Feb 3 2011

Things got tense tonight between Dr Schur and Lamb. The old guy has a different philosophy than the younger lady. Things have been slow and the practice is not making enough money to break even so they are trying to find out ways to be busier and make more money. Garth wants to offer discounts on some procedures like vaccinations and other routine care. Dr Schur is very opposed to offering discounts and has actually raised prices of things a few months ago. She is a big believer in charging and in my opinion charging too much. In her defense Vets do not get paid well. We all went to school for so long and payed a lot in student loans and we really don’t get paid any better than a plumber who makes house calls. I do agree with Garth though because I would rather be charging a little less and work a little more to stay busy vs working less and charging more. I think there is a component of providing the best care for our patients we can and part of that is being affordable so the clients don’t neglect their horses. It shouldn’t be our responsibility, it should be the owners to make a judgment if they can afford to properly take care of a horse and if not then not have a horse in the first place. Mike Rowe summed it up well in a talk I attended at the Western Veterinary conference last week. They invited him to talk because of his show on the discovery channel called Dirty Jobs. He has done a lot of shows with animals and quite frankly being a veterinarian is just about the dirtiest job in the world. He was funny and for every letter of the alphabet he thought of an animal and a story or experience while shooting his show about that animal. It was quite James Herriott-esk. Something he said that I thought was true is when he compared Vets to human MDs and then other blue collar careers. He said that Vets are one of the few jobs that is in between blue and white collar. You do hard work like a blue collar but you are most valuable because of your knowledge and ability to communicate. It has some of the best of both worlds in his opinion and I agree with him. Just like being between blue and white collar I think we should charge as such.

June 3, 2011

This morning started like many others I slept up to the very last moment I could I was up late treating a colic in Henderson till midnight and then getting up at 4 to treat a horse in the hospital returning to sleep between 5 and 7:45 am when I rolled back out of bed took a shower threw Sally a flake of hay and drove down Jones Blvd to the hospital. Just as I was rolling up on the hospital I could see a little black guy crossing the busy street leading a scraggily grey arab causing traffic to back up as they looked puzzled and irritated. I thought it was strange that this little guy was dressed like a homeless man in baggy sweatpants typically not the type of person you would think would be leading a horse around town. Hanging out around a casino or down on the strip but not up in our part of town with a horse. I then heard some of the techs talking about the strange homeless man that Garth had to ask to leave cause he had tied his horse to the flagpole and was asking a bunch of weird questions. He was asking the girls up front in the office about farriers and various questions that seemed strange. He said that he had paid $10 to board his horse up the road for the night. He called himself a “drifter” and he rode his horse in from Pahrump which is a good hour drive by car around Mt Charleston. According to a techs boyfriend who fed the horse last night and gave it water the two stayed in a vacant lot up the street the guy was lying about boarding his horse for the night. He also was begining to lie aobut a lot of stuff before Garth asked him to leave. It was all pretty shady but for some reason as I heard them talk about how this drifter had ridden his horse across the desert and was just roaming around with his horse I thought what a great lifestyle that would be. Free to come and go as you pleased without anyone expecting anything from you. If he wanted to drift off to Utah or California and he could find food and water he would. It seemed like he was the master of his destiny much more than someone like me who might think he is achieving the life he seeks. It doesn’t really make a lot of logic especially given the other part of the story where animal control began to question the drifter about his horse and if he is able to care for it. The story was the he bought the horse from a lady in Pahrump who now wants the horse back. It seems more likely that he stole the horse from someone or that someone abandoned the horse and he just took over ownership. It is really endearing to me how the horse would follow him accross the road. The horse looked every bit as homeless and the man leading him but there was a sort of nobleness in the skinny horse being a companion of this drifting character. Instead of seeming like just another run of the mill vagrant probably a drug user, scoundrel, and thief who has wasted his life away making one bad choice after another, the fact he now makes his course with a horse by his side turns him into more of a don quitoe traveler tackling various challenges such as crossing a desert just to see if you can or reach the otherside. Spending a night in a vacant lot with a horse is like setting up camp on the outskirts of town like a free range cowboy would have done a hundred years ago. It is amazing what the companionship of a loyal horse can do to a mans outlook at least in my view.

January 30, 2011 DPEC Las Vegas

I had a chance to go to Tina’s baptism yesterday.  It was a pretty small gathering which she said she preferred.  For the first time I looked at the missionaries there and realized how young they look.  I was surprised with their awkwardness and baby faces.  I realize that I was probably the same way as a missionary if not worse, but to me, I really don’t seem like I am much past the return missionary stage myself and that was a whole decade ago.  It was funny to hear the Elder’s side of Tina’s conversion story because I have heard Tina’s on occasion and sometimes wondered about what kind of missionaries they were.  After having met them I think it differently.  He talked about how they worked her apartment complex and saw her walking to and from her car to her apartment.  When she tells the story you have to wonder if they were stalkers but from their side I really think they were following her for the right reasons that maybe only you understand if you were a 19 year old guy walking around looking for people that might need the gospel.  It is hard to explain but one time they even talked to her but she cut them off before they had a chance to start.  She knew what they were because she had attended the church for a period in California.  Around that time I met her through being invited to a vet techs boyfriend’s band who happened to be Tina’s brother.  She talked about how she used to go to church in California and we stayed in contact but didn’t really go out on too many dates because I am so busy.  She contacted the church and had them send the missionaries out and began attending the single ward near her house.  That was the touching part of the Elder’s story when he would watch her leave in her car and then one day he got the contact information to go teach her.  I’m sure she wasn’t easy to teach with her constant texting and updating of her Facebook page from her phone.  She had a difficult time keeping her commitments to read the Book of Mormon but enjoyed the discussions.  She had the Elder’s over often and like to cook for them.  She even made them take care of her cats while she came home with me for Thanksgiving.  She didn’t have any problems with learning about the restoration and becoming a member of the Church she just had hesitation about taking the plunge and changing her lifestyle permanently.  I wasn’t involved with much of the process especially since Thanksgiving I haven’t seen or talked to her much at all.  She started nursing school and waitressing and I of course spend my time in the hospital or waiting for a phone call.  It is humbling to think that you had a positive effect on someone joining the Church.  No doubt she will be the belle of the singles ward and I hope they don’t smother her too much but just enough to make good friends and keep her busy learning.

After the baptism in between when they were changing her clothes and after I heard an Elder tell his side of the story I got up and told mine. I bore my testimony that today the feelings Tina is having are from doing one of the few things in life that we are sent here to do.  Kind of like when you haven’t done something you used to do so often like ride a bike, swing a rope, or ride a horse you are reminded how much you like it and how you wonder why you haven’t done more of it.  When we do things like getting Baptized, going to the Temple, and probably like having children don’t know for myself yet though, my theory is that we get that feeling of remembering that this is one of the things we came to Earth to do and it gives us such a good feeling of fulfillment and peace.

A young lady named Amanda is trying to be a bit of a horse trader of Rocky Mountain Trail Horses as as a result is shipping horses in from all over the country to establish a market and clientele here in Las Vegas.  I first met her when she bought a Tennessee Walking horse from New Mexico for $1000 sight unseen and when it got off the trailer it wasn’t eating, drinking, or acting right.  I looked at the horse and passed a tube and pumped mineral oil into her stomach to ensure that if she was a little impacted or other mild colic it didn’t get worse.  Just a common preventative thing to do even though I really didn’t see anything wrong with the horse other than when she walked up from the trailer to the hospital she looked ataxic which is she seemed uncoordinated.  My problem is that she is a Tennessee Walking horse and to me they look uncoordinated all the time when they are perfectly fine.  I am just not used to the way the swing their hip and legs.  Amanda expressed a concern that the mare didn’t move right so I did a brief neuro exam.  I did a sway test where you walk behind the horse holding the tail and when the hind leg closest to you is up in the air you tug the horse and a normal horse will be able to resist you fine without tipping or swaying much.  Without much pull at all I could pull the mare nearly over to the ground.    I held her head high and backed her up and did several other special tests to asses neurologic function and to my honest clinical impression she was not right.  Now, it is difficult to say if she is suffering weakness from not being healthy since getting into town or if she is truly have neurologic problems from some neurologic disease or traumatic event.  On top of it all my gut was just twisting because those darn Tennessee Walking horses move so funny that I could just be making it all up!  That was my fear anyway.

Of course Amanda called the seller in New Mexico and said you sold me a neurologic horse and I want my money back.  The guy on the other end swore that the horse was fine when he put it on the transport and was refusing to give her money back.  She had me call and talk to him which I was glad to do and he was fine to talk to on the phone.  I explained what tests I did and what my impression was that the horse had some difficulty with knowing exactly where she was placing her feet which is called a defect in proprioception.  I didn’t feel she was severe and finding the exact cause of the neuro signs can be costly and difficult including blood work for EPM, radiographs, etc.  Prognosis is difficult to make without an exact known cause other than horses with neuro problems usually stay that way unless they are due to an acute inflammatory process or infection that can be resolved.  Long story short, she never got her money back and ended up sending the horse with the guy who transported her here.  I still have fears that the horse is probably normal for a Walking horse and I made it all up but I don’t know if I’ll ever find out.  They are probably riding her all over the desert without so much as a stumble.