Sometimes, especially with animals, things have a way of working out

 Some days, it seems  nothing can turn out right.  

More than 40 years ago, I was working in a large-animal practice with two other veterinarians. I had the weekend duty on a Saturday morning when a rancher arrived at the clinic with a noisy stock truck. He backed up to our loading dock and opened the back of the truck. 

 A lean range cow bolted from the truck down the alley toward our squeeze chute. I saw the small prolapse that I was to repair, as well as the glinting set of horns (the only good looking attribute that the cow had).

 “She’s a littly oily, Doc,” the rancher said as he drove off. I wasn’t sure what “oily” meant, but I soon found out when I opened the rear of the squeeze chute to let the cow in. She took one look and lunged over the six-foot alley fence into the corral.

 When I walked into the corral to herd her back into the chute, she made a charge.  I picked up a pitch fork and held the tines against her forehead, but she stopped her charge only after she had splintered the pitchfork handle against the back wall of the corral. Her forehead seemed to suffer no ill effects.

 I never was able to get her into the squeeze chute, but I did manage to slip a halter on her head while she was in the alley.

 I led her into the work area of our clinic barn and tied her to a 6 -by-10 beam using a quick-release knot so that I would be able to get her loose later without having to cut the rope.

 As I started to work with the prolapse, she threw herself into the air and my quick-release knot released.  

She was then loose in the barn, and I was fair game.  Once the cow realized that I could find a safe place, she started a cat and mouse game. She went just far enough into a stall to bait me out into the open.

 Each time I approached to close the door on the stall, the cow came charging out after me. Time after time the cow retreated farther into the stall to draw me farther out into the open. 

 Each time, I had a slimmer escape as she charged.

 Finally, she retreated to the back of the stall, and I was able to close the stall door and lock her in. I then went to the phone to call my partner and tell him of the situation. I warned him that the cow was dangerous and told him that we should work on her together the following day.

 The good doctor, however, was not to be intimidated.  That afternoon, he drove his wagon into the center of the clinic barn. His intent was to use the station wagon as a shield, if necessary, as he roped and tied the cow. The plan started well.

 When he opened the stall door, the cow charged out after him. He roped her and ran behind the car with the cow right behind him dragging the rope. As the cow ran around the rear of the car, the rope wedged itself under the rear tire. When the cow felt the rope tighten on her neck, she lunged in the other direction. This caught the rope under the corner of the car’s rear bumper. The cow was now tied short and fast to the back of the station wagon.

 My partner watched in horror as the frenzied cow smashed the back and sides of his work car as she tried to free herself.  

He finally was able to get a sedative injected into the cow. She gradually lost consciousness. After surveying the damage to what had been a fine little wagon, he turned his attention to the animal’s problem. However, he found that in the series of flips and lunges that the cow had made, the prolapse had corrected itself.

(Dr. Fred Conkel is a veterinarian at Westgate Clinic.)