said, with a southern accent, ‘I bet you make great biscuits and gravy.’ I said, ‘I’ve never made biscuits and gravy.’ That was enough for him. He turned around, went back to his seat, and never looked at me again.”
Dawn curled the corners of her lips and rolled her eyes, not amused by my story.
“I reckon men are no different than any other animal. At least you guys know what you want,” I told the mule. “You like food and you like your face rubbed. Let’s see how you like it when I palpate your stifle joint.”
I slowly felt my way down Candy’s back to her hind limb, palpating the kneecap area. “Walk her around a little. See that clicking motion by the stifle? That’s not stringhalt. Stringhalt is when the limb jerks up toward the belly. This is upward fixation of the patella — the ligament of the kneecap is catching on her femur. It happens in horses with a straight-legged confirmation. You just need to exercise her to strengthen the muscles to hold the kneecap in place. Take her riding in the sand wash; that will tone her up.”
“I can’t go riding. I have to take care of Apache. She just panics if I get out of her sight.”
This is the challenge I was not taught in veterinary school — how to manage people’s lives. I had learned anatomy, microbiology, radiography, and surgery, but nothing about how to help people manage their problems. Dawn had good reason to be depressed with multiple ailing animals to care for. I really wanted to help. “How is Apache?”
“She’s okay. Come see her.” Dawn carried Apache from the front seat of her Dodge Ram and stood her upright on the ground in front of me. “Look,” she said, still not smiling. “She can stand.”
“Oh, that’s great!” Apache collapsed, and Dawn lifted her onto my tailgate, where I had a rug spread for a treatment table. “Hi, Apache, you look so good.” However, for the first time, I noticed a cowering expression in the dog’s eyes as she looked at Dawn, prompting me to ask Dawn, “What’s going on?”
“Oh, sometimes I think that she’s never going to get any better than she is right now.” Dawn sighed. She gave Apache a worried look, which made the dog cower even more.
Dawn was worn out, even though Apache had progressed significantly. “Dawn, you have to hold this dog in a vision of health,” I urged. I paused to think of a way to explain. Then I related a story that shows how animals think.
“My friend Betty has a big shaggy malamute dog named Harry, and each summer she shaves his hair short. She worried about shaving him again this year because he always hides under the table for a week. I explained to her that Harry hides not because he’s embarrassed by his hairdo. He acts embarrassed because everybody looks at him like he’s a geek and laughs at him. So, I told Betty that the next time she trimmed Harry, she should tell him he’s a stud. Well, that worked. She told him, ‘You look so handsome,’ and he strutted around the house proudly.
“During my years of practice, I have found that animals mirror us; they reflect our thoughts. How would you feel if every time people looked at you, it was with pity in their eyes, or if people told you that you were stupid every day? You would feel the way they think about you. You have to look at Apache like she is getting better and encourage her.”
Dawn replied, “Well, I need encouragement, too. I can’t do anything. I have to take her everywhere. My back gave out the other night when I picked her up. What am I going to do if she doesn’t get better? I’m really worried.”
I pointed out, “She has bladder control. That’s huge. And she can stand!” Dawn nodded, and I continued, “It has only been five weeks. She’s getting better every day. We can help her; it’s time to do more physical therapy.”
I wrapped my fingers around Apache’s hind limbs to feel her femoral pulses. I looked at the color of her tongue and placed the appropriate needles in her back, hind limbs, and paws, then I connected the electro-acupuncture wires to send a current through the needles. Apache relaxed and enjoyed the attention as Dawn stroked her head.
I hoped to hear some good news and asked about Dawn’s horse. “How’s Poco doing since the horseshoeing clinic?”
“He’s lame. He threw the shoe off his bad foot.”
I had treated Poco off and on for about a year, and he still had an intermittent left front lameness and stood with that foot pointing out in front of the other. I had referred the horse to a lameness expert and horseshoer, who applied a special shoe that Poco promptly threw. The thought of my inability to diagnose and treat Poco’s problem gave me a stomachache. Due to my anxiety over unhealed patients, and the worries of clients, I probably had an ulcer; my heart palpitated; I had chest pain and shortness of breath; and all my joints ached. One of my legs was shorter than the other, and my lower back was in spasms all the time from a protruding disc. I was a mess, and if what the clairvoyant, Dana Xavier, had taught me was true, I needed to heal myself by allowing animals and their humans to accept responsibility for themselves.
Pain educates; we learn best from hard lessons. Sometimes conditions do not heal, and as long as I do the best job I can and have the best intentions, a lack of healing is not my fault. Conversely, I cannot take credit for a cure. I do not heal my patients; healing happens from inside each being, just as skin cells grow to fill in a wound. I am not healing the wound; I am not in control. I do the best I can to clean and protect the wound. I nurture and support the process while trusting that the innate capacity to heal occurs.
That day, I began to accept that I am not responsible for healing. I do the best I can and know that people and animals are working together to learn and may have other plans. I started to let go of judgments about my inability to fix every ailment; higher forces are at work beyond my best intentions. I left praying that Dawn, Candy, Apache, and Poco would receive the healing they each wanted. At the end of Dawn’s long, gravel driveway, a huge snake slithered out of the grass in front of my truck. I stopped and went over to check it out. A bull snake, about five feet in length, turned to face me. He curled with his mouth open and shook his tail like a rattlesnake, a common tactic of the bull snake. He knew that behavior scares things away. He made me look twice — no rattles. He was beautiful and fat, as big around as my arm. Then I saw why he was so defensive. Something had taken a bite out of his side, leaving a hole the size of a chicken egg. Flies hovered over it, the parents of the tiny maggots moving inside the wound.
Part of me wanted to catch him and clean his wound. Yet a deeper part of me knew better, and I heard a voice in my head say, Let it be. There was no redness or swelling, and the skin around the wound was shiny and smooth. He was a healthy fellow. The maggots were keeping infection away, and the clay packed in the lesion made the perfect bandage, like a flexible plaster cast. Nature was healing the bull snake just fine without my help. So, I let him be, knowing that healing is part of the intrinsic quality of life. Snakes entwine the staff in the medical and veterinary emblems, symbolizing healing and transformation. Perhaps this snake was a wounded symbol of healing, an omen intended for me as well as my patients.
A veterinarian faces fear every time he or she meets a vicious dog, a screaming cat, or an aggressive horse. Fear on the animal’s part drives defensive behavior, so we make an effort to proceed gently to calm the animal. I will not win a fight with a horse. Somehow, we animal doctors have to stay calm and confident and convince our patients to cooperate. Animals sense people’s energy. When horses sense fear from a person or other animal, they take advantage and push the other around, biting and such. I learned as a child to hide my fear from horses and act tough. It takes fortitude to keep fear at bay. Thankfully, the majority of animals allow veterinarians to treat them even when the procedures, such as injections, do not feel good. All horses, by virtue of their size, are dangerous. They can knock a person down, bite, kick, strike, and step on feet. A new horse patient often tests me. I have always been amazed at, and grateful for, the many horses that respond to simple verbal commands, like “Stand” or “Quit.” They get the message that I am not intimidated by them, and they obey. The same is true for dogs. A stern, one-word command