Texas Equine Veterinary Association

www.texasequineva.com • Page 31 The directions I held in my hand were leading me into a residential area in Lubbock, Texas. That would not have been a big deal were it not for the fact that I was on my way to see to a new client—a horse. I figured people in an urban neighborhood were as likely to know as much about horses as I knew about submarines. The plan was to call the client and tell him when I would arrive so he could meet me. I would palpate his horse to see if she was pregnant. It turned out that he had an appointment and could not be there, which left me alone to catch and palpate a perfect stranger's horse. I did not like how this was going. I arrived at a brick home with a large backyard. A row of eight-foot-tall sheds separated the yard from the horses in the lot next door. I had been instructed to pull into the alley and enter through the back gate. I was also told that a halter would be tied to the fence and there were stocks where I could restrain the mare to palpate her. Of course, I could not locate the stocks, and the only thing tied to the fence was a lead rope. To make matters worse, there were four horses in the round pen. Have you ever tried to catch one of four horses that are running around a circular track? It's pretty much impossible; they stayed on the opposite side of that round pen no matter what I did. So, I did what any industrious vet would do: I set about building a barrier that would stop them. It took about fifteen minutes of Aggie ingenuity, but I managed it. I finally got them cornered and picked out the only mare in the bunch. She was a wild thing! I got the lead rope around her neck, only to find that she didn't like that at all! She reared and pitched a fit. As I tried to calm her, I heard a voice from the adjoining backyard: "Hello?" The voice was a welcome melody at a trying moment. I began to reply in a fervent tone. "Yes, I'm Dr. Brock, and I'm here to palpate this mare. Could you please tell me where a halter might be?" I was speaking in a tone somewhere between yelling and civil conversation. I meant to be polite yet convey a sense of aggravation over the unorganized state in which I found myself. "Hello?" was all I got in response. I started analyzing the voice to see if I could get an idea of who might be beckoning me. The tone sounded a bit like an older woman wondering who was in the yard chasing the horses. I changed my tone a bit, adding a little more volume and a little more respect. "Yes, I'm Dr. Brock, and I have come to see if this mare is pregnant. I was told there were stocks around here that I could use to restrain her. Do you know where the rest of this halter is?" Several minutes of silence passed, making me to wonder just how old this woman might be. In my mind I pictured a gray-haired woman inching across the yard with her walker, trying to adjust her hearing aid, wondering who was kicking up all the dust. I decided to raise my volume a little more and add more respect. "Yes, I'm Dr. Brock, and I was needing—" BO BROCK, DVM, DABVP From "Crowded in the Middle of Nowhere" written by TEVA Founding Member and Current Vice President, Bo Brock, DVM, DABVP. Available for purchase on Amazon. THE MYSTERY Before I could get any more words out, I heard a remark that made me wonder if the old lady might be getting a bit senile. "Well, my stars!" What on earth does that mean? It seemed like a poor conversational placement for those words. My grandmothers always used nonsensical; expressions like that—things like "land o' Goshen" and "well, forevermore." They said phrases such as, "well, for Pete's sake" and "for the love of Pete." (Who the heck is Pete, anyway?) This further raised my suspicion that the speaker must be an old woman. I decided to tie the horse to the fence and speak to this woman face to face. But there was no one in the yard. No one! There were no footprints in the dirt, no evidence of anyone with a walker. The back door was locked tight, and no one was visible through the back windows. Was I was dreaming? Losing my mind? Hearing things? Was someone deliberately messing with me? That'd be a pretty mean joke to play on a vet you've never met before. Just as I was about to reach the end of the row of sheds and return to the lot full of horses, I heard the voice again: "Hello?" It was that moment that I realized it was originating in a thicket of trees in the opposite corner of the lot. I made my way over and parted the vegetation. And, there she was. Not the little old lady I expected, but a large blue macaw parrot. I had just carried on a twenty-minute conversation with a bird. I quickly scanned the area to make sure no one had just seen or heard me make an idiot of myself. After I recovered from my humiliation, I found the stocks and managed to get the mare into them. She was in foal. Having done my job, I promptly got out of there before someone showed up and that bird told him how dumb the new veterinarian was. I have never been able to do this story justice in retelling it. When I figured out what had just happened, I laughed hysterically as I gawked at that dang bird. I have rewritten this story four times trying to convey the emotion I went through to anyone who might read it. I don't think I'll ever get it right. When you spend twenty minutes believing that you are conversing with a human only to find out that you have been talking to a bird, it's kinda like stepping off a curb, stumbling, then recovering, only to play it off as you scan around to make sure no one witnessed your blunder.

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