The Equine Practice Rounds – My Turn to Trim the Toes, by Geoff Tucker, DVM

There was a brief time when I worked for another practice and honestly, the boss and I didn’t get along. One of the favorite things he would do was to send employees he didn’t like out to do things that were not in our scope of being an equine practitioner.

It was a hot summer day in upstate New York and in the lazy afternoon heat of the practice vehicle I had fallen asleep. That was OK because I was 30 minutes early for the appointment I had been assigned. The snickers from my fellow employees had not distracted me from what had looked like an easy afternoon.

I was in such a deep sleep that I could have been in another world. I had parked across the street from a two story red brick colonial house in an upscale community. There was no evidence of any farming. Not even a vegetable patch let alone a fence for animals. I had been asked to trim the toes of a pot bellied pig and I had checked the address several times to be sure I was in the right place.

I was surprised by the owner just returning from work in the city. She woke me from my depths of sleep with a smart wave and brilliant smile. She was dressed in a bright red patterned skirt, a white fluffy blouse, stockinged legs, and smooth black high heels. Sparkling jewelry accented her arms and neck and her hair and make up had not weathered from her day at the office. She did not look like the usual “barn girl” I see every day.

I entered the house that was spotless. She turned to me and said, “Don’t let him know you are here to trim his feet. He will squeal and run. I can’t even trim my nails in front of him.” I was dressed in green coveralls and somewhat clean work boots. I grasped a pair of hoof nippers and a rasp in one hand and raised the other in an open palm of assurance and said, “No problem! Where is the little pig, outside?”

She acted a little surprised with my question and then said that he was in the living room. “It is his favorite spot to lay between the couch and coffee table.” I entered the room with the thoughts of quickly getting this job done and continuing with my day.

There was not a speck of dirt anywhere in the well appointed room. Wall to wall white carpeting and a white couch in an L shape. Small items were spread over the large coffee table. I approached from the back of the couch sticking out into the room. As I peered over the top of it, I quickly began to reassess the situation. I yelped, “I thought you had a small pot bellied pig!” Snoring and filling all space available was a 400 pound sleeping pig! The lady looked at me with a look of assurance for I was the hero who had come to rescue her beastly friend from long hooves. The snickers back at the office came ringing through my thoughts as I attempted to develop a new plan.

With the same empty feeling of jumping out of a plane to parachute for the first time, I launched my body on top of the sleeping monster and grabbed the nearest leg and started snipping excess hoof. The squeal cut through my soul and split my eardrums. The legs began to flail as the couch escaped the scene.

The first cloven hoof was done at least to my specifications anyway which at that point was somewhat less than what we would expect from a trained journeyman farrier. The pig was really rocking at this point and for a moment it looked that I might be done with this fight. I was now sprawled with my chest and stomach on top of the pig as I waited for the 8 second buzzer.

To my rescue the woman who had been speechless and watching up to this point threw herself on top of me. The pig increased his squealing. For a moment, my thoughts went somewhere else as the woman’s body embraced me and the pig. But as a professional, I knew I had been given the advantage over the pig for a few moments and I grabbed the other forelimb. While the three of us became intimate, I nipped off the excess hoof material. A moment later the woman and I were tossed aside in a pile as the pig made his escape squealing for his life.

We picked each other up and began to straighten out our clothes. She had a coy smile and looked deeply at her new found hero as she brushed out the wrinkles from ALL areas of her clothing. For a moment there was silence except the beating of our hearts. Then without any warning, the kitchen door opened and her husband burst through and said, “Ya need any help out here?”

I swear to God, a true story.

Thanks, Doc T

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