Читать книгу It’s a Vet’s Life - Roy Aronson - Страница 6

My encounter with an injured seal while I was in the navy planted a seed in my mind. Veterinary science was becoming more appealing and I started to consider it seriously. It took just one more experience to nudge me firmly in the right direction.

The great thing about working for the defence force in the 1970s was that if you had an aptitude for sport, you were encouraged (practically ordered actually) to take part in competitions at the highest level, all expenses paid. I was a keen if not hugely skilled rider and enjoyed three-phase eventing. I put in an application to attend the Defence Force Equestrian Championships in Potchefstroom, which is where I found myself a few weeks later with a horse to ride and a generous budget.

Now unbeknown to the defence force, my riding, while quite good, was not competition standard. I was a fair jumper and could do some dressage but the truth was that my keenness for the sport far outdid my ability. I don’t remember too much about the competition but it turned out to be a hugely significant event for me. I struck up a friendship with Neville Goldberg, who happened to be a vet. Neville was doing his national military service and worked for the defence force equestrian unit. One of my main concerns about studying to be a vet was that I’d have to live in Pretoria for at least six years. It was far away and there would be cultural differences to be reckoned with but here was Neville – my age and my religion – who’d not only survived there, he’d thrived there. If he could do it, then so could I. The seed was beginning to germinate.

After a somewhat unsuccessful competition I returned to Cape Town. No prizes won but a pivotal friendship established. A few weeks later Neville wrote to tell me that he had been transferred to the defence force stud farm situated in De Aar in the Karoo. He invited me to visit the farm during foaling season. I jumped at the chance, applied for leave and off I went.

My days were happily spent assisting Neville and his colleague, Piet Smit. Kitted out in green overalls and white gum boots I certainly looked the part while my teachers painstakingly and patiently introduced me to the mysteries of doing internal examinations on pregnant mares. And then the moment of reckoning arrived. Neville and Piet decided to let me examine a mare in an advanced stage of pregnancy. I was to determine how the foal was lying. This is important because a foal must be born with its front legs and head coming out first, almost like a dive. I had been thoroughly briefed about what to feel and how things should feel. With great excitement I donned a plastic glove, lubricated with a liberal dose of liquid paraffin. I gently inserted my arm into the mare’s rectum. Now right up to my armpit, I moved my hand around to try and feel the uterus. Suddenly I felt something big move under my hand. The words just gushed out; I had never felt something so magical before. I felt the foal’s head and ears and then it nibbled my fingers. This was the most thrilling moment I had ever had with animals. And so there I stood with my arm as far as it could go up a mare’s rectum, a huge grin on my face and babbling about what I could feel and how the foal was moving.

Neville and Piet believed that the birth was imminent. As a treat for me, they decided to wait up through the night so that I could witness the birth. And not only that. They told me that I could deliver the foal. At about 9.30 that night, a groom called us to say that the mare’s waters had broken. We rushed to the stable and sure enough, there was a large amount of fluid soaking the shavings that lined the floor. Neville and Piet did an examination and then with great trepidation, I too had a feel. I could feel that the foal’s head was closest to the birthing canal. I could also feel feet near the head. This was a relief as it meant that the foal was lying correctly. We stood back and allowed nature to take its course.

The mare lay down and grunted and groaned with each contraction. After what seemed a long time but was probably only ten minutes or so, she suddenly stood up and with a rush of fluids, the little male foal was born.

It lay on the ground twitching. The umbilical cord linking it to its mother was still attached to the placenta inside the mare. With a little bit more pushing, this too was delivered. Neville waited a few minutes so that all the placental blood could flow into the foal and then he cut and tied the cord. The mare was enchanted with her foal and nuzzled it and encouraged it with whickering noises as it tried to get to its feet. Within half an hour it was standing, albeit rather shakily, and within an hour it was tottering about drunkenly and attempting to drink from its mother. The wonder of birth and a new life left me completely mesmerised. I think it was at that point that I finally made up my mind. More than anything, I wanted to be a vet.

The defence force has a very easy way of keeping track of their horses’ ages. All the foals born during the course of a particular year have a name starting with a specific letter. In 1977 the foals had to have a name starting with the letter K. The day after the foal was born Piet and Neville showed me the stud register. The little foal I had helped bring into the world was named K-Roy.

***

Horses seem to have played an important part in all that is good in my life. Prior to this experience I met the woman I would ultimately marry. She had a rather grand sounding name: Kathy Compton-James, although she had resigned herself to occasionally being called Captain James or Crumpet-James, to name just two variations.

Kathy had many endearing qualities. She sailed a dinghy and she loved riding. Her horse was part Arab and he was called Shakir. Although I’d been on horseback many times, I was untutored and so Kathy gave me my first formal riding lesson. She stood in the middle of the lunging ring, shouting at me to sit up tall and keep my heels down. As she had a long whip in her hands I thought it wise to obey.

I was now so enamoured of Kathy and horses that I decided our future long-term relationship would stand a much better chance if I acquired my own horse. This would also be good for my riding career. Armed with two such solid reasons I set about looking for a horse.

Kathy and I decided that I should get an Anglo-Arab. This means that usually the mother is a thoroughbred and the father is an Arab. I would then get a horse big enough for me to ride that had all the hardiness and endurance qualities of an Arab. Full of enthusiasm for our plan, I bought the very first horse I saw. His name was Little Kalahari and I loved him from day one. His mother was an Arab and his father was a thoroughbred, which meant that he was only just big enough for me. Mistake number one. He was two years old and had never been ridden, which was mistake number two. He was not castrated, which was mistake number three. And mistake number four, he had an abnormal hoof. In our inexperienced opinion it didn’t look so very bad and so we didn’t bother to get him vetted before we bought him. The prospect of owning my own horse was too much for me and besides, he looked so ‘nice’. I bought him there and then.Six hours later I was still persuading Little Kalahari to get into the horsebox. Perhaps he had a notion that he was going straight to the Blue Cross Veterinary Hospital in Newlands (Cape Town) to be gelded because he wasn’t having any of it. He danced, side-stepped and shied until I was exhausted. I eventually called Dr Duppie, resident horse vet at the Blue Cross and a legend in the horse world. He sedated Little Kalahari and we unceremoniously manhandled him into the box and took him to the Blue Cross where he was castrated.

I fetched him the next day. He looked a sorry sight but even in his weakened state he put up a spirited fight over the horse box. Once he was boxed I sought out Dr Duppie, confident that he would compliment me on my purchase. I couldn’t believe it when he merely said that Little Kalahari had a side bone and that I would need to file and trim his hoof to help prevent permanent lameness.

Little Kalahari spent the next year on a farm in Constantia. As he was only two years old, I would have to wait another year to ride him. Looking back, I must have been mad. What I needed was a big strong horse that I could ride immediately, not a frisky two-year-old with a funny foot.

What I did do during this year was find out as much as I could about side bones. I learnt that a side bone develops when the lateral cartilage of the hoof gets injured. Bone is laid down at the site of the injury in order to protect it. This condition can lead to lameness but I found out that, if trimmed in a certain way, the side-bone need not be a problem. Or so the many books I consulted claimed.

I decided to teach myself to be a farrier. I bought a great leather apron, a set of hoof shears, a hoof knife and a rasp. I also bought a book called Farrier Science. Interestingly enough, I still have this book on my shelf over thirty years later. I diligently followed word for word what the book suggested. First I had to learn how to pick up the horse’s leg and how to stand with the hoof in my lap. Little Kalahari also had to learn to give his hoof to me and between the two of us, I think he was the quicker learner. We did, however, progress and before long I became proficient at the job.

After waiting to back him for a year, we eventually placed a saddle on his back and I started riding him. Because he was now doing more work his hooves started to wear much faster. I could not continue to trim them because if you cut too much off the hoof you expose live tissues, which can of course be extremely painful. I needed to shoe him. As word gets around, I’d been trimming hooves for a number of horses now for a year but I’d never attempted to shoe a horse. And this would not be a straightforward job. Although I was not aware of the term at the time, it would call for ‘corrective shoeing’, a cornerstone of hoof care and equine health. I didn’t have any equipment but I remedied this immediately. I bought a farrier hammer and all the bits and pieces I would need to shoe Little Kalahari. I took an impression of his hoof and bought some shoes. I was now well and truly tooled for the job. All I needed was the courage to do it.

I was very nervous about nailing a shoe to a live hoof. I read the theory over and over again and I practised nailing a shoe onto a wooden model of a hoof. It seemed relatively simple but I was highly aware of the fact that the wooden model was not able to kick or bleed if struck in the wrong place. However, always prepared to try something new, I convinced myself that I was up to the task. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, I told myself hopefully.

Kathy agreed to assist me. She would hold the horse for me and offer advice while I would try to do the job. (Thirty years later we still work in the exactly the same way.) I had been tapping Little Kalahari’s hoof with a hammer for the last few weeks to get him used to the feeling and now was the day to actually fit the shoes. It took me about fifteen minutes to shape the shoe to fit his hoof. I then took a deep breath and prepared myself for the next exciting episode.

Farrier nails are bevelled and it is important to place the nail in such a way that the flat side of the nail points out while the bevel points to the inside of the hoof. In this way the point will automatically appear in the correct spot on the outer wall of the hoof. If I was going to make a mistake, this would be it. I carefully aligned the nail and tapped it into the hoof. Like magic the nail appeared in the correct spot on the lateral hoof wall. I had done it, or at least I now had one nail in the hoof. Only six more to go. Without much fuss but with a lot of adrenaline I got the shoe on. I then did the other front hoof and after spending nearly an hour of time and a bucket of sweat the job was done. I stood back to evaluate my work. I had seen many pictures of well shod horses and when I compared my work, all I could say was ‘not bad’.

Repetition is a great teacher and over the years of owning Little Kalahari, I became skilled at this wonderful if somewhat archaic task. I ended up selling Little Kalahari but I visited him often and I know that his hoof never gave him trouble again throughout his life. He lived to the grand old age of twenty-one.

I might have bought the wrong horse but it’s a mistake I am glad I made. It was a mistake that gave me a taste of what it is like to work with animals. It was a mistake that showed me how rewarding it is to learn new things. And it confirmed for me that there was nothing more to wait for. I married Kathy and we went to vet school.

***

‘No hoof, no horse,’ the words, pronounced with a distinct Malmesburg brei, rang out like a clarion in the lecture hall. I wanted to know more. I also wanted to do more.

Now in my first year of vet school, I decided that it was time to further my studies as a farrier. Addressing him by his first name and with all the confidence of a young and newly-married man, I asked the resident vet in charge of horses, Dr Hercules van Niekerk, if I could act as farrier to the horses under his care. It took a very long time to get back into his good books. I found out that it was not the request that had offended him but the fact that I had familiarly addressed him as ‘Hercules’. He was also known as ‘Hercie’ for short but thank goodness I had not gone that far. This was just one example of what can happen when an Englishman ends up in Pretoria.

Once communication was back on track, Dr Van Niekerk explained that the shoeing was being attended to by a final year vet student who was also a professional farrier. His name was Steven O’Grady from the USA and he was a true expert in the field. Aware that it was beneath the dignity of a final year student to fraternise with a first year student, I nonetheless decided that Mr O’Grady was going to help me learn to be a better farrier whether he wanted to or not.

Steve was truly a master. I knew enough about shoeing horses to realise that I actually knew nothing. To witness the ease and grace with which he did his job made me determined that I too would be good at this wonderful, ancient craft. He had a beautiful anvil and a portable forge that had a fan that was powered by his car battery. You make a fire and then switch the fan on – this blasts oxygen through the fire, which makes it hot enough to melt metal. This was the first time I had actually witnessed this and I wanted to do it too. After watching him at work, I introduced myself and tried to engage him in conversation. It would have been more fun talking to a brick wall. Undaunted, I made drawings of his forge and took notes about his equipment. Each time I saw him do something I practised it myself whenever I had the opportunity. Slowly but surely I improved.

While on holiday in Cape Town I asked my Uncle Maurice, a motor mechanic, to make me a forge. Within a week I had a great working forge and was the proud owner of an anvil, a present from a family friend. By the end of my holiday I was tooled up almost as well as Steve was. Now all I had to do was acquire some of the knowledge that he had. Within a short while I became quite skilled at using a forge and adjusting the shoes after heating them to a wonderful cherry red in the fire. I would beat out a rhythm with my hammer whilst the shoe was held firmly on the anvil. I did this because Steve did this and it seemed so cool. It also took some of the effort out of what was a very hard and physically demanding job.

The next term I met Sparks Erasmus. Sparks was an assistant in the anatomy department and had some knowledge of farrier science. We decided to put the word out that we were available to shoe and trim horses on Saturdays and then waited for the clients and their horses to come rolling in. Before long, they really did come rolling in and we had more work than we could cope with. I continued to observe Steve when and where I could and I practised many of the techniques I learned covertly from him.

Soon I could shoe ten to twelve horses on a Saturday. Sparks did the same number of horses and we shared costs so between us we were making a fairly decent amount of money. Over the next five years at university I made my mark as a farrier. I worked with the department of surgery and became skilled at specialised shoeing. I was fit and strong and could shape a shoe to fit even the most problematic of cases and feet. I had a great working knowledge of lameness in horses.

At this point I thought that I would become an equine vet. A large proportion of equine veterinary science is to do with lameness and I felt that I really had a head start. However, I landed up as a small animal vet and all the knowledge that I had garnered slowly seeped out of my head. I do have a souvenir from those days and that is a damaged back.

A few years ago my wife and daughter started riding again and bought horses. They decided to keep their horses unshod. This, I told myself, was going to be my comeback. I’d get fit, buy some tools and rekindle my passion for this craft. But, alas, it was not to be. My hands were too soft for the job and I was too unfit to do more than one foot without taking a rest. And my back was killing me. As I limped back to the house, I told my wife to call a professional farrier. My farrier days were well and truly over.