Jonny Harvard-8

Animal Anecdote 8.

Three High School boys came to my Clinic without an appointment but with a request for bartering. Each boy was dirty with good clean dirt and sweaty with good clean sweat. They had spent the past 3 hours digging out a fox den. Opening the corrugated box and there they were, 5 of them. In exchange for one of them would I give them advice? It had always been my policy to give the schools free advice and I gladly included these nursing red foxes. At the time I had an orphan beagle puppy in a homemade incubator in my house and this fox was the same age, about 10 days. They made a perfect pair snuggling together for a week. Of course my wife did most of the bottle feeding. This mutually compatible arrangement seemed to be an idyllic situation when one day I heard the Beagle crying as if in pain. I rushed to the rescue thinking it had somehow caught a leg in the incubator but there was the toothless fox growling and biting the Beagle as if trying to dispatch it.

The answer was that here were two mammals that as adults were deadly enemies but it took time and development before the instinct developed in the fox. Both were raised and eventually became guests in outside cages but never again friends. The children named the fox, Jonny Harvard. He was an interesting pet even though a bit of shyness was always present. I inoculated him for dog distemper and for rabies and put a collar on him so we could snap a leash to take him for a walk.

One day seven year old son Chuck, home from a day at school stopped by and opened Jonny’s cage to leash him and Jonny decided to walk himself and trotted off in the woods. I am sure Jonny could cope for himself better than most forms of wildlife with his favorite food of mice. We never did see Jonny Harvard again.

One late night winter storm I thought I had seen Jonny again when in the storm a car drove into our drive honking a horn. I donned a coat and rushed to the door and there before me was a man clutching a red fox close to his chest and with the face of the fox close to his face. Before a word was said I said, ”First gently lower that foxes head down and away from your face.”He did that as he explained that he saw the fox by the side of the road seemingly lost or perhaps it had been hit by a car so he stopped, got out and picked up the fax and thought of me to take it to.

My first thought was of the usually fatal disease, Rabies. With that disease there are perhaps only a few hours before the infected creature becomes violent that it becomes overly affectionate. I had a cage in our house and quickly placed the fox safely in the cage.

There is another wildlife disease that humans get from time to time and that is called Listeriosis. With the infection of listeria the patient also loses fear and that was the eventual diagnosis by the University of Connecticut pathologists. With listeria the disease becomes most active with changes of temperature as such changes cause the exponential growth. Unlike rabies, listeria is spread by ingesting the bacteria.

Next time a man hunt with Bloodhounds.

How many Puppies?-7

Animal Anecdote 7.

A word about the Davis Tucks, the owners of the Silvermine Kennels were as trustworthy as can be with their reputation of breeding and showing the finest of the finest English Setters in our country. I start this anecdote about the owners because there may be those who wonder about the validity of my observation. They presented a beautiful 3 year old Champion English Setter bitch with a problem. She had not been in heat for breeding for over a year. I tried many published treatments and nothing had worked. Finally I suggested an exploratory operation and if nothing else could be done I would spay her and she could become someones pet. The surgery was agreed on.

The surgery answered the cause of her problem but never had I seen or heard of the situation. The uterus of dogs is “Y” shaped in which the puppies develop and this female had an infection called pyometra meaning pus in the uterus, not unusual in dogs but in this case only one horn of the uterus was involved. That horn was full of pus as if she were pregnant in that one horn only. I tied off the infected horn and removed it and the ovary on that side and she was discharged the following day. Her recovery was uneventful and in 2 weeks by phone I was told she was in full heat. I suggested they wait for the next heat but she was bred anyway and to one of the Silvermine Champions. At 18 days she was presented for an evaluation and I was able to palpate pregnancy. The Tucks then told me that friends in England wanted to purchase her.

Were ethics involved? The English knew all about the case and still offered considerable sum for this young American Champion. I gave the necessary health certificate and she was to leave by plane in a few days. All went well and she was confined for 6 months by English law in quarantine where she had 12 normal puppies. Half a uterus and 12 puppies? All did well but the question arose, if she had had a whole uterus would she have had 24 puppies? Who knows but here is an interesting question for research to answer. What determines the number of offspring any mammal has?

Next time about a Jonny Harvard and another.

Smiles-6

Animal anecdote 6.

Don’t you like to give credit where credit is due? I do and I believe it was Dr. Harmon Leonard of Cheshire, Connecticut who tells of a client with a new puppy he had given a rough outline of care before bringing the patient in for the first time. “And when you come in bring a stool.” The client responded with, “How tall a stool, Dr.?”

Another short anecdote that may have happened to most veterinarians was in answer to the sensible question, “Has she been in heat?” comes the reply, “Why yes, doctor, she sleeps behind the stove.” No comment.

One of my favorites was such because it concerned my six year old beautiful daughter, child number three of four who is now approaching middle age was asked by friend John Gamsby. It was at a time when I had written a long since out of print book called, “This is the Beagle” and I had a kennel of Beagles with several studs. My friend asked if she knew the whereabouts of her father. Katie said, “He’s out in the garage breeding a bitch.”

Another anecdote involving a child concerns a young bitch that I determined as being pregnant. The father of a little girl with him claimed in uncertain terms that pregnancy was utterly impossible. The pet had never been out of the sight of one of the family ever. The little girl with her head about as tall as the height of my examining table spoke up with, “But daddy remember when she was gone over night?”

It is a strange truism that a person and it seems to be a trait of the male of the species if involved with an activity that led to a pet problem will lie rather than being incriminated in the cause of the problem. We veterinarians take that into consideration in searching for answers to a pet problem.

Next, what determines the number of puppies in a litter?

Coincidences-5

Animal anecdotes 5.

Everybody seems to be interested in coincidences and most everyone has one or more to relate. Here are a couple that interested me. My wife, Dorothy kept up to date on the availability of litters of Gordon Setter puppies so for anyone interested in purchasing either a show type or a hunting type along the East coast she was the one to call. One contact called from Boston who had another friend who was interested in purchasing one. Dot knew of no available litters near the Boston area but there was a litter in New York City. A big place is New York City if you haven’t heard.

Her Boston friend said his friend lives in New York City, What is the address? When the New York City person was contacted he was dumbfounded as the address was his own street a block or so away. He walked down the street and purchased the Gordon Setter puppy he wanted.

Another coincidence was nowhere as spectacular but was far out concerned the client with a young mongrel pet presented after having had a grand mal epileptiform seizure. Everything about the dog appeared to be normal to me and my suggestion was to do nothing as it is not unusual for a dog to have one convulsion and never another for the rest or its life. A month later the client returned with the sad tale of another seizure and I prescribed a medication. A month passed and the dog was returned for a third convulsion with the news that each convulsion had come on the full of the moon. Did I believe the moon could influence such an attack? No, coincidence was my insistence. A month went by and there was the dog with a milder convulsion. About the full of the moon, after all it does control the tides. Couldn’t it also have some affect on the dog? With effort I again tried to plead coincidence when on the fifth full of the moon the dog was right on schedule with that fifth convulsion. Coincidence became a difficult sell but how would the full moon do that to a dog?

The dog’s record showed the five events and years later perhaps 8 or so I asked the owners and was told the dog had similar convulsions all its life but never again on the full of the moon. Moreover when I had to euthanize the dog for old age problems he still never had a seizure on the full of the moon all his life after the five. That in itself is one huge coincidence to interperit. Why not even once since the first five? I will always wonder.

Next a couple of hearsay anecdotes.

One Life- Eight to Go?

The End of Corruption in Congress

You know and virtually everyone knows and believes nothing can be done about the corporation corruption in your and my government. Even our legislators admit it. I have an idea that may be able to make the change necessary to clean up the mess. According to many authors such as the late Howard Zinn and Bertrand Russell it can be done.
To do it requires a ground swell of like minded citizens to put the pressure on our legislators to pass legislation to make it a criminal act to influence or even to appear to attempt to influence our legislators. As a 92 year old citizen I propose publishing a letter I will write as a personal opinion of the youth of the Brattleboro Union High School and all other youths of our country as follows.
The Brattleboro Initiative:
As a representative of the opinions of the overwhelming majority of the youth of our country the corruption in Washington Government must not be left as an inheritance to us. Therefore we petition our parents, relatives and all voters of the United States to stand up and be counted with us to eliminate the corruption by passing legislation to outlaw it. The movement shall be a single issue one with no leadership, no dues, no lobbyists but just the determination to end the evil by announcing that for our vote you must Stand Up And Be Counted (SUABC). Vote for candidates for office only if they will support the limiting legislation.
IT'S AS SIMPLE AS THAT. There must be dozens of like minded groups that agree with us and will SUABC. It has been said that an idea whose time has come is more powerful than an army. I believe that and now is the time to test it.

Brain Chemistry

Here is an observation that perhaps we all have known about but I have not heard of it being investigated. Twice now while running I have run up and over the steepest hill in my regular 5k course and suddenly realized I had done so without tiring my legs and without excess shortness of breath or even thought about it that has always previously been present. I wondered,"why?" Then I recalled at least three cases of clients who had problems with missing fingers who answered when asked about what happened that each had been working with with a table saw and suddenly noticed blood all over their work to discover they had cut themselves with out knowing it until seeing the blood. The question of how anyone could cut off fingers without felling it may be the same situation as my running over the hill without knowing it.
I recall reading about a surgeon who visited a medical school in China to witness acupuncture as an anesthetic who reported on a case of eye surgery on a patient with no other anesthetic. The case was one that should have created excruciating pain but did not with the Chinese surgeon. Something is happening in all those cases that indicates something to due with brain chemistry perhaps. Also I recall a Dr. G. Young friend telling how he used acupuncture on cows to do Cesarean section operations on cows in his practice. It seems that some involuntary situation occurs over which apparently we have no control. If we can learn to use whatever is responsible in a constructive way I might be able to run without feeling fatigue for example. It could be the end of the need for anesthesia in surgery. That might also be involved with forgetfulness in humans. I'm sure all reading this can recall similar situations. It seems to me that research in brain chemistry may have the answers to such questions. Of course it is known that pain can be for good reason that must be considered.