My patients, My life

The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.

Mahatma Gandhi

     As a newly anointed veterinarian I went back to live and practice veterinary medicine near my birthplace in Memphis, Tennessee. In my clinic on more than one occasion I heard, in my waiting room, the voices of the other Moms in the neighborhood of my youth explaining to my clients my childhood shenanigans. I do not remember participating in most of the transgressions which they recalled, but I believed them.  I still feared them because in our neighborhood any mom had full authority to help ensure that you “turned out” OK.  They were apparently granted this authority by virtue of theory of universal momhood.  

     I preface my story with these thoughts so that the reader can understand from where I come.  I am very lucky.  I am lucky because I have been able to enjoy a very fulfilling life doing what, apparently, I was meant to do. For that stroke of good fortune I will always be grateful. I am grateful to my mom and all moms. For love, compassion and always teaching me what was right and what was wrong.

     It is therefore, with great consternation and personal sadness that I must tell the story of a local tragedy.  It is a story of man’s utter disregard for compassion, decency and understanding of animal welfare.  It is about my struggle to understand how a human, with 99.9999% of the same genetic makeup as me, can treat two hundred little dogs like they were wilted cabbages in a forgotten garden.  Continue reading →

     Friday, January 2, a holiday for many but I went to the clinic to do paperwork and inventories and all the dull stuff.  I didn’t think I would be seeing many patients.  But I was precisely two sips into my first cup of coffee when the phone rang.  My tech told me Susie was on the phone and it didn’t sound like a social call. Now the reader will recall that Susie is one member of a wonderful covey of caretakers at the Tallahassee Museum of Natural History.  These folks are pros in every sense of the word so when there is anxiety coupled to their words you can figure it’s going to be a long day.

     “Dr. Griggs, my Muntjac is limping,”  she offered as she got right to the point.

      My tech was right, no “Happy New Year” tone here.  I sat down with my coffee to hear this one out.  Fortunately for me, one of the other keepers had brought me a poster about the new visiting animal exhibit featuring the Chinese Muntjacs.  I at least had a picture of this alien beast that I had never even seen, hanging right over my desk.  As Susie recited symptoms and circumstances I gazed through, still half conscious eyes at the photo of a Muntjac. The little thing sure had skinny little legs I thought.  Hope it isn’t broken and if it is I hope the fracture is high in the leg.

     I asked Susie how it moved and she replied, “In a blur.”

 Great. How are we going to catch it?  She said Mike and his blow gun most likely. 

Muntjacs - Bobbie is the blurred one.

     The Muntjacs are in a very public exhibit and the Museum is open and it’s a holiday and geeze, this just keeps getting better (worse?).  I told her I’d see her in the  afternoon and I would bring the X-ray equipment and some capture drugs. I hung up the phone, leaned back in my chair, looking at the picture and sipping my, now cool, coffee. This could be interesting. Continue reading →

     It is all fun and games now but this little Piggy scared the begeebers out of his doctor.  “Mushoo” (don’t you just love that name?) is a wonderful little Guinea Pig or Cavy as some call them.  These guys make delightful little pets but they can be real heart-breakers because when they get sick,  someone usually ends up crying.   

Mushoo Pork

  Mushoos mom, Joy, loves him bunches and you can see why. His picture depicts his personality to a tee.  Mushoo is recovered in this picture but about ten days before I had to have “that talk” with his sad mom because the only way he could breathe was with his head held up, mouth open and his neck stretched out.  An upper respiratory infection had developed into pneumonia and I stumbled for the words to prepare her for an impending tragedy.

      Although she listened carefully to the gravity of my diagnosis, Joy put my prognostications of an impending funeral aside and kindly asked for my plan to avoid this untimely event.  Happy to move on to another subject I again stumbled as I explained his need for antibiotics and how these little guys often have serious problems with antibiotics. I could see by the look on her face that she had enough of my “doom and gloom” talk and to get about fixing Mushoo Pork. Continue reading →

     Yesterday, Christmas day, marked the third Christmas in a row that my youngest son Cody could not be with us.  Melody and I made the four hour drive to Pensacola to spend the day with Travis, our other son.  It as a great day but understandably, our Christmas glass was but half full.

     Cody is a proud United States Marine corporal.  Seems like the summer before last we watched him pitch his first baseball game. He was eight years old. He was a good baseball player, we treasure the memories of the countless games in the hot summer sun. It just seemed that, even though they got taller every year, they would always be our kids. There would always be another game, another dusty uniform stuck to a sweaty kid on the ride home from a game.

     Where does time go?  We all say that old cliche’ or think it when we have said it too many times. Nevertheless it is true. The truth of it has a certain sting to it. Yesterday is, indeed, gone forever. Thank God for memories. Continue reading →

     I recently made a new friend.  As you might imagine, this new friend of mine is about to be introduced to you.  I also want to share with my readers a concept that, through our friendship, he has taught me.  I find it a difficult, esoteric sort of life lesson to explain.  I may fail to convey it clearly,but I shall, nevertheless, make an effort.

     Turtle time, that’s it. 

Tommy's Paint Job

     Four and one half weeks ago Cypress Rudloe, a friend and turtle lover happened upon this full grown Gulf Coast Box Turtle crossing U.S. 98, the Florida scenic byway.  A turtle on a busy highway, taking his time, turtle time, no hurry, no worries. Cypress kindly stopped his car and walked back to help a stranger safely along his way. That was the first good thing that happened to this turtle, “Tommy” as I now call him, in a long while. Cypress knows a thing or two about turtles and immediately recognized that this one was in grave condition. Continue reading →

About seven months ago, as spring was persuading the last of the winter snow to melt in Canada’s Northwest Territory a Snow Goose hatched.  For two days she had used the tiny “egg tooth” on the end of her soft beak to pip her shell all the way around.  With one mighty push the shell parted and she entered a brand new world. She was soon accompanied by her 3 clutch-mates but the four little goslings remained nestled in the warmth of their mother’s soft breast down until dry and strong enough to walk about.

Matilda, the Snow Goose

Over the next four months under constant protection and guidance by her parents, she and her clutch-mates grew and learned to fly in the expansive Arctic tundra, over two thousand five hundred miles from north Florida.

Then, one day, as the first north wind of Autumn whistled across the Arctic landscape this now fully fledged snow goose took to the air with a thousand more just like her. With genetic maps burned into her DNA, she instinctively knew where she was going and why. Tens of thousands more were leaving various points in the Arctic at the same time, all headed south, in one of North America’s greatest natural spectacles, the fall migration. Continue reading →

Sometimes, plans just don’t work out.  Last Wednesday afternoon, with the folks on standby at the museum for our arrival, Flora had other ideas.

  She had become quite a baby again while in rehab at the Florida Wild Mammal Association, and just loved to be petted and talked to. But when Maria (a friend and caretaker at the museum) and I slipped into her pen to start the process, Flora sensed that something was up.  I had planned to quickly stick her and inject the sedative into her hip and let her run off to get sleepy. But the instant the needle touched her she was gone, sedative still in the syringe.  She remembered needles and wanted no part of what was next. Understandably, she refused to come back and we realized she would have to be darted and it would take another week for us to arrange for the entire affair.

This week, Mike Jones, the daddy of all the creatures at the Tallahassee Museum of Natural History, showed up with his blow gun to escort one of his wayward Whitetails home.

My friend Mike Jones with a little Red Shouldered Hawk

With the stealth of a panther and the precision of hungry Bushman, Mike planted his dart painlessly in Flora’s left hip from about 8 paces.  We retreated and waited quietly while she succumbed to the sedative and layed down for a nice nap. Continue reading →

     If you don’t find big brown eyes with long curled lashes batting sweetly 2 feet from you face a little becoming you will at least find them worthy of a second look.  Flora is a female White Tailed Deer who belongs to the collection of animals at the Tallahassee Museum of Natural History. She is now about 6 months old and weighs about 60 pounds.

Sweet Little Flora

     One warm morning about 2 months ago Melody, our friend Robin and I were walking about the park with Mike Jones, the curator and inspiring authority on all the creatures in his menagerie.  While we struggled with a old cow with a mastitis problem one of the keepers ran up and said a deer was suddenly lame on a front leg. 

     In order to do a thorough lameness exam on a wild animal, even a tame wild animal, sedation is almost always necessary. Flora was sedated and we determined that her right elbow was luxated (dislocated).  The injury had just occurred be we still have no idea how it happened.  I warned everyone that reducing the luxation might be a difficult thing to watch but all agreed to stay and after a long struggle we replaced the bone in it’s proper place and bandaged the leg in extension.  Flora recovered from the anesthetic and was soon walking again although with an expected limp.

Continue reading →

We call him Edward, I think the name was inspired by Edward Scissorhands.  If you have ever had the chance to meet our national bird, The Bald Eagle, your gaze eventually found it’s way to admiring those incredible yellow feet, so well appointed with those downright scary, needle sharp claws.  For thousands of generations, those feet have continued to evolve into a perfect combination of power and quickness in order to provide food for this mighty predator and his offspring.

Power Beyond Belief

All cozy and comfy at home

     In my professional life as a veterinarian for 28 years it has been my pleasure to have known a bunch of really good dogs. I cherish the memories of so many special patients.  I met another special friend a few weeks ago and I want to tell you about Jack. 

     About 2 weeks prior to opening the clinic, I got a call from the local animal shelter about a dog that was dropped off with an obviously broken leg. At the time I had hardly any clinical resources but Melody and I went down to see if we could help. 

      The tech showed me to an outside pen where a handsome Blue Heeler dog stood on three legs with one of his rear legs swinging from an all too obviously broken tibia. The story I was told was that someone “found” him in their fenced yard and knew that he needed care that they couldn’t provide. Continue reading →