by John Hicks
~
While New Zealand in its unspoilt state, before the arrival of man, could lay claim to some spectacular and unique bird life, the number of taxa represented were rather limited when compared to those seen on the larger continental land masses. Sid’s chocolate-box metaphor can be elaborated by focusing on just one family of birds. New Zealand suffers from an extreme dearth of tits. Even the perky little New Zealand tomtit (Petroica macrocephala) is not a proper tit. England has a far superior array of tits: enough to make a fanatical twitcher drool. Go on, let me boast about them Sid! We’ve heard enough about all those boring old baboons, giraffes, elephants and lions. Let me tell you about British tits…
In my childhood our garden, deep in the smoky heart of Liverpool, was graced with winter visits from those shameless little blue tits (Parus caerulus) which pierced the foil caps of milk bottles and tapped off the cream. Great tits (Parus major) and coal tits (Parus ater) acrobatically pecked at the strings of peanuts my mother hung for them, well clear of the coggers’ moggies which, nevertheless, prowled optimistically beneath. Away from the cities, marsh and willow tits flit in forests, bearded tits frolic in the fens and long-tailed tits shyly build feather-lined retreats in thorny thickets. Amongst the pines of the Rothiemurcus Forest in Scotland, the true tit voyeur might even ogle a perky little crested tit (Parus cristatus) prying seeds from cones or, as had been my luck, chance upon a lively pair disporting on a well stocked bird table. Sadly, it would only befall the luckiest of twitchers to glimpse a penduline tit. They don’t hang out in Britain that often (there being only the one record, from 1966).
Chapter Nineteen
Mutation or Mutilation
Veterinarians should not perform surgical procedures for purely cosmetic purposes. Where animals carry inherited defects that compromise their welfare or that of their prospective progeny, veterinarians are expected to give sound genetic counselling and management advice in the best interests of the animal and its progeny. Veterinary Council of New Zealand Handbook 2006.
In mediaeval times royalty were entertained by court jesters. These were physically deformed, dwarfed, or insane people sold into the homes of the nobility by poor families who could not afford their upkeep. They were regarded as property to be on-sold, disposed of, or inherited at the whim of their owners. An ability to clown, do acrobatics, contort or versify enhanced their value. Cardinal Wolsey’s “Patch” was worth a thousand pounds when he was donated to King Henry VIII.
Long after this fashion declined, Victorians were titillated by fair-ground freak shows and entertained by visits to “lunatic” asylums like Bedlam.
This predilection lives on in our fondness for bizarrely deformed pets: the sleek lines of wild fish degraded into the grotesque pop-eyed deformities favoured by some aquarists; the free-bounding, natural athleticism that should be the natural inheritance of any dog, spurned for that crippled, wheezing freak. Ridiculous breed standards ensure the genetic degradations become ever more extreme: shorter legs, longer backs, compressed noses, and so on. Pathological mutations that would spell disaster for any wild animal are eagerly selected for their novelty value.
One example would be the Shar-Pei breed, familiar to many TV viewers as the wrinkly star on toilet tissue adverts. A website promoting the breed warns: unless you are ready to commit the time and necessary finances for potential medical problems, a Shar-Pei may not be for you. Such breeds would seem to be a vet’s dream, but in reality most vets that I know despair of treating the chronic skin, skeletal and other problems associated with these and other canine monstrosities. There will always be some, unfortunately, who embrace the opportunities created by this escalating freak market.
Miss Joshua, my demanding final year tutor at university, had firm views about the ethics she expected of the vets she trained – especially those who might be drawn into the shadowy world of dog breeding. She knew what she was talking about, because she was a dog breeder herself. We were instructed to firmly advise any clients who presented puppies with genetic defects to neuter the parents and offspring to prevent further dissemination of the faulty genes.
Hers was the perspective of a generation later condemned as arrogant. How people resent that “I know best” attitude of the old-style professionals, be they doctors or vets! Their advice may have been sound, but the pendulum has swung. These days the business ethos prevails. “Keeping your clients happy” is much the easier and more profitable path to tread when your client, the dog or cat breeder, is solely motivated by short-term gain. By these lights, it would be poor business to suppress the breeding that creates some of the more than 30,000 genetic defects that have now been identified in pedigree dogs. No wonder there is a burgeoning demand for pet vets. The astute business-minded practice owner (increasingly, these days, not a veterinarian) no doubt claps his/her hands with glee at the prospect of multiple plastic surgery corrections with each litter of Shar-Peis that land on his/her examination room table.
I deplore this exploitation. The Kennel Clubs in Britain and America have, with their ridiculous breed standards, moved the basis for selection from function to fashion. Dachshunds bred for longer backs and shorter legs have increasing spinal problems. Bulldogs bred for massive heads require caesarean births. German Shepherds bred for sloping haunches are prone to hip dysplasia. Pedigree is as poor a measure of worth, if not value, in the canine world as it is in the human. If you don’t know the breeder and the nature of the dogs they breed, my advice – and I can hear a lot of tut-tutting here – is give a home to a mongrel.
One way to short-cut the genetic pathway to deformity is to create it surgically. Some mediaeval court jesters were manufactured in this way: break a limb or two and set them at an amusing angle! Foot binding persisted in China till relatively recently. More random disfigurement can still be had in Germany: Mensur is a form of controlled duelling with knives designed to inflict “honourable” facial scars. And, while we once looked with incredulity at primitive tribes with their lip plates and stretched ear lobes, we now indulge ourselves in fashionable body piercing, and pasty-faced young men parade our streets with ear inserts with the dimensions of serviette rings. For adults, in a society of breast implants and Prince Alberts, this is very much a matter of free choice. For our children and animals it is different.
In some countries it is still legal to crop the ears of dogs – especially favoured for Dobermanns and Great Danes – to make them look more vicious. This is not a minor surgical procedure; it involves removing a large portion of the ear flap, naturally hanging in these breeds, so that the remaining portion sticks up. A full anaesthetic is required. Vets in America used to do this operation routinely; however, it is regarded as unethical for vets in New Zealand and Britain to perform unnecessary surgical mutilations. According to the professional codes of conduct of most western jurisdictions it should not be permissible, but such matters are always open to legal interpretation.
Unwittingly, I, myself, once perpetrated an act of mutilation on an English Bull Terrier. The owner, a tough looking Yorkshire coal miner, brought Herman in with an aural haematoma. It is a common condition; rugby forwards sport untreated aural haematomas as a badge of honour. Herman’s ear flap was full of blood. He looked miserable and shook his head violently. Rugby forwards have such thick necks that this is not possible. Besides, they disdain pain and like their ears to scar and pucker into disfiguring cauliflower growths – battle scars – best displayed under a shaved scalp: a form of Mensur in all reality.
For dogs with aural haematomas the usual veterinary procedure was to drain the blood out under a general anaesthetic and place numerous cross-stitches through the full thickness of the flap to prevent it filling again. In dogs, the initiating cause is usually an ear infection rather than another forward’s skull. The infection causes the head shaking which, in turn, causes a blood vessel in the ear flap to rupture and so to a vicious spiral of more head shaking. It is, therefore, very important to check for and treat any
underlying ear infection, as well as to tackle the obvious haematoma.
Craig, my boss at the time, was keen to try a new technique, which involved placing stiff card on each side of the flap and stapling through the whole lot. It was certainly quicker to do, and well tolerated by the dog. When it came to removing the card and staples ten days later, I was alarmed to see the end of Herman’s ear slough off as I pulled away the card supports – right under the gaze of his craggy owner. The circulation to the tip of the ear flap had obviously been compromised. Fortunately, apart from the missing bite-sized chunk, it had healed well. Expecting Mr Miner to be distressed, even angered, by his dog’s now less than perfect appearance, I was amazed to hear an “Eee ’erman, tha’ looks a reet champion.” He was thrilled by Herman’s new, rugged look: the canine equivalent of Mensur. We reverted to the old cross-stitching after that, bearing in mind that someone like Mrs Farback might not be quite as forgiving if the same fate befell Chintzywig, her miniature poodle.
Recently there has been a longstanding debate about that commonest of mutilations: tail docking of pups. What an enormous amount of drivel has been written and spoken about the merits or otherwise of this procedure! I can find no rationale for the proponents’ position beyond an innate desire to meddle with nature. Their strongest argument boils down to eliminating the risk of working dogs injuring their tails. It has never been the normal practice to dock the tails of sheep dogs, and I worked for over thirty years in a district where thousands of them daily mustered the rough hill blocks and jump endlessly in and out of sheep and cattle yards. Other injuries were common, but tail injuries in working dogs are rare. They are seen far more commonly in pet dogs, usually as the result of getting them jammed in doors.
Why remove tails? In the course of our lives we commonly cut our fingers, but no one suggests that amputation is the best way to avoid this. Tails are useful. Watch the tail of a dog turning at speed, and the way it is used for balance. Besides, a wagging tail is a joy to behold.
One day I managed to persuade the owner of a Fox Terrier not to dock the tails of a litter of pups. I was aware that I was in danger of getting into the “I know best” trap, but we had a complete wee foxy of our own, so I really felt I did. A few years later he reminded me of this when he bought his dog in for vaccination: “Best rabbiter I’ve ever bred.” he commented. “Do you remember you persuaded me not to dock his tail?” I couldn’t, but I wondered what was coming next. “I’m so glad we didn’t; now I can follow his tail through the long grass. With my other dog I never know where he is!”
Gradually the dog tail dockers have lost ground, and tail docking is now totally illegal in Scotland, only legal for “working dog breeds” in England and Wales (what a cop-out!), and “an unnecessary surgical alteration with subsequent animal welfare compromise” in New Zealand. Who said the Scots were a barbarous race?
But where do we draw the line? Fundamentalist animal rights activists are now calling to ban the tail docking of lambs. This procedure is carried out when lambs are 2 – 6 weeks old. The tails of undocked sheep, when they are grazing lush pastures, readily become contaminated with faeces and are a choice target for blowflies. Meat eating maggots emerge from the eggs they lay and cause severe suffering and even death. There are few more revolting sights than a seething mass of stinking maggots writhing in a wound. The temporary suffering caused by tail docking lambs is manifestly preferable to a slow and agonising death from flystrike. The balance between welfare, convenience and tradition when considering mutilations to farm animals is, these days, under constant review. Muelsing of sheep, tail docking of cows, debeaking of poultry, teeth clipping of pigs and castration in most farmed species have all been put under the magnifying glass.
While these debates continue, the biggest irony for me is our unquestioning acceptance of circumcision for male human infants. This, if done for non-medical reasons, should be entirely unacceptable on rational and ethical grounds. Isn’t it strange that, babies, supposedly made in the image of the perfect God worshipped by their parents, should require surgical improvement? And yet this mutilation is an unchallenged tenet of some religions and cultures.
Although there has been a great deal written about the unacceptability of female circumcision in western societies, I can’t see OECD politicos leaping in to legislate the cause of helpless male infants subjected to this painful and pointless mutilation. Male circumcision is a taboo subject; and, I would venture to suggest, it is rather more important than tail docking of puppies.
The debates will continue. Unfortunately, the only ones who cannot join either of these discussions are those most affected by them.
Chapter Twenty
Killing Fields and Swingletrees
All interest in disease and death is only another expression of interest in life. – Thomas Mann
I was digesting my dinner one summer’s evening when the phone rang: “Hi, are you the duty vet?” to which I reluctantly, but professionally, yielded my reply:
“Yes, carry on.”
“Can you come quickly? My heifers are going down like flies.” It was the phone call vets dread.
“Who am I talking to?”
“I’m Dave ~, at Waicola”
“Just bear with me a moment Dave, I need to get an idea of what’s going on in case I need to pick up anything special from the clinic. Are they dying?”
“A couple have, but some are just sitting and there are a few looking sick.” My mind raced. They would be on grass, not crop, at this time of year. It was unlikely to be nitrate poisoning, one of the commonest reasons for sudden deaths.
“Have they recently been moved onto a new paddock?”
“I moved them into a fresh paddock near the shed this morning.”
“Are there any other symptoms Dave? Are they thrashing around, or excitable at all? Are they scouring?
“No, they just sit down and die.” It had to be something they’d eaten. I couldn’t think past nitrate poisoning, although we rarely saw it, but it was possibility if, say, a paddock of lush grass by the shed had been overloaded with effluent. I wouldn’t know till I got there.
“All right Dave, I’ll be there in about half an hour, I’ll have to pick up some extra drugs from the clinic on the way through. If you can move the healthy ones into another paddock while you’re waiting it might be a good idea.” It would also give him something to do. Half an hour is a long time to wait while your valuable animals die around you.
I dusted off a bottle of Methylene Blue crystals. We held it in stock just in case. This messy dye can be dissolved in water and injected straight into the jugular vein. It neutralises the nitrites circulating in the blood of animals that have eaten too much nitrate-rich food. Nitrites smother haemoglobin in the blood, robbing it of its ability to carry oxygen. In effect, cattle stricken by nitrate poisoning die of chemical asphyxiation. At first they breathe more rapidly to compensate but, when 80% or more of their haemoglobin has been converted to useless methaemolobin, they die.
I played this over in my mind as I drove to Dave’s farm and thought of the other symptoms I could expect to see. As haemoglobin converts into methaemoglobin, the blood loses its bright red colour and becomes a chocolate brown. Chocolate brown blood would clinch the diagnosis. I had only read about this, all the suspected nitrate poisonings I had previously encountered had been dead before I arrived on the scene, and the chocolate colour fades after death. Then there would be the usual variability of symptoms that go with any poisoning – depending how much was ingested, how rapidly and how long ago – to which the answers are seldom known. So there might be gasping and rapid breathing. There might also be muscle tremor, weakness, staggering, a weak pulse and terminal convulsions. And then again, there might not.
When I arrived at the farm, there were none of these signs. Dave was reasonably calm, which always makes it easier for a vet to focus on the job in hand. He thought there were four or five dead by now. I noted a similar number sitting down in a
clean paddock of lush grass. There were no poisonous plants I could hang a diagnosis on, however Dave told me that he’d just discovered that the heifers had broken into his fertilizer shed and broken some bags of urea fertilizer. Could that be the problem? Yes, it most certainly could. Although urea is frequently added to poor quality feedstuffs for cattle, it has to be extremely well mixed in so that each animal ingests no more than a few grams. For animals not accustomed to it, even small amounts are fatal. I’d had absolutely no experience of urea poisoning, but I knew someone who had and I fervently hoped he would be on the end of the line when I rang. Fortune favoured me:
“Sid, I suspect I’ve got a mass outbreak of urea poisoning at Dave ~’s place. We have a few dead and sick. Any ideas?” I could almost hear his mind whirring over the line, and then, after a long pause:
“…That’s not good John, we must try and get vinegar into them. The urea breaks down into ammonia in the gut… vinegar will help to neutralise it. I’ll get as much as I can from the local supermarket and come and give you a hand. You could try your Methylene Blue, just in case. Nitrate poisoning could look similar, but given the history it’s almost certainly the urea. Methylene Blue won’t do any harm, but I don’t think it will do much good.”
He was right about that. By the time he arrived I looked like a woad-dyed ancient Briton. The Methylene Blue stained everything in sight, but it had made no difference to the cows I had treated. There were six dead now, and about the same number down. Dave had brought a bottle of vinegar from the house, and rung round his neighbours, and they were now turning up in the late evening light to give a hand with what vinegar they had gleaned from their cupboards. Sid had cleaned out Otautau’s supermarket. “It looks a bit hopeless, John. We need at least 10 bottles per animal.” With all the vinegar in the district we only had sufficient to treat one-and-a-half heifers. “Never mind, thanks for coming along anyway.” I really appreciated Sid turning up to share my ignominy.