Never Turn Your Back on an Angus Cow: My Life as a Country Vet - Softcover

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A native of The Netherlands, Dr. Jan Pol has been a practicing vet for more than 35 years. He lives in Weidman, Michigan with his wife, two horses, two dogs, five cats, five peacocks, two doves, about 25 chickens, and who knows how many fish.
 
David Fisher is the author or co-author of 18 New York Times bestsellers, among them collaborations with New York Giants coach Tom Coughlin, entertainers George Burns, Leslie Nielsen, and Wil­liam Shatner; and Nobel Prize–winning biochemist Kary Mullis. He lives in New York.

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The star of The Incredible Dr. Pol shares his amusing, and often poignant, tales from his four decades as a vet in rural Michigan.



Dr. Jan Pol is not your typical veterinarian. Born and raised the Netherlands on a dairy farm, he is the star of Nat Geo Wild's hit show The Incredible Dr. Pol and has been treating animals in rural Michigan since the 1970s. Dr. Pol's more than 20,000 patients have ranged from white mice to 2600-pound horses and everything in between.



From the time he was twelve years old and helped deliver a litter of piglets on his family's farm to the incredible moments captured on his hit TV show, Dr. Pol has amassed a wealth of stories of what it's like caring for this menagerie of animals. He shares his own story of growing up surrounded by animals, training to be a vet in the Netherlands, and moving to Michigan to open his first practice in a pre fab house. He has established himself as an empathetic yet no-nonsense vet who isn't afraid to make the difficult decisions in order to do what's best for his patients―and their hard-working owners. A sick pet can bring heartache, but a sick cow or horse could threaten the very livelihood of a farmer whose modest profits are dependent on healthy livestock.



Reminiscent of the classic books of James Herriot, Never Turn Your Back on an Angus Cow is a charming, fascinating, and funny memoir that will delight animal lovers everywhere.

Aus dem Klappentext

Born and raised in the Netherlands, Dr Jan Pol is star of the National Geographic television show The Incredible Dr. Pol. He has been treating animals in Michigan since the 1970s. His more than 20,000 patients have ranged from white mice to horses and everything in between. In Never Turn Your Back On An Angus Cow, Dr Pol shares his own story of growing up surrounded by animals, training to be a vet in the Netherlands and moving to Michigan to open his first practice.

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Open Your Mouth and Say Moo

WHY I BECAME A VET

When I was in veterinary school in the Netherlands in the 1960s, a farmer brought a cow to our clinic. “My cow is not eating,” he told us, “and she is not making manure.” We were all very confident students. We could diagnose everything and fix anything. So we examined this cow and discovered she had a fever, her stomach was not working, and she clearly was in some pain. All of those symptoms pointed toward hardware, meaning that the cow had swallowed a piece of metal, and then when her stomach contracted, that metal went through the wall of the stomach, causing the pain. This is very common; cows are indiscriminate eaters. A cow will eat anything you put in front of her, and too often there are little pieces of metal lying around the farmyard.

We had a brand-new X-ray machine at the college. Our professors were proud of this because it allowed us to see what was going on inside the animal. This X-ray capability was going to change veterinary medicine; it was going to make us all smarter and better animal doctors. After we diagnosed this cow with hardware, we sent her to the new X-ray department. The X-ray came back negative. “No metal in this cow,” we were told. “Look again,” our professors told us. “She does not have hardware.”

So then we examined this cow again. Same thing: elevated temperature, stomach’s not working, pain. Diagnosis: hardware. We sent her back to the X-ray department and got the same result: “There is no metal in this cow.” So the professors put her in the stable to see what would happen. And what happened was that she died. So then they sent this cow to pathology: There was the stomach, the heart, the lungs, on a table. And they said to us, “Take a look at this.” And that cow had hardware.

Except that it wasn’t metal, which was why that expensive X-ray machine didn’t pick it up. It was a broom bristle six inches long. That cow had swallowed it and it had punctured the stomach wall and was going into the heart, and it had killed the cow. If we had listened to what that cow was telling us—Hey, I got some hardware inside my stomach—we would have done surgery, opened up the stomach, taken out the broom bristle, closed up the stomach, and given her some antibiotics, and she would have been fine.

So I learned how to be a hands-on veterinarian, an old-style vet. I use all the wonderful machines we have and I pay attention to what the animal’s owner tells me, but mostly I look at the animal; I put my hands on the animal and I listen to what that animal is telling me. I have been practicing animal medicine for nearly a half century; I’ve treated just about every type of creature you can imagine, from a white mouse to a twenty-six-hundred-pound horse, and I’ve discovered that the longer I have been in practice, the smarter the animals have gotten!

I have spent my whole life being with animals, as a vet and as an owner. Until they start inventing new animals, I think I can say there isn’t a type of animal I haven’t looked in the eyes and wondered how it was feeling. My wife, Diane, and I once estimated that I’ve handled more than a half-million patients, without one of them ever complaining about me! In 2009 my son, Charles, who had moved to Hollywood to be in the entertainment industry, thought that people might be interested in a television reality show about a farm vet. I asked him who he thought would be interested in watching an old man who speaks with a funny accent putting his hand up the back end of a cow.

“You’d be surprised,” he said.

“Yes, I would,” I agreed.

“Everybody likes animals,” he explained. “Every day in the practice is very different,” he said. “You’re dealing with life and death all the time and doing it with patients who can’t tell you where it hurts. And unlike most city vets, you also have to consider the economic impact on the farmer’s business. Besides,” he added, “you’re a character.”

I didn’t know if your son calling you a character was a compliment. But when he also pointed out that we would be telling the story of American farmers in the Midwest, that got me intrigued. I come from a farming family, I know how difficult that life can be, and I know that is a story very much worth telling. So I agreed to let his camera crew follow our staff for a few days, still wondering if anyone was going to watch.

It turned out Diane and I raised a smart son.

When I opened my practice outside the small town of Weidman, Michigan—which is about twelve miles from the larger and better known Mount Pleasant—in 1981, it was about 80 percent large animals, farm animals, and about 20 percent pets. It was mostly family dairy farms when we started, with several pig farmers. We took care of all their animals. But those family farms are mostly gone now; instead, we have the big concerns that supply to the chain stores, and they have their own vets. The workhorses are mostly gone too, and there are no more pig farmers. I remember that not too long after Diane and I moved to Mount Pleasant, I got a call from a farmer named Don Hatfield. Don and his brother had just taken over their uncle’s dairy farm in Mecosta County, and they needed help with a calving. “We’re having trouble getting the calf out of the cow,” he said in his wonderfully deep voice I got to know so well. When we started talking, Don admitted he didn’t know much about dairying because his uncle, who had recently died, had taken care of the cows. So I spent quite a bit of time with at the farm, helping them out, teaching them how to care for their livestock. Don’s family had been on the land a long time; that barn was just about one hundred years old. He was a wonderful man whose real passion was the history of this part of central Michigan. He interviewed all the old-timers and then compiled thick books telling the story of this area. Don did okay on the farm for a long time; then he more or less retired and sold the cows. When Don quit the barn I went over there and picked up some things I found lying around that I still have, like porcelain mineral cups for the cows. “Take whatever you want,” Don told me. I still hear that beautiful grumble of his voice in my head.

The next thing I knew, the farm was sold to a potato farmer, who dug a big hole and pushed the beautiful old stone house and the barn into it and covered them up. I drove by the place once and stopped to take a good look, and I couldn’t even tell where the house and barn had been. All that was left standing was the electrical pole with a transformer. I just sat there for a little while staring sadly at that field and remembering the people who had once been there. A hundred years of farming history pushed into a hole.

Now my practice is about 60 percent small animals. There are basically three classes of animals: farm animals, work animals, and pets. There is obviously a big difference between them; the relationship between the farmer and his animals is based on economics. These animals are the farmer’s livelihood. The relationship between pet owners and their animals is based on love. That difference doesn’t matter at all to me; I treat all animals with the same concern.

I love animals; believe me, I don’t remember a day of my life that I haven’t loved animals. My whole family has always been comfortable with all kinds of animals. My mother used to tell us a story about her grandfather, who was said to be able to hypnotize animals. In his town in the Netherlands there was a butcher who had a big, mean German...