A Hamster Story

I had a very sad event in my hospital when I was practicing in Northern California in the early 1980’s. A young girl and her mother brought in a hamster. She wanted to have the nails trimmed. As I carried the hamster back to the treatment area to have a technician do the nails the hamster suddenly passed away. She was old and I am sure it was just her time but had no doubt that the trip to the hospital was too much for her. I was devastated and needed to break the news to the little girl. The daughter was still in the exam room and the mother had moved up to the front of the hospital. I told the mother and she asked if I would mind speaking to her daughter without her present. I explained the situation to her twelve year old daughter. She was distraught which was not surprising because I was as well. I felt I had little to offer her other than very heart felt sympathy.

The hospital closed for ninety minutes later that day before evening hours. It was winter so darkness was setting in. I was so upset over the loss of the hamster that I went to a local store and bought a hamster for the little girl. I had the parent’s address and spent the next bit of time trying to find their house. I had to knock on a few doors to get directions and apparently a grown man with a cardboard hamster carrier doesn’t inspire trust. The first couple of people just said they weren’t interested through the door and I moved on. By the time I found where the house was it was too late and I had to get back to see my appointments. As I drove up to a full parking lot, I realized my new hamster had escaped in my car. There in full view of my next two hours of appointments I chased a screaming hamster around my beat up car. I can only imagine what the people were thinking. I finally secured her and moved her to safer housing until I was through for the evening.

I returned to the little girl’s house and presented her the new hamster with her parent’s permission. They were thrilled and I felt a sense of relief that their daughter’s sadness was lessened.

The next day a staff member came and told me the mother was on the phone. I took the call thinking she was going to thank me again. To my surprise she informed me that the hamster had several babies that night! Once we figured out what we were going to do with the babies we both had a good laugh over the situation. The hamster family became a nice show and tell piece for her daughter.

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.

Otis

I have learned many valuable lessons on grief over the span of my career. One of the most helpful is the ability to express your feelings during a time of loss.

We lost our beloved Pug, Otis last week. It will eventually transition into a celebration of his life but the pain is raw as I write this. He had a great life. He was nearly 16 years old at the time of his death. This is an extraordinary length of life for a Pug and I will always be grateful.

My wife and I returned home from work. As was our custom, we would be greeted by our five year old dog, Marley. Otis had been completely deaf for several years so Marley would say hello and then go to Otis’ pillow and wake him up to let him know we were home. This time, Otis wouldn’t get up. It was heart breaking to watch her try to wake him. My wife, Debbie immediately broke down. Even from a distance, I knew he was gone and his life had ended peacefully in his sleep.

We picked up Otis when my youngest son Adam turned six. His older brother had a pug named Wally and I had my lab Sabrina. Adam was especially bothered by the fact that if he threw a ball to Sabrina she would bring it back to me and not him. He was entitled to his own dog and we all agreed. The thing I love about Pug puppies is that they look like miniature adults. The only difference is their face is all eyes and believe me when I tell you, they know how to use them. Saying no to those eyes was a difficult task.

He quickly fit into our family and wasted very little time in grabbing more than his share of attention. As he approached maturity he developed a habit that I would not describe as endearing. He was nicknamed the “mad humper”. Fortunately, he earned this title by mounting Wally and not anyone else in our family. Old Wally put up with it but he proved to me that dogs are able to wear a look of disgust on their face. I had always told owners that the behavior would usually reduce within a couple of weeks of being neutered. Otis didn’t read the same books I had.

Otis used to sleep with his chin on Wally’s back every night. After Wally passed away he would rest his head on one of us. It is one of the many things we are missing now. He also became attached to Debbie’s hip. When she would go anywhere in our house he would follow. We used to laugh because if she would stop suddenly he would often walk into the backs of her legs. As he aged, the attachment grew as is often the case. By the time he had lost his hearing this became a real challenge for the little guy. If we moved downstairs when he was sleeping, he would eventually wake up and we could hear him running from room to room to find her. It wasn’t unusual to go upstairs and find him standing in front of the closed door to her walk in closet. He was never frustrated, just eager to find her. Many of us have asked, what really goes through their little minds that allow them to be so incredibly happy all the time?

I am very sure, as his doctor, the fact that we always gave him exercise, several times a day for his entire life allowed him to live so long. As he got older we carried him to the park several times daily to allow him the short walks he could tolerate. He was always slow going away from the house but had renewed energy when we turned towards home.

I know I will not remain sad about his passing. He had a wonderful life and he reinforced every single good thing I can think of about having a dog in your life. I treasure his memory and am reminded to enjoy all my blessings every day.

Thanks for listening.

“I’ll help you doc”

Early in my career I worked at a small hospital with two doctors. We shared emergency calls with a few of the neighboring hospitals. Today most people are near veterinary emergency hospitals. In those days they rarely existed. As a result, I was usually on call one day each week and one out of every three weekends. We had no available staff for the emergencies so I relied on my clients most of the time. My young wife, Debbie was also pressed into service when needed.

One thing I noticed right away was that puppies were never born during the day. I received a call around midnight one evening. As I talked on the phone it was apparent that my night of sleep was going to be shortened at best. Mr. Duarte was a breeder of miniature schnauzers. He had a young mother who had been in labor for hours and hadn’t produced a puppy. I asked him to meet me at the hospital. Given the likelihood of a caesarian section I asked my sleepy wife if she would mind coming along in case Mr. Duarte couldn’t provide any help. Debbie is a sweetheart and she agreed to join me.
I examined the mother after we arrived at the hospital. I recommended surgery immediately and Mr. Duarte anxiously agreed. He asked if he could watch and I said I would be happy to have him take the puppies from me during the surgery. We had a quick class and he indicated that he was good to go. Debbie had helped before so she was a willing backup.

As I started the surgery, the ever talkative Mr. Duarte asked a question about what he was looking at and became very quiet. I was getting ready to remove the first puppy and glanced up at a face that was covered in sweat and losing color by the second. “Mr. Duarte, are you OK?” He wobbled and before he could respond, Debbie took him by the arm and gave him a chair and some water. From that point forward it was the efficient work of Mrs. Carpenter that helped to produce four live puppies.

After the surgery Mr. Duarte’s color returned and he felt much better. He was thankful that the whole Carpenter family decided to come down for the surgery. Young doctors today are rarely exposed to anything without a hospital full of excellently trained staff. I wouldn’t have it any other way because these people are the lifeblood of the hospital but there are days I miss handing a puppy to my wife during surgery.

Gretel and the Family Volkswagen

I began my career in a small town and as was common at the time found myself on emergency calls frequently. One such Sunday afternoon I received a panicked call from the owner of a German shepherd. They had been working in their yard on a beautiful afternoon. To allow Gretel to enjoy the day they tied her leash to the bumper of the family Volkswagen. All was well and the husband needed to run to the store for some yard supplies. To the horror of his wife, he forgot that Gretel was still attached to the car.
The wife screamed on the phone to please come quickly. I told them I would meet them at the hospital and jumped in my car.

I arrived shortly before the family and the Volkswagen. I was relieved to see the dog walking out of the car. The husband was white as a sheet and the wife rushed to me with tears streaming down her cheeks. “The leash didn’t break until he hit second gear!”
I tried to calm them down as I began examining Gretel. She was a sweetheart, trying to kiss my face as I looked at her abraded foot pads. Her physical exam showed only the effects of the pavement scraping the bottom of her feet. I had done much the same during college by playing too much basketball on Saturday mornings.

I explained the minor nature of the injuries and set about cleaning and dressing all four feet. During this time I did my best to ease the guilt of the husband and relax the harried couple. As I began to lighten the atmosphere I asked them if they had seen the recent movie Vacation where a similar situation had a much worse fate for the family dog. They had and I could sense the lessening of the tension. The husband finally began to relax. We talked some more as I finished and he calmly leaned toward the wall as the guilt and embarrassment faded. Unfortunately, the wall was a couple of feet to his right and he leaned into a swinging door. Have you ever seen an accident where it looked like it was happening in slow motion and you still couldn’t stop it? I reached to grab him but missed by inches as he fell flat on his back. Now I have to admit, my first emotion was laughter but I struggled to contain it. His wife however made no such attempt. Shortly thereafter we were all three sitting on the floor with tears streaming down our cheeks. I am sure Gretel was quite confused by all of this as she moved among us. About a year later, perhaps around the anniversary of the accident I received a copy of the movie Vacation and a picture of Gretel. The movie was a great reminder of a well spent Sunday afternoon.

Oki

Oki was not a pet of mine but over the years I have to admit I feel very close to a dog I have never met. If you drive into our hospital you can’t miss him. I am very proud to tell you he is buried on our grounds.

Oki was the third most decorated dog in World War II. His story is one of bravery and courage. I am not qualified to tell you the story but will give some details. What really hits home about Oki is that along with his owner, Robert Harr, they are the shining example of the human animal bond.

Oki was assigned to Robert and another marine on a demolition team. He was trained to detect the enemy as they moved through the jungle in Okinawa. He warned Bob of trouble by silently pressing into his leg. A situation developed that resulted in one hundred and fifty marines being trapped behind enemy lines. Oki had their location attached to his collar and managed after being shot to deliver their location to the troops waiting on shore and no lives were lost. He later lost part of his jaw due to a machete wound.

During this time the military dogs were normally euthanized at the end of their service. Robert and his friends had another plan in mind. They arranged passage home for Oki. He made it back to New Jersey and after being reunited with Robert he was demilitarized over a nine month period. Oki and Bob were invited to the white house to be decorated by President Harry Truman. Bob tells me that when President Truman entered the room with the medal in his hand, Oki got serious look on his face and silently leaned into Bob’s leg. Oh, oh. Fortunately, President Truman was a very perceptive man. He immediately handed the medal to an assistant and left the room.

Although the story can be told better, one has to sit with Robert Harr to really understand the bond they shared. I sat in a restaurant one afternoon with Bob and asked him to retell the story. By the time he was done we both had tears in our eyes and I noticed the entire restaurant had grown quiet and everyone was listening. It isn’t just the heroism of Oki but the lifetime of devotion between a man and the dog he loved. To this day, every Memorial Day Marines will quietly arrive at our hospital to pay tribute to their hero.