Top 3 reasons to never start a blog

Greetings friends!

Here are the "Top 3 reasons to never start a blog"

1. It will nag at you. When you're not updating it, you will feel useless and dirty. Even if you put in the damn masthead that it's gonna be 'infrequently updated'

2. You will second guess everything you want to write about. 'Oh' I say, to no one but the voices in my head ' who is going to want to read about subject X?' And I don't write it. And then you turn around and it's two months later and you've written nada. 

3. I read an article recently that said the two best ways to drive traffic to your page were to a) have a list and b) have a negative word in your headline. I think that's hokum. But, we shall see. Numbers will be tallied. Thank you all for taking part in my experiment.

4. This is a non sequitur, but someone in Russia is reading my blog. I don't know anyone in Russia, I don't think. I don't advertise. No search engine hits. I just put the link on The Facebook. For my 42 friends.  Today's fun fact: Igor reads the blog.

OK, enough of that.
Today's post is the story of Leroy Jethro Gibbs, told in words and pictures. I know many of you have heard the tale, so if you close this window now, I shan't be offended. But I did promise a dear friend to write about how the dogs came into my life a while back, and then completely failed to do so. (See #1 above).

***************************************************

On the first of February, 2010, a certain bluetick coonhound entered my life. It was a cold and wet San Antonio winter day. Cold for Tejas anyways. I had spent all day performing surgery on military working dogs at Lackland Air Force Base. After driving crosstown back to Fort Sam Houston at about 6 o'clock at night in fabulous San Antonio traffic, we pulled up to the veterinary treatment facility. Even though the clinic had closed at 4 o'clock, there was a man sitting outside with the dog in the rain.

Even at a fair distance we could tell the dog was injured. He was 3-legged lame, which means he wasn't bearing any weight on one limb, in his case the right hind. He held it up in the air, misshapen  and balanced on three legs. It was a large swelling around his ankle and it was obviously very painful. He was emaciated; virtually every bone in his spine and rib cage could be seen from a few feet away.

The man said he found the dog eating from the dumpster behind the Burger King on base. We took the dog into the clinic and he did a quick exam, and it was obvious he had a leg fracture. X-rays also revealed that the fracture was old and had failed to heal. This dog had been running the streets for sometime, likely a few months.

Since he was a purebred coonhound, we did a scan for a microchip, but of course there wasn't any. There we were, with an unknown stray dog with a broken leg requiring surgery and the only thing I can do is provide pain medication for 72 hours and then euthanize him if he's not claimed.

But this dog is different. He has this face, with eyebrows, and expression. The eyes look right through me. He also has a great personality. He is such a nice dog. We named him Jake just to have something to call him. Before the night is over, he looks me in the eyes and says you need to keep me around doc. 

So I hatched a plan. After three days and no one came by to claim him, instead of euthanizing, we did a special mission. We performed an amputation surgery (which I called a training event for my soldiers). Training. Army loves training. Hooah! 

It's this leg, right?

I had done 2 forelimb amputations in school, but none in practice, and this was a hindlimb and a bit trickier. 
Undaunted, I and my fellow veterinarian John W. xeroxed copies of the pages describing the procedure out of the surgery textbook,  stuck 'em up on the wall in the OR & went ahead and did it.

Arteries and Veins and Nerves, Oh my!

J-Dub doin' work

After a few hours, I'm not so perky. Would have thrown something at SPC Danelli, but she was probably in middle school that year.

Post-op

Jethro! 3 days post-op. Could you say no to that face?

5 days post-op

My cat Charlie. Not a fan of the dog. Or much of anything, actually. He bit me frequently. But he was handsome. So there's that.

1 week out, unassisted walking!

He recovered quickly, and never left my side for long. We spent much of our first weekend together watching an NCIS marathon, hence the name. Jethro seems to fit a good ole Southern huntin’ dog, don’t you think?

Sunday Fun Day

We're right smack in the middle of typhoon season here in Guam. That usually means buckets of rain falling out of the sky at the worst possible moment, flash floods, heavy winds & rough seas. In general, it's pretty craptastic.


What you may not know is I live on the side of a cliff, therefore massive amounts of rainwater runoff flow down the streets like rivers. That combined with the constant high humidity leads to exuberant growth of mold on streets, & on any surface exposed to the elements. As you might imagine, having two lame dogs in this environment ( slippery steep hills ) can lead to ass busting on a regular basis.


But this post isn't about that. That was just some local color as to what's going on out in there in my world.


So, last night around 10 o'clock we went out for the end of day dog urination show. I typically only put a harness on Jethro, as he doesn't listen, and Nouska is under voice command and doesn't stray very far. Although Nouska was a working dog, maybe because she was working dog, she doesn't get emotionally wild when confronted by random dog to dog interactions. Which is good because lots of stray dogs and semi-owned dogs and feral dogs roam wild here, and have aggressively approached her.


Virtually nothing gets Nouska excited, except cats. Last night we are all outside enjoying their urination before bedtime, Nouska spotted a cat in the neighbor's garage and tore off after it. Next thing you know, sounds of tools and crap being knocked off shelves, the cat screaming and Nouska is trying to jump up and get this cat, who is on a shelf somewhere in the back of the garage.


Well, the cat escaped unharmed, & we came back home. That's when I noticed that Nouska was leaving a bloody paw print wherever she walked.









Further inspection revealed a small laceration to her digital pad. But actually it's at the interface of the pad and the haired skin right under the nail. Basically, she ran into something sharp. I performed some quick hemostasis, cleaned it up and decided to wait till morning to see how much of a problem we had. Well it's a pretty good laceration – and it opens up when she walks, so, on to Plan B: I have to actually take action.








Yeah, it doesn't look impressive, but when it's your kid...




I had the phone a friend network activated and asked several veterinarians what they thought of this particular injury. I got some good ideas,rolled out to the VTF, picked up some supplies & made my way back here.









I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a box of drugs todayyyy




Clipped and cleaned with chlorhexidine, put in two skin sutures ( I wanted to do intradermal but there was no way I was gonna make that happen ) And, just cause I'm a glutton for punishment, I went ahead and wrapped it all up.








Clip

                                                        Clean (Quick? what quick?)








I'm 87% pleased with this closure





2 toenails :)



Now the wrapping is basically just to keep mud out of it for the rest the day. But honestly, it's going to get wet and even if it didn't, it will be ingested if I leave it on overnight, so I'll unwrap tonight and re-wrap in the AM, hopefully she won't chew the stitches out! I hit her with some more sedation meds--on top of the local, so she's kind of sleeping it off, a good hour and a half after the 'procedure.'





Zzzzzzzzzz



Which reminds me, a friend recently asked how I came to have these two dogs in my life. I know most of you probably know the stories, but I will go ahead and and share them here--"Why they're my dogs" will be the next couple of posts over the rest of the weekend. Hope everybody is doing well and that's it for today!

My car smells like the necropsy floor, and other smart things I did this week.

Once in a while, I’m stumped by a case. (Shocking!)
True story. It may also surprise you that I ask for help when lost (in medicine, not directions, c’mon get serious) and had the great pleasure of working with a very bright colleague for the last 2 years. Let’s call him CPT K.
(see what I did there?)

Often we would bounce cases off each other and discuss diagnosis and treatment plans and basically get better at the practice of medicine. One of the banes of my existence, along with ophthalmology and tact, is my ability to interpret radiographs, or as my non-vet peeps say X-rays. 
CPT K & I conferred regularly over rads and shared our thoughts about what the squiggles and shades of grey meant. (Anyone thinking about that quasi porn-for-women book can please, show yourself out)

Since CPT K left, I’ve been bereft of a second set of eyes on X-rays, and have had to make do. Haven’t killed anything, well, nothing dies in radiology anyway, but what I’ve had to look at has been straightforward. 

I had a situation arise where I wanted another vet to look at some rads....I had the great/awful idea to crowd source reading the rads to my Facebook friends. 

I was ‘emotionally compromised’ in this case as it is my dog, the lovely retired working dog Nouska. 

She’s retired for a reason.  More on that in a second. Since many friends know something about Nouska I decided to give minimal information with the pictures. To be truly scientific, I should have given no information. Just look at these---what seems abnormal??




But I kept it uber basic. And luckily several friends responded. And some of those responses left me scratching my hairless head. But I digress, here is the full rundown of this patient, for the six of you still following the story. 

Nouska is a 6 or 7-ish yo FS Belgian Malinois, former EDD for the Navy. She was retired in April 2013 for the following laundry list of badness: 

1. Marked bilateral hindlimb ataxia/CP deficits/LS pain.
2. Radiographic changes (CT as read by boarded radiologist)
1. Severe diffuse thoracolumbar and lumbrosacral spine degenerative changes with foraminal narrowing at L6-7 and L7-S1. Compressive radiculopathy secondary to osseous changes at L6-7 (L6 nerve root) an the left and L7-S1 (L7 nerve root) bilaterally.
2. Articular facet OA/DJD, most severe at L3-4, L5-6, & L6-7
3. Bilateral sacroiliac joint enthesopathy and OA/DJD
4. Ligament dystrophic mineralization or IVD disc degeneration at T10-11 and L6-7 without evidence of IVD protrusion

For the lay person, a LOT of arthritis in the back, and ‘pinched’ nerve roots, causing pain and a lack of function in the muscles that control how the legs move. 

Her retirement has been mostly without incident. She is on a buffet of drugs (below) and she has been active and happy. A couple of months ago, I noticed a quarter-sized (3cm²) firm, raised mass on her chest. She was due for a dental cleaning, so while she was under for her teeth, I removed the mass and sent it off for Pathology. It was read as a Grade 2 MCT-low grade. So it could spread, but not likely. Local recurrence was possible, but my margins were clean. 

So far so good, but in early August, she started to lose energy rapidly on walks. We walk at a very moderate pace due to hills and humidity here. Jethro sprints everywhere, but since I believe Nouska to be closer to 8 or 9 years old than 6 and her back end is mush, we take it easy. Still, she was quitting and lying down more and more on walks. And it wasn’t behavioral. Her respiration rate was elevated, but HR and Temp were normal. 

She progressed rapidly from lying down once every few walks, to once per walk, to several breaks per walk over the course of 3 weeks. Being Dad, I’m thinking the worst; Being a logical Vet, I scheduled her for full workup. 

Did she have tumors in her lungs? Maybe in her liver, affecting her diaphragm? Had her back gotten so much worse over a few months? Were we playing too hard? 
So many questions...so we loaded up in my new-to-me car that doesn’t have a name yet, and drove up to Andersen AFB. (my clinic doesn’t have X-ray processing at the moment.) 
We did a 3-view chest series to look for tumors, 2 abdominal views for the same reason, and 2 lower spine views to see how her osteo-arthritis was progressing.

I did my survey of the pictures, but had a few question marks...I knew so much about the dog, the case, her problems, I started seeing things that weren’t there, or I saw things I expected given the history. I couldn’t look at the X-rays without my pre-conceived notions getting in the way of objectivity. Hence the crowd source idea. 

If you are reading this, you got here from my Facebook, so you can go look at the rads if you haven’t seen them. I will list her current medications:

• Rimadyl
• Tramadol
• Gabapentin
• Adequan (when available; last series in May)
• Dasuquin
• Omeprazole

Pending Lab Work from Antech: CBC/Chem/Lytes/ Baseline cortisol

And here are the responses I received from FB friends:

• Heart worms? (not a vet BTW)
• Its not a Diaphragmatic hernia? breathing difficulty, exercise intolerance, later Vomiting...???(also, not a vet)
• Splenic mass?
• I'm underwhelmed.
• EKG? PCV? BP? I think it may just be artifact but that left lung field catches my eye on the VD.
• It appears to me that the intestines are being pushed ventrally by a possible mass-
• Maybe lung lobe torsion-
• I vote heartworm also...
• Is it an MWD? SHOULDN"T be heartworm. But that's my guess
• And I'm assuming you mean besides all the SD in her spine, and the massive amount of peri-renal fat.
• Holy painful back! Poor girl 
• My two cents: worth an abdominal explore! Funky gas pattern, either ridiculously excellent contrast with abdominal fat or a possible pneumoperitoneum. I can't follow the colon all the way around, and gas that looks like cecum is on the wrong side. Spleen looks a little big, liver looks a little small. Some sort of obstruction/torsion/perforation. Exercise intolerance and tachypnea because of abdominal pain. I'm going to hit 'enter', then spend the next several hours second guessing myself and wondering if I passed my radiology exam.
• I agree the gas pattern around the pylorus seems funky but that could be because of the pexy. Heart size...eh. Do a VHS and then decide if its worth running down. An ECG is quick, plus since you're likely going to do a abdo US you could do a quick echo. How are lung/heart sounds? Dog could always have a painful lesion associated with the spine causing ex intol and tachypnea, you know with the spine radiographic signs don't always correlate with clinical signs. 

So here’s my two cents..a non-vet, and several veterinarians, went with heartworm disease, and I think it’s because of the brief history I gave. (7yo FS Belgian Malinois, hx of exercise intolerance & tachypnea). Description bias?  I was so happy to have the oncologist call the rads boring. Best news today.

My questions for y'all:

1. What are you seeing that makes you say HW dz? 
2. Same question re: splenic mass and lung lobe torsion?

I am by no means calling anybody out. This is a learning thing for me. 
NB: This dog has been gastropexied, as many working dogs have. Therefore cranial abdominal organs aren’t in the ‘normal’ locations so much. Liver is kept tucked up in the right crura by the tacked stomach, and the spleen has more space to play with on the left side.

----------------------------------

Lastly, I did a smart/stupid thing this week. As I have reported, there is a LARGE feral dog population here, commonly referred to as boonie dogs. Driving to work last week I noted a dead dog on the side of the road, HBC no doubt. A largish black dog with a white belly, no obvious wounds on my first view, but very clearly dead. I didn’t give it a lot of thought, except to notice that the dog was still almost in the road, with its head sitting on the lane line. Sure enough, next time I drove by, the head had moved due to high energy impact from a vehicle. Plus it’s Guam, so hello 90 degrees with 90% humidity. By the afternoon of day 2, I decide I’m getting the damn dog out of the road. Really don’t need to see him turning to burger little by slowly while commuting. So I pull over, hit the flashers, grab two poop bags for gloves, and prepare to drag said dog 2 feet away to the jungle edge. He’s good and bloated by this point, and foul smelling. But I expected this. I grabbed a back leg with each hand and pulled him into the tall grass, taking a quick look at his destroyed face. Said a quick prayer and was getting up to leave when I saw the red nylon collar in the grass a foot away. 

Fuck. 
Picked up collar and of course, no tags on it all. Worn, but not terribly old. This dog was owned in the recent past. Maybe up to last week. Everyone lets their dogs run loose here. So frustrated at bad owners, sad for a family that may have actually cared that the dog went missing, and a bit sick from the smell in my nose, I walked back to the car. I took the baggies off my hands and threw them on the floor of the rear seat and drove home. 
Distracted. Mad. Sad. Gross smelling. 
No wonder I forgot to throw the baggies out when I got home. My car was pretty ripe the next day I tell you what.   

Not another chicken blog

So, anyone who knew me as the next Gordon Gekko back in the day might be confused that I'm blogging about chickens most of the time these days. No one is more confused by this turn of events than yours truly.  But it's what's been going on here. So without further ado: 

Circle of life, tragedy, pathos, amputations in the field with no anesthesia, fear, doubt, and finally an ending saccharine enough for Disney to buy the rights to. 

To recap, a random hen decided to nest right outside my front door, much to the unbridled enthusiasm of my scent hound Jethro. (See previous posts if you need to catch up)

On Friday, mama hen’s eggs finally hatched, and I saw 9 little fuzzy chicks vs. the 11 or so eggs I had seen a few days earlier. I figured that was a pretty good yield (?) but I’m by no means a poultry expert.

Next morning, I see mom out and about with the kids following along and chirping; it was all very cute. Only counted 8 chicks still around, but with the snakes/dogs/cats/other chickens about, not too surprising. 

But, what I really noticed was 7 chicks (5 black, 2 white) were all bounding around close-ish to mom, and the 8th was a good deal behind, stumbling around like a drunk looking for an open diner at 4 a.m.

He was much smaller than his sibs, and on closer inspection had a gigantic right foot. My keen medical brain kicked into action and I said “Bumblefoot”. I said that for two reasons, the signs fit and it was the only bird disease I could pull out of my ass at the moment.  After a second of contemplation, I realized that was an odd disorder for a < 2 day old chick to have. I took a step closer, and, ugh, discovered the reason for the swollen foot. Chick had a compound fracture, proximal tibia, bone the size of an 18 ga. needle just sticking out. Foot hanging on by a few millimeters of skin. Little guy trying to keep up with everybody, Falling over every third step.

Oy. Decision time. Doing nothing meant that the bird would be dead in 4-24 hours, starvation, predation or septicemia, take your pick. Since it was ‘my’ bird, born in ‘my’ yard, I had to act. [Yeah, I’m an idiot like that. But if you know me, you knew that already. ]

What to do? I’m a moderately good dog doc. This patient was way out of my zone. I thought about the first vet I ever worked for, Dr. Sims, who would pin bone fractures in bats that weighed (literally) 3 grams. But he had gas anesthesia. And pins. And expertise.
I was 0-for-3 there. so....maybe a splint?

If the bird could ambulate, I figured, it could keep up with the rest, eat, drink, get stronger....ehhh, not my best idea ever, but I decided to try...
Scooped up the little guy in my baseball cap --on third attempt after playing Ole with a charging, pissed off hen twice--& Brought him inside. I did fashion a Ridiculous Chick Splint (RCS) out of a small, C-section I cut from a 3ml syringe. Taped it to his upper limb, and watched him proceed to nose plant and drag said splint behind him. FAIL. Probably a weight thing more than anything else. Shit!

What now?? While I was playing chicken doctor, Jethro decide to come over and investigate. After the 23rd time I shoed him away, I looked at his silly tripawd self and said, A-HA! That’s the ticket.

***THE NEXT PART MIGHT BE CONSIDERED GROSS BY SOME READERS************************************* SKIP DOWN TO NEXT ROW OF STARS*****************

I picked up the chick, who was a tremendous patient by the way, held 
an alcohol prep pad on the bone and stump for a few seconds, then transected the skin attachment. I think I got mostly necrotic tissue. 

My operating table. VMSB would not approve. I don't care!

   



  
Dabbed the area again, then closed the stump with tissue glue. 

The brown tape in the hat is my would-be splint. I really thought that could work. Oh well.







******************************************************************

My plan was to drop him back in the nest, easy peasy, and that’s that. ‘Cept mom and the kids had disappeared into the jungle for the night. No more nest by my front door. M'kay....

So chick got to sleep in the extra bedroom. I went on to syringe feed the chick with coconut milk overnight, cause, it’s what I had, and I told myself it was essentially Ringer’s + Dextrose. Chick was BAR and chirpy, so I did OK.

Today, I had to hope that the hen would continue to feed in my yard. Sure enough, around 8 am, I hear them outside my window. I scooped up Nemo (Yes I named him. For his lucky fin/leg. See above for discussion of how I’m an idiot) 
and went out to see if I could return him to his family group. 

First Sib to greet Nemo

After a few tense seconds, they was like peas and carrots again. He’s hopping along like a champ. So, there’s that. Odds are still significant that he will not last very long, but you can’t fight nature, only give the kids a chance.  I am pleased I was able to complete the big important step, returning him to fam. 

Nemo on the right

Everybody back to the jungle

I promise the next post will be about food or music. 

White Lies & Alibis

A bit of a psycho, ‘5 full moons in a row’ week here on Guam. 

Tough week for me to get it all down on ...well, not paper, ..on iCloud server space I suppose. 
Several emergencies of note..CPR on a cat, acute abdomen in a Mastiff, and both walked out of the clinic (Yes, I’d rather be lucky than good), but I did have a fair bit of drama outside the world of vet med yesterday, so come with me, if you will, to a small stretch of 4 lane coral/asphalt hugging the edge of Guam like a barbed wire tattoo, the road known as Marine Corps Drive, or simply Route 1. 
It is the main roadway running north-south on the island, joining a dozen villages that are home to more than 75% of the islands population. Route 1 is THE main drag. 

So, there I was, minding my own business, driving south, back to base after lunch. I was doing oh, 45-ish, which is typically the speed of traffic, regardless of the fact that the speed limit here is 35mph. All of a sudden a semi-trailer truck, which was 8-10 car lengths in front of me, veered from the right lane, nearly smashing a tiny red boonie car that was in the left lane. 
(A boonie car is a more than 10 year old, mostly rust-colored, POS)
The truck continued slicing left, through the center turn lane, into and across the two Northbound (oncoming) traffic lanes, which were luckily, unoccupied, only coming to a stop when the laws of physics said so, in the form of the steel guardrail and concrete electrical wire pole.  A violent stop to be sure.

Instinctively I pulled my truck on to the shoulder, and dashed across the road. The driver’s side fender/light/quarter panel were all pulverized, and the truck had jackknifed, cab kissing the guardrail, trailer hitch in the traffic lane, and rear of the truck also against the rail. First on the scene I was glad to see the driver was up and about, already climbing down out of the cab. He was about 50, short and fluffy, maybe Chamorro, maybe Filipino. But he was conscious and alert and already had his flip phone out. I asked him his name and was he OK?, he said Yeah, Yeah. I figured he was calling the cops, but he was calling his trucking dispatcher to report the accident. After about a minute, he started having trouble breathing, and started pacing, then dropped to his knees. I tried to get him to keep still, stay in the shade, stop moving his head, but he it was like he was on pogo stick. Adrenaline high. Until he started to dry heave. 
I took a moment to look up into the cab of the truck, and, duh, no airbag. Just a giant steering wheel. A-ha! I did some light palpation and, yep, his sternum was ummm, not quite right. I finally got him to sit down and catch his breath, sort of, as he kept becoming tachypnic, randomly. He starting going on and on about the dog that jumped out, how he hit the brakes to avoid it, and how his brakes locked up and he couldn’t control the rig. Told me the story a bunch of times over and over, rambling. I called 911 for the crash and the driver with chest pain, and waited for the ‘real’ first responders to show. 

About 12 minutes after my call, a patrol car came by, but it was just coincidence, they were driving by and stopped for the crash and proceeded to direct traffic. The car that responded to my call came a few minutes later, the ambulance 5 minutes after that. 

In the meantime, since he was alert, the cops took the driver’s statement for the record..”dog on road, swerved, brakes locked..” only stopping to interject, “Hey, if there’s a dog in the road, just run him over next time”--- Thanks Officer Guerrero for that little peek into island culture. 

Then it came time for my statement. Honestly I just wanted the damn ambulance to get there. I said yeah, it went down like he said, brakes locked etc. Finally, midday sun beating down on my head, sweat dripping, I said my goodbyes as the ambulance arrived. The truck driver called me Bra, which is as good as it gets if you’re a haole like me. 

I made my way thru the backed up traffic on both sides of the road to get in my truck and drive on. Couldn’t help but be a tad bothered by the fact that I saw no dog, heard no squealing tires, so no puffs of smoke from the lock-up... just saw the truck go off course. My white lie bothered my slightly, but what I was really thinking about, what bothered...no, pissed me off, was that not one other person stopped to help. 

Nothing to see here...move along

Somehow, both of my previous blog posts now have alibis attached:

Addendum One:
Black & Tan dog. 
In the course of interviewing candidates for our civilian tech position this week, I was talking with a woman who works at a vet clinic is Asan. The spot where the nasty Black & Tan dog charged us was right behind the clinic where she works. So I figured I’d ask, hey what’s the deal with that evil mutt??..Oh, she says, he belongs to the Mayor’s Office (!)

First off, don’t go thinking that the Asan Mayor’s office is anything like City Hall or a Town Square, it looks like this.

Island bureaucracy. If you think this looks like the type of place where there's a water buffalo tied to a tree just out of frame, you'd be 100% right.

So, further reinforcing the ‘semi-owned’ feral dog scenario on this island, the Mayor is responsible for the most unreasonably aggressive dog I’ve dealt with in 10 years. 
OOG!!!

Addendum Two:
Jethro & The Chickens
The neighborhood chickens have heard the legend of the three-legged grim reaper and are avoiding his presence at all cost....no wait...I can’t back that up. 

Here look.

Avoid please the gravitationally challenged cherry tree awaiting transplant for a moment, but note the distance from the carport on the left to the pile of cinder blocks on the right. For your info, the front door of this residence is around the corner of the carport, so every time I walk the dogs, we come out this way.

So, who has decided to nest on her eggs in the cinder block condo? 

Getting the evil eye from my resident hen

Yeah, so that happened. Now, Jethro loses his shit 2x per day, every day, cause he can smell that chicken!!! But I won’t let him investigate. 
OOG!!!

*Ed Note: OOG= Only On Guam

Orphan Chicks & King Jethro the Wicked

On a warm summers evening a few years ago in Corpus Christi, Texas, I was out walking Jethro the Wonder Dog in the prarie-esque field behind my VTF. (His real, full name is Leroy Jethro Gibbs, but if you are reading this you already know that)
He was off leash because, I'm lazy, and also the field was huge and it was past duty hours and no one was around. Go Navy. 

My clinic in Corpus was just down the road from the base golf course, So there was quite a bit of open space on what was an otherwise very small installation. What you might not know, unless you've been to South Texas, is that there is an indigenous breed of hare that is rather large, called the black-tailed jackrabbit, and the open space on the Naval Station was home to many, many of these giant eared lagomorphs.

On this particular evening, there was a hare, going about his rabbit business, about 100 meters away. Once Jethro spotted this creature, he was off like he was shot out of a high-powered rifle. You would think he was a greyhound chasing Swifty around the track instead of a three-legged coonhound. Within mere seconds they both had disappeared over the hills and on to the golf course. Muttering profanities I got behind the wheel of my truck and drove to chase them down, which I did about eight minutes later and about 2 miles away. I may or may not have broken base speed limit/stop sign/driving off road regulations during the pursuit. 

I tell you this story just to let you know that although Jethro's breed was created for hunting, that's the only time in our four years together that he has gone after another creature. He co-habitated with my mom's cat very nicely and is the world's most chill dog.

Jethro hard at work

Until Guam

Now this particular island, like many countries across southeast Asia, has a semi-wild chicken population, and every couple of houses out here has a gaggle of chickens upon the yard. Gaggle? Troop? Clowder?
No, The correct answers are brood or clutch or peep. I finally understand why the little Marshmallow chickens are called peeps. Thank you Wikipedia. So glad I went through four years of vet school to look up the collective noun of animals on the web.

But I digress. Chickens, we got shit tons. Jethro, he loves to chase the chickens. Now as any fan of the Rocky movies knows --catching a chicken is not that easy to do. And I figure Jethro being handy capable and all, the chickens would be okay even if he did manage to get loose to go after them. 

Score one for Jethro, zero for dad. Couple of weeks ago while I was working in the yard, Jethro wandered off... soon after I heard some loud squawking and a very high-pitched cackle and I see Jethro bounding back to me across the yard with a bird in his mouth. Needless to say I was stunned. Jethro sat before me presenting his catch, a live, unharmed black hen held firmly in his mouth. He was so proud. My first problem came when I realized I had never taught Jethro an ‘out’ command. Didn't seem practical. The boy would never fetch a ball or Frisbee or a stick... he never brought me anything that I needed to tell him to let go of. He knew ‘leave it’ as a command to stop doing what he was doing. But that didn’t help in this case. About five minutes of struggling later, I freed the startled but intact chicken from the mouth of the hound. 

Crime Scene Photo

Now, we come to the drama of today's walk. While passing a parked Jeep, we met a family of chickens, the rooster, mottled black-and-white much the same coloration as Jethro,  the momma hen, all black with flecks of blue, and 2 chicks, one black & one white. They were older offspring and you can usually tell the age of the chick by how many are in the gaggle. Whereas a family group might start out with five or six little fuzzy guys, over time they become four or three or two or one. And unlike how Morgan Freeman lied in that penguin movie, they don't just fade away.

Upon seeing Jethro, and Jethro seeing them, the family scattered in a flash.  They hadn’t, however, worked out a rally point, because mom, dad and the white chick ran under the Jeep, and the black chick ran in the completely opposite direction across the street, eventually managing to find a little bush to hide under.  I'll admit I did have a pang of guilt about possibly creating an orphan chick scenario. (See above regarding predation.) It does kind of go against my oath, the animal suffering and all. 
A future... I figured that chick by himself didn't have one. But as we moved away, after a short time, the family got back together and reunited. 

But the real reason I tell this story is what happened in the intervening few minutes when they were separated....the mamma started yelling, loudly, staccato, shrieking, at that rooster. Cause it was his fault that the little guy ran the wrong way from ‘danger’, and she was giving the rooster the business.  I also imagined it was the same hen Jethro had gotten earlier, so

I pictured the conversation including lots of I TOLD YOU that dog is a killa!!

A real-life henpecked male.  Nature, gotta love it.