Water Cress Trial and a Celebratory Weekend

Last Friday I was fortunate to be able to run in Jan Thompson's lovely trial in Limestone, TN. It was a short and easy drive compared to trips I've made for North East Border Collie Association trials, so I had no trouble making it a day trip so I could be back for work Saturday. The farm was located in a beautiful spot, we had great weather Friday (minus the brief threat of rain as a direct result of me putting on sunglasses), and I got to visit with some of my new friends!

Rae and I ran last, which meant that there was plenty of time for me to sit there and get nervous. My plan was to run her slowly since the sheep were fairly light, and since I need to work on handling her in a way other than balls to the walls. I sent her left into the pressure, because the lay of the field to the right would've shot her back into Virginia, I'm sure. She's generally a bomb-proof outrunner, but for whatever reason, she actually pulled up short *in front* of her sheep. There was a strong draw behind her to the holding pens (which Laura's Nick was stoically protecting), so I think she just got locked up and couldn't give up the pressure. I hollered "you get out of that" and she did...She kicked out and went around behind them, only to stop short again. I flanked her, she stopped, I whistled her on again and she got around to lift them properly. Looking back I maybe should have corrected her instead of directing her since she ought to know better, but I wasn't really mentally prepared for this to happen. Good lift and the fetch was nice and controlled and straight, but I'm an idiot and never got her to flank off the pressure enough to get her back on line after a bobble at the top. I fell back into the bad habit of not correcting her for stickiness and just kept blowing flanks. I'm frustrated that I can't get over that. We came down the field and around the post as slowly as we've ever done. Drive-away was very nice, good turn, good cross-drive line with nice pace...I have no idea how I managed to blow the panel high. The pen was at a tricky spot, you had to bring them around to the back side, with the gate opening the "hard" way (that I've never done before)...ie you had to pass the exhaust and then wrap them around the gate, instead of the gate opening so as to catch them as they were coming back from the cross-drive panel. We worked very methodically and slowly and got them right in.

In summary:

Good things = finally handled in a new way...sheep weren't upset from being pushed too hard. First time I didn't blow a wrong flank. Clean turn to set-up the cross-drive, where we've had trouble before.

Bad things = maybe ran her too slowly. She eyed up on me a little, especially by the time we got to the pen. I had to sternly tell her to "get up" a couple times. It was painful for me to run her so slowly, the "other" me would've made it around the course twice in that amount of time :) So I need to find a happy medium in the pace department. And I'm so mad at myself for accepting an off-line fetch, I see it happening, don't know why I don't do enough to fix it.

Saturday was Ella's birthday, but I spent a good portion of the day at the clinic. That afternoon I took her over to our agility field where she got to play around a little, and then we had some frisbee time.

Ready!

Whee!

Then we paid a visit to the Suffolk breeding ewes owned by my boss.

Rae bravely marches into battle.

That didn't go so well. The area was cross-fenced into 4 square lots, about 2 acres each. These ewes had never seen a dog before. They moved off me just fine, so together Rae and I could drive them anywhere. But anytime she got to their heads, they either stood her down or chased her off. She tried hard for me but they were very intimidating to her. I tried splitting a couple off the group and pushing them away to set up a draw back to the flock, and this half-worked. She could lift a few of them and get them going, but each little packet I pulled off had at least one who would challenge her. Then I tried sorting a few into one lot and setting up a draw across the gate to the flock in the other lot. This had no effect on the group we were working so I eventually gave up and went home.

Sunday we had a nice hike at Gambetta on a perfect fall afternoon.

Chestnut River

Bridge, 3 miles in

Typical: Rae coming, Ella going

Pretty

The New River

I like to take photos of the dogs, but Ella is always ahead of us playing stalking games and Rae is pretty much glued to my side hoping I might get out the ball or maybe a treat.

Watch out behind you, Rae!

You gonna get that ball out anytime soon?

Taking a break from being the Energizer Bunny to bask in the sun.

Monday the celebration continued as the dogs got to work sheep. My instructor wasn't available so I had to work Ella, and we did our best *ever*! Not that it's near the quality of work that she gets out of her, but I was very happy. Rae and I have some things to work on but in light of recent events (being chased off by Suffolks and by LGDs twice on lesson days), I put them on the back-burner and instead made sure she was working happily and with confidence. She took that freedom to run sheep at MACH 5, so once I saw her enthusiasm I went back to a little drilling.

Oh, and what birthday would be complete without cake?! Homemade *gizzard cake* at that!

Did you say cake??

So.wrong.

I'm not quite sure how to play this...I thought food on the floor was fair game.

Polite dog

Possessed dog

Happy Birthday, Best Friend!

First on-call

Tuesday night was my first night on-call. I was scared. I've had bad on-call karma throughout school. My first clinical rotation of 4th-year was orthopedics, and one night I spent the ENTIRE night in the OR. I ended up working a whopping 36 hours straight...not even a chance to change clothes, I was wearing scrubs from day 1 of surgery that lasted into night 1 of surgery that lasted into day 2 of appointments. I felt really gross seeing appointments in grody scrubs, especially since everyone else was dressed in their clinic best (slacks, dress shirts, white coat). And the surgeries were B-A-D bad! The first was a doberman who had a history of 2 foreign body removal surgeries (ate things she shouldn't have, towels I think), and had presented to the emergency service shocky and severely depressed. She hadn't been eating, drinking, or acting herself for days, and the owners chose to just sit on it. Her blood values were all over the place, but she was in danger and we had to take her to surgery right away. We got her on the table and started looking for infected or dead bowel, but instead found a belly full of blood. We searched and searched but we couldn't find where it was coming from. The dog went into cardiac arrest, and the surgeon cut through her diaphragm and manually massaged her heart to get it working again. We stitched up the hole in her diaphragm and went back to investigating her abdominal bleeding, but she developed a serious cardiac arrhythmia. We sent someone to call the owner, and after spending a few horrible moments in lingo...dog's heart fluttering feebly trying to keep her alive...we ended up euthanizing her. I remember that it was after midnight when I rolled the body down to the cooler in the basement of the hospital; how freaking spooky!

Before we'd even gotten done with her, we'd heard there was another emergency surgery waiting for us down in the emergency service. This was a cat that had complications after a spay. She was febrile, depressed, and had some omentum (a sac of fat in the abdomen) protruding from her incision. We opened her up and it was a pathetic attempt at a spay. Now, I understand that some people perform an ovariectomy (remove ovaries) instead of an ovariohysterectomy (remove ovaries and uterus), but this was just wrong. The ligatures around the ovarian pedicles were not secure but just resting in place, there was a large rent in the broad ligament (the tissue that holds the uterus in place) that had trapped a portion of the small intestines and was subsequently squeezing it to death, and the body wall that ought to have been sutured back together along the incision had not even been apposed; the sutures were so loose that the incision was still a gaping hole. It's really scary to see that this is what so-called professionals are doing in the real world. Now, this was a case from a very low-cost practice in a bad part of the city, and the vet was a graduate of a foreign country...so it does make you wonder. Fortunately we fixed this little cat up and she was just fine.

So my next rotation in school was Large Animal Emergency, and we were absolutely swamped, but I enjoyed it immensely. I'd survived a rotation from hell and it was my last night on call when this happened:

At the salvage yard.

I'd picked up a Giant salad and was driving back to school when Omar Sanchez Quintero tried to make a left hand turn in front of me, and POW! Next thing I know I'm trapped in the car and some Mexican who can't speak English is trying to pull me out. He spoke no English; I speak essentially no Spanish (abierta = "open" when preg checking cows, that's about the extent of my knowledge). He didn't have a driver's license or American ID...awesome. A neighbor came out and called the police, and by the time the cop came, the word had gotten out amongst the Mexican population of Chester County. Pickups were rolling up, and a bed-load of men would hop out and gather around until a sizable crowd had formed. I'd called my friend Flo to come save me, but she was engulfed in Jeopardy and wanted to wait til Final Jeopardy was over. To this day she denies it, but that's what happened, I swear! A rotation-mate of mine finally did come, and the scene was getting a little unsettled by then, and the cop had called backup. At this point, my Nextel goes off and the front desk is calling me in for an emergency. Dammit, I can't come now, call the medicine student!!! The cops find out that I'm on-call and offer to give me a police escort back to school, which is only like 2 miles away. They're anxious to get me and Jen out of there so they can deal with the mob of onlookers. Jen tried to talk me into it but I wouldn't go for it. She drove me back to school and, after being yelled at for wearing jeans (not clinic attire), I find the emergency to be a horse with a SLIGHT fever of 101.2. AND the medicine student was there taking care of it. At this point I was thoroughly annoyed and explained the whole situation...and got sent home.

The car, which belonged to my grandmother, was deemed a total loss and was destroyed instead of being repaired. Awesome. Fast-forward a month and I'm driving to school in my new car for a Field Service emergency when I run over a skunk. That night we got lost five hundred times, got detoured by an Amish barn fire, and when we finally reached the barn, had no power due to that darn barn fire. We had to euthanize a horse who'd colicked badly and smashed himself to smithereens while thrashing in his stall...by truck headlight.

After these cases, and numerous other calls, I used to have nightmares about being called in. I'd wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of the Nextel: BEEP-BEEP, "This is the front desk. You have a colic coming in half an hour", only to realize I wasn't on-call and hadn't been for months. Ugh.

So I'd figured I was doomed for my first on-call in the real world. One of our regular bovine clients had prank called the clinic earlier in the day saying that he needed help with his monkey, that he'd run over it with the tractor while out mowing hay. I heard all about the prank calls of the past and thought I was due for one that night. My phone rang a couple times early on, and each time I had a mini-panic attack til I saw familiar names showing up on my phone's screen. Phew.

I had to go back to the clinic for bed checks about 9:30. I was kinda scared to be by myself in the dark so I took the dogs with me. Rae stayed in the truck while Ella got to come in. She wandered around the hospital while I checked on everyone, and I'd call her from time to time to check in with her. One time when she was off on her own, a thought struck me: we have an excessive amount of Halloween decorations all over the clinic (including a giant inflatable, mechanical, glowing black cat on the roof...scarecrows, pumpkins, lights, spiderwebs, etc etc), I don't suppose Ella's found the ghoulish urns in the exam rooms that are each filled with about 5 pounds of dog treats. Of.course.she.had. I found her gorging herself in one of the rooms, happy as can be, sneaking in one more mouthful as I told her off.

Trouble's my middle name!

Then we went up to the barn to check on the horse. Ella hasn't been in the barn before, so she had much to explore. She found a pile of manure and hoof trimmings to snack on (you'd think I never feed her), and then I encouraged her on over to see the horse. She wasn't sure what to think, but tried to be brave and visit with it through the stall door. He belonged to my colleague and was a good boy, so it was a perfect opportunity for Ella to meet a horse in a controlled manner. She did a fine job.

At least now Ella has gotten over her uneasiness at the clinic. She was a little nervous when I first brought her and Rae in to meet everyone, but I think now she associates the clinic with snacks galore. And Rae...she was unsure for a whole 5 minutes...I found her head first in a bag of dog food multiple times, and then on the way out, she chased Larrietta, one of the clinic cats, far, far away, out the parking lot and down the road. Thank goodness we're rural.

Oh, I never did get any emergency calls. Not that I didn't wake up time and time again to check my phone for missed calls.

Marco...

...Polo.

(sportpolo.com)

Last week we had some routine work to do at a big time polo pony farm. The place is super cool. This farm has millions of dollars worth of polo stock that is shipped out to Florida and California seasonally. In the off-season, the horses come back to the Blue Ridge Mountains for turnout to graze the hills and spend some time just being horses. We were called out to do some Coggins tests for a group that was soon to head out for the season. In order to cross state lines, each horse has to have a negative Coggins test. This is a blood test for Equine Infectious Anemia, a debilitating virus that is transmitted by mosquitos. It falls under the category of regulatory work and so can only be performed by a USDA-accredited veterinarian. The requirements vary by state, but in order to gain accreditation we have to attend lectures and take tests regarding identifying and preventing the spread of certain infectious diseases that pose great risks to the animal or human population.

The paperwork that is to be submitted with a Coggins test is fairly straightforward and involves drawing identifying marks on horse sketches that must identically match the horse being tested. This includes drawing all color patterns, whorls of hair, and brands seen from 3 views of the horse: from the left, right, and head on. Usually I like drawing on the little horse figures...not so much this time.

Coggins test paper

For the first group we did, the hands had athered 10 horses to be tested and put them in a small paddock. The horses were straight off the hills, some rather worked up and none of them haltered. They weren't known by names (way too many on the farm, and they were always coming and going), and they didn't have any means of identification such as lip tatoos. They were all thoroughbreds, all bays or chestnuts. So we had 10 unidentified horses that varied only slightly in appearance...a star (white mark on forehead) just above the eyes vs. one in line with the eyes...a white sock on the left front leg vs. one on the right front...a whorl in line with the eyes and no other markings vs. a whorl off-center and no other markings. You get the point...Well we had the papers from last year and we were to figure out who was who based on matching them to the drawings on their previous papers. Of course the drawings are to be as accurate as possible, but it's not as if a professional artist was hired to scribble in circles and lines on the outlined figures on the paperwork. So figuring out which old paperwork matched the horse brought in to be bled proved to be way more complicated than it needed to be. It didn't help that the wind was fierce and was trying to rip my papers away from their makeshift paperweights of drug bottles! We mixed up a couple of the horses and had to change numbers on blood tubes, but in the end everyone was properly identified and had corresponding blood samples.

Hooray! (sportpolo.com)

We did a few more at another site that was owned by the same farm, and fortunately they were much more distinctively marked and the hands knew who was who. Much better, thankyouverymuch.

After we'd gotten the Coggins work out of the way, we had a couple sarcoid rechecks from our last trip out 2 weeks ago. Sarcoids are tumors that are unique to horses, donkeys, and mules. The veterinary community doesn't fully understand them...they are sort of a combination between a cancer of connective tissue and a virus. Often they start out looking like a wart or small nodule under the skin but can grow quickly and ulcerate. They don't metastasize but become locally invasive. If you surgically excise them, they grow back bigger and angrier. Sarcoids are unsightly and can be painful to the horse, especially if they interfere with tack.

Sarcoid on upper eyelid (Merck Veterinary Manual)

Our choice of treatment is to inject the sarcoid with the chemotherapy drug 5-fluorouracil. Epinephrine is added so that the drug concentrates in the tumor, thereby limiting its systemic absorption. This is done every 2 weeks until it sloughs off or shrinks enough to be treated by an ointment.

We had 2 horses to treat. The first one was less-than-thrilled with our intervention last time, and even with normal horse sedation on board, she reared and clocked her head on the eave of the barn. So she had a second helping of drugs and still was not very sleepy, and still was not so tolerant of her injection. This time we had her number and gave her a whopping dose. Good sedation = good horse. The only problem we encountered with her was dragging her back up the hill to the pasture. She didn't go down, she was just verrrry slow and reluctant to move. Her sarcoid was significantly improved; it had shrank to about 1/3 of the size it was 2 weeks ago. The other horse was a good patient and her sarcoid was nearly gone. So we were happy with how both horses had progressed. It's nice to actually be able to follow your cases over time as compared to during clinics in school where you'd have moved on to a new rotation by the time your patient comes back for a recheck.

In other news, my photos and videos have now all made it on to my new computer! If the computer guy didn't get it straightened out after the THIRD time I explained it to him and literally peered over his shoulder as he worked, I would have had to release The Merlefriend:

Sometimes she's very angry.

Catching up

My laptop died. For good this time. But now I'm back up and running on my shiny, new Not Dell. However, the computer-fixer-guy who was supposed to transfer everything from my old, dead computer to my new, alive computer didn't do a very good job...we'll be paying him another visit tomorrow since I'm missing thousands of photos as well as my photo-editing program. Not to mention all of my agility and sheep work videos. Not acceptable. I am less than happy.

Now to catch up from the last few days. Dad came to visit for a long weekend. He brought Chloe along, too.

Dad on the porch with the dogs. Right after taking this, Rae tried to help herself to the plate of cheese and crackers sitting out. BAD!

He helped accomplish a lot of projects while he was in town, like getting my VUE fixed in Winston so that Ella is no longer at risk of getting locked in with the windows up like happened at Robin's trial (thanks to Kelly who saved the day!). My car had developed a mind of its own and was constantly locking itself of its own accord. It would lock itself hundreds of times a day...in the driveway, while driving, in the parking lot, overnight. Over and over and over. Though the dealership was stumped and had never encountered this problem, they found something a little off in the driver's side door...it's been a week and so far so good. Dad and I worked around my house and yard, went out to eat, and did plenty of sightseeing in the country. I showed him some of my favorite dog-hiking spots, and we even found a couple new places on the Trail.

Ella in the New River at Fries (old photo - leaves are still green!)

On the Trail at Chestnut Yard Access; Ella finds sheer joy in playing in the creek.

Rae, on the other hand, doesn't find water so inherently exhilerating. She needs a little bribery to get in.

Chestnut Falls

One evening we met my boss' dog training group. They get together to work on obedience and rally, and several of the members have certified therapy dogs and participate in those programs. We all set up Ella's agility equipment in one of the small paddocks - which happens to be bordered by goats on one side, horses on another, and show lambs on yet another. Talk about distractions! Ella and I did a little demo and she was smokin! She sure loves showing off! Then the others played around with their dogs well after dark. We had a cookout in the barn and it turned out to be a fun evening.

My front porch now has a better view of the mountain thanks to Dad's work on the pines. We had a couple days of nice weather where we enjoyed sitting out there and having happy hour. One of my neighbors supplied appropriate entertainment in the form of her banjo-pickin and singing. It's nice, but I'd appreciate it if she'd learn a couple new songs to mix things up a bit!

I have a lot of work-related stories to catch up on later. We've done some interesting work in the country lately.

Small animal surgeon?

We've still been having some slow days in the country, so yesterday I was thrown into Small Animal Land to play surgeon. I did two dog neuters, then was presented with a tumor removal case in a 12 year old dog. I'd seen the dog as an appointment last week when we diagnosed her with mammary adenocarcinoma. She had a very large mass associated with one of her mammary glands near her belly and a series of ugly nodules under her armpit. She was a lovely dog who was otherwise in top shape for her age, so her owners decided to go ahead with the surgery to remove the masses.

So I had just finished the second neuter when one of my bosses tells me that I'll be doing the mastectomy. Umm, I've never even seen a mastectomy, let alone done one. I figured that he'd be scrubbing in with me, but I found myself alone in the OR with the dog prepped and ready for surgery. I called to my boss to make sure he knew that I'd never seen or done this before, and I asked him if I could approach it like a bad calf hernia. He didn't seem concerned about my inexperience and said "just watch out for a big vessel that comes into the gland." Right.

Now, I certainly don't pretend to have a lot of small animal experience. Sure, I learned a lot in school, but I did very little small animal work during my clinical year (by choice). At the time school was over, I'd planned to do strictly dairy medicine, and maybe branch out to include a little horse work if absolutely needed. I never dreamed that I'd end up in a mixed practice. In fact, this is what happened to my small animal notes:

Let the sacrificial bon fire begin

Years' worth of papers makes for lots of smoke

At first my game was dumb, but wouldn't you know, by the end everyone was joining in the fun!

So here I am about to attempt a totally less-than-routine dog surgery. Take a deep breath, drape dog, pick up scalpel. One of my favorite pick-me-up songs comes on the radio (Black Eyed Peas "I've Got A Feeling") and I'm ready to go. I made a neat elliptical incision through the skin and WHAM! here come the bleeders. A fundamental principle of surgery is "all bleeding stops eventually"...well, preferably that's as a result of the surgeon's actions and not due to the death of the patient. So I grabbed every single hemostat (clamp) I have in the pack and then had to resort to tediously tying off vessels. I tied and tied and tied as I slowly dissected out the mass, and finally it all came out in one neat little package WITH NO BLEEDING AT ALL! HOORAY!

One of my cases from school, an example of a mass removal (fibrosarcoma in an 800lb pig); my main frame of reference

Calf hernia, looks a little like what I took out

OK, now comes a big challenge: closing the gaping hole where the mammary gland used to be. Instead of panicking or asking for help, I used my brain (for once) and cleverly put in some stay sutures to pull the skin together, thus letting up some of the tremendous tension on the incision. AND, I even whipped out a super-secret knot that I learned from a very famous French-Canadian bovine surgeon at a conference...it was the first time I'd ever tried it, and it worked like a charm! I was thrilled with how well the wound closed, and I hated to put skin sutures in because it obscured my artwork. Feeling all smug, I then realized I still had to tackle the nastiness under the armpit.

By this time another of the doctors had come in to work, so she decided to hang out with me and help. The area we were dealing with was huge...the more we kept digging, the more nodules we uncovered. We had to be very careful and try to keep the incision as small as possible for fear of being unable to close the skin. We took a lot out of this area, and the defect was sorta L-shaped with some zig-zaggy margins. I again used my slick stay-sutures and fancy knot, and I was pleasantly surprised with how well I got it together. Actually, I've never been so proud of my work! We laughed about the fact that it turned out to be a "cosmetic tumor removal." Again, I was sad that my masterpiece was covered up, this time with staples. Darn.

So that's the story of my first non-spay-or-neuter surgery. I have to remind myself that surgery is surgery; the same principles apply no matter what you're working on. I put in a lot of time in the OR at school assisting our food animal surgeon, so I must have passively absorbed some of her skills. That's a nice thought.

Breakthroughs

Today on my day off I took a trip to work dogs. Those who need to know who I went to already know, but since she doesn't participate in the world of blogs and I don't know her well, I'll just refer to her as "C". Anyway, we had one of the most productive days EVER! C knows Rae well, so that makes it especially helpful to take a lesson from someone who knows your dog's strengths and weaknesses. She helped me to see that Rae's eye is causing us a bit of trouble, so we worked on some eye-breaking exercises. One was to force her to take the "hard" flank, ie go around the sheep in the opposite way that she naturally wants to depending on the draw. We did this along the fence near the barn, and I shush'ed her to see which way she wanted to go. Then I'd stop her and make her go the other way. Another exercise we worked on from this set-up was getting her to be a little more square. Rae is naturally very square and I've not noticed this to be a problem except in tight spaces or high-pressure situations. C had me stand a couple steps in front of Rae off to one side so that when I flanked her, she had to go around me in order to be right. If she cut in front of me, I called her back and as soon as she turned her head out properly I flanked her again. Finally, I had her push the sheep around the field doing some more mechanical work - making sure that she stopped when told and flanked freely without getting hung up. I was very pleased with what we accomplished, and Rae had quite the workout in such a big field!

Those who know Ella's history will understand how big this next news is: The Merlefriend got a turn in the round pen. The short version of Ella is that she has always shown glimpses of nice work, but she seemed very frantic in the round pen and had trouble slowing down to think. She was very difficult for me to work, and no matter what the correction, I couldn't get this dog to give me an inch. She was going to do it her way, not mine. I had trouble getting her out of mindless circling in the round pen, but in the big field she just chased sheep and held them in the corner. I'd given her time off, then started again with her last winter when I started to see some progress. Then she had her shoulder surgery and subsequently was put up for 8 months. Today I decided to see what she could do.

I took her in and it was a disaster. She was being an idiot, chasing, biting, not thinking at all. I bet I looked like I'd never worked a dog before, as we just couldn't get it together at all. C asked to give her a go and I was happy to let her try. It took 2 whaps on the nose with her stick, some appropriately applied body pressure and voice correction, and The Merlefriend was working like a dream. The dog who couldn't stop circling and get behind her sheep orbited a grand total of ONE time. She was thinking more than I ever imagined was possible for her. She had lovely feel for her sheep, took her downs reasonably well, and walked up without diving in and busting them up. By the end of her session she was taking sheep off the fence without gripping or zooming...un-freaking-believable. I wish others were there to witness it, or that I had video. She wasn't just "good for Ella", she looked like a legitimite working dog with considerable natural talent. I still can't get over it!

I'm guilty of bending the rules with Ella, especially when it comes to sheep, because she's got a lot of "white noise" going on in her life, as Sue accurately describes it. I think that today we had a lot of things working in our favor: Ella had no history at all with C and she learned from the get-go that listening to her was her only option. She'd been put up for so long and I think it allowed her to mature a lot. In many aspects of her life, she's been a slowly maturing dog, and recently I've seen a big difference in her and our relationship. C worked her like she was any other border collie starting out, not working her like she was Ella, if that makes sense. Since Ella has shown me what she's capable of, I now have to hold her to higher expectations. No more excuses, no more "that's just Ella, she can't help herself." She can be a good dog, I just have to help her.

There is some sad news from home. The beloved flock-leader Lambie is no longer with us. He was a bottle baby who was raised in a household of Aussies, and earned his keep by being one of the primary lesson sheep for beginner dogs in the round pen. Lambie knew his name and knew his role in the flock. Over his lifetime he got to go on some field trips such as for demos and working dogs in new places. He was there for my vet school graduation party at The Ranch. I feel sure that Ella snuck in a few cheap shots at one time or another, so I'm sorry, Lambie. Run free, buddy.

Here is Lambie, the spotted wether up front, enthusiastically eating the grain used to entice the sheep to participate in a Christmas card photo shoot

And there's Lambie lagging behind. You could always find him at the back while driving, often trying to stop for a nibble of grass, or just poking along due to sore, arthritic feet. But when bringing the sheep in, he was ALWAYS at the front leading the way.

Now that Lambie is gone, we expect that Apache will step up to take charge of the flock. Scary, scary thought.

Weekend

On Saturday I went in to the clinic to work small animal. After we closed at 2, I hit the road for Julie's in NC to work Rae. Depending on how I go, it takes about 1:45 for me to get there. This was my first time visiting with Julie and Laura and I had a very nice time. I got to meet all of their fabulous dogs and see a few of them work. And we even went on a dog walk on the back 40...my first predominately border collie dog walk since getting down here! Finally! But it sure made me miss all the dogs back home, and their people, too :P

Sunday I dedicated to Ella, who got left behind on the trip to Julie's. We hiked on a section of the Trail that I haven't yet explored.

Starting point

Though this is at Gambetta Access, which is far enough outside of town as to not draw many casual trail-goers, we ran across many groups of bikers. I forgot that there is a big bicycle race coming up on the Trail; I guess people were out training. Aside from the occasional mob of cyclists, Ella and I had the countryside to ourselves.

Along the Trail, the banks are very steep and it drives Ella crazy to have to walk parallel to the creek without being able to get down into it. We eventually found this little spot where we could make our way down to the water.

Please?

Aaah, finally

On the way back, we had our first equine sighting. Ella was a little spooky at first, but when they were right beside us she relaxed and wanted to investigate them.

Young paint being broken for trail-riding

Taking parts off and out

Yesterday we had a call for one of my not-so-favorite things: dehorning adult cattle. Now, usually calves are dehorned by burning them off with a hot iron when they are 1-2 months old. The procedure is quick and tidy when they are young. However, when they get to be adults, their horns are so big that they need to be sawed off using gigli wire. It is physically much more difficult to do, can get rather bloody, and can leave a big hole in one of their sinuses where flies can lay eggs. So it is undesirable for many reasons. This client said he didn't have the money to do it when these girls were younger, so now we're called out to do them when they're a whole 2 years old. And there were 21 to do!

It was the coldest morning we've had here; it was in the 30s when I went to work, so I wore long-sleeves. This farm was at the "bottom of the mountain" where the temperatures are literally 10 degrees warmer than where the clinic is. We alternated sawing every other heifer, so I did 10 of them. This involved fighting them in the headgate to get them haltered, blocking the cornual nerves with lidocaine, sawing the horns, and cauterizing the bleeders. It was tough for me to saw through some of the really thick, mature horns, but there was no way I was going to wimp out! It was hot and sunny and I had my long-sleeve shirt on, too, so I was sweaty and getting more and more worn out and slower with each heifer. I have to put my whole body weight into working the gigli wires (I sit back on the lines like a waterskier), and the farm hands were giving me a hard time! But the ones I did (including the dang bull!) were very neat and barely bled. This is due to the fact that I really have to work the wire well to get through the horn instead of just muscling through and breaking the horn off as the big, strong men do. So I think I held my own alright. There was no way that I was going to tire out in front of all them, that's for sure!

Here's what dehorning an adult looks like:

From Field Service - a nice and gentle girl who was also sedated.

Yesterday - not nice, gentle, or sedated.

Hole in head

This morning was slow in the country, so I was put in surgery. I did 3 cat spays and 2 dog neuters, which essentially doubles my lifetime tally of spays and neuters. I was the only one scrubbed in, so it was totally me doing everything myself. The only other time I was the sole person scrubbed in was when Jeff had me neuter Brodie on an ironing board in the kitchen at the farm! So these surgeries were really stressful for me, but things went OK. Since I don't have much experience, it took me awhile to get them done. By the time I got to the last one, a cat spay, I was sooo mentally worn out...and wouldn't you know it, the cat was in heat. That means lots of extra ligation of blood vessels, and for me of no experience, that meant tying off everything resembling a vessel, just to be safe! The other doctors and the girls were all very patient in waiting for me to finish, so that was quite nice of them. Not only am I slow from lack of practice, but I am very particular about my skin closure. I want it to look perfect, since that is the only thing the client actually sees. I put in subcuticulars, which means that the skin is sutured together with no suture material sticking out; that way there are no stitches to remove. It's difficult for me to do in cat skin because it is very thin and all the surgical tools are a lot smaller than what I'm used to in a cow. But I was happy with my artwork, even if it did take awhile!

I had a short driving lesson today in one of the girls' cars. We drove to my house to check my mail (still no VA license) and let the dogs out. Again I had trouble in the parking lot, but managed to get going after only a handful of times stalling out. On the way back to the clinic I was stopped at one of two intersections along the route. Of course it was on a slope. I was having trouble getting going when I saw someone coming behind me, so I panicked and floored it. Next thing I know we shoot off and there is smoke and the smell of burning rubber in the air! I come up to the second intersection which is on an even bigger slope, and again have trouble. For a second time I burned rubber, and I look up at the clinic to see one of the doctors in the lot laughing hysterically! Later this afternoon when I got back from farm calls, the girls had made me a "CAUTION: STUDENT DRIVER" box to put on top of the car next time I'm out! HA! At least there are plenty of roads I can drive where there is very little traffic, and often I don't even have to stop at the intersections. But boy do I need more practice!

Work highlights of the first 3 weeks

I am now finishing up my third week of work, and it has been fantastic! Most of the work is with beef cattle, but I have done a good amount of dairy work, too, as well as horses, sheep, goats, and alpacas. The beef world is very new to me. At school, we had one black angus client, and a couple clients who had a belted galloway or two as pasture ornaments/tax write-offs. Everything I know about bovine medicine is primarily dairy-related, so I have been learning a lot.

I have been doing a lot of herd checks, and it is very different than what I'm used to. The dairies we worked with at school had us come out every week to check 25-50 cows or so, and I was only doing a portion of those cows since there were at least 3-4 of us working on them. Here, they have us come out every month or two at the most, so we are doing way more cows at a time. One day I palpated 90 cows before lunch...that's more than I'd have done in a whole week of Field Service! Earlier this week we were scheduled to check 350 cows in one day; however they had to cancel their appointment (after we drove 40 min) in order to cut corn.

I've done a fair amount of foot work. Foot rot is known as "sore foot" down here, and there have been a number of sole abscesses, too. I actually get to use the hoof knives and nippers now instead of just watching the residents and interns do it!

I have already seen things I've never experienced before at home. We were called to do a necropsy on a beef steer who was found dead in a small stream. A lot of the beef clients have insured animals, so we are often asked to do necropsies on them to determine the cause of death. The body was in about 3 inches of water and a foot of muck. Every time I tried to move I nearly lost my boot. The flies were bad. We ended up finding buckeyes in her rumen...buckeye ingestion causes nervous system dysfunction and can look like tetanus. They usually die of respiratory failure or bloat. This boy had likely gone down to have a drink, fell over, and couldn't get up. Cause of death: drowning.

I saw pinkeye in dairy cattle last week. It is not a problem in our dairies because the cows stay inside and there is very good ventilation, thus keeping flies to a minimum. Beef cattle and dairy cows on pasture are at risk of developing pinkeye due to a bacteria that flies carry. Their eyes get very painful and they can develop ulcers and go blind. The treatment is a subconjunctival injection - that means injecting antibiotics and steroids in the whites of their eyes. Kinda gross. We had 30 cows to treat, and some were so bad that we had to suture their third eyelid over their eye to give it a little band-aid. I've only read about these procedures, so it's good to see it and learn to do it.

Last weekend I saw my first grass tetany cow. This is something we don't see at school once again due to our client's cows being inside and not out on pasture. Grass tetany happens when cattle have too little magnesium in their blood from eating very lush grass and not getting enough mineral supplement. They can act crazy and can be violent; jumping fences, trembling, staggering, and often going down. This cow was down and severely bloated. We trocarized her (poked a hole into her rumen to let the gas out), treated her with lots of IV medications, and ran her newborn calf in front of her...and she popped right up! She was a little wobbly and ran into the front of the vet truck, but otherwise she looked great. It was very rewarding to see her so close to death (the vultures were already circling) to being back to normal and nursing her calf.

A couple quick cases: a teat amputation on a beef cow with horrendous mastitis (she ended up dying), a horse with a barbed wire tangled around it's foot and maggots in the wound, a corneal ulcer on an alpaca, and a horse with terrible dehydration, mouth ulceration, and intestinal sloughing likely from eating a poisonous plant. The mare went down in our parking lot and I euthanized her. That was my first horse euthanasia, and I was very glad that she was down already. Horses can be very dangerous as they are being put to sleep...they are known for literally flipping over backwards as they rear up. It is very dramatic to watch them being put down, but this mare was very sick and was almost dead by the time I helped her along.

Tuesday night a bunch of us went to Wytheville for sushi. It was a great place and we had a lot of fun. Tonight I went to the local Cattleman's Association meeting. We had a wonderful steak dinner and listened to a presentation from VA Tech's toxocologist on poisonous plants. A number of folks knew me, but I had trouble remembering their names or when I had been to their farms!

So that has been a little of what I've been up to so far. I won't write as much in subsequent posts, but I had a lot of catching up to do this time!

Hey, when are you gonna talk about us?!