Big dogs

On my way home from teaching, I noticed the lights were on at the clinic.

I pulled up to see what was going on and found Dr. Zach Smith gathering up equipment to go on a farm call. It never fails that cows prolapse in the middle of the night.

Listening to Zach describe the situation made me think that this might not be your "run of the mill" prolapse. In fact, it sounded to me like this might be quite an adventure. I asked if I could tag along, and together we loaded up and headed out to rebuild a cow.

Bo Brock, DVM

It seems as if the owner of the cow was gone for a few days, and he had left his wife in charge of the cow herd. As usual, trouble always shows up at the most unwanted times. According to the description from the frantic wife, the cow was either "turning inside out" or "giving birth to an elephant-trunk first."

Blame the wife

I guess that would be a good description of a prolapse if you had never seen one before. This lady was not into cows. She was frustrated to have to watch them at all, much less have to chase them into a corral and call out the vet.

We arrived to find a set of very rundown pens sitting in the middle of nowhere. The lady was inside her pick-up with the lights shining into a 30 by 30 pen. Dark would never do justice as an adjective to describe how pitch black it was. He didn't say it, but I knew that Zach and I were thinking the same thing, "How in the world are we going to do this?"

Over years of making farm calls, I have learned to look around before getting out of the truck. Most farms have dogs and most of these dogs don't like vets and don't like strangers coming into the cow pens. I noticed them about the time Zach said, "Have a look at the size of them dogs!" There they were. Two big Rottweilers and a weenie dog. They didn't really bark, just stood by the door of the truck and made a throaty growl.

Welcome wagon

The woman got out of the truck and came to the window of our truck. She was trying to describe the situation with the cow when Zach interrupted.

"What about the dogs?"

"They wouldn't bite a biscuit," was her reply as the pack of them stood next to the window and growled. I wasn't worried about a biscuit. It was veterinarians that concerned me.

She managed to coax us out of the pick-up and over to the pens. Zach was doing the talking and I was pulling up the rear watching the dogs. In the pen was the entire "herd," one giant bull and three cows. The cow with the prolapse was one of the thinnest animals I had ever seen. Not only that, she was crippled. So here she stood, 400 pounds underweight, crippled in one back leg and prolapsed. What a specimen.

There was no way to restrain the cow. The pen was just a 30 by 30 square with a tin roof over one corner. Zach pulled me aside and asked, "How in the world are we gonna do anything for that cow if we can't catch her?"

Logistical conundrum

"I don't know. Let's just go in and see what happens. Anything would be better than standing out here with these dogs growling at us," I said as we climbed over the fence.

The bull was not a bit happy with intruders. He stood in the corner and pawed the ground. The other two cows started running in circles around the pen. This excited the dogs, and they came through the fence. Now we are standing in the center of the pens next to the skinny, prolapsed cow, with two wild cows circling, a mad bull, a pair of worked up Rottweilers and a weenie dog.

A whole lotta bull

We approached the afflicted cow and began sizing up what we might do. As I got closer, I noticed she didn't move at all. In fact, I could just walk up and touch her. I was figuring she would have a hard time kicking with one bad back leg, so I just went to work trying to poke the prolapse back in. She just stood there. Zach was keeping the bull and wild cows off of me as I struggled and pushed to put things back together. It was a tough job; like putting a marshmallow in a piggybank.

With all the straining and sweating, I had forgotten about the pack of dogs. Suddenly, I was surrounded by deep growls. Before I could even react, the dogs grabbed ahold. That is right. They bit down for all they were worth. I was panicked, not because they were biting me; no, it was not me they had sunk their teeth into. It was the cow. One Rottweiller had the tail, one had a back foot, and the weenie dog was running in between the legs barking and jumping. I was afraid to kick them off the cow because they might just turn on me. I was afraid the cow was going to get a bellyful of it and kick me trying to get them off. The cow started running. I couldn't quit. The marshmallow was just about back in the piggybank. I gave a mighty lunge forward just as Zach started hollering at the dogs, the prolapse popped back in and the dogs scramble away.

The lady was very impressed. I guess she thought we did stuff like that every day. Her husband got an earful when he got home. I am not sure if he is permitted to leave town ever again.