Paw & Pen
A Monthly Column by Dr. Oneal Bogan
by Dr. Oneal Bogan, DVM
I moved to Carbondale from Boulder on my 5th birthday. I have lived in the Roaring Fork Valley ever since, minus my time at Colorado State for veterinary school. There are a few constants in my life, a love for animals and a love for the mountain valley where we live. When I graduated vet school, I spent time traveling around, deciding where I would like to go next, and inevitably, I came home because I struggled to find a place that offered so much.
I now own Mountain Paws Vet, located on the once-quiet back road between Carbondale and El Jebel. My days are spent navigating the world of medicine, surgery and the ever growing and robust human animal bond. In this column, I hope to share with you advice about how to keep your pets as healthy as possible, but to start I thought I would share why animals are so important to me, and to the world.
I remember reading about life as a vet in my battered copy of All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot. My parents introduced me to these tales about an English country vet when I was young, and I continued to be drawn to them as I grew up. If you have never read James Herriot, I highly recommend his books. His stories are full of happiness and the delights of working with animals, but also of the profound sorrow that comes with being a vet. This dichotomy of emotion is ever-present in my work and many veterinarians and support staff end up leaving the field for this reason.
For me, there is one solid fact that keeps me devoted to the field: animals are the most unassuming, remarkable creatures and they are completely deserving of compassion and dedicated medical care. I will begin this column with a story about a patient who reminded me of this fact from the first time I met him.
It was a snowy Saturday at the clinic. Saturdays are unpredictable at best, often riddled with sick pets that we have never met before. It was already a busy morning when an older gentleman called about his beloved golden doodle. The doodle had stopped eating, was acting off. It had started a couple days prior but today it was worse. We told him to head in as soon as possible. Often the impression that a pet owner gives over the phone does not match what we are confronted with when we see the patient and perform and exam, but in this case his owner had provided an accurate description.
Jake was simply not right. He has a fever and his body was painful. He was somewhat pale. Drained of energy. His big chocolate eyes peered up at me as I did his examination. Long eyelashes did not hide the fact that he was very ill. He allowed me to do everything while he lied at his owners feet. Even when I flexed his sore joints, he did not complain.
After years of being a vet, subtle changes alert you to an animal’s pain, even if its a simple holding of breath of a pause in blinking. Jake showed all of these signs, but still never tried to misbehave. I mentioned that he was a very good dog, and his owner smiled and told me “I raised him to be a good citizen.” He did indeed. We ran some blood tests and checked X-rays of his sore leg. X-rays were thankfully normal, but his blood work showed almost complete absence of white blood cells.
This was an unusual case, as immune diseases typically are. Jake spent the next two months coming in to see us. For the first few days, he needed to be admitted for intravenous treatments. Once he was stable enough to be on oral medication, he came in less frequently, but we’d usually see him several days in a week. As we got to know Jake, a resounding truth rang out. This dog, despite being very ill, would always greet us with a gentle tail wag and a kind gaze.
Regardless of what we had to do to him in a day, he gracefully allowed us to poke him, examine him over and over, take endless temperature checks. He did not resist. We got to know Jake’s owner well too, trying to keep his courage up even when Jake had setbacks. He would meet us with the same constant kindness, and he never complained.
Everyday when his dad came to collect him, Jake’s tail would wag more, and the love he had for his owner flowed out of him. This, the unwavering love and devotion animals demonstrate, is what makes veterinary medicine so special. Animals, even the less compliant ones, are here to love and be loved. They don’t ask or expect anything else. And we are so lucky to be able to have the privilege of being loved by them.
Not every case is a success, and many days we are adjacent to heavy loss. We walk side by side with bouncing puppies and pets at the end of their life, but we keep walking because being able to see Jake and his owner return to their life together is worth every minute of it.
I recently saw Jake when his owner came to get some food for him. His tail is up to a vigorous shimmy, and his energy is back. He still greets us with those benevolent eyes. He and his owner are back to their normal life, both being very good citizens.
Dr. Bogan's Column Paw & Pen appears monthly in The Crystal Valley Echo and covers topics of pet health, pet care and the bond between humans and animals.
