Ed picked up Cabby’s box carrier and started out the door, he met George coming in with his young German Shepherd, Rascal.

Rascal sniffed the box, and Cabby hissed loudly. Ed looked at Sandy and smiled.

“Tell Terri thank you,” Ed said as he hurried out the door.

Photo by Jb Jorge Barreto on Pexels.

Ernie’s Pig, from the Archives

D. E. Larsen, DVM

I stood in the barnyard facing a long metal barn. It is about 90 feet long, maybe 30 feet wide with 10-foot walls. The light breeze coming off the Calapoolya River stirs a little dust. Still, it feels cool in the midday heat of July in the Willamette Valley. Not a soul in sight, Ernie had called, saying he needed emergency help with a pig. There was no other explanation. I pondered my next step. The house looked empty, nobody ran to meet me. My guess is they must be in the barn.

   Then a hear a very faint, “help.” Where did that come from, it was too weak for me to get a bearing. Then it happened again. “Help,” a little louder this time, or maybe I was expecting it. It came from the barn, probably the left end.

   I entered the barn and started threading my way toward the far corner. Now I could see them. Ernie’s son-in-law, a stout young man with glasses and a crew cut, was laying across this 150-pound pig, holding him down. Ernie, a thin, wiry old guy, was lying behind the pig. Ernie was holding a pile of intestines protruding from the rear end of the pig. The floor was loose dirt, and every movement produced a cloud of dust the settled on the men, the pig, and the pile of intestines.

  “Thank God you made it, Doc,” Ernie said. “I can’t hold this much longer.”

   I walked over to them, trying to not stir up too much dust. They were castrating this pig. They had a big hernia with a pile of intestines that would fill a gallon bucket protruding from the scrotal incision. I looked close, the other testicle remained, that was a good thing. That would allow me to quickly sedate this pig and see if I could clean things up and replace all the gut.

   “Hang on just a little longer, Ernie,” I said. “I have to get a few things from the truck, and then I think we have a shot at fixing this guy up.”

   I slowly moved away from the group and then ran to the truck to gather things. A drop cloth to put everything on, a plastic bag to put under the guts, an emasculator, surgery pack, scalpel blade, bucket of water with Betadine scrub and solution, suture material, fly spray and antibiotics. One bucket with water, the other full of everything else. I almost forgot the Pentathol. I mixed a 5-gram bottle and drew up 3 grams into a 60 cc syringe, attaching a sixteen gauge, one and one half inch needle to the syringe.

   The office was too busy for me to bring anybody to help, I could have used an extra hand right now. I knew that I would probably forget something, so I went over the list in mind one more time before heading back into the barn.

   “Just another couple of minutes and I will let you relax Ernie,” I said as I started laying out the drop cloth, moving Ernie a little to the side. Then I slid the plastic under the intestines. 

   “Now you can let them go, Ernie, we will just let them lay here for a few minutes,” I said. Ernie let go of the guts, and he just rolled away, laying on his back in the dust with his bloody hands in the air.

   I washed my hands and swabbed the scrotum over the intact testicle. This testicle was several inches in diameter and over four inches long. I popped the 16 gauge needle into the testicle up the hub. The pig was about as tired as Ernie and only slightly flinched. I injected the 3 grams of Pentathol into the testicle.

  “This guy will be asleep in a minute, and you can also rest,” I said to Bill. He had been quiet throughout the whole time.

   I opened the surgery pack quickly and attached the scalpel blade. The pig was pretty sleepy now. I incised the scrotum over the testicle and through the tunic. I squeezed the testicle out of the scrotum and clamped the cord with large Oschner forceps.

   “You can relax now,” I said to Bill. “I have him under control. Just stay close in case I need you.”

   The beauty of this anesthesia in castration is the clamp on the cord. I the pig starts to stir, I release the clamp and let a little more anesthetic into his circulation. When I get the hernia repaired, I will remove this testicle, and he will wakeup pretty quickly.

   Now I turn my attention to the gut pile. Covered with dust, but there does not appear to be any tears or other injuries. They are a little purple, but the time frame is such that they should be okay if I can replace them. I rinse the dust off with a good splash of water. Then Betadine Surgical Scrub, a little more water, and a good scrub.

   “If you could take this other bucket and fill it with water from the hose in the back of the truck, I would appreciate it,” I say to Bill. He jumps up and grabs the bucket. I think he wanted to have a little break.

   “Doc, is he a goner?” Ernie asked as he sat up, mostly recovered from his ordeal.

   “I think things look pretty good, Ernie,” I replied. “I get these guts back where they belong and close up this hernia, he should be good to go.”

   “I’ll be damned If I am going to try to save a farm call again,” Ernie said. “I am done with castrating pigs.”

   “It is a lot easier if you do it when they are under 10 pounds,” I said. “However, you could still have this problem even on the little ones.”

   Bill got back with the water. I made a solution with the Betadine solution in the bucket. Port wine color, they always said in school. I don’t think I ever saw port wine. I flushed the guts with a large splash. Then holding the mass up level with the inguinal canal, I began to feed them back into the abdomen. When the guts were mostly back into the abdomen, I freed the tunic from the scrotal tissues. Twisting the tunic like I was closing a plastic bag, the last of the exposed intestines squirted back into the abdomen. Then I placed a clamp across the tunic to hold everything in place while I got the suture ready. 

     I released the clamp on the testicle for a couple of minutes and watched as the pig made a big sigh. Then, I reapplied the clamp.

   I placed a transfixing suture of #2 Dexon on the tunic. Then I palpated the external inguinal ring. I could put 3 fingers into the ring. I placed one mattress suture in the posterior half of the ring and tightened it to close the ring’s size. This done, I emasculated the other testicle. Again on this side, I freed the tunic and closed it up and sutured it closed. The external ring on this side felt normal. I don’t remember ever seeing a bilateral hernia in pigs.

   I squirted both incisions with Betadine solution and sprayed the whole area with fly spray. Then I gave a large dose of Amoxicillin SQ in the front quarter. The pig was starting to stir a little.

   “He will be on his feet before I have everything back in the truck, “ I said as I started gathering things up. 

   “Boy, was ever glad to see you, Doc,” Ernie said with a still bloody hand on my shoulder. “I don’t know what we would have done without you, just would have had to butcher him, I guess.”

   “Just remember, Ernie, next time do it when they are little,” I replied.

   “I am thankful you could come so quickly, I guess I wasn’t even thinking of how much it was going to cost. Just remember Doc, when you are filling out the bill, he is just a pig, can’t be worth much,” Ernie said.

   “Well, Ernie, I’ll tell you one thing, he is worth a damn site more today than he was yesterday,” I replied.`

Photo Credit: Photo by mali maeder from Pexels

Another Ellwood

D. E. Larsen, DVM

The sun was just setting when we pulled into the driveway after taking the kids to a matinee in Albany. Derek was sound asleep in his car seat, and the girls had been sleeping but were slowly getting out of the car and into the house. I followed, carrying Derek, still sound asleep.

I had just laid Derek down in his crib when the phone rang.

“No rest for the wicked,” I said, looking at Sandy as she picked up the phone.

“Yes, he is right here,” Sandy said. “We have just got home, but I think he can talk with you.”

Sandy held the phone out to me. “It’s Sandi, about some sick puppies.”

“Hi, Sandi. What is going on?” I asked. “I didn’t think you had any puppies due.”

“I have some friends outside of Portland with a litter of pups that are having problems,” Sandi said. “These puppies are three days old and having a lot of problems.”

“Sandi, they should take them to a veterinarian,” I said. “We can’t be much help for them over the phone.”

“They are at the vet clinic now,” Sandi said. “There are three of the pups that the vet thinks will die. He tells them it is an infection from their navels. He has given them some fluids under their skin and an injection of antibiotics.”

“Puppies that young and that sick need IV fluids and IV antibiotics,” I said. “You and I have been over that several times.”

“I know, and I told them that,” Sandi said. “They say the vet says that the veins on puppies are too small for IV treatment.”

“They have to use the jugular vein,” I said. 

“Doc, they want to bring them down for you to treat,” Sandi said. “I told them I would ask.”

“Sandi, it’s Saturday night,” I said. “I have enough trouble taking care of Sweet Home, and I can’t take care of Portland too. Besides, it will be nine o’clock when they get here.”

“They only want to bring three of the pups,” Sandi said. “And one of those might be dead by the time they get here.”

“Okay, tell them to get on their horse,” I said. “And Sandi, this is as a favor to you. And I keep track of those things.”

“Yes, I know, Doc,” Sandi said. “I will try to make it up to you, and I will tell them to ride that horse hard and fast.”

It was almost nine o’clock when Sandi came through the door with her friends and a box with three puppies. 

The one puppy was close to death. He was dehydrated, cold, and unresponsive. The other two were slightly better but very sick also.

After an exam, I talked to the owners.

“We might lose all three of these pups,” I said. “This little male has only a slim chance of survival. These pups need some IV fluids and IV antibiotics. I will place an IV catheter in the jugular vein of each pup. I will be using an antibiotic that could be toxic to their inner ears and kidneys. That will have to be a risk we have to take if we have any chance of saving them.”

“The vet in Portland said they were too small to get a catheter into a vein,” Roy said.

“Roy, you’re not in Portland anymore,” I said. “You’re here because you, or Sandi, didn’t like how things were going in Portland. I am no specialist, but I know what I know, and I know what I can do. Any veterinarian should be able to hit a puppy’s jugular vein. So, there will be no more discussion of the Portland vet.”

“Fair enough,” Roy said. “Sandi has a lot of trust in you. That’s good enough for us, do what you have to do.”

“Okay, we will treat these guys tonight, and then I will send them home with you for the night,” I said. “Assuming you stay here overnight, I will need to see them first thing in the morning. They will do better at home than here, where nobody can watch them. We will have a good chance of saving any of them who are alive in the morning.”

“What are we going have to do with them?” Sharon asked.

“Just keep them warm and feed them clear fluids if they get hungry,” I said. “I don’t want them to have milk tonight.”

With Sandi holding the pups, I clipped their necks and prepped them for the catheter.

Working on the sickest pup, I held off the jugular vein and slipped a catheter into the vein.

“Even I can see that that vein is large enough for a catheter,” Roy said as he watched over Sandi’s shoulder.

“This puppy is cold, his circulation is dismal, and he won’t absorb anything given under his skin fast enough to save him,” I said. “His only chance is with IV fluids and IV antibiotics. And to be honest with you, I think his chances are slim to none at this point.”

“But, if he survives the night, you think we have a chance,” Sharon said.

“We will just have to see what the morning will give us,” I said.

I gave each puppy a calculated dose of IV fluids via a syringe. Then I gave each of them a dose of IV ampicillin and gentamicin.

“That’s all the magic I have for the night,” I said. “Keep them warm, and if they get hungry, give them some oral fluids out of this bag. And I will see any survivors at eight in the morning.”

“They will sleep on my chest,” Sharon said. “We left their mom and the other puppies at home.”

***

To my surprise, all three puppies came through the night with flying colors. They were active and looking for breakfast when I examined them. 

“What do we do now?” Roy asked.

“I will repeat the treatment we did last night,” I said. “Then, with this response, almost this miracle, we will send you home with some oral antibiotics. And I would expect things to heal up and be fine.”

“Can they have some milk now?” Sharon asked.

“Yes, I think they are up to some milk,” I said. “And when you get home, they can go back on their mom.”

We worked through the treatments much faster since the catheters were in place. After treatment, I removed the catheters.

Roy was at the front counter with his checkbook, waiting for the bill.

“We were talking this morning,” Roy said. “We think we will name the little male after you since he would have been dead without your treatment.”

“David is a poor name for a pup,” I said.

“We were thinking of using Ellwood,” Sharon said. “Isn’t it usually spelled with one ‘l’?

“It is a family name,” I said. “At least for the last few generations, I don’t know where it started. The others are all spelled with one ‘l.’ My mother said she just didn’t know how to spell it when she filled out the papers in the hospital.”

“Well, now there will be another Ellwood,” Roy said.

“That’s great, but there are a couple of those running around now,” I said.

The pups went home and grew into adult dogs without complications from the infection or treatment. Roy and Sharon remained friends and occasional clients. And over the years, Sandi more than made up for the imposition on my time.

Photo by Sergio Souza on Pexels.