Being a Home Town Vet

By Doug Rains

When anyone is so fortunate to practice veterinary medicine as their calling, their memories are the journals of their lives.

This book has excerpts of the journal from a veterinary general practioneers experiences of the happiness, sadness, and realities of being a veterinarian.

Every day has been a heck of a ride.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 21, 2022
• ISBN: 9781662469435

Book preview

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Being a Home Town Vet

Doug Rains

Copyright © 2021 Doug Rains

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2021

ISBN 978-1-6624-6942-8 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-6624-6943-5 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

A Worm in My Poop!

My First Cesarean

The Three Preachers

As Safe as Flying

If I Tell You No, Then You Can Believe It

The Boxer versus the Porcupines

Too Much of a Good Thing

In the (Cow) Pie Hole

Are You Really a Vet?

From Those Who Can

DNA Testing

The Marriage Proposal

Mr. Bun Bun versus Kato

Just Like My Janet

Dave and Deb versus the Bus

I Won’t Let You Go Alone

Six Inches Higher

No Hemorrhoids

The Perfect Closure

This book is dedicated to every faithful friend, every animal lover, every veterinarian that practices their true calling; to Laurie, my friend and mentor; and to Slinky, my true and faithful friend.

Synopsis of Chapters

A Worm in My Poop—Dealing with parasites of animals and people

My First Cesarean—Performing a C-sec on a neighbor’s cow

The Three Preachers—Do animals go to heaven?

As Safe as Flying—Anesthesia and the apprehensive pet owner

If I Tell You No—Getting into vet school

The Boxer versus the Porcupine—A stubborn dog learns about porcupines.

Too Much of a Good Thing—A ranch dog and gelding horses

In the Pie Hole—Projectile diarrhea of a cow when delivering a calf

Are You Really a Vet?—An old rancher questions my qualifications.

From Those Who Can—Providing and collecting for services rendered

DNA Testing—Determining the breed of a dog

The Marriage Proposal—A pup comes with an engagement ring.

Mr. Bun Bun and Kato—A rabbit, a ferret, a biologist, and me

Just Like My Janet—The loss of a daughter and a dog

Dave and Deb versus the Bus—A city bus drives into a living room.

I Won’t Let You Go Alone—A mom and one of her pups pass on the same day.

Six Inches Higher—Getting double-cocked by a stallion

No Hemorrhoids—Dealing with an angry client

The Perfect Closure—Suturing a wound on a plastic surgeon’s dog

Introduction

Some people think that it doesn’t matter where you start, only where you end up. I happen to think that it is important to know where you came from so you can appreciate where you got to. It is also hugely important to have those people in your life who listen to you, direct you, educate you, and support you.

Those people are family, teachers, friends, and mentors.

A third-generation dairy farmer drove up to the practice where I was serving an externship during my senior year in vet school. An externship is where you get to learn from experienced veterinarians with cases that just come in with an animal that needs attending to.

The farmer piled out of a car that I had never seen before, a three-door Suzuki. It was really small, so I was surprised when he pulled three Holstein calves out onto the yard pad.

Save them for $15 each or they’re yours, he said.

Dr. Bulgin, an adjunct professor of WAZZU, looked at him and replied, That is how much it will cost you for us to put each animal down. So give us the $45, and we’ll take care of it.

Well, just wait because I have more.

Each time he came back to the practice, he brought three more calves, and they were all nonresponsive. On his ninth trip, he pulled three more calves out and said, That’s all of them.

Every calf had been nonresponsive, and I was drawing up the euthanasia solution to end their suffering. The last three were pulled out of the car onto the pad, but there was a difference with one of the calves, number 26. She raised her head and groaned then laid down to die.

Dr. Bulgin, I think this one wants to live, I said. Can we try to save her?

Dr. Bulgin said okay, and her technician and I put in a catheter and began the treatment to try to turn this calf around.

I looked at the tech, Wendy, and said, I’m tired of killing these innocent lives without giving them a chance to live. All those other calves may have never made it, but please help me learn how to save this beautiful life.

Doug, Wendy said, we have our work cut out for the next few days if we’re going to turn this calf around.

We named the calf Lucky. Original name, isn’t it? Lucky made it, and (I later learned) she was eventually worked into a dairy farm milking string.

Doug, I think you’re going to be a pretty good vet, Wendy said as I left my externship.

I graduated to become a practicing vet. Maybe Lucky and I didn’t start out in the best of places, but we both realized a dream and did our best to contribute to the betterment of the lives we touch.

I often think of Dr. Bulgin and Wendy’s help, and I think of Lucky, and that my favorite number is 26.

A Worm in My Poop!

A long time ago, in a land far away (at least it felt like another planet), I was in my second year of vet school, often considered the year of hell. As far as I understand, it’s the same in most other veterinary medical and surgery schools as there is sooooo much to learn and only so much time to teach the students the required subjects. For whatever rationale, the second year is when you are pressed to the breaking point with twenty-three credit hours in the first semester and twenty-six credit hours during the second semester. This allows the academia requiring committee to cram in all the necessary and critical information you need to ply your calling as a vet as dictated by law. Even in the first week of the second year, the exams start. After that first week, there are never less than three exams a week, and sometimes five or even six exams in one week.

Of every equally important class in your sophomore year, there is parasitology. Dr. Foster was our instructor. He was a veterinarian in the Army during the Vietnam War, although I believe he took care of, and helped, more people than he did animals. Just as he helped people during his tour of duty, he was about to do it again in the form of an intense didactic opportunity involving a classmate.

Dr. Foster had several goals in life. He wanted to ensure that each and every one of his students learned the importance of the pathological consequences of parasites, not just to the patient that you would treat, but also the zoonotic potentials. He also loved the environment. I’m not sure if it was because he had witnessed the decimation of foliage from Agent Orange in Vietnam or just because he thought of leaving the planet a greener place for his children or both. He had a goal of planting ten thousand trees on his property before he checked out from planet Earth. I don’t know if his modest family property could support that many trees, but I am sure that, somehow, he would reach the goal of ten thousand new trees planted where they would do some good. Dr. Foster’s mentor in parasitology was the chief administrator of the CVM, a board-certified DVM parasitologist, and a really great guy, Dean Weston. I was lucky and I got to speak with him before he retired.

Three years before I found myself in Dr. Foster’s class, I was searching for some advice from an individual who could help me get to where I wanted to go. When I first applied to vet school, I had to include a picture of myself—so the committee of individuals that performs the selection interviews won’t be too surprised at what you look like—and pair it with your application information detailing who you are. The picture I submitted was one of me hoisting a fourteen-and-a-half-pound steelhead salmon I caught on the Clearwater River in Idaho. My first application and interview did not go as well as I wanted it to. I ended up as the seventh alternate on the admission list. Not good enough; I wanted to realize my dream. What did I need to do to get on the accepted list?

I contacted the individuals who were on my interview committee to try and find out where I went wrong. Two of them had voted for me, two against. The two that had given me a white marble told me I did fine. The two who had given me a black marble informed me of their critique. One said she wanted to see if I would apply again to ensure that I was sincere in becoming a student; after all, I had a very good job with the USDA in research. Also, I had taken genetics, but it wasn’t mammalian genetics. If I was willing to give up that future and take a mammalian genetics course, maybe I really did want to be a veterinarian. To this day, I still think that genetics is genetics, whether it is mammalian or pea plants. The science of genetics started with Mendel’s studies on red-, white-, and pink-flowered pea plants. That is the basis for our understanding of heritable traits. I didn’t argue the point with her then, and I won’t make an argument for it now.

The other black marble came from a man who said he thought I needed more statistical education. Holy smokes, I had already taken six semesters of statistics in my undergraduate and post-graduate education. I was also performing statistical analysis for the USDA on carbon-13 isotope discrimination. I thanked him for his advice and replied that I would satisfy his critique. Expect to see my application next year, I promised him.

Unbeknownst to me, Dean Weston was an avid steelhead fisher, and I was fortunate enough to get a thirty-minute appointment with him. I wanted to ask him, the administrator of the college, if there was anything I could do to improve my chances of being accepted into the program.

I arrived about fifteen minutes early for my appointment and was instructed to wait in the front office. That was easy as there was a storm of activity that kept my attention: Enrolled students were in and out of the office for whatever reason I didn’t know. Barb and Joyce (integral administrators ensuring the smooth flow of student needs, old and new) were solving problems of unknown student dilemmas, helping with the decisions of senior clinical rotations, coordinating class schedules in the appropriate classrooms to accommodate professors and students, along with a myriad of other responsibilities that I could only imagine.

Right at 10:00 a.m., Joyce asked me to follow her, escorted me to the administrator’s office, and introduced me, Doug, this is Dean Weston. We shook hands, and the conversation immediately focused on fishing. Dean asked me about the fish I was showcasing in the picture.

Where did you catch him? he asked. It was a beautiful buck, and I related the drift fishing technique I used. I told him about the lure that I used, a black jig with white eyes and a black elk hair tail, as well as the fight he put up before being landed.

I’ve caught a few of those big fish myself, he commented.

Then we started sharing fishing stories. Some people say all fishing stories are tall tales, but between us fishers, we just enjoyed each of the other’s stories.

Well, Dean, I began, that one in the photo is a fourteen-and-a-half-pound hatchery fish, but I also caught a wild type that weighed twenty-three and a half pounds.

Dean told me about one of his battles with a trophy fish. It was a wonderful detailed account of location, lure, and fight to land a dandy of a steelhead salmon.

Before I knew it, twenty-five minutes had passed, and we hadn’t covered any of the questions I needed to have answered.

Dean, as much as I love talking fishing and swapping lies, I have a few questions about what I need to do to qualify and get into vet school.

I told him about the additional statistics and genetics request. I told