I Don’t Have Fleas!

D. E. Larsen, DVM

The clouds were gathering in the sky, and everyone was hopeful that fall would finally be here. It had been a long summer. 

We were winding down for the day, and Sandy and I planned to take the kids to a movie. We had just switched the phone at the clinic over to the answering service when Sally came through the door with her Rottweiler pup.

“Doctor Larsen, I hope you have time to look at Brutus,” Sally said. “He is chewing a hole in his rump, and I have no idea what’s going on with him, but it looks bad.”

I looked over the counter at Brutus, a young Rottweiler. “Looks like fleas, Sally,” I said. “Do you want to try a shampoo and see if that works?”

“Doctor, this can’t be fleas. Brutus is never around other dogs,” Sally said. “And I don’t have fleas in the house. The other dogs look fine, and none of us ever have a flea bite. Besides, all the dogs have flea collars.”

“Okay, I will take a few minutes and look Brutus over, but we have plans this evening,” I said. “This might be a short visit.”

We took Brutus into an exam room, and I lifted him onto the table. He had an obvious sore on his tail-head where he had been chewing on himself. I parted the hair, and the fleas scattered.

I pulled Brutus close to me and held him while I pulled his legs off the table and laid him on his side. Then rolling him on his back, Brutus looked at me with his head held off the table. He wasn’t sure he liked what was going on.

“Now, Sally, watch his belly close,” I said as I scratched Brutus so he would relax and spread his hind legs.

Many fleas scattered, seeking cover in longer hair.

“Oh, my God, where did all of those come from?” Sally exclaimed.

“Sally, it is late August in the Willamette Valley,” I said. “Fleas are everywhere, and you can’t avoid them.”

“But he has a flea collar,” Sally said.

“Yes, that is better than nothing, but not much better,” I said. “Those flea collars do a good job controlling fleas around the head and neck. On a dog like Brutus, the little cloud of protection is about three feet behind him most of the time. I doubt if he spends a lot of quiet time.”

“The box says they work,” Sally said. “It said they would give total flea protection for six months.”

“Yes, I know what the box says,” I said. “But the box is talking about Denver. That is probably where they did all the testing. They don’t understand what fleas are in Denver. They don’t have fleas there. When I was in vet school at Colorado State, in four years, I never saw a dog that looked like Brutus. I never saw a case of flea allergy dermatitis.”

“That’s terrible. How do they get away with that kind of marketing?” Sally asked.

“I am sure they have the paperwork to back up their statements on the box,” I said. “It is just that things are different here.”

“Can we take care of his problem?” Sally asked.

“Sure, but it takes a lot of work to get fleas under control this time of the year,” I said. “We are told that there are products on the horizon that will work better, but I will believe it when I see it.”

“Why don’t I have any flea bites?” Sally asked.

“Fleas only like special people,” I said. “When we have fleas in our house, only me and one daughter will have flea bites. Nobody else will know there is a problem. If you watch when you drive around town, you will see a few dogs with little or no hair on their back half. Those dogs all have flea allergies. The other dogs probably have fleas also but are not bothered.”

“What are we going to do to help poor Brutus?” Sally asked.

“For this sore, we will give him some prednisone for a few days, along with a course of antibiotics,” I said. “For the fleas, I will send you home with a good shampoo, followed by some flea spray. Then, if you really want to get things under control, you need to use a flea bomb in the house and a yard spray for the outside. And then, hope for an early winter.” 

“I  really don’t want to do the flea bomb thing,” Sally said. “I had a friend that did all of that a couple of years ago. It seemed to take care of her problem, but it was a real hassle.”

“Some of these shampoos do a pretty good job at giving a week of protection,” I said. “It might work to just plan on giving Brutus a bath every Saturday morning for a while. We can always get more aggressive later if it doesn’t work.”

“Yes, that sounds good to me,” Sally said. “Just fix me up with the medication and the shampoo, and you can still make your plans for the evening.”

Sally and Brutus when out the door with a large bottle of shampoo, flea spray, and medication. 

As soon as Sally left, Sandy locked the front door.

“I bet she will be back next week or maybe in two weeks,” I said. “Giving Brutus a bath will probably be more of a chore than she thinks.

“Let’s get out of here before someone else catches us,” Sandy said. “If we don’t get to this Star Wars movie early, we won’t get a seat.”

Photo by Rachel Leibelt.

Blackjack and Newt, From the Archives

D. E. Larsen, DVM

“Joleen, are you still feeding that feral tomcat out the back door?” I asked.

“I don’t think he is really feral. I am going to catch him one of these days.”

“Catch him. If you get ahold of him, it will be a question mark as to who has caught who,” I said.

Our original clinic on Nandina Street had a large patch of berry vines across the alley from the clinic. That patch of briers was home to a sizable population of feral cats. Joleen had taken a liking to this young black tomcat. She was convinced she could catch him and tame him down.

A couple of weeks later, Joleen came out of the back and washed her hands at the front sink.

“I got him,” she said as if it was no big deal. “I threw him into the isolation ward. It wasn’t so hard. I didn’t even get scratched.”

“What are you going to do with him,” I asked.  

“I figure if we neuter, vaccinate and deworm him, then leave him in a kennel for a time, he should tame down just fine. Then I will either take him home, or we could make a clinic cat out of him.”

“I’m not sure about a clinic cat,” I said.

But, so began Blackjack’s sojourn in the clinic. 

Our first adventure was transferring him from the isolation room, a small bare room at the time, into a cage in the kennel room. He was not going to be fooled by Joleen’s gentle nature again. It took a capture pole and a lot of clawing and biting at the end of the rod to accomplish the transfer. 

Finally secured in a kennel, we made plans to secure his future.

“We are not going to have a tomcat in here for long,” I said. “There is nothing that will stink up a vet clinic worse than tomcat pee.”

“We have time; you can neuter him this afternoon,” Joleen said.

One more wrestling match, and I had an injection of Ketamine into Blackjack. Joleen took the opportunity to comb him out. Blackjack was a short-haired cat, black as could be, but he had been living in the briers for some time now and needed to be spruced up a bit.

Then we neutered, vaccinated, and dewormed him.

“He will be a new man in the morning after his brain surgery,” I said.

Blackjack tamed down in a surprisingly short time. In a couple of weeks, he was given a limited run of the clinic. It was not long that we recognized that he enjoyed people and the cats that were with them. Coming off the street, he was very dog-wise. He could greet a few of the dogs that came through the door. But most of them he avoided with the skills only learned by a feral lifestyle.

He was controlled by the smell of the canned food. Joleen would pop the seal on a can of cat food, and Blackjack would come running from anywhere. 

There came a day when Blackjack wanted out the door.

“Do we dare let him out,” Joleen asked, more to herself than to me.

“I think he knows where his home is by now. My guess is he will be back before closing time.”

That was the case. About 4:00, Joleen heard him meowing at the back door. He came in for his can of cat food and then headed to his kennel for the night.

It was not long, and he would come and go by the front door. He learned to scurry through the door as a client would come or go. Jumping up on the counter and almost scaring some lady who had not noticed him following her through the door.

Most clients loved Blackjack, and he loved to sit on the front counter and accept any pats handed out by clients. But unfortunately, not all clients. One of our ‘Cat Ladies’ thought we provided Blackjack a terrible existence. 

“It is not right for him to be cooped up in here all the time,” she would say. “He should be in a home, where he is loved.”

“Mary, he has the run of this place,” I said. “He can come and go as he pleases, and his life here is far better than his old life.”

“Well, that may be, but I think he deserves a real home,” Mary said.

It was some months after that conversation that Blackjack left by the front door of the clinic one afternoon and never returned. We looked on the neighborhood streets and through the feral cat colony. There was never a trace of him.

“I bet she took him,” Joleen said. “Poor Blackjack, his life here was far better than she will ever provide.”

“There is no way we will ever know. There are a hundred ways that a cat can meet his fate in this world. We gave him the best we could while he was in our care. And I doubt she would have been capable of catching him out on the street.”

We were still in a sort of grieving status over Blackjack’s loss when Kathy burst through the front door with a limp kitten in her hands.

“The highway crew found this guy in the ditch by our house,” Kathy said. “It looks like he has taken a big whack on the head, but he is alive.”

“If you guys can do something for him, that is fine,” Kathy said. “I can’t afford to do anything for him.”

“We will look him over and see if he is savable,” Joleen said. “If he recovers, we can maybe find him a home.”

This kitten was about 6 weeks old and had a patch of hair gone on the top of his head. Still unconscious, he must have been hit by a car. When I started handling the kitten, he began to stir a little. Other than the patch of missing hair on his head, he looked fine.

I gave him a dose of Dexamethasone, and Joleen went back to settle him in a kennel. Or so I thought. She carried him around in a towel for the rest of the morning. 

By noon, the little tabby kitten was back to normal function. We offered him some canned food, and he acted like he hadn’t eaten in a week.

“It looks to me like you have your next clinic cat,” Joleen said.

After devouring his lunch, he was screaming for more. And I did say screaming.

“He sounds like he would make a good Speaker of the House. Maybe we should name him Newt,” I said.

Newt grew up in the clinic. Will, he spent most of his first year in the clinic. The clinic was his domain, he had free run of the place during the day, and we would put him in a large kennel overnight. His voice was the first thing one heard when we came through the door in the morning. He knew he got his breakfast and that the kennel door would be left open.

Newt enjoyed people, and they loved him. He would often perch on the front counter, acting as a greeter. He seemed to have no interest in going through the front door.

He was close to a year old when Bill and Opal were in with Mucho for a check-up. When they completed their visit, they purchased a 25-pound bag of C/D cat food. We were a little surprised when Opal came back into the clinic with the bag of food.

“This bag has a hole in the corner,” Opal said. 

Sure enough, there was a small hole in the bag and evidence of scratch and bite marks.

“That looks like Newt has been helping himself to some free meals,” I said. “We will refund that money. Do you want to keep this bag, at no cost, or do you want another one?” 

“Oh,” Opal said. “We can keep this one if you can tape it up. We really don’t want our money back.” 

I grabbed some packing tape and closed the hole. “You really don’t have any choice, Opal,” I said. “Sandy has already reversed the charge. If I take it back, we will just throw it away. So you may as well get the use of it.”

When Opal left, I went back and inspected our inventory. Newt made good choices. The bland diet foods for liver or kidney failure were not touched. But every bag of C/D had a small hole in the corner.

“Newt, I think you just got canned,” I said. Newt looked at me in a very aloof manner. “I think you earned a trip to the house. I can’t afford to lose hundreds of dollars in inventory to a cat that doesn’t produce any income for the clinic.”

That night Newt went home with us. This transition to the house went off without a hitch. He was quick to stake out his corner on the foot of our bed as he settled into a long life in the Larsen household.

Photo by David Bartus from Pexels

Photo by Mustafa ezz from Pexels

Dig the Hole Deep 

D. E. Larsen, DVM

Mom stepped out of the kitchen as soon as I came through the door. There was no smile on her face, which could only mean that there was work to be done.

“I want you to change into work clothes,” Mom said. “I was up checking Lila and Robert’s today. They aren’t going to be home for another four days, and they have a dead cow out by their filbert orchard.”

“So, what am I supposed to do about that?” I asked.

“As soon as I can track down your brother, you guys can go bury the cow,” Mom said, sounding a little stern. “That’s what you can do about that.”

“Mom, it’s the middle of August,” I said. “That ground will be as hard as a rock.”

“Yes, it’s the middle of August, and if we don’t get that cow buried, it will be a real mess by the time your Aunt and Uncle get home,” Mom said. “Besides, if you are going to play football this fall, you need to start getting into shape.”

About then, Mom heard the front door opening.

“Maybe that’s Gary now,” Mom said as she stepped out of the kitchen. “Oh, Frank, I thought you might be Gary. Do you know where he went this morning?”

“He’s salmoned on that new girl,” Dad said. “I think he ran over there for something, who knows what. Why do you ask?”

“I went up to check Lila’s place this morning, and they have a dead cow out by their filbert orchard,” Mom said. “I am going send these boys up to bury it.”

“Are you tough enough to dig that kind of a hole?” Dad said, looking at me.

“The two of them should be able to do it without any problem,” Mom said. “I think I will call Spires and see if Gary is over there.”

Gary pulled into the driveway before Mom could get to the phone, and mom started in as soon as he came through the door.

“You need to change clothes and get ready,” Mom said. “I am sending you and David up to bury a dead cow at Lila and Robert’s.”

“Mom, it’s the middle of August,” Gary said.

“Yes, and that cow won’t smell any better tomorrow,” Mom said. “Now get going.”

“I have a date tonight,” Gary said.

“Then you better get on your horse,” Dad said. “You can take the truck so you won’t have to get dirt in your car. You stop at the barn and pick up a rope.”

“Why do we need a rope?” I asked.

“You need to dig this hole ten feet deep,” Dad said. “How do you think you are going to get out of that hole?”

“Maybe we should take a ladder,” Gary said. “If we take the truck, we could just throw it on the bed.”

“Yes, and lose it on the first corner,” Dad said. “If you take the ladder, you make sure to tie it down. That might be better to have a ladder in the hole, anyway. That would give you a chance to survive if the bank caved in on you. And you make sure you have gloves.”

It didn’t take long, and we were changed and ready to go. Dad came out just as Gary finished getting the ladder tied down.

“This cow is probably going to be all bloated up,” Dad said. “Mom has been up there for several days, so it could be dead for that long. You dig this hole on the back side of the cow so you can just roll her over with her legs and drop her into the hole. That hole needs to be at least four feet wide and however long it needs to be to fit the cow. When you are deep enough where you can’t see out, you only want to have one of you in the hole at a time and keep the ladder in the hole.”

“Okay, we are on our way,” Gary said. “How long do you figure this will take us?”

“A couple of tough guys like you two, you should be done in an hour or two,” Dad said. “You should pull over and put some gas in that truck before you go. I’m not sure I trust that gas gauge anymore.”

“I thought that gas was just for the farm, not the highway,” Gary said. 

“The state isn’t going miss a few cents for tax money,” Dad said. “And how would they know, anyway.”

Just as we started to leave, Mom came out with a jug of water.

“It’s going to be hot this afternoon,” Mom said. “You might need this before you are done.”

Gary took the jug and handed it to me, and we were off. The trip up the river to Lila’s place was not long, but the old farm truck didn’t go fast, and it was a hot and bumping drive.

I got out, opened the gate, and pulled out to where the cow was lying. She was all puffed up, and her legs stuck out straight. Flies buzzed around her in swarms. When we got out of the truck, the odor struck us.

“This is going to be nice,” Gary said. “Let’s get to work so we can get the old girl in the ground.”

“I wonder what she died from?” I asked. “I mean, cows don’t just drop dead like this.”

The question was answered quickly when we noticed a bullet hole between her eyes.

“Night hunters,” Gary said, looking at the hole. “That was a pretty good shot if they made it from the highway. Damn idiots, people should know that there are cows in these fields.”

We got started digging right away. We marked off the margins of the hole with small shovel scoops. It was about eight feet long, four feet wide, and only a couple of feet from the cow’s back. It would be easy to pull her up on her back with her outstretched feet, and then with a slight push, she would tumble into the hole.

The ground was dry and hard at the beginning, and I thought this was going to take forever to dig a deep hole. But after the first couple of feet, the ground was softer, and the digging went faster. I had to work hard to keep up with Gary. His side of the hole seemed to be just a bit deeper than mine.

It wasn’t long, and we were down about four feet on my side.

“We better get the ladder in the hole,” Gary said. “And then we can take turns digging.”

“I can still see out pretty good,” I said.

“That’s because you haven’t been digging fast enough,” Gary said.

“No, you’re just short,” I said.

Getting out of a hole four feet deep is a bit of a challenge, but I could jump up, push with my hands and throw a leg out on the grass. Almost falling back into the hole, I quickly grabbed a handhold on the grass and pulled myself out.

I retrieved the ladder and placed it in the hole for Gary.

“Let’s take a break and get a drink of water,” Gary said. “It’s getting hot, and I’m almost sick from smelling that cow.”

We took the jug of water and sat in the shade of the filbert trees. The odor from the cow was much less there, and shade felt good in the growing heat of the afternoon.

“I was talking with Roger Gary the other day,” Gary said. “They have been doing pretty good pigeon hunting. Both up at the blue clay slide above Bridge and up Four Bit Gulch.”

“Don Miller and I are going to try up at his uncle’s place on Catching Creek,” I said. “Where did they come up with a name like Four Bit Gulch?”

“They say that is what the whore house used to charge back in the day,” Gary said. 

“When was that?” I asked. 

“I don’t know, probably before the war, maybe later,” Gary said. “Let’s get back to work. With this softer dirt, we should be able to finish this hole in no time.”

I climbed down the ladder first. Gary pulled the ladder out, and I started digging. I knew Gary was in a hurry, so I dug fast. The air seemed better as the hole got deeper, and the odor was not nearly as strong.

“Okay, let’s change places,” Gary said. “You are slowing down a bit. If we keep changing off, we can be deep enough in another fifteen or twenty minutes.”

Watching how fast things went, we probably should have taken turns from the beginning. In no time at all, we were at ten feet. We pulled the ladder out of the hole and stood looking, first at the dead cow and then at each other.

“Which end do you want?” Gary asked.

“I’ll take the front legs,” I said.

We swung our arms to scatter the flies, and each grabbed a leg. with a hard pull, we rolled the cow up onto her back. Then glancing at Gary, I nodded and gave the legs one final push. 

The cow tumbled into the hole. There was a load splat when she hit the bottom of the hole, and there was a gush of gas as her belly broke open. Fluid spilled from her belly and from both ends. The odor was overwhelming.

Gary turned away and gagged.

“Let’s get her covered up,” I said as I grabbed the shovel and started shoveling dirt back into the hole.

In no time, we had the hole filled in and a large mound of dirt on top. The air was clear, and the flies were gone. We loaded the ladder onto the truck and headed home.

“The good thing is we got done soon enough for me to get cleaned for tonight,” Gary said.

Mom was waiting out front when we got home.

“Could you tell why she died?” Mom asked.

“Lead poisoning,” Gary said, pointing to his forehead with a finger.

“Night hunters,” Mom said. “I hope they realize how much that cost Robert.”

“It probably wouldn’t have happened if Uncle Robert still had his hounds,” I said.

“They wouldn’t have been gone if he still had his hounds,” Mom said.

“Dave, you put things away and clean up the truck,” Gary said. “I’ve got to get cleaned up. I can still smell that cow on me.”

Photo by Alexey Demidov from Pexels.