I turned up at the address on River Road near the Heads Hotel with these misgivings rumbling away at the back of my mind. A ute was parked out the front with a big aerial, oversized bull bar, cages on the back, Bundaberg Run and Rum Pig stickers, the full I’m-a-wild-man-in-suburbia catastrophe.
A lot of growling and woofing was coming from out the back.
‘Oh, yeah. You’re the vet, are ya?’ said the bloke advancing towards me. It seemed like he didn’t believe I was a vet. I was driving a Magna and looked fourteen.
‘Yep. That’s me.’
‘G’day. Shane.’
‘Yeah, hi. I’m Anthony.’
Shane shook hands like he meant it. He might have been thirty but looked older, rougher – unshaven, no shoes, tattoos and boardies.
‘Rambo’s out the back.’ He walked me through towards the deepthroated barking. ‘Mate, I don’t want to put the dog down but the missus says it’s either her or the dog. She won in a toss-up.’ He shot me a grin that said he may, or may not, have been joking. ‘She reckons they’re dangerous around the kids, but he’s never bitten anyone. He growls a bit when the kids run around, but he’s only playing. He hates intruders, though; a bloke came over the back fence after a night at the pub and he left minus a thong and a piece of his jeans. He won’t be comin’ back.’
We walked into the backyard which was messy with toys and swings and clothes hanging from the line. There were other dogs there yapping away, but I didn’t pay attention to them. Because there was Rambo, just looking at me. Dogs that are truly threatening do not need to bark. Barking is a sign of fear. Rambo didn’t know fear.
My response was to puff my chest out and pretend that I didn’t know fear either. I don’t think he bought it.
Rambo was a bull Arab, an Australian breed crossed to have the speed and stamina to catch a feral boar, and the size and ferocity to take it down. Holy moly! You’ve got a dog like this in here with the kids. They are trained to catch and rip the throats out of pigs, which aren’t hugely different in a dog’s eyes from a three-year-old child. Kids are pink, they squeal a lot, they move at high speed and don’t have a lot of respect for dogs. You’re an imbecile for letting it walk around with the toddler.
I’d argue that these sorts of dogs don’t even have a place in towns, let alone children’s backyards. The writing was on the wall for Rambo. He had attacked intruders and he was growling at the kids. Being a dog that was bred and trained to kill, I felt he was on a natural progression. It wasn’t his fault, but the next stop was going to be the six o’clock news.
‘Okay, mate, you’ll have to give me a hand here because I’m on my own. Can you hold up a vein and I’ll give her the injection to put her to sleep and away we’ll go.’
‘I can’t, mate,’ he said, still carrying himself like the tough guy that nothing could trouble. See m’ute. See m’dogs. See me.
‘Well, you’re going to have to because I’m here on my own. It’s your dog and you want to put her down so you’ll have to help.’
‘Nup . . . can’t,’ Shane said.
‘Why?’
Tears started to form in his eyes and the façade crumbled.
‘I can’t do it, mate. I can’t. Not to Rambo.’ He was backing away.
Shivers. What am I going to do? I didn’t even have a muzzle. I needed another vet.
‘Okay, I’ll have to take the dog back to Berry where I’ve got someone to help me. But I’ve got to do my house calls around the Heads first and I don’t think Rambo would be so welcome. I’ll give him some sedation now and come back and get him when I’m done. Hopefully he’ll be nice and calm by the time I get back.’
I raced out to the car. What am I going to give this dog? I rummaged around through my boxes and couldn’t find anything appropriate. I went into the Esky and found some horse tranquiliser. Oh well, that’s all I’ve got.
I drew up the syringe and took it back to the yard. ‘You’re going to have to hold Rambo for this injection, otherwise I can’t help you, but don’t worry, we’re not killing him now, we’re just relaxing him.’
I shoved the needle into Rambo’s front leg and as soon as I finished I jumped back, but Shane was holding him firm and he was fine.
Leaving them there, I went to do my rounds, patting the white fluffy dogs and the overweight cats of our mostly elderly clients, all the while dreading this thing waiting for me at the end, hoping the dog was comatose by the time I returned. My rounds were fairly quick that day and I got back to find Rambo patrolling the yard, no more chilled than before. If anything, he looked like he’d had a couple of beers and was ready for a blue.
My heart sank. I only had the Magna, hardly the aggressive-animal transport vehicle of choice. But I made some room on the back seat and gave Shane a leash to put on Rambo’s collar. I opened the back door and Shane, who had rebuilt his tough-guy front in my absence, helped him into the car.
Rambo was so tall his head touched the roof, forcing him to lean forward over the front seat. Shane took the opportunity to tie the leash to the passenger-side head rest. He gave Rambo a pat on the head, ruffled his ears. ‘All right, mate. I’ll be seein’ ya.’ He didn’t want to talk to the dog or me. I suspect it was to disguise the fact he was crying. It was kind of touching, but I wasn’t feeling his pain. This dog was a ticking time bomb. To be unable to handle the inevitable results of that stupidity and then to dish it off to someone else was quite galling. I wasn’t feeling at my most empathetic. But at least he’d had the decency to call a vet.
I drove back to Berry hunched into the wheel because Rambo was leaning over my shoulder, his foul breath caressing my cheek as his panting lengthened and deepened. The sedation was kicking in.
Arriving at the back of the clinic, I was relieved it had all gone smoothly. He hadn’t eaten my ears, for example. But I had to lean in with my face next to his slobbering jowls to untie him and that took a few deep breaths and a puff of the chest. Again, however, Rambo remained calm.
Both Geoffs were there and I knew that with their great experience they’d be able to help me. Just as I walked through the door, though, the phone rang. It was a specialist in Sydney returning a call I’d made earlier. I really had to take this call. Specialists are busy people who have taken the time to help for little return.
Geoff Manning was at the door as I brought Rambo in. ‘Geoff, this is the dog that needs to be put down. Can you do it for me? I’ve got to take this call from the specialist.’
‘Yep. I’ve got it.’
It was a long call and by the time I got off the phone, it was about 3 p.m. and the two Geoffs had gone. I presumed Rambo had been dealt with, and I was going about some other jobs when I heard a strange noise from the internal laundry. What’s that? I looked in through the door and there was Rambo tied up in the shower recess, alive. What the heck is going on?
Rambo seemed keen to know what the heck was going on too. He looked cranky and distinctly un-sedated now. Why didn’t they put him down when they had the chance? I couldn’t go in and get him. To do that, I’d have to untie him, exposing myself with no help if things got ugly.
I was fuming. There was nothing I could do but call Geoff Manning and get him to come back to the clinic. He explained that they had both been called to different jobs at the same time and had had to leave immediately. He offered to come back in and help me with Rambo while the sedation was still working.
But it was too late. No one was going anywhere near this dog now. The nurse, Marie, and I tried wrapping sedatives in wet dog biscuits and sliding the bowl towards him with a long-handled broom, but he just looked at the food with no interest.
I pulled out a marker pen and a piece of printer paper and wrote: ‘DO NOT ENTER THIS ROOM. AGGRESSIVE DOG.’
I went about the rest of my afternoon work, seeing clients for the usual round of vaccinations and tests, and then I got to work stitching-up a kelpie called Ronald that had torn his leg on a barbed-wire fence. It was all quite routine but I w
as engrossed in the procedure when I sensed a movement out of the corner of my eye. I looked up but nothing was there. That was odd. Marie had just left my side, but I could hear her out the front talking to a customer with a yapping lap dog joining in the conversation. Then I saw the flash again, clearer now. It was Rambo, the 80-kilogram killing machine; prowling the practice, his hunter’s nose close to the floor.
Suddenly, the clinic had a new owner.
He came right up to me, sniffing around. His back was the height of the table I was operating on. Rambo was hungry and perhaps even scared, so anything could have happened.
I was sterile for the procedure in hand, in my green surgical gown with a white mask and light blue hat, so I couldn’t touch anything outside of the sterile surgical field. When you’re operating you need a nurse to do everything for you: turn the anaesthetic up or down; wipe your brow.
And then Rambo headed for the door.
Crikey! What about that dog yapping in the waiting room. Rambo’s gunna make a beeline for him. He’ll have killed Fluffy and chewed the owner’s arm off before we can even blink.
‘Marie. Close the door,’ I shouted, as loud as I could without sounding like a madman.
I think she realised the problem and quickly closed it. I tried to follow the dog with my sterile gloved hands in the air. He wandered into the cage and did the biggest poo I’d ever seen. It had to be 30 centimetres long. Then he just wandered past me like I didn’t exist and into the sterile surgery, where the kelpie was lying anaesthetised on the table.
He’s gunna smell blood and jump on the table and eat Ronald.
Not wanting to startle Rambo, I steadily waved my hands in the air and coaxed him out of the surgery. Somewhat luckily, he turned back into the laundry, at which point I broke with sterility protocols and slammed the door shut.
It turned out Marie had gone into the laundry to get something but had left the door ajar. Rambo had then slipped his collar and was free. I wrote another note, bigger and bolder this time, and said to Marie that if she set foot inside that room again it was going to be her job to euthanase the bloody dog. There’s a line in the movie The Grand Budapest Hotel where the ever-cool Gustave says that ‘rudeness is merely an expression of fear’. And if I was a bit short with Marie it was definitely a product of the dread I felt having this creature in the practice.
By the time Geoff arrived back at the clinic Rambo was wide awake, hungover and very pissed off. And if Geoff copped a further expression of my fear – ‘Geoff, where have you been? This is a disaster!’ – it might have had something to do with the guttural growls now emanating from the shower recess.
Geoff explained that he’d had a rotten calving that took a while to get out, and I gave him a rundown of the fun afternoon we’d been having. ‘So we’ve got this ridiculous situation and I don’t know how we can handle it. The dog’s got no collar, no muzzle, he’s free. How are we going to do it?’
He looked at me with just a hint of a smile. ‘Have you got a cow halter in your car?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Good. Go and get it and I’ll show you what we’re going to do.’
I went and got the halter and brought it back in.
Geoff took a look at it. ‘That oughta do. Right, when I tell you, open the door a little bit.’ He moved over behind the door. ‘Okay, now. Open it! Just a bit.’
I turned the handled and opened the door and Rambo stuck his head out. Geoff quickly put the cow halter over his snout and tightened.
The dog now had Geoff attached to it. Geoff still smelt like a rotten calving, which I was quite pleased about because Rambo took an interest in Geoff, nuzzling into his arms and appearing quite friendly.
‘I think he likes you,’ I said. ‘Diced and chewed and washed down with a few dog biscuits and a glass of Chianti.’
‘I think I should have washed a bit more thoroughly before coming back,’ he said, with Rambo licking his forearm. ‘Now go and draw up any and all of the sedatives that you can think of in a very large volume because we’re going to get one chance to sedate this dog and it better work.’
So I went and drew up horse sedatives, horse anaesthetics, dog sedatives, cow sedatives. Everything in one big needle. One super sleepy cocktail. One thing I didn’t have in it was Lethabarb, the euthanasia drug. You need an IV in his front leg for that. I didn’t think Rambo would be keen to let me shave a nice little rectangle on his front leg then hunt around for a vein. He would have had my face first. And I knew from personal experience that the Lethabarb needle stung a lot if you missed the vein.
‘How are we going to get this stuff into him?’ I asked. ‘He’s gunna tear us apart if I hit it with a needle.’
‘Look, I think he is going to be okay. I’ll just talk to him and give him a pat and you be quick.’ I bowed to Geoff’s experience, but I was dubious. It was cool in the clinic yet I seemed to be sweating a lot. Despite his calm exterior, Geoff looked pretty sweaty too.
‘Okay, as long as you’re at the bitey end, I’ll be at the smelly end.’
After a cascade of screw-ups, it seemed miraculous that the plan worked perfectly. Then Geoff took Rambo out the back and walked him around like he was a pet. Eventually Rambo started to wobble. He lay down and his eyes rolled back into his head and he fell into a comatose state. We still had to get the Lethabarb in so I clipped his fur and put a muzzle on him. And even as we did that, despite the massive amount of sedation coursing through his veins, he continued a deep, guttural growl, baring his teeth right up to the gums. Fighting in his dreams.
Normally you line up a needle with your head close to the barrel of the needle and parallel to the vein, much like using a pool cue. On this occasion I didn’t want my face anywhere near Rambo and managed to successfully give the injection from about a metre away. Rambo uttered a final, feeble growl and passed away peacefully. It was only then that the sadness hit me. A great surge of pity for Rambo welled up inside. It wasn’t his fault. He’d been the wrong dog in the wrong place and unfortunately had to pay for the irresponsible decisions of his owner.
A WELSH OF EXPERIENCE
James
After about eighteen months in Barraba and Manilla, my thoughts started to turn towards what came next. I got on very well with my boss, Ben. He was a great mentor and friend. He taught me a lot and I enjoyed his company. We had a chat one day and he broached the subject for me, asking what I wanted to do in the future.
‘I’m thinking about going overseas and doing the locum-UK thing,’ I said. ‘But I’m not sure.’ Going to Britain is a well-trodden path for vets, who can pick up high-paying temporary jobs while getting a chance to see a bit of the world.
‘Okay, that sounds good,’ he said. ‘It’s something that I always wished I did but it never worked out for me. I was always on the way there but never quite got the chance to leave.’ There was a hint of regret in his voice, before he perked up: ‘But if you stay then there’s the potential to buy into this business.’
I had a real fork-in-the-road decision to make. Business was going well, particularly in Manilla where it was growing, so it could have been a lucrative move to buy in. I loved the job and loved the people. I was really happy. I’d learnt a lot there that I would never have got a chance to learn at a high-end practice in Sydney, where people want the most experienced guy with the big reputation operating on their little Trixiebelle. People had no money in Manilla and Ben was happy for us to give complicated surgeries a crack for a smaller fee: removing foreign bodies; dogs hit by cars; snakebites. I’d done all these dramatic things, but I’d never travelled much. I was keen to see the world. So I had to make that decision. Once again I over-thought it and lost a lot of sleep. Owning my own practice or a share in one was definitely what I wanted to do with my life. But I was single and carefree and it seemed like now was the time to explore the world.
About a week later, Ben and I were out the front packing his car to go to a job when he looked up from the door. ‘Have
you thought more about what you want to do?’
‘Yeah, I have. I think I’m going to go travelling.’
He was great about it. He appreciated that it was not about the money. ‘It’s something I didn’t get to do in my career,’ he repeated.
After two years in Barraba and Manilla, I suddenly found myself arriving in London with a big pack on my back and a small one on my front, carrying all the stuff I needed to start a new life. In true tightwad backpacker fashion, I’d saved $150 by opting for a thirteen-hour stopover in Kuala Lumpur, and now, exhausted, I was booked into a six-quid-a-night backpacker dormitory. Not even my sixteen roommates could wake me for those first fourteen hours. The enormous hostel was called the Generator. It was in a converted electricity substation and slept about 2000 other tightwad partying youth. So I had a very good time.
It was hard to move out of the hostel because you’d go out till 4 a.m., sleep in and miss the cut-off for checking out. So you’d end up doing the same thing the next night, as it only cost six quid to stay on. And I had to remain in London for a week anyway, until I had an appointment at the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons to be sworn in as a vet.
I got a cab to their little office in Chelsea suffering severe ‘lifestyle fatigue’. I had to fill in a lot of forms that were hard to focus on. It sent my mind racing back to university when a lecturer had once posed us the hypothetical question: ‘If you were faced with the choice of saving a baby or a dog, which one would you save?’ No one chose the dog. ‘Well you’re not allowed to work in the UK,’ he said, ‘because their oath requires you to put the animal first.’ So I might have had my fingers crossed while I swore the RCVS oath. I just needed to get back out into the fresh air.
Part of the reason Britain was so attractive to young Australian vets was that the locum rate was £180 a day. That equated to about AUD$450 back then. The locum agencies had long lists of available jobs. You could pick and choose because there was a shortage of vets and Australian locums were in demand. I think of Australians as laid-back and perhaps a little idle, but over there we were known for how hard we worked.
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