With the outside facilities somewhat devastated, the last couple of cows were herded into the milking parlour for their turn. The final one panicked and somehow managed to squeeze under the rails, three feet down into the personnel pit. The poor cow was terrified and it was looking like the only way to rescue her was to dismantle half the parlour. All the cajoling in the world wasn’t going to get her back up on her own, but Muscles’ only response was continued excessive use of a stick and foul language. Not being able to bear the beatings any longer, I ordered him to stop and, risking life and limb, climbed down into the pit.
As the poor beast scrabbled with her front feet up on the walkway I positioned myself underneath her back end with my shoulder (probably somewhat foolishly in retrospect) and managed, with no assistance from Muscles who had stormed off, to help her back up from whence she came while the farmer pulled on a halter at the other end, clearly impressed by a feat of courage and strength that defied my beanpole stature. With the pregnancy diagnoses at last out of the way, it was time for disbudding a dozen or so calves – surely nothing else could go wrong?
It transpired that the calves weren’t, as I had been led to believe, just a few weeks old, but several months old with not just buds but already sprouting rudimentary horns. I did my best to follow my training and performed nerve blocks on all of them despite the ‘advice’ of the farmer’s wife who was standing with her arms crossed like a foreman in a factory, that: “Mr Jones doesn’t do it like that, he injects them all round the horns”. Don’t ask me for the anatomical or technical terms here because it is a very long time since I learned or even had need to use them, but the technique was successful in all bar two. The nerve blocks were repeated on these, but still failed to work. Maybe there was an additional neurological pathway or two, so I reluctantly elected to infiltrate local anaesthetic around the horn bases.
The farmer’s wife had been ‘supervising’ the whole process and now piped up, “I told you that you should have done it like Mr Jones in the first place”. Still suffering from the discomfort of the nettle rash, boiling hot from slaving over a disbudding iron on such a sunny afternoon and frustrated by the son’s failure to adequately restrain the calves (for all his strength he had little technique), my patience broke. “I don’t f*****g care what Mr. Jones would do, I tried to use the correct f*****g method”, I blurted.
Seemingly stunned by this foul-mouthed tirade the farmer’s wife turned and walked away as I immediately regretted my outburst and contemplated the fallout that I would probably receive from the boss for such an uncharacteristic loss of control. Meanwhile, the farmer tried to contain a half-hidden smirk at the sight of his scold of a wife retreating to the farmhouse. A short while later she reappeared, not with the news that she’d phoned Mr Jones to complain about his rude assistant, but with a large tray of ice-cold, home-made lemonade and biscuits and meekly said something to the effect of, “I reckon you could all do with some refreshment now”. The farmer’s smile told me I’d earned a few more points.
After the disbudding fiasco was complete there were still a few small tasks to tidy up before, finally, I spotted a cow with a large fluctuating swelling on a knee. Upon enquiry as to how long it had been there, the farmer admitted it was several months, but that Mr Jones had never been bothered with it so it had been dismissed. I diagnosed a walled-off abscess and advised lancing it. As I prepared the site with antiseptic and found a blade, Muscles duly restrained the cow’s head, but dismissed the suggestion that it may be better if he stepped to the other side away from the area I was about to lance, scoffing at the idea that he couldn’t cope with a bit of gore.
Too late he saw the wisdom of my advice and regretted not taking it as half a gallon of foul-smelling purulent fluid poured from the lanced wound and went straight down his wellingtons. Was this a case of Pus in Boots (Forgive the awful pun)? Even with the pervading farmyard smells, the stench of vintage pus was overwhelming and, while being unpleasant for me, it was too much for Muscles who tuned first ghastly pale, then a horrible shade of green before violently retching and promptly throwing up his biscuits and lemonade ( and probably some of the previous night’s twelve pints as well). Again the farmer (this time safe at a distance with his hand over his nose at the shippon door) smirked quietly as it was evident that even he thought his son was an oaf who was sometimes too big for his boots.
The day finally over, I left the farm tired, but feeling confident that I had won over some of those who thought I was not the right material for a large animal vet. This was confirmed when the next time Avondale Farm called the practice, the farmer’s wife requested ‘The cross-country runner’, rather than old Mr Jones. Word had obviously also spread to the neighbouring farms as not many took the mickey out of my build again and henceforth the word wiry was used instead of weedy, which I think was almost a compliment!
Maybe they’re human after all...
Most people, when they have a pet, consider it to be part of the family. Although there may be social benefits to the human members from this relationship, unfortunately this can lead to some behavioural issues if pets are over-humanised. Indeed, some people really seem to believe that their pets have taken on an almost human persona. I’ve always considered myself enough of a realist not to encourage the sort of anthropomorphism that some of my clients seem to indulge in, you know, when pet owners say things like, “he understands every word I say”, and “he thinks he’s human”. I usually nod sagely and say little, not wishing to either condone this misconception or to appear so dismissive that they think I’m the callous, cold hearted cynic I really am!
Our understanding of the function of animals’ cognitive thought processes and how they are determined through evolutionary change and environmental factors, makes us aware that it is pet owners misinterpreting these animal behaviours as apparent human traits. However, every now and again there comes along a certain individual animal, which displays intelligence that is far above the expected level for its species. If this happens to be your own pet, then you are able to rely on your own observations and interpretations rather than those of a misguided, irrational lay owner.
One such animal was a cat called Tigger. Being totally black other than few white chest hairs, it is difficult to know why his previous owner gave him this name, but probably not as irrational as a client of mine who called her cat Blackie when it was in fact totally white. She so named him because, in her own words, “I used to have a cat exactly the same as this only it was black”! Tigger’s owner had brought him in to be euthanased because he was supposedly vicious. Admittedly she bore the scars of several alleged attacks but as he was such a young healthy cat I was unable to put him down and decided, with her permission, to try and re-home him.
He was temporarily housed in the recovery kennels where his angelic looks and friendly demeanour belied his ferocious reputation. Being pet-less and living in the assistant’s bachelor pad, I decided I would give him a home. All went well to start with and he settled in rapidly as a regular pet cat. Then one day, as I was sitting watching the TV with Tigger on my lap, he suddenly sunk his teeth into my leg. “Wait”, I hear you say, “Where are the signs of intelligence in this? Surely here is just a cat showing signs of dominance aggression”.
Well, this is of course true and a reflex smart whack resulted in a surprised look on the cat’s face that said as plain as day, “Hey! noone has done that before. I guess I’d better respect this guy; he’s showing me who the boss is” (Sorry that was pure anthropomorphism). Following this minor showdown and having established who the alpha male in this relationship was, we got on famously henceforth.
The time came when I needed to go on holiday and Tigger was kennelled back at the surgery while I was away. This happened on a couple of occasions before we realised that