My very first emergency as a new veterinarian was a dog with a snout full of porcupine quills; my lessons in creating a poker face had started. It was a seasoned dog quill client and he was way ahead of me which was a good thing because I had no idea what to do; no one taught us anything about this in vet school. I heard him say, “You go get the ends Doc, I’ll shave Buster’s arm to get ready for the IV ..”
The call came in from an angry farmer whose cow was having difficulty birthing. He was less than pleased to have a woman answering the call and his mood only went downhill when I told him I would be coming along alone. When I finally arrived after the harrowing drive in the mobile van, it was pitch black when I turned off the van lights and he said “the barn is over there”. I tried to look that way but the sleet was burning my face and apparently there were no lights in the barn.
Last night I put my dear little “Cajun Toto” to sleep; The ecstasy and the agony of being a veterinarian. I found Toto in a huge dog cage, on a 10-wheeler parked at a makeshift animal shelter on Magazine Street in New Orleans about 86 days after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the city in August of 2005. My job was to examine, assess and “treat the treatable,” with whatever supplies I could gather from the varied piles of donations. This day, instead of my truckload full, there sat Toto. I was going to Mississippi the next day anyway. I grabbed Toto and made him a makeshift home in the passenger seat of my minivan. Our adventure together began.
Meanwhile back in 2008, it was a warm and relatively quiet fourth of July day at home. On this particular holiday our lives intersected with the neonatal harbor porpoise who became known as “Inde.” Inde stranded on the beach of the waterfront house right in front of ours. I remember Mrs. McSquid being less than pleased to have the creature wash up on her July fourth outdoor buffet. So off we went down the dirt road adjacent to our farmhouse.
Kathy Prunier- Oceanographer, Explorer, Writer 