DUMMERSTON — It takes a special kind of person to walk up to a thousand-pound hooved animal and stick a needle in its rump, or a hand into its mouth.
For equine veterinarian Dr. Jerilyn Jacobs, that's just an average day at the office.
The Vermont-New Hampshire Veterinary Clinic, where Jacobs works, is celebrating 60 years since opening in 1952. The clinic treats small animals and equines. It is housed in a renovated and expanded early-1800s former tavern at the site of the first post office in East Dummerston, and is one of the largest and oldest vet clinics in Southern Vermont.
The practice supports six veterinarians, according to Jacobs, a resident horse-healer, whose been on staff since 1994 and is a member of the Eastern Mountain Ranch Horse Association a and Trustee of the Veterinary Scholarship Trust of New England.
Dr. Ron Svec, who started at the clinic in 1983, has regularly participated in the Iditarod Sled Dog race held each March in Alaska - called “the last great race” - as a trail vet, as well as serving as the secretary for the International Sled Dog Veterinary Medical Association.
Svec noted that on the years when he is involved with the Iditarod, “Everything gets routed through this office,” as mushers register their animals with him in order to participate in the race. “It can get kind of hectic.”
Dr. Ron Veenema is “getting ready to retire, or at least start working more part-time,” Jacobs said, and has been with the clinic since 1973. “He wants to work less and play more,” she added.
Veenema “enjoys orthopedic surgeries and frequently repairs torn cranial cruciate ligaments (ACL) in our canine patients,” according to the clinic website.
Both Dr. Ted Johnson and Dr. Tamara McNamara share Jacobs' equine interests, as well as dentistry (Johnson) and surgery (McNamara), and small pet medicines.
Deep pockets
With approximately 11,000 invoices last year, doctors have their hands full and don't treat herd animals, only pets.
Treating “pocket pets” as well, the practice “is probably one of the largest [practices] with mixed vets on staff,” she noted. Pocket pets are “mice, rats, parakeets,” according to Jacobs.
“In fact, we just treated someone's pet mouse yesterday morning,” she said, smiling.
All the vets are trained in general veterinary medicine with individual interests extending from large birds, like macaws and parrots, to snakes and lizards.
“Some of us are more comfortable handling things like snakes than others,” Jacobs said. “I'll assist with an injection or something, but I'm not going to be primary [with snakes].”
Newly hired veterinarian Dr. Dan Abbott has worked with chimpanzees in Botswana, at animal welfare societies, and on animal surgery. He will be Dr. Veenema's replacement, “hopefully,” Jacobs said.
Office visit
Fran Jerard of Chesterfield, N.H., brought her four-year-old Sophie, a golden-retriever-Pyrenees mix, and Shadow, a “nearly feral” long-haired gray kitty of about the same age.
They were there for an annual checkup that included blood tests for Lyme titer and heart worm, rabies shots, and an eye and physical exam.
With assistant technician Katy Johnson helping to restrain each animal with lots of soft murmurings and strokes, Sophie and Shadow patiently endured their exams.
Shadow was obviously not enjoying the attention as much as Sophie, who kept nosing the exam table during Shadow's examination, perhaps sensing her unease with all the attention.
With Johnson's gentle assistance and Abbott's handling, the cat remained calm, if slightly miffed, throughout the process.
Abbott told Jerard that even though Sophie tested positive for Lyme titer, there is no scientific proof that treatments work. “Testing positive doesn't mean the disease will ever show up,” he said. “The best treatment is still prevention.”
Jerard asked Abbott several questions and chose not to receive treatment given Sophie's lack of symptoms.
With both animals only slightly above average weight, Abbott made recommendations about diet, as Jerard admitted Sophie gets “more treats than she probably should.” Abbott recommended reading labels for calorie count.
“Dry food has more calories than wet food because of the carbohydrates added,” he explained.
Jerard, Sophie, and Shadow then left to pay their bill and go home.
Loss of a pet
The “old” side of the clinic held evidence of its history: the original beams, wood paneling, and twin fireplaces. In this section are the doctor's offices, the business office, and the main staff room.
The staff room mantelpiece supports a row of elegant black paper bags containing solitary white silk flowers and the ashes of deceased pets. They sit beneath a portrait of a “well-loved former pet client.”
“It's part of our day,” Jacobs said matter-of-factly of the reality of pets dying. “Some of the owners want their pets cremated. These are their ashes.”
When a pet gets old or sick, she said, “It's a joint decision.”
“We go over the end of life options and discuss quality of life from the pet's point of view,” she added.
Jacobs said this may be one of the more emotional aspects of daily routine at the clinic “simply because of the lifespan of pets to humans. There's no way to avoid loss [as a pet owner]. They're going to lose [at least one pet] at some point.”
“I tell my clients that the pet will tell you when its time. It's a look in the pet's eye.” Jacobs said. The decision to euthanize is often difficult for the owners, but she reported that many people tell her they wish they had put their pets down sooner.
“Each pet is different though,” she added. “The owner will get a sense the pet is no longer enjoying life.”
Moving on, Jacobs shows a lab where basic tests on blood and chemistries can be done in-house.
“For the more serious tests, we can overnight them, and can get the results back the next day,” Jacobs said.
The newer section of the clinic houses kennels for animals that are recovering from surgeries or need medication while an owner is out of town.
A large kennel space in the back is rarely used.
Other amenities include a surgery facility and a large suite for pet maintenance that houses a digital X-ray machine that can be read from a computer screen. A large equine room sits at the end of the building where two stalls can take horses that need to come to the clinic for treatment, as well as a smaller stall that allows the vet to work on the animal without risk of being kicked.
“We're about as far as we can go [on the footprint of the property] in terms of expansion. We have plenty of room for all [six] of us to work now,” Jacobs said.
A trip to the farm
Doctors with human patients may no longer make house calls, but for veterinarians, it's a big part of the job.
“We do a fair amount of house calls,” Jacobs said. “It's just easier for us to go to some pets than for the pet to come us.”
On this day, Jacobs ventured to Dummerston to administer spring shots.
Client Michelle Grover and her husband ride their horses on trails. “We go all over,” Grover said. “We just meet up with other trail riders and ride together.”
Grover said they were headed to Salisbury Beach in Massachusetts but, before they crossed state lines, the horses had to be tested for the mosquito-borne disease Equine and Infectious Anemia.
Additional vaccines for Eastern and Western equine encephalitis, West Nile virus, tetanus and rabies were also on the “to do” list for three of Grover's horses.
While Grover held and soothed each animal, Jacobs checked each horse's mouth, explaining that because horses chew in a circular motion, their back teeth tend to develop sharp points.
Jacobs traced back to the furthest teeth on the outside of the horse's skull, saying that as horses naturally grind their teeth down, they have “constantly erupting” teeth, meaning they continue to grow down into the mouth. That means that every year, the teeth need to be inspected and “floated,” or smoothed down.
Grover explained how practiced hands avoid being bitten: “There's a section of the horse's mouth that doesn't have any teeth.”
One of Grover's horses has melanoma, a condition that is commonly found on “grays” – horses that are born solid brown, chestnut, or black, and gradually turn white as they grow older.
Grover opted to vaccinate the dogs while Jacobs was visiting, and led the way to the house where Emma and Sophie, two small Shih Tzu-Bichon Frise mix dogs, were waiting. With Grover assisting, Jacobs examined the dogs and administered rabies shots.
Afterward, Grover followed Jacobs to her vehicle where the clinic's computerized medical system allowed her to enter the entire morning's medical data, and generate a bill from a battery-operated printer nestled in amongst her mobile veterinary tools and supplies in the back of her car.
For Jacobs, it was just another day out of the office.