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Greetings from Iowa!

In a few hours time, I will get to do something that is both a humbling experience and a great honor – to give a commencement address to a class of graduating veterinary students.  Today it is the Iowa State University Class of 2012.  Twenty-three years ago when I graduated veterinary school, I never for the life of me imagined that my career path would have led me to a podium in the middle of America to share a momentous and pivotal day in the lives of so many fine, young professionals.  Funny how things turn out.

Four years ago, when Tell Me Where It Hurts was published, this group of students were just starting their education.  I wonder if some of them read it to get a feel for what lay beyond the journey they were about to take.  Perhaps, today, I’ll find out.  As a colleague of mine said yesterday, “Your speech had best be funny.  I promised them you’d be funny.”  Well, we shall see, but I’m aiming for funny, poignant but most of all, my speech is about them and their achievement, and not me.

Here’s a link to an interview I gave to Boston’s NPR station, that aired a month or so ago.  radioboston.wbur.org/…/author-conversation-dr-nick-trout-on-ever-… I’ve not listened, but I remember the discussion.  Maybe I should.  Maybe I’ll hear something I should add to my speech.

 

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Tricking the dog!

April 23rd, 2012

Every so often I find myself in our hospital library, trying to rediscover the romantic, by-gone era of veterinary medicine.  Frequently my resource is our extensive and relatively ancient collection of a certain British journal, specifically The Veterinary Record, dating back to the 1940′s.  Here’s a letter to the editor that caught my eye.

Sir,- I have recently purchased a packet of worm capsules made by a firm of excellent repute.  The instructions for use include advice on administration.  Two or three morsels of meat should be thrown to the dog, and then a similar morsel in which the capsule has been wrapped.  It is said the dog will swallow both meat and capsule without further trouble.  I have frequently read similar advice in books on the care of dogs as well as in articles in the lay Press.

In the whole course of my long and sinful life I have never succeeded in tricking a dog in this manner.  I have now abandoned the attempt, as the dog has invariably detected the medicated morsel and rejected it, no matter how much “pre-baiting” has been used.  I would be interested to know if any readers with greater cynological experience than mine have been more successful.

Yours faithfully,

R. MACGREGOR (The Veterinary Record, May 7th, 1955)

I loved the line, ‘my long and sinful life’ and I confess to looking up ‘cynology’ –  the study of dogs.

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Stepping Up

April 19th 2012

I see it all the time  - kids grow up, go off to college and the parents are left to look after the dog or the cat which includes all the exercise, clean ups and, where I come in, veterinary care.  Your moody teenager returns home from college on breaks just in time to enjoy all the good stuff.

The other day, for the first time in a long time, I saw the reverse situation.  A young college student whose father had died and left her with his canine companion, a goofy but affectionate big Labrador with a knee problem.  When I saw the two of them together, they didn’t quite fit – commands and reassurances went ignored – but here was a young woman who stepped up, recognized and appreciated the connection that existed with this dog and was determined to do the right thing.

When it’s family, be it on two legs or four, everything changes and this daughter is still making her father proud.

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The loss of our dogs and moving forward.

Over five days, back in March, our family was forced to say goodbye to both our dogs. Given my line of work you’d think I might have been better prepared for the emotional turmoil but I discovered feelings and awareness that could only come with the end of a relationship that was personal to me.

Meg was my Marley dog, a goofy yellow Lab, a disaster on four legs, recounted in several stories in Ever By My Side.  She was not even nine and a half, running on a beach on Cape Cod on a Friday, put to sleep the following Thursday.  The decline in her appetite, the inability to finish her food was the tell that something was seriously amiss.  Blood tests revealed an abnormally high level of Calcium, chest x-rays confirmed that most of her lungs had been replaced my metastatic cancer.  Even with the inside scoop, a fast track to internists and oncologists, the consensus was the same – nothing could be done.  Perhaps the lack of interest in food in such an orally obsessed dog was my best guide – this dog was not able to enjoy the most precious and fundamental part of being a Lab – hoovering up her kibble.

Sophie, our Jack Russell, outlived her by a few days, but at seventeen the end had been coming for some time.  There was an element of dementia, inappetence, weight loss, underlying heart disease and, toward the end, incontinence.  Sad to say Sophie never seemed to realize Meg was gone.  She was always the alpha and we couldn’t bear to see her lose what remained of her dignity.

Sophie was easier to let go, perhaps because she had had such a long and fruitful life. I could look into her eyes and sense she was ready to move on.  Meg was tougher, the dog lost before her time.  She killed me during that last week, bringing her into work with me, for the first time in her life walking by my side, a perfect heel, attentive and polite rather than wrenching my shoulder out of its socket.  And that’s how it hits you, the small stuff – dropped crumbs that remain untouched on the floor, no one to greet you with a downward facing dog yoga move first thing in the morning.

In the past I’ve been critical of clients who said that after losing their dog they were unable to adopt a new one.  I’ve cited my father, a man who believes in the unique nature of each and every special canine in his life and how the joy of time lived with a dog far outweighs the pain of losing one.  But at this moment I’m not so sure.  My family will move forward, without doubt there will be many more dogs in our future, but for now I need to reflect, to savor the memories of a certain Lab and a certain JRT, and let my next generation of companion animals find me.

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Their gift of ‘Ever By My Side

Once upon a time, a few of my clients might take me aside and, in order to convey the gravity of the situation, whisper, “She’s like my child”.  These days, the majority boldly assert, “She is my child”, the telltale terminology of so-called pet-parents, their biological children reduced to pet-siblings, forced to accept the fact that their furry little brother or sister never has to leave the security of mom and dad’s bed.  Though there’s no denying the power and the rewards of the unique relationship we share with the animals in our lives, there is an unspoken, inherent danger in doling out all that carefree, irresistible, unconditional love for our pets in the same manner as our children.
It comes down to the natural order of life.  Chances are our children will outlive us.  We pray we will not have to bury them, spared the unbearable grief of their loss in our own lifetime.  Not so our pets.  We pour our heart and souls into these animals, insisting that we love them no less than if they shared our DNA and we do this with a certainty that for all this joy, we are guaranteed to have to say goodbye, to lose them and somehow, to face life without them once again.
Unfortunately true love will always come at a price.  Love and pain are inextricably linked, an unwanted twofer, and sometimes it can be hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. Sometimes it is this awareness of pain that makes us realize we must be in love, pain that signifies a love worth fighting for.
Our pets are with us for such a relatively short period of time, but then again, do we ever really lose them?  I get to perform surgery on an unconscious body, the physical part of what we think of as a pet.  Essentially I’m working construction, splicing wires, welding pipes, shoring up support beams and generally renovating the house.  All the other stuff, the important stuff, I cannot influence.  These are the intangibles, the memories, the history, the bonds, the things that make the difference between a house and a home, the things that make the difference between a body covered in fur and our pet.  It is this everything else that eludes me.  This everything else is the spirit of the animal.  Temporarily, under anesthesia, it might move out for a while, but when the surgery is done and the gas turned off, it comes back.  As far as I can tell, anesthesia is just a training run for the soul.
I know, it’s taboo for clinicians to touch on the concept of an animal possessing a soul.  It’s a lot easier to ignore, refute or circumvent the concept, but I ask you to try this for yourselves.  Think about your own pets, the ones who are no longer with us and the ease with which you can conjure up their presence.  They linger in our memories with remarkable clarity.  Nearly forty years later and I can still see my first dog, a formidable German shepherd named Patch, accidentally released into our backyard, chasing down a bunch of my childhood friends like he was tracking down escaped convicts.  I call his name and he’s turning to face me now, right now I can clearly see him, ignoring thrilled kindergarten screams, offering me a look that says ‘What?  I’m just funning with them’.
A decade after losing my first cat, Reginald, I can still feel the weight of him, pulling him out from his favorite shelf in the linen closet, feeling the barbs of his scratchy licks across the back of my hand, seeing the contentment in his closed eyes, his body warmed by a carefully selected band of sunlight, empty paws making muffins as he slept.  How can these animals from so long ago be so close, so tangible, able to recreate a complete package of sensations of what it meant to have them in my life.
I believe it goes back to the purity of our relationships with our pets.  What is shared is plain and simple, uncomplicated by pessimism, resentment or conflict.  Attributes remain clear and easy to retrieve.  They can be just as relied upon after they are gone.  How far away can they be if they are with you faster than a pick up on the first ring?  Sometimes they are so close they may as well be calling you.
For me, it comes down to this ─ loss is a part of life not an end of life.  Our pets will never be with us for long enough, but by appreciating the fragility of life I believe we can relish the moment and live in it, until the desire to squeeze all the joy out of it becomes overwhelming and, with a lot effort, even possible.
A version of this article first appeared in Best Friends Magazine, March/April 2010