Animal Anecdote 40

Animal Anecdote 40.

Before becoming a veterinarian, my father, Leon F. Whitney studied inherited traits of dogs. An example is if you cross a breed of dog that runs with its head high as with the bird dogs with a breed such as one of the hounds that runs with its head down close to the earth, what would the puppies inherit? The answer he found was that all such puppies ran with their heads held high. To do such studies required many breeds as well as his favorites, Bloodhounds and Coonhounds including Redbones.

With the ever growing numbers of dogs came the expense of feeding so many. At that time there was no completely balanced dog food and he decided to develop one. There was a balanced food for rats so he adapted a room at the end of our two car garage to a rat laboratory. One long wall appeared to be shelves as in a library. He made wire bottom cages that slid nicely into the shelves. Then came the white, pink eyed laboratory rats.

Dad had studied the nutritional requirements of dogs and put together a diet with all the known requirements and gradually altered the diet fed to the rats. Soon his improved diet grew rats faster and healthier than the commercial rat food and led to our mixing huge amounts of dehydrated ingredients on the floor of our two car garage. To mix hundreds of pounds of ingredients, we would shovel it from one pile to another and back again many times.

His dogs were the healthiest looking dogs around and soon other kennels requested food and thus came the first complete dog food called Baloration and then Tioga Dog Food. It became the only complete dog food and was so successful that royalties paid not only for the expense of his veterinary degree late in his life but for mine too.

That was no doubt the beginning of the pet food industry, a billion dollar industry today. Who do you suppose had the job of feeding, watering and cleaning the rats in the laboratory? It was my first paying job and brought me $1 a week for years until the pay was raised to $2.

Next time: a gift of 100 Cocker Spaniels. 380 words

Animal Anecdote 40

Animal Anecdote 40.

Before becoming a veterinarian, my father, Leon F. Whitney studied inherited traits of dogs. An example is if you cross a breed of dog that runs with its head high as with the bird dogs with a breed such as one of the hounds that runs with its head down close to the earth, what would the puppies inherit? The answer he found was that all such puppies ran with their heads held high. To do such studies required many breeds as well as his favorites, Bloodhounds and Coonhounds including Redbones.

With the ever growing numbers of dogs came the expense of feeding so many. At that time there was no completely balanced dog food and he decided to develop one. There was a balanced food for rats so he adapted a room at the end of our two car garage to a rat laboratory. One long wall appeared to be shelves as in a library. He made wire bottom cages that slid nicely into the shelves. Then came the white, pink eyed laboratory rats.

Dad had studied the nutritional requirements of dogs and put together a diet with all the known requirements and gradually altered the diet fed to the rats. Soon his improved diet grew rats faster and healthier than the commercial rat food and led to our mixing huge amounts of dehydrated ingredients on the floor of our two car garage. To mix hundreds of pounds of ingredients, we would shovel it from one pile to another and back again many times.

His dogs were the healthiest looking dogs around and soon other kennels requested food and thus came the first complete dog food called Baloration and then Tioga Dog Food. It became the only complete dog food and was so successful that royalties paid not only for the expense of his veterinary degree late in his life but for mine too.

That was no doubt the beginning of the pet food industry, a billion dollar industry today. Who do you suppose had the job of feeding, watering and cleaning the rats in the laboratory? It was my first paying job and brought me $1 a week for years until the pay was raised to $2.

Next time: a gift of 100 Cocker Spaniels. 380 words

Animal Anecdote 40

Animal Anecdote 40.

Before becoming a veterinarian, my father, Leon F. Whitney studied inherited traits of dogs. An example is if you cross a breed of dog that runs with its head high as with the bird dogs with a breed such as one of the hounds that runs with its head down close to the earth, what would the puppies inherit? The answer he found was that all such puppies ran with their heads held high. To do such studies required many breeds as well as his favorites, Bloodhounds and Coonhounds including Redbones.

With the ever growing numbers of dogs came the expense of feeding so many. At that time there was no completely balanced dog food and he decided to develop one. There was a balanced food for rats so he adapted a room at the end of our two car garage to a rat laboratory. One long wall appeared to be shelves as in a library. He made wire bottom cages that slid nicely into the shelves. Then came the white, pink eyed laboratory rats.

Dad had studied the nutritional requirements of dogs and put together a diet with all the known requirements and gradually altered the diet fed to the rats. Soon his improved diet grew rats faster and healthier than the commercial rat food and led to our mixing huge amounts of dehydrated ingredients on the floor of our two car garage. To mix hundreds of pounds of ingredients, we would shovel it from one pile to another and back again many times.

His dogs were the healthiest looking dogs around and soon other kennels requested food and thus came the first complete dog food called Baloration and then Tioga Dog Food. It became the only complete dog food and was so successful that royalties paid not only for the expense of his veterinary degree late in his life but for mine too.

That was no doubt the beginning of the pet food industry, a billion dollar industry today. Who do you suppose had the job of feeding, watering and cleaning the rats in the laboratory? It was my first paying job and brought me $1 a week for years until the pay was raised to $2.

Next time: a gift of 100 Cocker Spaniels. 380 words

Animal Anecdote 42

Animal Anecdote 42.

My father had taken a course on honey bee husbandry while studying at Mass. Aggie, now Mass. State and announced one day that over the weekend the family would take a picnic lunch and go bee hunting. All I knew about bees was that they sting and make honey. He then said we would need some equipment and I wondered what kind of equipment could we possibly need to hunt for bees and what would we do if we caught some?

We would need a cigar box with a folding lid on it and some honeycomb and an empty water glass, a stick we could stick in the ground with branches that would hold the cigar box.

Finally a bottle containing a cup of sugar water.

I knew of a wasp nest that had blown down during the winter for the honeycomb and Dad cut a small sapling with branches that would hold the cigar box and mother prepared a fine picnic lunch. I assumed we would travel a distance but we headed out behind our house into the woods to an open area in the woods. Dad put the comb in the cigar box and poured sugar water on it. Then he balanced it on the crotches of the sapling with the lid opened.

Next was finding a honey bee on wild flowers here and there. We found a bee and Dad placed the drinking glass over it and used the palm of his other hand to keep the Bee confined as we headed back to the box on the branch. He placed the glass, open end down on the sugar water in the comb and suggested we all sit down until the bee discovered the sweet water.

The bee soon stopped buzzing around in the glass and settled down on the comb and immediately began drinking the sugar water. Dad removed the glass and suggested we sit down and get ready to see which direction the bee would fly. The bee crawled up to the edge of the box and took off circulating the box close by and then in greater circles and I lost it. Mother and Dad both followed it to a northerly direction and Dad said we have to time it because if it took more than 6 minutes we would assume the bee tree would be too far away. Sister Julie saw the returning bee with a friend in 5 minutes. Both immediately lit and began taking up the sugar water.

Dad closed the cigar box sand started walking in the direction the first bee flew. Taking the box perch with us and after 100 paces or so stuck the branch in the ground and placed the box on top and opened the top. It took a few minutes when the two bees left and Julie and I noticed the direction they flew. After half a dozen setups and dozens of bees swarming around us Julie spotted a hole in the side of an old apple tree with bees coming and going in large numbers.

Next time we tote the bees home. 521 words

Animal Anecdote 43

Animal Anecdote 43.

The bee-tree was in a large pasture where a farmer kept heifers to fatten them up before taking them to market. He gave permission to take the bee tree down and Dad scheduled the following Saturday night for that adventure. This was before chain saws so we had a two man crosscut saw and axes for the job. Of course night was chosen when all the honey bees would be in the hive.

We plugged up the hive opening and cut the tree down and then estimated the extent of the hollow in the tree that had been adopted by the bees. We cut the branches and piled them as a brush pile refuge for wildlife. Then we cut two saplings and nailed them to the sides of the trunk of the apple tree and could then carry it like a stretcher. Mother and I each held one end and Dad the other. The nearest tote road was several hundred yards and each of us had about all we could do to carry the weight to our vehicle to get it home.

Dad had set up a commercial bee hive near our garden and we took the apple tree there. All this was done with flash lights. Dad created a tunnel from the apple tree to the bee hive with a car inner tube in which was a device called a bee extractor that permitted bees leaving their apple tree home and into the new hive but not back where the queen was being protected and groomed by worker bees. The Queen’s job was to lay eggs. Hundreds of them daily. When most of the worker bees were no longer bringing nectar to the apple hive the queen after several days left it for her new accommodation.

As I recall when we opened the apple tree we found about 30 pounds of honey and honey comb. Had there been more there would have had a problem carrying the apple tree hive. We eventually had three of those wild honey bee hives to pollinate the vegetation of our garden as well as satisfying everyone’s’ sweet tooth.

Next time: A snake in the glove compartment? 366 words