Moose’s Escape

D. E. Larsen, DVM

Office hours on Saturday mornings were always the same in the summer. If the sun shined, half the appointment never showed up. But you could be sure that the last appointment would make it.

“Everyone is headed to the lake this morning,” I said. “The last four appointments have been no-shows. We have one more at eleven-thirty, why don’t you call them to make sure they are coming. Maybe even get them in a little early if that is possible.”

“That would be nice. The kids wanted to see that movie this afternoon,” Sandy said.

Sandy called, and yes, the gal was still coming, and she could come now. So maybe we could be done early enough to catch the matinee with the kids.

It wasn’t long before Sally dragged a reluctant Moose through the clinic’s front door.

I knew Moose from several previous appointments, and his name fits him well.

Moose was a Mastiff and a large one at that. Couple that with a generous layer of fat. Moose was one of my larger patients.

“He looks a little reluctant to see me this morning,” I said as Sally stopped to catch her breath.

“I have been so mad at this dog this morning,” Sally said. “Our neighbor’s dog is in heat, and this dog has been out of his mind.”

“It’s been known that some males will do crazy things when a female is in heat,” I said.

“Yes, Doctor, I am well acquainted with the antics of the male of a species,” Sally said. “But this dog managed to climb up on our wood pile and jump over the fence into the neighbor’s yard. Now I have a limping dog and neighbor who is not too happy that his Lab might be having half mastiff puppies.”

“I assume we are checking Moose’s limp,” I said.

“Yes, that was a six-foot fence he jumped over,” Sally said. “This old tub of lard must have been thinking he was still a puppy.”

“I think that is a common male trait also,” Sandy said, looking at me with a wry smile.

“We are trying to get done this morning so we can catch the matinee with the kids,” I said. “Let me get a look a this limp. Can you have him walk a few steps for me?”

Sally tugged on Moose’s lead rope, but he wasn’t going to move. She coaxed him and pulled again.

“Nope, he’s not moving,” Sally said.

“Try turning around and taking a few steps toward the door,” I said.

Moose almost jumped when Sally headed for the front door. He had a pretty significant limp on his right front leg.

“That was a pretty big jump for this guy,” I said. “He is limping pretty good. The fact that he is bearing weight probably means no fracture, but a ligament injury is sure possible.”

I knelt down and started looking over Moose’s leg.

“Tell me when it hurts,” I said. “Moose looked away, trying to avoid eye contact with his tormentor.

I grabbed his forearm and pulled his leg forward as hard as I could, checking the shoulder. Then I flexed his elbow and rotated his forearm this way and that. Moose made no response to any of that. I went over his foot, palpating each of his toes. Still no response. Then I came to his carpus. I flexed his wrist, and he flinched. I bent it again, and Moose growled.

“That doesn’t sound like Moose,” Sally said.

“He is just saying don’t do that again,” I said.

“What do you think, Doctor?” Sally asked.

“I think he got lucky,” I said. “His leg looks okay. He probably just has a sprained wrist. I will need to get some x-rays to make sure there isn’t a fracture, and also I will need to get a stress view or two to check for ligament tears. But if the x-rays look okay, I think a wrap and a splint for a week or two will be all Moose needs.”

“Can you do that this morning?” Sally asked.

“Yes, I think so,” I said. “I will have to sedate him briefly for the x-rays, and it will take a while to wake up enough to go home. Why don’t we plan to leave him? I will get the x-rays, do a wrap with a splint, and then call you when we get out of the movie.”

“That will be fine,” Sally said. “You think he is going to be okay.”

“If I don’t find anything on the x-rays, he will heal with his foot in a splint for a week or two,” I said. “Of course, you will have to convince him to ignore his neighbor during that time.”

“How are we going to do that?” Sally asked. “After this morning, I don’t think my neighbor will be very talkative.”

“Finding a kennel might be a good idea,” I said. “That will remove the immediate problem and probably allow this sprain the heal better with some rest and relaxation.”

Sally left Moose, and Moose, deciding that he was stuck, became more cooperative.

After sedating him, I could check his carpus joint with some aggressive palpation. I was convinced there were no ligament tears. The x-rays looked fine. I placed a padded wrap on his foot that went halfway up his foreleg and taped a metal spoon splint on the outside of the wrap.

We moved Moose back to one of the runs in the kennel room, and by the time I had him situated, he was already waking up.

“You do fill up this run,” I said to Moose as he looked around at his surroundings.

Moose was on his feet in no time. It took him a few minutes to put some weight on his wrapped foot, but when he did, it didn’t seem to bother him.

“Do we have enough time to send Moose home now?” I asked Sandy.

“We are going to have to hurry if we are going to make the movie,” Sandy said. “Let’s just come over after the movie and send him home then.”

We rushed home, gathered the kids, and went to the afternoon movie at the Rio Theater.

I sneezed when we came out of the dark theater into the bright sunlight.

“You always sneeze like that in the sun,” Sandy said.

“Any change in light intensity causes me to sneeze,” I said. “It must be some mixup between my olfactory and optic nerves. I don’t see it in very many other people. Colonel Paris in the Army, and my nephew David Larsen, are the only ones I have ever noticed it being a problem.”

The kids piled in the car, all smiles.

“We better go send Moose home,” Sandy said.

“How long is that going to take?” Brenda asked with a fading smile.

“It won’t take long,” Sandy said. “He is ready to go. We just need to call his owner and wait for her to come to pick him up.”

It only took a moment to drive the two blocks to the clinic. I got out of the car, followed by the kids, and sandy was helping Derek out of the car.

I opened the door and stepped into a puddle of water.

“There’s water on the floor,” I said. “You guys wait here until I find where all this water is coming from.”

There wasn’t a lot of water on the floor, but it shouldn’t have been there. I checked the sink in the pharmacy, the bathroom, and the surgical scrub sink. There was no problem in the front of the clinic.

When I opened the door to the back of the clinic, I could hear water rushing, and the room was cold. The floor drain in the treatment room had a whirlpool, as the water was draining as fast as possible.

I opened the kennel room door. It was freezing like an air conditioner was stuck on low, and there was quite a site to greet my eyes. The hose faucet was running full bore. The floor drains were draining water as fast as they could, but that was not fast enough. The lone cat in his kennel was in the back corner, curled up, trying to stay warm.

And Moose was standing on his hind legs, pressed against the far wall, shivering. The gate to Moose’s run was on the floor. Obviously, knocked off its hinges by Moose.

I turned off the water faucet, and the drains quickly caught up with their job. I motioned Moose to come, and he almost knocked me over, getting out of the room.

“What the hell did you do?” I asked Moose as I took out to the recovery kennel in the front of the kennel. Then I went out to talk with Sandy.

“We need to run home and get the shop vac so I can start drying this floor out,” I said. “Moose knocked the gate of his run off the hinges and somehow turned on the water faucet full blast. Water is everywhere, more in the back, but some out front. It’s no real problem, everything is up off the floor, and the floor is concrete. The drains in the back are catching up with their job since I turned off the faucet.”

“Do we get to go home?” Brenda asked.

“Yes, I will take you kids home,” I said. “Then I will have to dry the floor enough to send Moose home. I will probably have to change his wrap. I am sure that he has it soaked.”

When I returned with the shop vac, most of the water had made it to the floor drains. Moose had warmed up enough that he was no longer shivering, and the cat in the kennel room was still looking around like he had just witnessed a circus. Moose knew he had done wrong. He would not look me in the eye. I left him in the recovery kennel while I changed his wrap and reapplied the splint.

Then I gathered every towel I could find and started mopping up the residual water in the front of the clinic. It was warm enough that the floor actually dried out pretty fast. I ran the shop vac in the back of the clinic, where there was a little more residual water. It would be dry by morning.

Finally, I could give Sally a call.

“I thought something must be wrong,” Sally said. “I expected your call earlier.”

“Well, it seems Moose took exception to his accommodations,” I said. “He knocked the run gate off its hinges and, somehow, turned on the faucet in the kennel room. I have been drying this place out for the last couple of hours.”

“Is Moose okay?” Sally asked.

“Oh, he is fine,” I said. “I had to change his wrap because it was soaked, and he is a little embarrassed about the mess he left for me, but he is fine. The cat back in the kennel room still hasn’t processed the entire event yet.”

Moose went and healed up with no problem. The clinic was completely dry by Monday morning, and I removed the handle from the kennel room faucet, just in case we had to keep Moose again. The run gate was more challenging, but I could fix the hinges so the gate could not be removed by a fractious dog.

Photo by Jonathan Copper on Pexels.

KATA Alumni, From the Archives

D. E. Larsen, DVM

“Doctor Larsen, I visited my therapist today, and she told me to find what motivates me and run with it,” Vicki said. “She said, ‘if that happens to be cats, then do cats.’ I am going to start a cat rescue, and I am wondering if I can get some support from you.”

“That sounds like a big project, and there is a definite need around here,” I said. “The County gives no help for cats, and the Humane Society is not much better. Cats definitely are relegated to the back seat.”

“Well, we are going change things,” Vicki said. “Doris is on board with me. We will start small, but we have big plans.”

“I would guess you are going to have to define your operations pretty well, or you are going to be overrun with demand. But I will give you all the support that I can afford. I don’t have real deep pockets, you know.”

Following the initial brief conversation, Vicki and Doris embarked on their project. They had lessons to learn along the way, sometimes they were hard lessons, and as I predicted, the job soon became more than two people could handle.

They started working with colonies of feral cats. Sweet Home had more than enough of those colonies. The life of a wild cat was difficult and short. 

Their goal was to capture, neuter and release. Once captured, they would test for feline leukemia and then vaccinate the negative cats for rabies and feline distemper. The cats would receive a broad spectrum dewormer and then have a trip to a low-cost surgery at the humane society in Salem. There they would be spayed or neutered, as determined by their plumbing.

Once treated and rendered sterile, they would be released back into the colony. With a distemper vaccine onboard, the cat’s survival was greatly enhanced. Distemper is one of nature’s mechanisms to control the population of the cat colonies. In young cats, it is a highly fatal disease. The colonies would experience periodic epidemics where the virus would eliminate a significant portion of the kittens. The feline distemper portion of the vaccine given to the captured cats is one of the best vaccines science has produced. With vaccination and periodic natural exposures to the virus, cats remained solidly immune. The average age of the colony indeed doubled.

The first significant attempt to provide primarily free neuter and spay surgeries locally were undertaken with the aid of the Feral Cat Coalition. The FCC operated a mobile truck set up with three surgery tables and a prep table. Caregivers could bring feral cats in for surgery and vaccinations done by volunteer veterinarians. There was no fee for the procedure. Although, a donation was expected.

My first experience volunteering for the day was when they had the truck at the Holley Grange. I found the day exhausting and the environment in the surgery room hot and lacking adequate ventilation. But we accomplished close to a hundred surgeries. I am sure that some of the cats were less than feral.

After that experience, the Kitty Angel Team took off like wildfire. They grew in numbers of volunteers helping them. The number of cats that they helped, actually saved, also increased. 

They arranged for periodic visits of the Feral Cat Coalition surgery truck. When that wasn’t enough, they would transport cats to low-cost clinics and the humane society for spays and neuters. They held adoption clinics in Petco’s in Albany and Corvallis. And with their tax-free organization status, they expanded their all-volunteer, no-kill cat and kitten rescue to serve the entire mid-Willamette Valley. Their name also extended to the Kitty Angel Team Adoption, KATA.

They were obviously the only choice for Sandy and me when we were tasked with finding kittens for our two California granddaughters, Addison and Olivia. We gave Vickie a call.

“Vickie, we are looking for a couple of kittens for Dee’s girls,” I said.

“You’re in luck,” Vickie said. “Doris has a bunch at her place that are just about ready to go. I would guess that we could release a couple of them early to your care. I will call Doris and tell her you are coming if you would like. Do you know where she lives?”

“Yes, we have been by her place often,” I said. “And it would be great if you could give her a call, that way I don’t have to know her phone number. I know you two try to protect your privacy as much as possible.

We can get up there this afternoon. We are not going to California until the end of the week. But we can hold the kittens at the clinic until we leave. That way, we can make sure they have all their shots and deworming.”

Doris was waiting for us when we pulled into her driveway.

“I have these kittens in the old chicken coop,” Doris said. “This spring has been pretty productive. We have almost twenty kittens in there. I have a few more isolated, just for that mild upper respiratory stuff they get sometimes.”

We followed Doris into the chicken coop, and we were immediately swarmed with kittens. I think they were expecting to be fed. There were all kinds and colors. They all looked to be six to eight weeks old, and I could only spot a couple with a bit of discharge in the corner of their eyes.

“We keep the younger ones with our foster caregivers,” Doris said. “Then, when they are about six weeks old, we move them in here, so they are a little better socialized to the ways of being a kitten.”

“Picking two out of twenty might be a little difficult,” I said.

I had no more than spoke those words when two kittens launched themselves onto my pant legs and started to climb up. They were a couple of tabby kittens, and they looked so much alike that they must have been littermates. 

“It looks like these two made a choice for me,” I said.

We gathered the two kittens up and made a generous donation to KATA. The kittens shared a kennel at the clinic. It was a couple of days before our trip, and they seemed to enjoy being away from the crowd.

***

The trip to South San Francisco proved to be uneventful. The kittens, in their carrier, had no issue with traveling. We stopped for a visit with cousins at Fortuna. We stayed in a motel, but the kittens stayed with the cousins. They were almost adopted by Lorrene and Jim. We could have easily left them there.

We picked up Addison and Olivia from school on our arrival at Dee’s. To say they were excited to see the new kittens would be a colossal understatement. 

It did not take long for Wishbone and Crystal to become fixtures in the family. They have individual personalities, but they also remain very close to each other in their daily routines.

And most of all, they remain a living testament to the great work done by Vicki and Doris and their cadre of volunteers.

Photo by DeLaine Larsen, PhD

What’s for Dinner

D. E. Larsen, DVM

Growing up, dinner time just happened. Mom would have the table set for dinner when we would come in from the barn after the evening milking. There was never a discussion of what was for dinner. Mom did all that, and you ate what was on the table or went hungry. If you didn’t eat, and Dad was in a good mood, he would offer you some bread and milk before bedtime.

I never remember thanking Mom for dinner. Everyone worked on the farm, and everyone had their job. Mom cooked dinner. That is just the way it was done.

In the Army in Korea, it was much the same. Everyone had their job. Dinner was prepared and cooked by Koreans, hired by the Army with a mess sergeant to supervise the process.

“Let’s clean up your workbench and go to dinner,” I said as I started putting things away on my desk so I could help Truman and Lauser.

It was the middle of summer in South Korea, and the heat was stifling. Everyone hated leaving the air-conditioned operations building and walking half a mile down to the mess hall.

As we stepped out of the operations building, we were greeted by a small snake coming down the sideway toward us. It didn’t look much different than the garter snakes back home.

Truman stopped in his tracks. “Wow, a snake,” he said.

This was the first snake I had seen in the ten months I had been in Korea. Truman was from Arizona, Lauser was from New Mexico, and snakes excited both of them.

“You keep an eye on him,” Lauser said to Truman. “I’ll get something to catch him.”

Lauser ran back into the operations building and was back in a couple of minutes with a coffee can and a piece of typing paper.

The two of them were down on the sidewalk, herding the snake with the piece of paper, trying to convince the little guy to crawl into the coffee can. The snake was striking the paper violently. This was no garter snake.

It didn’t take them long, and they had the snake in the coffee can and the lid attached.

We headed down the hill to the mess hall with Truman carrying the coffee can in the crook of his arm.

There was a crowd in the mess hall this afternoon. A Korean was there peddling painting that had slowed guys’ normal rapid exit after eating.

We found an empty table, and Truman set the coffee can on the corner. After going through the serving line, one of the Korean waitresses came over and took our drink order.

It wasn’t long before another of the girls came over and wanted to know what we had in the coffee can.

“A snake,” Truman said.

I don’t think she understood the English word.

“Can I see?” she asked.

Truman carefully peeled the plastic lid off the coffee can. The snake was coiled against the side of the can.

The girl shrieked and jumped back. She returned to the group of girls watching. They were all excited and talking amongst themselves.

Pretty soon, another girl approached the table but kept her distance from the coffee can.

“That snake you have in the can,” she said. “It is a very bad snake.”

Both Truman and Lauser hooped and hollered at that information.

“Maybe you guys should have somebody check that snake,” I said. “Let’s take it to the first sergeant and have him send it to the medics.”

After dinner, Truman and Lauser took the coffee can over to the first sergeant’s office. The CQ on duty said they would send it to the medics in the morning.

During lunch a couple of days later, the First Sergeant came over to our table.

“That snake, you guys, caught the other day just happens to be one of the most dangerous snakes in Asia, it’s called a short-tailed viper or something like that,” the First Sergeant said. “Next time you see a snake in this country, you either kill it or leave it the hell alone. The medical officer was pretty upset. He said if that snake had bitten anyone, they would be dead.”

In Schöningen, West Germany, we were on our own for dinner. Our small border outpost had about seventy guys, and no spouses were allowed. We were paid extra to live on the economy, TDY pay.

“Hey, what are you guys doing for dinner tonight?” I asked as we were doing the final clean-up of the shop on Friday evening.

“Why don’t we all have dinner at the Rathskeller,” Jim said. “I’ll split a Chateaubriand dinner with you.”

The Rathskeller was the best restaurant in Schöningen. Their “Chateaubriand for two” was the most expensive meal on their menu. It cost twenty marks. At an exchange rate in 1968 of four marks to the dollar, that was five dollars. Split between the two of us was the best meal in town for two dollars and fifty cents.

When the waitress placed the large wooden platter between Jim and me, we were both hungry. Centered on the platter was the chateaubriand, a large hunk of tenderloin roast. Then they were potatoes, white asparagus, variable raw veggies, and fruit. And a dollop of caviar topped the platter.

“I’ll trade you my share of the asparagus for your share of the caviar,” Jim said. “I just have never been able to eat the stuff.”

“I never ate asparagus at home,” I said. “But I sort of like this white stuff. And caviar is nothing but fish eggs. I sure don’t understand the attraction people have with it.”

The tenderloin was perfectly cooked, and we washed everything down with a liter of beer.

“Tell me again that we don’t live like kings,” Jim said.

After dinner, we made our way to the Bahnhof Hotel. We finished the evening with beer, wine, or whatever until the wee hours of the morning at the Swing Club run by the Army.

The life of Riley came to an abrupt end when I got an early out from the Army to return to school. I made a mad dash from my point of discharge at Fort Dix, New Jersey, to Corvallis, Oregon, to enroll at Oregon State University.

That summer, I lived with my brother and his family. Dinner was always on the table when Gary and I returned from school. I don’t think I ever said thank you to Kathy. That was just a job for a mom.

“What’s for dinner tonight?” Gary asked Kathy as soon as we walked into the apartment. “I’m hungry tonight. Maybe we should have steak.”

“No such luck,” Kathy said. “You know the kids don’t eat steak. We have spaghetti tonight.”

“This might be a good night for me to take everyone out of pizza,” I said.

“You mean I get a night off,” Kathy said. “That would be great, but with the kids, it has to be pepperoni.”

I don’t remember Kathy getting many days off that summer in 1969.

Besides school, I laid on the floor with the kids and watched the moon landing by the astronauts.

And as before, all good things come to an end. Gary and his family moved back to Myrtle Point and his teaching job. And I moved into a small older trailer house that I purchased. Now what’s for dinner was my job. I couldn’t afford to go out like I did in Germany. Figuring out what I was going to eat every night became a chore.

The problem was solved when I called Mom.

“I think I need your meatloaf recipe and potato salad recipe,” I told Mom on the phone.

“Well, David, I will put them in the mail for you, but they are large recipes and probably more than you could eat,” Mom said.

“I am figuring that I will make a recipe of each on Sunday, and then that is what I will eat all week,” I said.

“Don’t you think you will get tired of eating the same thing all the time?” Mom asked.

“Mom, I get tired of fixing dinner every night,” I said. “This won’t be bad; Stoney and I, and sometimes some others, eat at King’s Table every Thursday, so that breaks up the week.”

That is how it went for a couple of years until I married. Then I was back to not worrying about what’s for dinner until I retired. Sandy considered herself retired also, and I was back to doing my share of the cooking.

Photo by Hyun-tae Kim – https///www.inaturalist.org/photos/2809108