William's Gift

by Helen Douglas

  By the time I got there, the pack had surrounded the little dog. He was holding them off as they circled and attacked repeatedly, and had blood on his mouth, ears and back. I scared them off, and Punch returned with me, uncontrite. We had to keep an eye on him constantly as he and the coyotes continued their standoff, eyeing each other across the field and making forays into each other’s territory.

  We were riding both horses along the trail closest to the ravine one afternoon in November. There was a light rain as we made our way along the edge of the dark gully. Both dogs were with us, trotting in and out of the woods, when ahead of us on the trail appeared a lone coyote. In a flash the little Jack Russell was after it. They disappeared down the trail and into the shadows. There was no way we could follow on horseback or on foot. After calling him for an hour, we had to admit we were defeated and rode in silence home, sure we would never see the dog again. We put the horses away in disbelief. People had told us coyotes lured prey into their lairs to kill them, and here it was. It had actually happened. Six hours later, Punch arrived home, bloody once more, but surprisingly intact. He had once more, unbelievably, outwitted the coyotes.

  Elizabeth was in her element in the Fraser Valley. The carefully laid-out grid of paved roads divided the fertile land into hundreds of small acreages with an astonishing variety of hobby farms. There were vineyards and cranberry bogs. Ostrich and alpaca farmers were the newest trend, but farmed deer were also making an appearance. Sod farms with specialized equipment took several layers of turf off the land each season. In the late summer, the fields were full of workers, many in bright saris, as East Indian families banded together to bring in their crops. The constant warm rain added to the sense of lush richness of the place. It was a stark contrast to the difficult circumstances the Nova Scotian farmers had often had to tolerate, with the uncertain heat and unforgiving soil.

  And of course, everywhere there were horses — beautiful horses.

  At the clinic, things were relatively quiet. It was winter in B.C., and the rain had set in. Most of my calls were in and around Vancouver, and I spent a lot of time on the road in the rain. Again, as in Toronto, the clients had accepted me well. And again, as in Toronto and Nova Scotia, the subject of the little alcohol wipes came up. Dr. Moore had observed me using the small swabs to prepare injection sites and one day said to me, “Don’t you know those things just smear the dirt around? They don’t sterilize anything.”

  I laughed to myself. I stopped using the swabs for good and have never had any injection site infections. However, I’ve used the story many times as an anecdote, proving how even experts disagree.

  One dreary Friday afternoon, I had just finished a Vancouver run and was leaving Southlands, sitting in gridlock traffic in a cold winter rain. The receptionist from the clinic called me on my two-way, asking, “Are you still near Southlands?”

  “Yes, I am. What’s up?”

  “Get back to the riding centre. There’s a horse with a possible broken leg!”

  I turned my truck around and got there as fast as I could. A fracture was the ultimate equine emergency. The horse and rider had been cantering at the far end from the arena complex. Misty, dark-green trees surrounded the sand oval, and a late-afternoon fog made the setting almost spooky. I drove up onto the track beside the floundering animal.

  The situation was dire. The young girl standing holding her distressed horse in the drizzle awaited my verdict. She had been galloping and heard a loud crack from the right front leg of her middle-aged gelding. He was sweating profusely, a common sign of pain. It took me only a couple of moments to assess the pastern and feel the crunch of the fractured pastern bones.

  “He will have to be euthanized,” I said solemnly. “It’s the only kind thing to do.”

  I administered the solution after she had said her goodbye and taken his tack off.

  The procedure went smoothly enough. But it was the sight of the young woman, tears mixing on her face with the rain, as she walked away from her beloved horse, with saddle and bridle over her arm, into the fog, that stayed with me for a long while.

  I was still working along in good faith at the equine hospital, but there were two big problems. The simplest one to explain was that Dr. Moore was quite obviously overstaffed. I had gathered from some of our conversations that if he could have called off our agreement he would have before I arrived. In a way, my arrival had created a problem for him, as it was now difficult for him to provide me with full-time employment.

  There was also the subtle problem of my role at the clinic. We usually had several abdominal surgeries a week, and I was under the impression that Dr. Moore wanted to take on another mature vet in order to have someone else to do surgery when he was away. Granted, that would have taken some dedicated teaching time, something hard to come by in a busy practice. I hoped to be introduced to abdomens quickly so that I could start to develop the skills needed to deal with colics. Perhaps it would start with opening, closing, and assisting, but there would be a logical progression from that point on. We were preparing a colic one day and had just transported it to the surgical suite. Our technician was clipping the abdomen of the large animal lying on its back on the table.

  “Would you like to scrub?” Dr. Moore asked.

  “Sure, great,” I nodded enthusiastically and went to the surgeon’s scrub sink to lay out my cap, gown and size 7 1/2 gloves.

  “No, I mean scrub the horse,” he said without apology, turning back to the sinks.

  I was stunned. How could I be in this position again? A technician could easily have scrubbed the surgical site. It would have been more than obvious to Dr. Moore that I had jumped at the chance to assist, and it would have been simple enough to let me do so. What was wrong? Had I somehow failed to get across that I was an experienced surgeon? I needed and expected to be included.

  I retreated a bit that day. There were more small slights, but I had learned to expect them. I couldn’t ignore it any longer when a horse shipped in with a bad cut on a hind leg. Dr. Moore was some hours away, and I radioed him to tell him of the horse’s arrival.

  “I’ll go ahead and sedate and start to clean and debride the wound,” I proposed.

  “No, just leave it till I get there,” he replied.

  I felt defeated. I bandaged the leg, gave the horse a painkiller injection, and left the clinic.

  “Why didn’t you stick around?” he asked the next day. I didn’t reply. He would never understand, and it was better to keep my mouth shut. I now knew that I was not to make medical decisions on my own.

  “Anyway, we have to talk,” he said, leading me into his office.

  “We really can’t carry a fifth vet much longer,” he said. “Could you do small-animal locums to get through the winter, and we’ll see what the next busy season brings? We could still give you two days a week.”

  It was like a strange déjà vu. After transplanting myself from coast to coast, I would need small-animal work to get me through the winter once again. It was funny to me, but stranger still, it felt almost like a relief. I had to admit that I had not been able to stand toe to toe with him emotionally or professionally, and the strain of being back in the assistant’s role was beginning to show. I thought I had a realistic view of what could be changed in this particular situation, and this domineering veterinarian was not going to change for me. The dynamic was not at all good for my spirits. I could take all the courses in the world to update my surgical techniques, but I would again be the nurse. I had to face the fact it was the way our personalities would always interact. I had misjudged — and put myself right back in the situation in which I had found myself in Toronto. Despite the years that had gone by, I was not up to maintaining the hard shell that would enable me to endure another apprenticeship. Perhaps this time I was just too old.

  I went home and called my sister and Paul, to run it by
them. I was not willing to struggle for the respect I felt I was entitled to and might never get. I went back the next day and quit my job.

  The rest of the winter, I was inundated with requests for locum work, providing relief for both small-animal and equine veterinarians who needed time off. I was so busy with part-time work I could have worked seven days a week. There was no high-powered equine work in my life, but I often didn’t have to be on call, either, in these positions, so it balanced out. I had a freedom, both in time and responsibility, I hadn’t experienced in years. I also had the pleasure of meeting many veterinarians and sharing practice tips with all of them. I was offered seven jobs in the next six months. Two of them I particularly wanted to take, but I was hamstrung. My original non-competition clause prevented me from working full time for any one practice in that area for five years, and despite various letters and phone calls, it was not negotiable. The job I had been offered had not worked out, yet I could not take another. The weak point in my legal argument was that I had decided to leave Dr. Moore’s practice. I was stuck. I had lots to do and enough money coming in, but I was definitely coasting. I could see, though, that it was a much-needed break.

  One of the vets I worked for that spring specialized in reproduction. He was well versed in the newest techniques for artificial insemination and frozen semen and was beginning to work on embryo transfer when I started working for him. I became a regular there, and in breeding season often went to the breeding shed on my days off to follow the mares and learn new techniques, as little of this had been done in Nova Scotia.

  As I had learned in Toronto, breeding with frozen semen can be tricky. It is incredibly labour intensive and not always successful even when done right. I wanted to become proficient in dealing with the mares, straws, and equipment, as this was clearly where the future of breeding lay. Embryo transfer was even trickier. A show mare can be bred to a top stallion, then the seven-day-old embryo flushed out of her uterus and collected in a Petri dish. It then has to be implanted in a mare of less value, the recipient, who will carry it to term. This can involve looking through several litres of fluid to find the tiny embryo and can meet failure at every turn, including rejection of the embryo by the recipient mare. It took me several weeks to feel comfortable with all the techniques and equipment.

  It ended up being another giant step forward, as I knew I was playing catch-up for being six years on my own with limited equipment and numbers of mares to work on. As with dentistry, I was now riding the wave of a new level of equine medicine. I felt privileged to have so many beautiful mares to work on. And because I worked on and off for several vets, I now had been in almost every barn in the Fraser Valley. Although it was totally different than what I had envisioned when moving out there, I was having fun. I had no regrets about leaving Dr. Moore.

  When I did have time off, Elizabeth and I explored British Columbia. One outstanding summer weekend, we went kayaking in the Gulf Islands. Based out of Salt Spring Island, we discovered the different ocean world of the West Coast. The islands of Salt Spring and Galiano were enchanting; with an eclectic mix of artists and aging hippies, they have a flavour all their own. You could get there only by ferry or light airplane. The highlight of that particular weekend was seeing a pod of three killer whales migrating near shore at sunset. We sat on the rocks and watched them break the surface of the calm, silky water over and over. It is a magical sight unique to that part of Canada.

  On another weekend, we travelled to Vancouver Island and made our way to Pacific Rim National Park to go whale watching. The town of Tofino is on the northwest end of twenty miles of dramatic, windswept beach. Its tourist industry revolves around the natural beauty of the area, the last old growth of temperate rain forest in the world, and whale watching. There are people there from all over the world. We elected to go out in a large Zodiac raft filled with two outboards rather than the larger, two-storey wooden craft offered. Running up that coastline in six-foot swells to see several humpbacks that had been spotted miles away, we were treated to an adventurous boat ride not for the faint of heart. The area is both wild and mystical, rich with native lore, art and culture. I felt totally in awe of the beauty I saw everywhere around me.

  Easter was late that year, and spring was already well established in the Fraser Valley. The daffodils had come and gone. People were gardening and mowing, and the apple trees were in bloom. I had been invited, with another younger woman vet, to give lectures on sports medicine at a clinic in the interior near Kamloops. The clinic was for three-day event riders, and the practical portion was how to ride cross-country courses with young horses. Both of us had a young horse far enough along to take to the clinic and we were invited to ride gratis. I was extremely excited and rented a horse trailer for the weekend. I had the trusty Dodge dually. We headed out of the Fraser Valley at four on Good Friday afternoon, trying to get ahead of the rush of long-weekend traffic. It was sunny and beautiful, and many people were already on the road with boats and campers. Both of us were to lecture the next morning during the classroom sessions to be held before the four groups of riders began. We had lots of time to get there by early evening and meet people. But the Coquihalla had other plans.

  The Coquihalla is nineteen miles of dramatic highway cut into the mountain. It goes straight up — or down, as the case may be — and can be intimidating, especially in bad weather. We were caught off guard shortly after we headed out in the sunshine. By the time we got to Hope, the traffic had gotten really heavy, and the sky looked threatening. A few drops of rain fell on the windshield of the truck, a standard transmission with no four-wheel drive or chains. Within half an hour, still climbing steadily with three lanes of socked-in traffic, we were in a snowstorm. Susie turned on the radio. They had closed the gate at the bottom of the Coquihalla, preventing more traffic from starting up, but we, along with many others, were stuck.

  The surface of the highway was covered with frozen, rutted slush, and traffic was barely crawling. Transport trucks and cars started pulling out to the right until both right lanes were stopped. Those of us still trying to move up on the left were in trouble and, as my wheels started to slip and buck, I made a decision to pull in to the right between two transports. I had barely enough momentum to keep moving, but I managed to get the end of the trailer clear of the passing lane. I was on an angle across two lanes, and gradually all the car traffic crawling behind me up the mountain was forced to a halt as well.

  We sat, thousands of cars and trucks stuck in the darkness, as the snow built up on our hoods and in the truck boxes. I had two large horses behind me, standing on an angle in the dark with no water and no place to unload. There was no way out of the mess we were in. We wrapped ourselves in horse blankets and sat, trying not to panic. It was really cold. The horses were doing surprisingly well, still eating hay and not pawing or objecting in any way. My companion and I, not well acquainted, sat in silent misery in the cab.

  It took hours, but finally we saw help coming. A convoy of snowplows was winding its way up by moving cars or going between them. A salt truck followed, and some cars were moving out, following them. Gradually, more and more cars moved out, and by midnight some of the transports started out. I was one of the last to try it. I had to back out of the two feet of snow built up around the truck onto the frozen, packed lane that had been opened, still on a sharp uphill grade. With my standard truck heaving and the wheels slipping and grabbing we started to make our slow ascent up the steepest part of the Coquihalla. The horses stood stock-still. It took what seemed like forever to reach the top. There were still many miles of nasty, icy roads ahead of us. We pulled into the show ground at around seven a.m., two feet of snow on the roof of the truck. We were not only emotionally and physically spent, hungry, thirsty, and cold, but we were also worried about the horses.

  Both of us elected to do our lectures at nine. Other people took care of our horses while some fed us breakfast and hot coff
ee. My shakes were disappearing when I stood up in front of the forty or so riders. By noon when my group rode, I felt able to join in, and my horse and I had a fantastic weekend learning to jump down banks and do sandy slopes and water. The drive home was uneventful. I have never been able to describe the experience in a way that came close to the reality of being on the mountain that night in a sudden blizzard with the two horses.

  Elizabeth and I had discovered a secret riding trail through a tiny, little-used park that felt amazingly like a haunted forest. Just on the outskirts of Langley, it boasted a few massive, first-growth cedars, with the dark, twisting, up-and-down paths of cedar bark snaking around and over the impressive roots. Moss hung from and coated the spooky, long-armed trees. The forest embraced us happily and hid us from the swirl of the busy expressways and rat race so close by. On a rainy day, with wax jackets on, we often were the only humans in the park. Our companions were the giant banana slugs, the slinking coyotes, and our horses. Some of the trails were so steep that the horses slid down the moist bark on their hocks. It was a treasured escape for both of us.

  Elizabeth had dropped in to a nearby show stable soon after we found our wonderful rental house. It was around a “city block” from our farm and would be an ideal place to work. She got along instantly with the talented jumper pro who ran the barn and soon noticed that everything was done in top form, from the schooling program for the clients and their horses to the horse care itself. After a quick interview, Elizabeth was offered a job riding there. It seemed another case of being in the right place at the right time, as they had just lost their professional rider. Throughout our time in the Fraser Valley, Elizabeth continued to thrive on the atmosphere and instruction there, schooling young hunters every day and getting to the occasional show. Backing their young stallion was an effort well rewarded by seeing him win classes at Spruce Meadows his first time out. Unbelievably, she could ride her horse to work every day via a narrow, paved road connecting the two farms. Lined with hedges, twisting and turning past secret driveways and paddock fences, travelling the Telegraph trail felt as if one had been transported to England. What a commute — while thousands sat on the slick Trans-Canada Highway, Elizabeth puttered along on a loose rein!