Animals – A winter’s tale

As we approach the end of the lambing and calving “spring” period (euphemism for winter), a number of farmers have already told me they are “over it”. It is a time of long work hours and this winter seems to have been particularly wet and grey. As I drive past those New Zealand First billboards, I think what a shrewd slogan for an election at the end of winter…“Had enough?” … yes. So, at this low time, here is an attempt at humour from me. It is a gentle poke at vets and how we sometimes like to project ourselves to our colleagues. The story is fiction but some parts are based in reality.

Case Study:

Final draft

Cfer, a two-year-old neutered male, domestic short haired cat was presented with a 10cm long, fine strand of fibrous material protruding from a 2mm diameter skin wound on the lower lumbar midline. The strand was identified as a few fibres from the supraspinous ligament, probably just caught and torn out by a claw of the cat Cfer had been fighting the previous evening. The exit area was disinfected and the fibres cut at dermis level. No adverse sequellae have been reported since.

First draft

John Brown brought his cat Cfer into the clinic because there was a long thread of something sticking out of his back. I didn’t have a clue what it was … animal, mineral or vegetable. My first ‘best guess’ was a piece of old, sun-baked, very fine fishing line with maybe a very small hook anchoring it under the skin. John told me Cfer just turned up like this that morning, but otherwise, his behaviour had been completely normal. I got John to leave Cfer with me. I took a photo on my phone and, looking for ideas, sent it to the other vets in the practice who were out on farm. I was about to X-ray Cfer when I had to go out, too.

Later in the day, with still no ideas, I was staring at a shelf of textbooks, not knowing which one could help me, when old Bob got back. He looked at Cfer in his cage and told me what it was. He had seen this once before. “Snip it off and send him home,” he smiled. I asked why he hadn’t texted earlier and he reminded me his phone’s screen hadn’t worked since he dropped it three months earlier. He has got one of those old ones with buttons. Who walks around with a mobile that is only good for phoning up people these days!

When John picked up Cfer he mentioned there had been a feral cat, twice the size of Cfer, hanging around home recently. I offered to loan John a clinic cage to take Cfer home in but he insisted he had always transported his cats loose in the car. John is a really good client and I wasn’t going to argue with him. As he walked out the door, with his feline tucked under his arm, some Wally pulled out from the grog shop, next door, right in front of a logging truck. During the extended horn blast that followed Cfer broke loose, made a lightning bolt for the undergrowth at the back of the clinic and hasn’t been seen since.

David Haugh
Wellsford Vet Clinic
vetsonline.co.nz/wellsfordvet