Texas Update 7: Humans are the Funniest Animals

Hotline is a funny shift. It's the one shift here where you sit down all day, answering the phone ringing off the hook. 

Most calls require listening, then gently but firmly telling the caller to step away from the opossum, put the bird back, and return the rabbits. 

Some are melodramatic, particularly when the call goes to voicemail. I've now fielded a number of messages where the angry or panicked voicemail decreed that "he won't make it," to call back and find that the animal is completely okay. 

Quite a few callers have a great sense of humor, and one in particular today. I've been waiting for this call, itching to give someone this advice. The caller reported that she was the animal in distress; a mockingbird had set up a nest above her garage. She had royally pissed off the bird by trimming back a tree overhanging the garage last week. Since then, the mocker had been violently divebombing her every time she set foot outside. The advice I gave, with almost a straight face, coming from the most accurate and reliable of sources, was to hold a sheet of tinfoil over head. The reflection of distorted light is supposed to confuse the birds and shield the identity of the pedestrian. Otherwise, she might use a giant umbrella (highly practical), or, failing that, she might print and attach a pair of giant eyes to the back of a hat. 

I can't wait to hear how it worked out. 

Several of my roommates have come down with a cold, which I'm still fighting off. As such, I have done almost nothing all week but work and sleep, with the notable exception of baking cookies to celebrate the April birthdays. One day I worked, fell asleep, and woke up the next day four minutes before my next shift was due to start. So it was, between scurrying around and trying to remember if I had done a shift task that day or just the day before, that I bottle fed my first fawn. Heading to the deer yard I had a 70lb bag of deer pellets tossed over my shoulder, a baby bottle with 8oz of formula in my hand, and a set of keys to unlock the deer yard gate in my other hand. The fawn is tiny, covered with spots and a large black nose that rises and falls, twitching like rabbit, but giant-sized. She drank like a champ and I tried not to make eye contact, stiff upper lip and don't habituate the adorable baby animals and all that. Dashing back into the hospital kitchen after, a giant pile of dishes waiting and a ton of work left to do, I just grinned. M-, engaged in a less pleasant task, gave me a wry look. "You just fed the fawn, didn't you?" she said. 

Texas Update 7: April

April 14th -

The last few weeks have been a spicy blend of interesting, enjoyable, and hellacious. Several people have washed out, making the schedules smellier than a frightened skunk. Many shifts now have other shifts interpolated into them; it's tough going, to be sure. The idea of a mere 60 hour week is laughable, and an 80 hour week hardly a stretch. We are pulling through and pulling it off, even as "baby season" begins to swing into force. Hospital room are now full of songbirds who require feeds at 15 minute increments, baby mammals ranging from barely two inches long to oh-my-god-why-is-he-still-here-scamper-free-little-fella sized, and our usual assortment of the sick and injured. The patient roster holds raptors and cottontails, bobcats and raccoons, snakes and songbirds and many more.

Meantime, I'm going to bed. We wrapped up the hospital impossibly early tonight - just after midnight - and I have a shift and a half in a few hours. Goodnight!

Texas Update 6: Rescue

March 4th, 2013 -

I was out with the work truck, picking up produce donated by H.E.B. grocery stores, Walmart, and a Marriott hotel, when I was called in on a rescue. Or three.

The first one was easy - a whistling duck picked up by a domestic animal facility. They sent me packing with a duck in a crate and donated laundry. The second rescue was more interesting, and smellier. A woman had called in a skunk dying in her front yard.

When I arrived, the animal was having a seizure. Recalling skunks are hypoglycemic and prone to blood sugar seizures, I asked the woman if she had any honey. She ran back into her palatial home and came out a moment later with two bottles of honey, one newer and one thick and crusted on the bottom. Wrapped the skunk in towel, I gently scooped him up into the crate. Taking the older honey, I dipped a twig in and painted the sticky paste on his lips. Luckily, he fit snugly into the crate, with space enough to wrap him in the towel so he would be warm and padded in the back of the truck. I didn't relish the thought of an hour drive back with a seizing skunk in the cab. I didn't expect him to make it, but I'd given him his best shot and would hurry back.

One call left on the way back - a young deer hit by a car that morning at a nearby "Ranch." The Ranch is a uniquely Texan suburb - a huge area with many sub-ranches occupying its acreage. The guy at the gatehouse recognized the rescue's logo and truck. He called the maintenance guy who had called us.

Evidently the fawn had been clipped by a car several miles down the road. The maintenance guy brought her in on his way to work, sequestering her in a huge outdoor dog run. When he opened the run, the fawn bolted out into the surrounding scrub land. I could see the way her legs were working, and tried to reassure the very nice and very cute fellow that the deer was okay. The merry chase the young deer led gave convincing evidence that she was capable of taking care of herself, and we went on with our day.

By the time I arrived back at the rescue, my striped charge had stopped seizing. The honey did the trick!

Texas Update 5: Thunder

(Feb. 25: No power to send this email.) 

Huge full moon here tonight. 

Started work at 6 am. Gusts of wind all day, 40 mph regularly, up to 60. The windmill sounds like a helicopter taking off. Worked until about 1pm, at which point the power went out. 

Soon a generator was running a power strip, but no electricity otherwise, no water, no heat. Finished out my shift with an assist from the generator for critical patients. 

At 230 pm, night shift arrived and prepared to work in the dark against the wind and cold. The front door was battened down, headlamps and lanterns were found, hot disks heated to replace heat pads in the baby animal enclosures. Work done, I was called into receiving. The computers were down, it was hard to find volunteers, and five rescues calls had come in. One of my roommates and I hopped into the white pickup work truck, packing a pile of crates, nets, gloves, towels, and blankets. We stopped into maintenance to ask if the guys had anything heavy to weigh down the bed of the truck and keep us from blowing around the hills. They said 'be careful - to make a difference in a truck that size we'd need a few thousand pounds.'

If it was going to be a hairy ride I wanted to drive, and that was fine with my roommate, who had already survived going out that morning. The truck was a heavy gas-guzzling monster; I could feel the wind, but wasn't pushed around or taken by surprise, and nary a fishtail in sight. We were both glad to be out in the land of afternoon daylight, electricity, and running water.

The rescues were uneventful; mostly easy animal pick-ups and no-shows. The moon rose as we drove back to the rescue, a full bright silver disk illuminating the sky and road. The dusky darkness of the Texas night was erased, streaks of moonlight and silver shadows crossing the landscape. 

Writing this now, I can hear a sound like rain and thunder outside in the dry moonlit night. Fierce wind batters the roof and walls with the bamboo that grows taller than the roof. Leaves rhythmically striking the panes and slats sound like rain, gusts thumping the stalk against the roof resonates like thunder. 

Texas Update 4 - Bobkitten

Last hospital closing shift for the week: Had my first run-in with a bobcat! (Okay, bobkitten. She only weighs a few pounds, and has fiercely blue eyes.)

Texas Update 3 - A Nutty Room

On Monday, I was in a room full of squirrels. Shelves and tables held a semicircular ring of crates, housing squirrels of different sizes and weights. Most still had their eyes closed. They reach forward with tiny clawed hands, gripping the end of a rubber nipple, pawing the air as they drink, sometimes folding their paws on top of each other with blissful expressions. The messy drinkers get foamy milk mustaches, which are hilarious, but have to be removed before they cake into yellow masks. Some are being treated with subcutaenous fluids and squeal like they're being murdered, although they go from wrinkly dehydrated to plumped in minutes. Drugging adult squirrels is more of a challenge, and involves a heavy leather glove, and being very quick. The closing shift had many more people than usual, so we wrapped up our feeds and meds and projects early and had time hours to devote to fixing and cleaning things that fall by the wayside in the chaos of an understaffed animal hospital. 

I wrote this sitting on the back step looking at a Texas sunset - the colors you'd expect from a Western, pinks and purples over a gray green live oak and scrubby cedar hill line, topped with low bands of white clouds. The sky rose to pale yellow and paler blue, arching into a dusky blue sky. The vet tech intern came in over dinner to share  jaguar photos from today's sedation. It's now "late" at night (930 pm), and very much time for bed here in the land of the head-cold-ridden in the Texas Hills. 

Good night, world. 

Texas Update 2 - Dr. Dolittle

Finished work just a minute ago - I'm down from 16 to 9 1/2 hour shifts. If this keeps up I may make it down under the 9 hour mark! Wish me luck. 

Today, I moved several opossums to pre-release, from indoor wire cages to outdoor hutches. Being small enough to be cute didn't stop them from biting me - thank goodness for leather gloves. It's a pain to not be able to palpate as well, but they keep your skin in one piece. The 'possums are spending their first night outside, bedded down with hay, hide boxes, and cut natural branches. If you know how to look at the grounds here, you realize all the live oak trees are pruned to a height JUST above arm's reach - it seems everyone is hunting for good enrichment branches to build enclosures and supplement diets with natural forage.

I gave subcutaneous fluids to an electrocuted pigeon with seriously crispy feathers and visible purple bruising. Birds skin is so thin you can actually move their feathers and look at seed in their crop. I also gave pain meds to an Egyptian Goose with a new wing pin. He used to scarf all his food, but this afternoon hadn't touched a thing. We got pain meds in him, and when I was closing down the room at seven I could hear his beak tapping the stainless steel bowl. 

I was chatted at by an exotic bird, bleached out a washing machine, captured an inca dove on the first throw, and washed a mountain of laundry. It does occur to me that in about the first minute of the Rex Harrison Dr. Dolittle, the housekeeper quits. Taking a first-hand look at the amount of washing up animal hospital husbandry generates, I can see why! 

Tomorrow morning, I'm learning syringe-feeding of tiny squirrels, eyes still sealed closed. 

(Evidently people call in not knowing if they've got squirrels, mice, opossums, or what. Squirrels have black claws.) 

Goodnight, world. 

Texas Update 1 - This Week at the Rescue

This week: I held the still-warm heart of a horse, dosed out my first meds, practiced injections on a recently deceased raccoon and juvenile red-tailed hawk, tube-fed an inca dove, gave subcutaneous fluids to a pigeon (remembering to get negative pressure on the syringe – the air sacs are dangerously close to the insertion for fluids), helped wean a piglet named Jelly Bean, was bitten by a shoveler duck,was hissed at by an Egyptian Goose, fake-swam a dead fish to entice a spiny turtle to eat (convincingly, I thought, although the turtle was skeptical), held open the beak of a screech owl with a broken wing for delivery of a controlled pain drug, hand-fed a juvenile pigeon from a device made out of medical tape and a small empty bottle that mimics a parental crop, cut up an earthworm for a box turtle with a malformed jaw, saw a recently electrocuted pigeon with fried tail feathers, watched syringe-feeding of tiny squirrels with closed eyes who knead at the air as they suckle, gave eye drops to a grackle (who, let me tell you what, did not love the idea), accidentally let a bird (okay, two) out of their enclosures and had to recapture them (a knack one develops quickly), then had a second day in the bird room with no escapes at all, caged a hummingbird in my fingers to get a correct weight and felt the hovering beating of her wings, frantic but harmless, watched the Superbowl at a bar called The Dog and Pony (thank god for cheesy nachos after working your third 12-14 hour day in a row), prepared diet buckets for capuchins, spider monkeys, rhesus monkeys, and lemurs, watched a cat with a burned leg and a fawn hit by a car go under anesthesia, met a boa constrictor, a fennec fox, and a cedar waxwing, and listened to the first Texas rain, a welcome sound in a drought on a tin roof. And that’s just part of the highlight reel. 

A Wild Year

I spent 2013 in Texas, working for a wildlife rescue. The following posts are sketches from a wild year.