Author: Dr. Christine McFadden

Racetrack Reveries

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Along the way to Vet School I shopped several practices, looking for that perfect fit. As a child I had kept cats, dogs, hamsters, fish and a pony and saved my babysitting money towards an opossum. My mother was in charge of the bank book and somehow I never quite reached the amount necessary to buy that ‘possum! I worked at a variety of veterinary practices before and during my years at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. Each practice offered something interesting, each unique. I considered equine practice for awhile.

There was the Racetrack practice. I hailed from Arizona, where we had a Grade B track – no threat to the Kentucky Derby but an endless parade of beautiful and athletic Thoroughbred horses. Later I fell in with the Endurance Group with their Arabian and Morgan horses that could cover endless miles in a day. These were not the Arabians found in the Show Ring. Lean and wiry, they were the equine equivalent to today’s human marathoner. We students volunteered to man the check points, looking for lameness, taking each horses’ pulse, respiration and temperature to judge that they were fit to continue.

And then there was Dr. M. A mountain of a man, standing over 6’4” and weighing in well over 250 pounds, he was a fine Equine practitioner with whom I rode over 3 summer months. I was skinny and insubstantial next to him. I looked very young. I WAS very young. My job as his assistant was to handle the horse. We raised a lot of eyebrows that summer.

We had a routine. Every morning I’d wait in his Large Animal truck, which was outfitted with running water and a refrigerator, ropes, medicines, tubes and twitches, all the trappings of equine practice. Every day his wife sent him off with a protein shake she’d prepared for him. It was a healthy potion, meant to both fortify him and make him lose weight. We would drive around the corner and he’d pull over long enough to open his door and dump the drink out onto a certain mesquite bush. We’d then drive straight to a diner that served substantial portions of ham steak with eggs. He’d chase that with a milkshake to go. Mesquite bushes are tough, but that one didn’t survive those protein shakes.

He took good care of some very fine Arabian horses and I learned a lot. Equine restraint was something I was good at, hampered only occasionally by my lack of weight. Once I’d grabbed onto an ear I didn’t let go. Occasionally I think Dr. M got a charge out of watching client’s faces as he sent me to “bring ‘em up”. These horses were all well trained, but even a well-trained horse protested against needles and examinations on occasion.

The end of summer was coming and soon I would be returning to Vet School. We stopped off at a small stable that had a young colt who had lost weight. The client wanted it dewormed. Back then we didn’t have the oral deworming pastes used today, which clients can administer themselves. We performed “tube worming”. You literally take a length of plastic hose and run it up the horse’s nose, watching it travel down the left side of the esophagus by tracing its route along their neck. Misplaced into the trachea, you could kill a horse by pumping the medication into their lungs instead of their stomach. On this day I had a good grip on the halter and was using my hand as a “twitch” on the ear. The colt started to act up and his owner stepped in, unasked, to assist. She succeeded in pushing me into his rearing head, breaking my nose and spreading a wild spray of blood across all of us. Back in the truck, Dr. M was full of admiration. “You got him! You never let go!” he enthused. I finished my summer with two spectacular black eyes before heading back to Davis for corrective surgery.

Many years have since passed. I traded horses for companion animals and exotics. My nose is still a little crooked. I‘ve never forgotten the lessons learned with Dr. M : Hang on! And avoid protein shakes. Some lessons you just accept at face value.

Christine B. McFadden, DVM

drmc@mcmenagerie.com

Job Shadows

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Job shadow. Verb? Noun? We aren’t talking ghosts here, nor what Peter Pan lost. A rather loose definition of a person who “job shadows” is someone who accompanies another on their job site all day, watching and learning what they do at work. Children are often paired with their parent. My own have never shown much interest in how the uterus is removed from the body or the many fascinating possible causes behind vomiting, so no luck there. People requesting to job shadow with me are usually students seriously contemplating a career in veterinary medicine. Because most veterinarians believe in the importance of education and love to share what we do with others, our clinic frequently has a student following one or another doctor around for a few hours to a few days. Over the years we’ve had several fine young people go on to find success at veterinary school. Currently I have just wrapped up a week with a young woman who has come up from Arizona every year for the last 7 years. She is not yet in high school.

 

What the Shadow sees on any particular day is entirely up to the stars and perhaps the humor of the receptionist taking in appointments. At best our schedules are a suggestion of how the day might go. At worst, emergencies and unexpectedly sick pets are rushed in or dropped off, disrupting the planned schedule. Although these cases are often highly challenging for the veterinarian, the pace and variety of pets and their injuries can place a strain on the interested but naïve observer.

 

A Shadow is not expected to actually handle animals. What they observe, however, is indeed our daily life. For the uninitiated, medicine can be extreme. I have personally dropped three (3) people into a dead faint over the years. In one case, as the young man collapsed in my arms, I initially thought he was making a grab for me and had started to back away. I caught him before he hit the floor.

 

Dentistry is a safe place to start for most Shadows, as they get to watch fossil-like brown teeth turn white under the skilled hands of our assistants and veterinarians.

 

Surgery is best approached slowly, with the Shadow seated strategically near and the case chosen deemed bloodless. We discuss anti-fainting tactics and monitor the Shadow for signs of sweating or turning green (who knew that was true, huh?).

 

The real test comes with exotics. Under this heading fall birds, snakes and lizards, hamsters and rabbits and the Zoo animals. Many Shadows are not familiar with these animals and have watched one too many horror films featuring same. Interestingly, some of my staff must have watched the same films. Over the years the pet phobias of my staff have come to light: this one trembles at frogs, another begs off assisting with snakes, several scream at wing-flapping birds. Ants are not seen as veterinary patients but someone at work has a marked phobia to ants. The Shadow’s phobias are unknown, sometimes by the Shadow themselves, until exposed on the job. Fireworks! Just another test of your devotion to this career. After all, as a veterinarian, we practice medicine and surgery on every living species on Earth – with one marked exception. And that species, of course, (homo sapien) is the ultimate exotic!

 

 

 

Christine B. McFadden, DVM

drmc@mcmenagerie.com

 

 

 

The French Fry Challenge

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Beware! Traveling veterinarians are everywhere!

Along with the vast hordes of people who undergo summer migration in odd patterns they refer to as “vacations,” we made our way across the North Pole to Europe, specifically France.

You may (or may not) recall that we had entertained an exchange student from that country earlier this year and that she had left us with the declaration (politely) that no where on Earth could the fabulous French Fry be found as it existed in her country, specifically the north of France.

The gauntlet had been thrown. Valiantly I threw all my free air miles into the purchase of plane tickets and we set off on our summer adventure. Our first venture with the French pommes frites (french fry) was …. drum roll, please : at an airport McDonald’s. Oooh la la!

Oddly enough, they tasted like a McDonald’s french fry here. Except they were accompanied by a lime green packet of “pommes-frites-sauce” which was a mysterious white color inside and tasted a bit like sweetened mayonnaise (if you’ve ever had sweetened mayonnaise?).

We passed. It must be an acquired taste, and in all fairness, we had to ask for ketchup everywhere we went, but they did have it.

I suspect when the shoe is on the other foot and the French are visiting us, we may not be so accommodating. We sampled the frites in Paris and across the south of France, then headed north to Lille, almost on the border with Belgium.

Here we met up with our exchange student, whose family welcomed us into their home. We sampled “les frites” in restaurants and roadside stands across Northern France and into Belgium. We ate them with dishes whose names we couldn’t pronounce and sometimes ingredients we couldn’t guess at.

We ate them wrapped in newspaper cones, served in clever tiny wire baskets and scattered across plates. Without exception they were served fresh from the fryer, hot enough to burn the skin off your fingers and tongue, and were indeed crispy/crunchy on the outside and soft and melting on the inside (or was that my tongue giving way?).

With a deep bow of respect, may I say that round one went to northern France in the “Pommes Frites Contestation.”

Wish this could become an annual event! We made the acquaintance of their cat, Plume, and several other pets along the way. We very much enjoyed our trip to another country and found ourselves, delightedly, also happy to come home.

There was much fun with “bonjour” and the French kiss, kiss greeting upon our return and then I got down to work. What a joy! I truly love my work and the people with whom I work.

In my absence, at the Applegate Zoo, our new Black-tailed Mule deer, Lily, had birthed twin fawns! Lily came to our Zoo only weeks before giving birth. She had been taken in by Fish and Game staff after reports of a deer coming up to people in traffic and trying to climb into their cars or mooch something to eat.

Obviously she had been hand-raised (surreptitiously, not legally) then released. Too imprinted on humans to live safely in the wild, Lily found a home here with us, where Donna, the head Zookeeper, watched over her vigilantly and assisted in the twins’ safe delivery on June 15.

Mule deer have a gestation period of about 200 days (compared with a human pregnancy of 280 days). Anxious that the mother and babies bond, Donna kept everyone away initially – not to worry, the little ones are as wild as the proverbial March hares! Right now they have their spots and are slightly smaller than the rooster they share a pen with. Both little does, the fawns will be able to stay with their mother at the Zoo.

Please come visit our City of Merced Applegate Zoo to welcome these newcomers and celebrate summer! A lively Special Celebration is offered this Sunday, July 22 from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Applegate Zoo. Meet the twins! A bounce house, water games, snow cones, popcorn and more will be offered.

Kids : Wear your swimsuits, shoes and shorts required! The zoo address is 1045 West 25th St. in Merced. Free parking.

Christine McFadden, DVM
drmc@mcmenagerie.com

Summer Vacation / Hawaii 5 Days or Less

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Well, I said helpfully, I just called up so you could yell at me.

Complete silence for a moment, followed by protestations. They had never been upset with me. Everyone was so lovely at the clinic. Their pet had never been away from them before.

Their dog boarded with us for a week. A joyous, boisterous good time was had by all. Their little Maltese, Princess, had never been anywhere where she could bark as much as she wanted. Once she realized there was no shushing, she barked herself hoarse. There was so much to see and do, dogs coming and going, the occasional call of a parrot, exotic sights and smells. New people to romp and play with, as her owners knew from receipt of photos and video outtake of their Princess at play. Not wanting to miss a moment of the party, Princess skipped her daytime naps. Accustomed to daily brushing at home, she submitted to some brushing at the clinic but wiggled uncontrollably because she wanted to play some more! Rules went out the window as this little Maltese took advantage of every new opportunity that came her way. We took to calling her the Energizer Bunny. The day she went home she had a bath and blow out and went trotting out the door, every inch the Princess.

Remind you of anyone you know? Ever needed a vacation after the vacation? Guess what, dogs do it, too. And for the pet owner who has never seen their dog like this, it’s scary. Understandably, their first reaction is to ask: what did we do to their dog? Often at high volume, because they’re worried. I no longer try to explain the “vacation syndrome”, I just offer to see their pet, courtesy, to check him or her over for any actual health issues. To date, I have never found a problem and all these pets have returned to normal behaviors and routines within a few days of going home.

And then there are the good folk who take their pet with them. Oh, to hit the open road, man’s best friend at your side. I’m supposed to tell you not to forget your health certificate, but unless you cross borders into another country you may not be asked to show them. I’ve heard national parks will often inspect these documents. They are technically required by law for interstate travel by car. Of course, some people get carried away and want to take their pet with them on vacation to places like Hawaii. We’ve discussed this in this column before that the State of Hawaii, a group of isolated islands, is rabies free, unlike the rest of the USA. They have stringent requirements before a pet may enter Hawaii. Some clever person named the program “5 Days or Less.”

Clients who come to see me are disbelieving when I explain that the 5-Day-or-Less Program is available AFTER 120 days from our first meeting. First their pet must meet the requirements for prior Rabies vaccinations and microchipping before we will submit a Rabies titer blood test (FAVN) to a government mandated lab. The 120-day countdown starts with their passing FAVN test. Four months later you may fly to Hawaii with your pet and enter the Islands that same day – 5-Days-or-Less! Ta-da! Should you fly your pet there earlier, they’ll just quarantine him/her on the island for 120 days at your expense. You are permitted to visit on-site.

I’ve worked on a lot of Health Certificates to foreign locales. I respect the concerns behind their requirements. I do wish that Hawaii had come up with a different name for their program, as the current title is misleading to many clients. Experience has taught me to quietly sidle into the room, smile brightly as I congratulate them on their big trip to Hawaii and ask when they are planning to travel? I roll out my paperwork and gently start to explain what actually lies ahead of us. Today I barely flinch when the client starts screaming. We work through it. And may I say that Hawaii is a piece of cake compared to Japan. Japan, also Rabies-free, requires that you start the process over 6 months in advance. I just completed one that we started in July of 2017. Two more are in the pipeline. That was me you heard screaming.

Christine McFadden, DVM

drmc@mcmenagerie.com

Adam’s Rib

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So our school held a softball banquet for the team. Parents were asked to provide potluck. We brought ribs. Which somehow reminded a physician friend of her med-school days and the particular anatomy class when one of her classmates suddenly realized that both male and female human beings had the same number of rib bones. Every time. He counted. He was so distraught that he had to leave the classroom. How to account for Adam’s rib?

That story put me in fine mood to remember another story which I read in a sort of can-you-believe–this column written by veterinarians for other veterinarians.

An elderly client was bereft when her cat went missing. After several months passed, she showed up at her vet’s office grinning from ear to ear, delighted to have recovered “Tiger.” The veterinarian exhibited great delicacy and restraint, gently pointing out that this couldn’t be her long lost Tiger, because her cat had been an orange tabby and this one was a black tabby. Her Tiger was an old cat and this cat was much younger, which he could tell by looking at the cat’s teeth. The woman countered his remarks with comments of being in the sun and the dental benefits of hunting mice for a living. Triumphantly, the veterinarian pointed out that this clearly wasn’t Tiger, because Tiger had been neutered and this one was an intact tomcat! His client nodded back at him, flashing a brilliant smile as she indulgently explained what had happened. Tiger had always liked to sleep on top of the television set. (Note: This story is way before “flat screen” TV’s. I suspect it had “tubes” in it and bunny ear antennae for reception, not digital mother boards. The tops of these TVs were broad and flat and warmed up nicely after a little use. Perfect for napping cats.) There was a Christian evangelist she especially enjoyed watching. She suspected that Tiger had never really liked having that neuter surgery done, and she believed his prayers were answered as he lay on top of her TV, listening to the Word of God. So, she shrugged happily, they just regrew.

Like the client who brought their mother dog into me a couple of weeks after a C-section delivery of her puppies. Her pups were doing well and, they assured me, they had been very happy with my services and skillful surgery. But, and here they paused, glancing at each other, but, Doc, you missed a puppy. I was extremely puzzled myself. This was impossible, as after delivering the puppies I had proceeded to perform an ovariohysterectomy, or spay, so had not left any reproductive tissue behind. They plopped their dog on the table and turned her onto her side, revealing a large, engorged and rather angry breast that was inflamed with infection, called mastitis. In size and shape it did look about the size of one of her newborn puppies. They believed that this “puppy” had slipped through the belly button into her breast! Only their sincerity and kindness saved my composure, as I explained what was happening and how glad I was to be able to treat the mastitis, an infection that can quickly turn ugly and is very painful.

I care for pets belonging to people from all walks of life. They come from a variety of faiths. It is humbling to be allowed to be a partner in the caregiving for their beloved pets. I do not presume to explain the myriad mysteries found in daily life. There is an art and a science to medicine. Scientifically, I know that once neutered, a cat stays neutered. I know that wasn’t the original Tiger. But I do believe in miracles. Why not?

Christine McFadden, DVM

drmc@mcmenagerie.com

Taking in an Exchange Student

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It started with a phone call. Would we consider taking in an exchange student for 10 days? She came from France and would spend most of her days joining the rest of her group in planned activities. We were expected to feed her breakfast, dinner if she was there, and provide her her own bed. We figured we could do anything for 10 days. Not to mention I would love to visit France. We said “yes.” We were able to review letters written by several students to their prospective host families. I studied them carefully and narrowed our choices between two. My girls paid no attention to my detail and chose the girl with the same name as theirs.

Drumming up my best high school French, I wrote to the family. I received a telephone text message from our student through the internet app “WhatsApp?” She sounded nice. We made a welcome sign for her and sent her a picture of the sign so she could find us (just in case she forgot her name?). When she got off the bus she had been traveling for 24 hours. Unlike online dating sites, she looked just like her picture. We brought her home, my twins chattering happily away to her, while I interjected an occasional explanation in French and my husband just drove. I bet she had a headache.

We fed her dinner and sent her to bed. She closed the door on us all as she prepared to sleep and three cats started to yowl outside it, beyond curious at this new visitor in the house. Desperately I flapped kitchen towels at them to shoo them away without disturbing her. The next morning our first pictures were of her trying to unpack her suitcase as the cats prowled through all her belongings. They seemed to find French jeans exotic and believed she had traveled all this way specifically to meet and pet them.

She had a cat at home and was kind to ours. She was out of the house for most of the day and fell asleep on the couch at 8 p.m. each night, which was about 4 in the morning for her at home. Overall I was impressed with her adaptability to a somewhat grueling schedule. She fought jet lag far better than I.

I purchased croissants and French cornichon pickles for her. She ignored them. Ooh la la, what was this? She didn’t drink coffee or wear red lipstick. She didn’t come from Paris. She was a real girl, kinda just like us. Quel surprise!

I made sure she visited a Starbucks and my husband treated her to an American Hamburger. After eating the hamburger with knife and fork she pronounced it quite good – but the French fries, well, her part of Northern France makes the best French fries in the world! This outlandish statement assured my husband’s commitment to travel to her hometown in Northeastern France. He will follow his stomach anywhere.

I invited her and a friend to the veterinary clinic one morning when their schedule was open. She saw some surgery and took a photo with a monkey from the Zoo. They watched some dentistry and left before I could get into some really interesting bowel surgery. They didn’t seem sad to miss it! I’m pretty sure that I convinced her to continue with her current studies, which did not include the pursuit of veterinary medicine. We posed for pictures in front of the clinic sign to remember this moment, like the Treaty of Versailles.

When she returned home, her cat sent a picture to our cats. I’m still waiting to see if their veterinarian will offer me a job. I can say “heart” and “knee” and “medication” in French – surely on the strength of that I should be hired? As a last resort, I can always fall back on the allure of French fries – my husband will take me there. Vive les frites!

Christine McFadden, DVM

drmc@mcmenagerie.com

The Parrot Who Ate Caramel Corn / Heart Failure

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Unbelievable. If I dared roll my eyes during an interaction with a client, my eyes should have been doing cartwheels during the intake history I was noting on the chart.

My patient, an African Grey Parrot named Joe, was lying face down in his carrier, his beautiful red tail inelegantly dragging in the muck and mire. I was afraid to handle him, for fear it would push him over the brink. As I stalled for time I observed him from a safe distance, thoughts milling through my head. It creates a poor first impression when you touch your patient and he falls over dead.

tequilapalomitas.jpg

The question I’d just asked was about his preferred foods. I was secretly hoping to hear that he ate a sunflower seed only diet, because this is the pinnacle of poor nutrition for the average parrot and was quite popular 30 years ago when most birds were imported and went through the rigors of quarantine stations before finding their way into homes. Thousands of parrots seemed to subsist on sunflower seed alone, whose nutritional value, though high in protein and fats, was loathsomely deficient in calcium and other life-sustaining vitamins and nutrients. 

The secret card up my sleeve? African Grey parrots, both the Congo species and their smaller cousins the Tymneh, were unusually susceptible to severe sickness from hypocalcemia. In addition to building strong bones, calcium is needed for all muscle contractions, including the heart muscle, and low calcium led to seizures or tetany and cardiac arrest. The treatment was simply supplying calcium and a little vitamin D to the afflicted parrot and most would turn around. The stuff of miracles and who doesn’t want to see a miracle?

But this woman! What was she saying? Forget seeds. Her bird subsisted on caramel corn? Peanut M&M’s? Pizza? Impossible that this bird could survive the high salts and fats and sugars of this diet! Let alone live to 42 years of age. But here he was. Although, as I knelt to get a closer view, one could not say that he was “living.” Not yet dead was more accurate. Gingerly I opened the cage door and slowly pulled him out. Joe didn’t move. I finally placed my stethoscope to his chest without disturbing his position on the towel. Oh dear. He had a heart murmur and his heart was beating very erratically. Cardiac arrhythmia. His abdomen bulged ominously. A tumor? The case was hopeless. The bird had never been to a veterinarian before and this was clearly too little, too late.

Which I tried to explain to his owner. We could do diagnostic tests, but he might die while we were trying to help him. The tests would be expensive and some would take a day or more to get results. I didn’t think he’d live long enough to find out what was killing him, let alone help him. I hate cases like this.

Joe’s owner requested that we proceed.

We placed him in an oxygen cage. Then, using gas anesthesia, we let him breathe himself into a state of non-painful peace and took x-rays, drew blood, obtained culture samples and tapped his abdomen (abdomenocentesis). No tumor. Joe appeared to be in congestive heart failure. What’s more, he woke up. I had given him several medications while he was still out and he remained on supplemental oxygen. Fast forward 24 hours. Joe is standing, a little wobbly, and has lost 50 grams of retained fluid overnight (10 percent of his entry weight). His blood calcium test is normal. Too weak to eat well on his own, we gavage fed him, using a tube to place baby mush directly into his crop. Fast forward 72 hours. Joe is talking, grooming himself and cracking seed. We take him off oxygen. On Day Five I sit down with his owner and explain that against all odds, her bird is adjusting well to oral medication and can go home. He will need medication the rest of his life. Given the seriousness of his condition, I tell her each day is a blessing. This is good enough for Joe and his owner.

We stayed in touch. Joe continued to improve. On Day 10 his owner happily reported that Joe was eating caramel corn again. Tongue-tied, I pulled back and stared at the phone. Not the goal I had in mind. I kept quiet. It’s been more than one month since I first met Joe. He is doing very well on his heart medications. I may start eating caramel corn myself.

Christine McFadden, DVM

Send questions or comments to drmc@mcmenagerie.com

The Water Cycle

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Kids say the darndest things! This year “The Water Cycle” is being taught in Science at the high school, which came to my attention when a story was relayed to me the other night.

rainboots

It had been raining, and the young man was quite anxious. “It’s raining!” he exclaimed. “Yes, yes it is,” his teacher agreed. Drawing closer, he whispered, “Do I smell like pee?” Backing up, his teacher stared at him. “What are you talking about? Of course not!”

The student went on to explain his thought processes. He fully understood the Water Cycle and its importance to Earth’s replenishing and sustainability of its water sources. Taking it a step further, he reasoned that all the animals urinate outdoors – dogs, cats, horses and cows, bears and raccoons, all the wild birds, even the insects and fish. Well (his eyes widening), all that urine must leach into the soil and evaporate just like water! Which meant it was now returning to earth and raining urine on his head.

Having never thought this through to this degree I stopped to ponder these ideas, searching for merit. His teacher, I might add, did no such thing. She told him the clouds filtered out impurities and the rain was clean and he could retake his seat. He was most relieved. I was impressed at her quick-witted response. This is where the scientist in me gets bogged down. This is why I’d be a lousy teacher.

So, the Water Cycle, in its simplest form, explains how water covers 71 percent of the Earth’s surface. This water cycles through several steps: It evaporates into the atmosphere, where it condenses into droplets that form clouds and later falls back to the earth as precipitation (rain, snow, hail, sleet), which is collected or returned to our oceans, lakes and land.

Next, urine from mammals is composed of about 95-percent water plus some other compounds, including urea. Urea contains nitrogen. This fact is very important to a different science lesson, the Nitrogen Cycle. Nitrogen is necessary for all life as the building block of protein, which both plants and animals need to grow. Nitrogen is the most important nutrient that plants get from the soil. The soil receives this nitrogen in two ways – nitrates come from animal solid waste like manure. From liquid waste like urine comes urea. Another way nitrogen is acquired is through decomposing into the soil.

Birds and reptiles are uricotelic (I wrote this whole story so I could prove I know that word), meaning their urine waste is in the more solid form of urates (that white stuff in the bird’s droppings) than liquid urine. It’s simply how their non-mammalian rudimentary kidneys function.

This is a very long-winded way of explaining that only the water from body wastes can evaporate into the air. All the “impurities” or other compounds are left behind to enrich our soil. Rainwater is essentially distilled water, free from impurities unless it picks up local air pollution/ dust or other debris as it returns as precipitation during the Water Cycle.

This is the most amazing win-win ever! So put on your galoshes and go splash in some puddles!

And have a great day!

Christine McFadden, DVM

Send questions or comments to drmc@mcmenagerie.com.

Cloning

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For roughly $50,000 you can clone your favorite dog or cat. Speaking strictly for myself, I was somewhat startled. Are we there already?

Since I’m still sewing up cuts with plain old needle and thread, I find some of this high-tech stuff interesting. And amusing. And disturbing. So while I’m still healing the old fashioned way, somewhere out there veterinarians are offering to clone your pet.

They start with something as simple as a skin biopsy, a little 6 mm circle of tissue taken from your pet and carefully preserved for the genetic material found in its DNA. From this they can replicate the DNA and fuse the sample with an egg. This grows into an embryo that can be implanted into a surrogate mother. Once born you have a “clone” – a pet produced asexually from one ancestor to which they are genetically identical “twins.” A lot of this original work was being done in South Korea. There are now companies based in the United States that also offer either to preserve your pets’ DNA for future cloning or you can order up your very own clone today. In humans, identical twins result from the natural splitting of an egg in utero and both children contain identical DNA genetic makeup. Someone labeled identical twins “natural clones”?! Canine clones appear to have been the most popular pet clones requested by the public in this early work.

There’s a lot to consider here.

Say everything goes smoothly with the pregnancy and your little clone is born. Let’s name her “Clonia.” In the old nature-versus nurture-debate, right from the get-go we may have the same genetic material but it is going to be raised by another mother. That surrogate doggie mom may have been chosen for her availability as a uterus (think “animal shelter rescue”) and may not be particularly personable towards humans. And everyone, mom-dog and puppies, are living in a laboratory setting, not on Grandma’s comforter in your kids’ bedroom closet. So the first six weeks or so are not in a home environment and raise some serious questions about early socialization for the beloved Clonia. From what I could gather, responsible lab researchers provide careful monitoring to rule out abnormalities in the little clones, so many don’t go to their homes until they are several months old. Developmentally, they cannot be properly evaluated until then. This means even more time spent in a laboratory setting, coddled and cossetted, no doubt, for $50,000, but not a home. So when you do bring home your old pets’ genetic double, Clonia may not act exactly the same as her ancestor. Maybe not at all. Nurture versus nature.

And what happens to the mother dog, once she has performed her duties? This issue is clouded by lack of information. Clonia, by the way, cannot be registered with the American Kennel Club, no matter how prestigious her ancestral pedigree. Since the first dog cloned in the United States was born in February 2016, as of this writing, there isn’t a lot of information out there about “identical personalities” to the original pet. Somehow liking to chew up your sneakers or wagging your tail clockwise isn’t enough to convince me that you have reincarnated the original pet. Isn’t that really what this is all about? Clonia may not physically be an identical twin and again, her personality, shaped by very different early experiences, may be substantially different.

There are so many hearts and homes out there looking for each other that I find it hard to recommend seeking love through a clone. Would a clone of Shakespeare, father to twins Hamnet and Judith, still pen his famous works, such as “Romeo and Juliet” wherein he wrote “What’s in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.” I suspect that that which we call a dog is each an unique individual and that the search to duplicate your beloved pet by cloning borders on smoke-and-mirrors shell games, not something sweet.

Christine McFadden, DVM

drmc@mcmenagerie.com

BBBD (Bit By Big Dog) / Flail Chest

/ Dr. Christine McFadden / Leave a comment

The office was closed for a staff meeting. We were stuffing pizza in our mouths and watching a power point presentation when the doorbell buzzer screeched over our heads. Everyone jumped. We need to get that thing adjusted to a gentle chime before one of us has a heart attack. Someone went to investigate, then signaled a nurse for triage and suddenly there was an urgent request for a veterinarian. Since I was neither presenting the power point speech nor suctioning the throat of a vomiting dog I was the obvious choice. I moved.

 

My patient was a tiny golden Chihuahua barely making weight at 5 pounds. He probably shouldn’t have mouthed off to the pit bull, but boys will be boys. He’d been BBBD (Bit By Big Dog). I examined him on the floor. This proved to be a good choice, because he promptly stood up on all 4 legs and ran away, screaming. One, he didn’t jump off the exam table and two, his legs weren’t broken. Good, we were already getting somewhere. His name was “Peru”.

 

His owner agreed to our basic plan : Anesthetize little Peru. This would allow us to fully assess his injuries. We could clean up his wounds, take x-rays, start IV fluids and antibiotics all without causing further discomfort. Given his continued shrieks if we even looked at him we all felt relief at this plan. His owner left and we set up for him as the meeting finished.

 

Initial assessment was ugly. Peru had multiple punctures over his shoulders and left flank. Two ribs were broken on his left side, one of them flopping about, unhinged. It was unnerving. We taped it loosely in place. Miraculously, although the x-rays showed some lung contusions (light bleeding into the lungs), there did not appear to be major tears into the chest cavity. Peru was such a tiny dog and so thinned skinned that you could see the purple bruises along his side where his tissue had been crushed. There was an odd lump on his belly, just behind his belly button. The skin over it was perfectly intact. I gently pressed the bump, and felt my finger slide into a hole, a hernia created when teeth ripped his belly muscles apart!  I rechecked the x-rays, looking especially hard at the edges of the rib cage where the diaphragm joins the body wall.  The diaphragm is the thin sheet of muscle that separates the chest cavity from the abdomen. The movement of the diaphragm helps to inflate the lungs. If there was a tear through the diaphragm and I opened up the belly, the lungs wouldn’t be able to expand properly and Peru wouldn’t be able to breathe on his own. He would die unless we provided assisted breathing (ventilation) for him. I couldn’t be completely certain from the x-ray.

 

We prepared to breathe for Peru and took him to surgery. Less than 30 minutes had passed since he entered. I carefully opened the skin over the abdomen, exposing the jagged hole punctured through his belly wall, and listened for the tell-tale sucking noise of a damaged diaphragm. For a long moment no one else in the room was breathing except Peru, and he was doing just fine. His oxygen saturation (SpO2) stayed at 99%. I cautiously explored his insides. More miracles : the diaphragm, liver and spleen were all intact. He had two jagged tears through the abdominal wall (outer skin intact!) and I connected them up and tidied the edges. This would both remove tissue directly crushed and possibly infected by teeth. Healthy tissue heals better. I “ran” the intestine through my fingers and discovered a 1 cm section of small bowel that had been pierced on each side by teeth. We tested with sterile saline and it spurted out like a geyser! Well, that wouldn’t do. Rather than resection I chose to repair the damaged bowel and sutured it.  We injected more sterile saline to test it twice – water tight. We cleaned and sutured all his other wounds and placed a protective chest wrap to support those ribs. When little Peru awakened he was happily groggy on pain medication and we all breathed easier.

 

By Day 2 Peru tried to jump into his owner’s arms when she came to visit. His recovery has been slow but steady, especially since I figured out that the first antibiotic made him vomit. He’ll wear his supportive chest wrap for several weeks while the ribs heal but the bruises are fading and soon enough he will be golden tan again rather than purple. But he’s still feisty around big dogs!

 

Christine B. McFadden, DVM

drmc@mcmenagerie.com