My Patient Takes a Furlough

When I lived in the Bay area of California it never got really cold. It did however get cold enough for a cat to look for a warm place to sleep. Felix was a patient of mine who sought warmth in the wrong place. His owner rushed him in early one morning. He had fallen to sleep on the engine block of the family car and was caught in the fan belt when the car was started that morning.

He was deep in shock on arrival and the skin was virtually stripped off his right front leg. I told the owner that it was important to stabilize him from the shock initially and then I would talk to them about treatment of the leg. They were a great family and waited patiently while Felix was treated. Once he was stabile I talked to them about doing a skin graft procedure that would encompass two surgical procedures. They agreed, knowing that he would be with me for several weeks. In the first surgery his arm was placed in a pocket under the skin of his side. He stayed in this position in our hospital until the graft was ready to be attached and the arm was freed from his side. The graft worked beautifully and Felix was a great patient through it all.

I prepared to send him home on a Saturday morning. The owners were willing students when I talked to them about the aftercare and it came time to bring Felix up to his excited family. They brought in a shallow cardboard box to take him home. I looked at the box and told them it didn’t look all that safe. They weren’t concerned because they would be very careful and they only had to walk out to the car. We said our goodbyes and I went back to work.
About an hour later they returned to the hospital. For the last sixty minutes they had been scouring the neighborhood looking for Felix. He had jumped out of the box the minute they stepped outside. I was just sick, hoping he would be OK. I joined the search but personally had never had much success getting a cat to come to me when they were already frightened.

After an afternoon with no sign of him we set out a couple of humane traps with food in hopes that he would return for food. The first morning one trap held a possum and the second was empty. The following morning I was met with great news. Felix sat comfortably in front of an empty food bowl and wondered why I was so thrilled to see him. His leg was fine, not a suture missing.

I called the owner and donated a cat carrier for the trip home.

Learning to Train from Marley

Many of our clients know that I am an avid runner. I have run forty marathons and will run my sixth ultra-marathon on Mount St. Helens this weekend.
I love to race but I really enjoy the training more. I have trained with a large number of runners over the years and other than my wife Debbie, Marley is my favorite running partner. You can find Marley’s picture on my biography page on this website. She is the one at the top without a tie.

Marley is six years old this summer. She has been a faithful running companion since her first birthday. This is the first characteristic of a good running partner. It is important to be faithful. Dogs never fake this and neither should we. Running long distances takes dedication and to have a faithful partner to depend on for training runs always encourages me to do my best. There are days that one of us doesn’t really want to go but we are there for each other. After a long run I love the way the closeness lingers. Marley will follow me around and lay at my feet panting. She looks up at me to acknowledge our good run.

The next characteristic of a good running partner is that Marley doesn’t care who leads. In fact, it is good to take turns. She is equally happy running ahead or behind me. I may lead her up a hill and she happily takes over on the way back down. The majority of the time we are happiest running next to one another.

A good running partner doesn’t get distracted but it is OK to stop once in a while to sniff around or enjoy the scenery. I have run in some of the most beautiful mountains available. Marley has taught me to take those short moments to stop and take it all in.

Now the best part of all. If I run 45 minutes or several hours, Marley is always smiling. It is such a pleasure to see her love of what we are doing. I am pretty sure that when she looks up at me it is much the same.

If you decide to follow Marley and me, here are a few pieces of advice to make it more fun:
• Start slowly. Most dogs will have way more energy and desire than would be good for them as they go on the first few runs. Build slowly just as you would for yourself.
• Don’t forget, dogs need water and you do too. If you are out longer of if it is warm please be sure to allow your dog to drink.
• Be careful about running in the heat. Our canine friends pant to release their excess heat and don’t have sweat glands. Try to find the cooler parts of the day to do your runs.
• Don’t expect too much too soon. Remember, if it isn’t fun the two of you won’t enjoy it. If you want to train for the Boston Marathon that day, you might want to run by yourself or pick your dog up near the end of the run. Allow for some occasional stops and don’t make it a bad thing.
• Patiently teach your dog to pay attention to you during the run. The only command I ever use with Marley when we run is to “Pay Attention”. This is our command whenever other people or dogs are along the path. She knows when she hears this command that she is to keep an eye on me and not turn her head to our passing neighbors.
• Strap on your shoes, grab your leash and have fun!

My Dog Adam

I think every child needs a dog. I was fortunate that my parents felt the same way. My dog was Adam. Adam was a beagle mix. Beagles are known for their energy and their bark. Both are limitless.

I have many fond memories of him. As a youngster I lived out in the country and inherited a paper route from my older brother Bob. A country paper route covered more miles than papers because everyone lived so far apart. I mounted my bike every afternoon at three with baskets full of newspapers. The route covered many miles and many dogs who felt it their duty to nip at the legs of the trusted carrier. My secret weapon was Adam. What he lacked in size he made up for with the typical beagle traits of bark and energy. He never got into a fight but made sure that the biting dogs stayed away. I never figured out how he learned it but there was a stretch of several miles with no houses and a very winding road. He found a shortcut through the woods and would be waiting for me at the side of the road as I rounded the final bend.

I don’t want you to get the mistaken impression that Adam was all about valor. He had a mischievous side as well. We had an English woman that lived nearby. She was quite a baker and used to put pies out to cool on her back porch. One afternoon she came over and told my Mom that a wild animal ate her pumpkin pie while it was cooling. We thought nothing of it; after all we did live out in the country. That evening we were sitting in our family room watching television. Adam was sleeping in the room and happened to burp in his sleep. The entire room filled with the odor of pumpkin. We let our neighbor continue to think it was a wild animal that got her pie.

He was also quite a romantic. I doubt the local government would do it these days but it wasn’t unusual to have the sheriff show up at our door with Adam in his car. If there was a female dog in heat within ten miles he felt it was his duty to camp out in the front yard and court the young lady with the baying that can only be a beagle’s. I am sure the young dogs were flattered but the owner just wanted the noise to go away.

Adam was my constant companion until I left for college and my parents and younger brothers continued to enjoy him for many years. It is truly great to be a kid with a dog.

Rick Cooper

Rick Cooper is a good friend. We were classmates in veterinary school and shared four years of the good, the bad and the ugly of being a student. When I think of Rick, I reflect on how we all need to look at people’s strengths and sometimes exhibit a bit of patience. I don’t think Rick would mind if I share a story about him.

During our freshman year of school at Iowa State we were faced with many challenges. Not the least of which was a course load that most of us weren’t really anticipating. Anatomy alone introduced us to a number of new terms that was the equivalent of becoming fluent in three and one half foreign languages. We were also faced with professors with high expectations and varying degrees of patience. We had a histology professor who was especially demanding. He had written the textbook we were using and was known to be a challenge to say the least. In respect, I must add that he was tough but made us better students and prepared us well for our profession. Rick was balancing a young family in addition to his studies. As the semester wore on it became very obvious that he was in danger of flunking the course. We all studied together and he passed but just barely. Unfortunately, the school had a rule that our grade point had to exceed a certain level by the end of our sophomore year or you would be dismissed. Rick continued to work hard but was in danger of being below the required level as we approached the final exams of our sophomore year. We all studied very hard and much of the focus was on Rick’s performance. I will never forget walking over to school with him to check on our posted grades. We both celebrated when we saw he did great and was in no danger of being dropped.

After that year we entered into the more clinical part of our education. That meant that it was more practical in terms of what we would be doing the rest of our careers. At that point, the guy that had struggled for a couple of years suddenly became one of the best at everything. He had a way with animals of all sizes and shapes and was someone you could always count on for an answer.

Today Rick is a successful hospital owner in Iowa and treats his clients to great medical care for both farm animals and house pets. We still catch up from time to time and I often think of how the profession would have missed out if the sophomore exams hadn’t gone as well.

Congratulations to Rick on a wonderful career and I am proud to call you a friend.

A Cat, a Stick and an Unusual Injury

At the end of a long day I received a call from a man who said his cat was skewered by a stick. Naturally I told him to come right in and I would wait for him. He couldn’t handle the cat and asked if I would come to his house. Fortunately, I had one of our technicians available and we took a drive into a very affluent neighborhood.
The wife answered the door and directed us upstairs. We entered the master bedroom. I saw the largest bed I had ever seen. The man was standing opposite us with his back pressed to the wall wearing driving gloves. I am an optimist but on sizing up this scene it was hard to think the injured cat, wherever he was, would be easy to handle.

I asked where the cat was and he pointed to the bed. I was on one side and our technician was on the other. We both crouched down to have a look. Our feline named Sam was right in the middle of the floor under the bed. I could see the stick going in one side of his abdomen and exiting from the opposite side. His pupils were wide and reflective and he displayed a healthy set of teeth. We couldn’t reach him so I asked his owner if we could take the mattress off. He quickly said no. This was going well so far. I then asked if we could borrow a couple of large towels. I got the impression he would have liked to say no to that as well but his wife quickly got two large beach towels. In the under mattress version of a cattle drive, I crawled underneath and Sam moved into the waiting towel of our technician.

The owners followed us to the hospital where I prepared Sam to undergo emergency surgery. The surgery went great. Miraculously the stick missed all of the internal organs as it passed through the abdomen. While Sam recovered from the anesthesia I updated the owners. They in turn told me what had happened. Apparently Sam jumped from a tall ledge in their atrium and landed on a stick that was holding up a new plant. The stick snapped off and he ran under the bed. I had never met anyone that owned driving gloves but resisted my temptation to ask how they worked with a fractious cat.

Sam recovered well, I kept the stick, and I am not sure about the status of the plant.