The Travelling Vet

17

KANGAROO

‘I have no fear of losing my life – if I have to save a koala or a crocodile or a kangaroo or a snake, mate, I will save it.’

Steve Irwin

It had been one of those nights on call when sleep had eluded me, not due to insomnia, but a flurry of calls. It had started just as I was sitting down to a TV dinner at about 9 p.m. A limping cat was apparently loose in the local Tesco store, and no one could catch it. Two hours later, the hunt that had taken me down several food aisles and out into the storeroom, now culminated in a stand-off under a Portakabin behind the back of the store. By this time the cat was far too stressed, agitated and scared to let me catch her without a fight. I attempted to crawl underneath the building to retrieve her while trying to avoid the hisses and swipes being aimed in my general direction, but failed miserably. I concluded that setting a trap would be our best hope. Once caught, her sore leg could be assessed and treated, before hopefully being reunited with her owner.

Then there had been Mrs Jones, who phoned at 2 a.m. about her itchy dog. Dermatologists happily admit that one of the reasons they choose that speciality is because skin problems are rarely an emergency, so you can understand my sense-of-humour failure on losing precious sleep to see a dog with fleas. Despite my gentle, drowsy attempts to persuade the owner that it could wait till the morning, she remained unconvinced and insisted I saw Bessie, her little West Highland White Terrier, in person. So I dutifully dragged myself out of bed on a cold November night to administer the most expensive flea treatment in history. Then, at 6 a.m. that morning, I received one of the most bizarre phone calls of my career.

‘Hello, is that the vet’s?’ said the voice on the other end of the phone as I fumbled for my bedside light.

‘Yes, this is Jon, the vet on call, how can I help you?’ I said, trying not to sound as sleepy and bleary-eyed as I felt.

‘Ah, good, thanks … Well, sir, it’s my pufferfish, you see, he’s floating around the top of his tank all … well, puffed up, but not like normal, like. He’s on his side and I don’t know what’s wrong with him, but he’s definitely not right.’

‘Sorry, did you say your pufferfish isn’t very well?’ I asked.

‘Yes, my pufferfish. He’s in a really bad way, I think he might be on the way out. Can you take a look at him?’

Believe me, trying to sound intelligent, logical, knowledgeable at the same time as offering sane, wise advice at 6 a.m., when you’ve just been abruptly woken from a deep sleep is hard at the best of times, but when the subject matter involves one of the 8.7 million species that had bypassed our veterinary curriculum, I failed pretty miserably.

‘Do you want a visit or will you bring him into the surgery?’ I asked.

‘Um … he’s in a 6-foot tank, so I think you’d best come out to the house,’ he replied, his tone reflecting the stupidity of my question.

‘Ah, yes, of course,’ I replied rather sheepishly. ‘And whereabouts are you?’

‘At home,’ he said.

This was not going well.

‘Sorry, I mean where do you live?’

‘Oh, I see, West Brom, near the footie ground. Do you want the postcode?’

‘That’s great, thanks,’ I said, noting it down. ‘So did you just find him like this today?’

‘Yeah, he’s been fine. I mean, he puffs up when things startle him, but that’s usual for ’em, but he’s been doing it a lot more recently. I’m not sure he can control it like he used to – either that or he’s just getting a bit jumpy in his old age. I’ve had him six years, so he’s getting on for a puffer. Real character he is, though, I’ll be sad to see him go, but I gotta do what’s best for him, ain’t I. I’m on earlies this week so went to feed them as usual when I woke up, and there he was, all puffed up and on his side, real sad to see.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that. You got quite a few, then?’

‘Oh yes, love ’em, such characters … Anyway, you gonna come out and see him or what? I mean, I doubt there’s much that can be done, but I can’t see him suffer, you know what I mean?’

‘I’ll be with you in about half an hour.’

I lay in bed for a moment processing the call. Was I really just about to go and see a pufferfish, somewhere near West Bromwich Albion’s home ground? Even as I thought about it, it sounded completely absurd. But my client was genuinely concerned, so I dragged myself out of bed, dressed and set off.

Unfortunately, the pufferfish had indeed been beyond veterinary intervention, and so with the help of a bottle of euthanasia liquid, I had humanely decreased the global pufferfish population by one. Heading straight back to the practice, I made it by just after 8.30 a.m., feeling fairly awake and chipper, despite my sleep deprivation, though with the prospect of a whole day’s consulting in front of me, I knew I would fade fast. It was going to have to be a multiple coffee and tea day.

I managed the first two hours without too much problem – the usual routines, with a couple of patients that needed admitting for some further investigation, blood tests, or to go on fluids, that sort of thing – but I was starting to flag, so welcomed the cup of tea that Lucy brought me at eleven in between patients. Taking a brief moment’s respite to savour it, I scanned through the rest of the appointments on my morning list. The gap that had existed at 11.50 a.m. was now occupied by our client, Rich, from the local zoo. He was bringing in an eleven-month-old grey kangaroo joey called Kevin that had a snotty nasal discharge and runny eyes. A kangaroo with a cold: this was rapidly becoming one of the odder twenty-four hours of my career.

By the time Kevin’s appointment came around, I was really struggling. After a long night on call, with little sleep or sustenance, and tired at the end of a full morning’s consulting, I was all too conscious I wasn’t functioning at my peak. I called Rich into the consulting room. He came in with a young assistant, the two of them sharing the load of a large animal-carrier, which only just squeezed through the consulting-room door.

Rich was in his late twenties, about 6 foot tall, of medium build, with long blond dreadlocks that he wore in a pony tail, and multiple facial piercings. He wore black cargo trousers and a green polo shirt emblazoned with the zoo’s logo. He was the senior keeper, and as such I had dealt with him several times before and had grown to respect him immensely. He had an intimate knowledge of the zoo’s collection, always knowing an animal’s age, as well as its medical history. He took great pleasure in researching and staying up to speed with all the latest ideas and thoughts on an animal’s diet, enrichment and habitat. His special affinity, though, was for primates, and he had often come in with a little marmoset or tamarin on his shoulder.

‘Morning, Jon,’ he said cheerily now. ‘You look terrible. Late night, was it?’

‘Don’t ask. I was on call last night – it was a long one. Anyway, nice to see you, Rich. How are things?’

‘I wish I could say the same, but it’s never nice to see you. Nothing personal, of course, but it always means one of ours is sick. Today it’s this little fella, a joey we’re rearing. We didn’t realize his mum had had him until a couple of months ago, obviously he was hidden away in her pouch. Anyway, judging by the size of him, he’s a foot tall, we reckon he’s about eleven months old. He’s seemed fine since we first spotted him, but Tim here –’ he nodded at the young chap who had helped carry in the box – ‘said that he noticed Kevin had a bit of a snotty nose yesterday. It seems much worse today and he isn’t too interested in his breakfast.’

‘That’s right,’ said Tim. ‘He was fine in himself yesterday, but just seems a bit quieter today.’

‘I wanted you to check him out before he got any worse,’ continued Rich. ‘He’s a particular favourite now with the staff, you know, being a surprise and all – everyone’s taken to him, the cheeky chappie that he is. Aren’t you, Kevin?’ he added, speaking to the crate. There was a thud from inside as Kevin stamped the floor in protest at his temporary incarceration.

‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘Well, let’s have a look at him.’ I bent down and began to open his cage, as I would with any other pet carrier a client had brought in.

This was an exhausted lapse of my exhausted thinking, however, and ran counter to all the usual protocols that Rich and I had established when dealing with zoo animals. My actions so surprised him that he was too slow to respond.

‘Oh, careful Jon, he’s a live wire, this one!’ was all he could muster as I undid the latch on the box and gently opened the door, allowing Kevin a brief glimpse of freedom as he pushed his nose through the small gap. Then, with a massive spring, he powered himself forward. I was caught completely off guard, and in an instant Kevin the kangaroo had barged his way out the box before I had a chance to stop him.

If he had just stopped there, or if the back door of my consulting room, which led into the pharmacy, had been shut, then it wouldn’t have been too much of an issue, but unfortunately neither of these was the case. Having been cooped up for half an hour, Kevin obviously decided he needed to stretch his legs, and in two hops he had disappeared into the pharmacy, from which, moments later, a catastrophic clattering emerged. I scrambled to my feet and hared after him, Rich and Tim close on my heels. Entering the pharmacy, we saw the trail of destruction that Kevin had wreaked through the corridor – boxes and bottles of drugs, bandage material, scissors, forceps and all the other equipment that had been neatly laid out on the pharmacy work surface now lay strewn all over the floor as we continued in our pursuit. The path Kevin was taking through the practice was now leading him into the prep room, and once again the door that could have helpfully blocked his progress stood open. Bounce, bounce, bounce – he was through the door and round the corner and into the prep room. Where complete and utter chaos ensued.

Two of my colleagues were busy preparing an anaesthetic procedure for the last operation of the morning. Hannah had just brought through the patient, a little dachshund who was having a lump removed, and was settling her on the table, where Gavin was just checking he had everything he needed. Meanwhile, in the corner of the room, Lucy and Jess were kneeling with one of the patients I had earlier admitted, a large German shepherd, into whose leg they were just about to insert a catheter to put him on intravenous fluids.

It was into this calm and busy scene that Kevin hopped, with me, Rich and Tim hot on his tail. The first reaction came from the German shepherd, who barked furiously and lunged forward, knocking Jess off balance, pushing Lucy to the side, and scattering their equipment everywhere. Fortunately, the German shepherd was restrained by a lead attached to a wall hook so his range was impeded, otherwise the chase would have been on and we would have met Kevin retreating towards us in panic. Instead, what happened was that Kevin was so startled by the sudden shock and aggression that greeted him that he hopped onto the prep-room table, which startled the daylights out of the dachshund, who now enthusiastically added her high-pitched yapping to the chorus of disapproval. Finding no safe haven, Kevin bounced onto the side work surface, where an array of surgical instruments lay drying on a towel, having been washed after use that morning. Slipping on the towel, Kevin sent the instruments flying in all directions, which of course panicked him still further.

This almighty commotion brought Jane running from reception. Bursting through the door, she held it wide open and, utterly speechless, her mouth wide open, eyes out on stalks, began to take in the chaotic scene – thus providing Kevin with the only means of escape at his disposal. Panicked by barking dogs, instruments falling all around him and feeling trapped, he hopped off the table and flew like a whirlwind through the door into reception.

It was at this point that we got our lucky break: there were no clients waiting in reception, the front door was shut, and Kevin decided to hop past the counter towards it, inadvertently cornering himself. A moment of calm descended – though if a new client should happen to walk in at that moment, chaos would come again. With one bound, Kevin could have been out the front door and free, and I doubt we would ever have seen him again. I shuddered at the thought of having to explain myself to the staff of the zoo.

After a few minutes, though, Kevin stopped bouncing around, unsure where to go or what to do next, and simply stood in the middle of the room, assessing his unfamiliar environment.

At which point Rich took control. ‘Tim,’ he whispered. ‘Pop back into the consulting room, will you, and get some of that fruit we put in the box with him.’

Moments later, Tim returned with a handful of mixed chopped-up fruit.

‘Good lad,’ Rich said, throwing the first piece in Kevin’s direction. The incoming projectile caught Kevin’s attention and he took a few steps to investigate it. The realization that it was food delighted him, and he picked it up, rapidly devoured it, then looked around for more. Rich threw a second piece, slowly creeping forward as he did so. ‘Stay there,’ he whispered to us. ‘Too many of us will frighten him.’

By this time Kevin had located the source of the food, and after gulping down the second piece, he took a couple of steps in Rich’s direction. Rich met Kevin halfway with the third piece, and that was enough to re-establish the bond of trust and friendship between them. Holding out his hand with the remaining pieces of fruit, Kevin bounded over and started helping himself. When he was holding the last one between his two paws, Rich was able to pick him up with minimal resistance and carry him back to my consulting-room table.

‘Now … where were we?’ he enquired jovially.

Relieved that the ordeal was over, I quickly reverted to professional mode and started my examination.

‘It looks to me like a simple upper respiratory infection,’ I concluded after completing my inspection. ‘Mind you, you wouldn’t realize it from what’s just happened. I fear this little escapade won’t have helped it, though, so I think we’d best start him on a course of antibiotics.’

‘Right you are. What form will they be in?’ he asked, as he and Tim gingerly returned Kevin to his container. ‘Are you done with him?’

‘Yeah, thanks. Liquid form – you should be able to syringe it into his food.’

‘Great, that’s what we normally do.’

I calculated the appropriate dose, printed off a label, and went to find the bottle from the carnage-strewn floor in the pharmacy.

‘Thanks, Jon. Hopefully this’ll do the trick. See you again – though hopefully not too soon,’ said Rich, as he and Tim carried Kevin out of the room. ‘Oh, and Jon?’ he added. ‘Do us a favour?’

He paused as I wandered back into reception after him.

‘What’s that?’ I asked.

‘Get some sleep.’

Kangaroos: fast facts

Macropus giganteus: The eastern grey kangaroo

Distribution: Southern and Eastern Australia; Queensland, NSW, Victoria and Tasmania.

Names: A male is called a ‘buck’, a female a ‘doe’, and the young a ‘joey’. A group of kangaroos is called a ‘mob’.

Life span: 8–12 years.

Habitat: Woodlands or forests by day, and grasslands or scrublands by night.

Diet: Kangaroos are nocturnal and crepuscular herbivorous grazers, favouring grasses, in particular the young green shoots, which are highest in protein, though they will also eat a range of other plants.

Gestation: 36 days, after which the joey takes an incredible journey to migrate into the pouch where it attaches onto a teat and lives for a further 9 months.

Weight: A mere 0.8 grams at birth, reaching 42–85 kg as adults.

Growth: At 9 months a joey will start to leave the pouch for short periods; at 11 months they leave the pouch completely, but still suckle till 18 months, when they are fully weaned. Females are sexually mature by about 22 months, and males at 25 months.

Body temperature: 36.2–37.3 °C.

Interesting facts: The eastern grey is the fastest of all kangaroos, able to travel up to 40 mph. Females tend to be permanently pregnant, mating soon after a joey has migrated into the pouch. Although during time of drought or food shortage, males won’t produce sperm and females will go into embryonic diapause, in good seasons it is quite possible for a female to have 3 offspring at once, all at different stages: one joey out of the pouch nursing, one in the pouch nursing, and one foetus in arrested development, waiting for the pouch to be vacated. A female is also able to produce two different types of milk simultaneously to meet the requirements of each joey.

Conservation: The eastern grey kangaroo is now protected by law in Australia, after a period of prolific hunting when Europeans first settled in Australia. Estimates in 2010 put their population at 11 million across Australia, one of the most numerous of all marsupials, and the IUCN do not consider it to be of concern. In fact in some areas they are so numerous that they need to be culled as part of a population control programme to minimize disease and starvation within these groups. However, many other species within Australia are not as fortunate, with over 1,700 species of animals and plants in Australia threatened with extinction, which is why the work of the Australian Wildlife Conservancy is so vitally important: www.australianwildlife.org.