Pets in a Pickle (33 page)

Now it was the turn of us two vets to step in. We did so with caution, both Crystal and I wary of the beast, even though Kevin now had her head firmly secured and held close to his chest. There was still the risk of an almighty kick from one of those back legs should Cleo chose to strike a blow for camel’s lib.

‘Which foot did you say it was?’ queried Crystal bending over, hands on her knees, peering down at the camel’s hind legs, half-buried in straw.

‘Her right,’ said Kevin, scuffling forwards as Cleo tried to pull away. ‘Hold still, you bugger,’ he added with a whistle.

‘OK, Paul, let’s see what we’ve got here.’ Crystal crouched down alongside Cleo’s massive thighs and reached down to pull the straw away from the camel’s upturned toes.

I shuffled up next to her. ‘Careful now,’ she warned, ‘in case she kicks out. I quickly shuffled back a pace or two. No need to be too heroic here; I was no Lawrence. ‘Guess there’s the reason for her lameness,’ said Crystal, her finger circling above the sole between the claws of Cleo’s right foot. The area was swollen, the skin red and angry-looking.

‘An abscess?’ I said, peering over her shoulder.

‘I should think so. Probably the result of a puncture wound.’

Kevin chipped in. ‘You going to lance it then?’

I looked down at Crystal.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s the idea.’

Kevin gave a long whistle. ‘Right, lads,’ he said, turning to the twins, ‘you both stand out of the way. Like Maggie Thatcher, this lady’s not for turning.’

For a moment, I thought he was referring to Crystal who, indeed, did have a very determined look on her face. But he was talking about Cleo. He now had his right arm tucked round the back of her head, his hand holding on to the head collar on that side. Her chin he held close with his left hand, still clutching the head rope, the end of which was wrapped round his wrist. If Cleo was going to lunge, Kevin was going to take the lunge with her.

With the instrument pack unwrapped at a distance judged to be safely out of kicking range, disinfectant was splashed on to the affected sole. Cleo gave a low grumble and shifted her weight – all 500 kilos of it – her brown, mountainous hump tilting towards us.

‘Just watch out,’ warned Crystal.

I’d taken out a scalpel handle and attached a blade ready to give to Crystal but wisely put it back until required. She had now edged back over Cleo’s right foot and was about to prod the swollen sole to locate the spot where the skin pitted most – the spot to plunge the blade in.

Despite her warning, despite the fact we were all tensed and ready, we were still unprepared for the ferocity of Cleo’s reaction to having her foot prodded, however gently. There was an agonised bellow. Her right leg thrashed out in a cloud of straw. Crystal was knocked back into my arms.

‘Shit!’ she exclaimed and quickly extricated herself from my embrace. Her chest was heaving. So was mine.

Cleo’s leg was now sticking out in the straw.

‘Hey, Dad, we’ll sit on her,’ chirruped Ben and Barnaby.

‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea,’ said Crystal who, having brushed herself down, had recovered her composure.

‘What the heck,’ whistled Kevin. ‘They’d enjoy a bit of a rough and tumble. Go on, boys. But be careful,’ he added.

The twins darted forward and each of them straddled Cleo’s back leg, clinging on as if preparing themselves for a rodeo.

‘Oh, very well,’ said Crystal sounding far from enthusiastic.

I handed her the scalpel and backed away, but not too far. ‘Here goes then,’ she said, glancing round. ‘Hold on to your horses.’

Camels, Crystal, camels.

She palpated the sole once again. Cleo roared. Her thigh muscles trembled and bulged. But the two lads grimly held on, rocking up and down and from side to side.

Then in plunged the tip of the scalpel and out poured a fountain of pus. Cleo shrieked again. She wrenched her head round, trailing Kevin with her. She gave a massive kick. The boys bounced off … Crystal reeled back … my arms opened wide.

Ben and Barnaby fell into them.

By the time we had sorted ourselves out, Cleo had staggered to her feet and was standing, her sides heaving in and out like bellows, her head covered in sticky, green foam. But Kevin was still hanging on, dangling from her head rope.

‘Just hold on a mo’,’ said Crystal. ‘We need to give her a shot of antibiotics.’ The twins meanwhile had skipped round to the front of the camel, none the worse for their tumble, and were ready to distract Cleo again if necessary. But it seems we had knocked the wind out of her sails as she stood there, motionless, while Crystal plunged a massive dose of long-acting penicillin into her thigh.

‘One down and one to go I believe,’ said Cleo, slapping Cleo’s rump, clearly in her element, thoroughly enjoying herself.

Our next port of call was a large pen totally enclosed in mesh, fitted out with wooden perches, swings and tyres suspended from chains. It was clearly not kitted out for the likes of guinea pigs or rabbits, and was a bit OTT for budgerigars, so what was it for, I wondered?

Leading off the pen was a small tunnel, screened by a rubber flap, which gave access to a shed. It was from this shed that came a muffled volley of squeals and grunts.

‘Sounds as if Mitchell’s up to his old tricks again,’ said Crystal, striding over to the side of the shed and giving it a hefty thump.

I wondered what form my namesake would take: Mitch the meerkat … Mitch the mongoose … or Mitch the mouse? Oh, no, surely not Mitch the mouse. I cringed at the thought.

Fingers curled round the bottom of the flap and lifted it a fraction; a pair of yellow-grey eyes peered out.

Crystal thumped the shed wall again. ‘Come on out, big boy.’

Ah, this sounded more like it. Mitchell was a big boy, then – more of a mighty Mitch.

Crystal rattled the lock on the door. That did the trick; out shot a lanky-bodied monkey with ginger-brown fur and a long, straight tail, carried erect.

‘That’s Melinda,’ Kevin informed me.

She was closely followed by two more monkeys, one hugging a baby close to her chest.

‘Maureen and Mavis,’ I was told, ‘Mitch’s harem.’

Hmmmm. This was getting interesting. The star of the show was obviously a full-blooded male.

‘And here’s the beast himself,’ said Kevin, as a large, well-muscled monkey with a gleaming, gingery coat padded out through the tunnel. Well, now, what a fine fellow this Mitchell was. Yes, indeed.

He stood up on his back legs, stretching himself to his full height, exposing himself; in doing so, it was obvious why he was called a big boy. Wow … he put me to shame. He wiggled his eyebrows at us and gave a short staccato grunt before dropping on to all fours again to saunter nonchalantly into the pen.

The female with the baby gave a whimper of fear and made a dash for the tunnel. In a flash, Mitch leapt across and pounced on her back, sinking his teeth into her shoulder. She let out a scream and cowered in submission on the ground, rump in the air.

‘Hey! Hey! That’s enough of that,’ cried Kevin, emitting a shrill whistle and rattling the mesh.

Mitch let go, the female shooting into the shed while he glowered at us. He then sprang; he hit the mesh with a violent crash, gripped it with both hands and shook it, teeth bared in a malevolent grin.

‘Ah, you’re a right show-off,’ declared Kevin, unperturbed.

Mitchell continued to grimace, displaying long, vicious canines, one of which had a broken tip to it.

‘That’s the problem. See?’ Kevin pointed at the blunted tooth. ‘And there’s that red ulcerated area above it on his cheek. Reckon it’s a tooth abscess.’

I was very impressed; he’d reached the same diagnosis as me.

Crystal agreed. ‘Means that tooth will have to come out, though,’ she said, glancing at her watch. ‘Look, we’re running out of time here. How about Paul coming over later in the week to extract the tooth?’

She looked first at Kevin who nodded his agreement, and then at me who was too dumbstruck to move. Me? Crystal was asking me? Wow.

‘That’s if you want to, Paul,’ she added.

I managed to nod. Of course I would. Zoo work? It was something I’d have given my eye teeth for – but now I didn’t have to as it was Mitch who would be giving me his.

The following Thursday, I was witness to Kevin’s amazing expertise at handling animals. I stood by the trap door of Mitch’s pen ready to bolt the flap closed once the females had been run it. This they did as soon as they caught sight of the catching net that Kevin was carrying.

Mitch, in true macho manner, had no intention of being intimidated by the net and, even when Kevin entered the pen, he continued to pace up and down one of the perches, raising and lowering his head while emitting a series of threatening grunts.

Spellbound, I watched as Kevin advanced, waving the pole of the net in front of him. Mitch backed along the perch and then swung on to the mesh, still grunting, clearly annoyed. I saw Mitch sink back on his legs, ready to launch himself over Kevin’s shoulder. But his move had been anticipated and, as he took that flying leap, Kevin whipped the net over the monkey’s head, swiping sideways so that the net crashed to the floor of the pen, Mitch hopelessly entangled inside it. Putting one foot on the pole to anchor it, Kevin pulled the net down tight so that Mitch was pinned to the ground.

‘Right. He’s all yours now,’ he declared, with a grin and a whistle.

It was easy enough to jab the anaesthetic through the netting and, within minutes, Mitch had succumbed; once untangled from the net, we soon had him stretched out on a table in a nearby feed room.

‘Bloody big,’ commented Kevin. I thought he was referring to Mitch’s canines, the broken one of which I was fingering, thinking it could pack a punch if rammed into one of his females. But Kevin had been looking at Mitch’s nether regions to which the same attributes could have applied.

I unrolled the pack of dental instruments and, once I’d eased a scalpel blade up round the gum margins of the broken canine, used a dental elevator to prise up the sides, twisting it up and down, gradually loosening the tooth. There was a sudden crack as its root parted from the jawbone. I reached for the dental extractor, gripped the tooth and wiggled it back and forth. Then yanked. Out came the tooth with a satisfying plop leaving a well of blood into which I quickly rammed some cotton wool.

‘What do you reckon?’ I was eyeing the other canine: the tooth … the whole tooth … and nothing but the tooth. It seemed a pity to remove a sound one. But, on the other hand, it meant that there would be less severe bite wounds to deal with whenever he attacked the females, which I understood was quite often – his way of showing who was boss.

‘If in doubt, have it out,’ said Kevin simply.

The second canine wasn’t so easy to extract being well cemented in its socket. But after many minutes of sweating, ever fearful the chisel might slip and shoot up through Mitch’s mandible, cracking the bone, I managed to pull it off – or rather out – and waved the tooth with its long root at Kevin, proud of my achievement.

‘Why don’t you keep it as a souvenir?’ he suggested.

What a good idea; possibly have it mounted in a silver clasp to hang round my neck? No fangs. Too fanciful. But keep it, yes.

As I’d now cut my teeth on some exotic work, it would be something to remind me of this day. Something to look back on when, in many years to come, I too got long in the tooth.

O
ne of the questions I’d asked at my interview back in June was ‘Is there any large animal work?’

Eric had been rather vague in his reply: ‘Not much to speak of.’

In one, respect he had been right; there wasn’t a great deal to speak of. But what there was you could have spoken volumes about: the Richardsons with their darling Clementine; Jill and Alex Ryman with Miss Piggy and her dozen piglets; not to mention the headline-grabbing antics of Gert and Daisy, the Saddlebacks belonging to Mildred Millichip. It was enough to cope with – I didn’t relish more. Not for me the midnight calving or lambing, arms up backsides of cows trying to determine whether they were pregnant or not; nor the tedium of TB testing. Give me Miss Millichip any day – even if it meant contending with that wretched new veterinary dictionary of hers.