Tales from a Wild Vet: Paws, claws and furry encounters

Dogs live short lives, and if you have a dog you know that most likely at some point you will be faced with making the decision to let it go. Even knowing that, saying goodbye is never easy. We were all quiet for the next few days, missing Tosca’s ebullient presence and painfully aware of the great big gap she had left in our lives.

CHAPTER FOUR

South Africa (#u356210ed-fa4e-5381-af13-04f957448623)

‘Is that you, Englishman? I’ve got a job for you.’

It was my old friend Thys on the phone, an Afrikaner vet I first met when he took me on for work experience as a student three and a half years earlier. I loved working with Thys, but this time I was in South Africa for a friend’s wedding, not to work with animals.

I hesitated. ‘What’s the job, Thys?’

‘I’ve got to implant embryos into six wildebeest. You game?’

How could I say no? It sounded like a fantastic opportunity to try something new. Working with Thys was always an adventure; he expected me to handle some extraordinary situations, to think on my feet and to be resourceful.

‘I’m game. Tell me when and where.’

Thys told me to meet him at a junction a few miles up the road at seven the next morning. ‘You can follow me to the farm where the job is,’ he said.

I had arrived in Port Elizabeth, in the Eastern Cape of South Africa, two days earlier. As always, the 16-hour journey from London, including changing flights at Johannesburg, had left me tired, stiff and sore, but, as always, the minute I stepped off the plane into the sweet-scented air of Africa, filled with the magical sounds of cicadas, my tiredness fell away.

Minutes later I was through the terminal and into Jacques’s arms. We headed out to his truck, where he had a beautiful bunch of purple flowers waiting for me. This was part of the ritual of our many reunions over the five years we had been together.

Jacques and I had first met when I took a gap-year trip to South Africa to work on a game reserve where Jacques helped to manage the volunteers. I had fallen in love with South Africa – the warmth, the stunning scenery, the wide open spaces, the generous, welcoming people and the unique mix of animals that roamed in the bush. And a couple of visits later, I had fallen in love with Jacques, too.

At six-foot-six, broad and muscular, at first he appeared intimidating, but I soon discovered that he was actually a big softie, as well as being hugely knowledgeable, great to talk to and a lot of fun.

For the next five years, all the way through my studies at vet school, we saw one another three or four times a year; Jacques coming to England or me going out to South Africa. I saved every penny I could for my fares, living on meagre student rations, and I organised some of my university work placements in South Africa so that I could combine my studies with seeing Jacques. We knew early on that we wanted to be together permanently, but living and working on opposite sides of the world we also knew that there would be a lot to negotiate and sort out before we could find a way to do that. I couldn’t imagine tearing Jacques from the land that he loved so passionately, but neither could I envisage leaving my family and my work to live thousands of miles away from home. We knew that when it eventually came to decision time, though, we’d find a solution. What mattered most was being with one another.

Jacques is an environmentalist. Passionate about wildlife, with a Masters in Environmental Management, he is a walking encyclopaedia of information about South African habitats and animals as well as being an expert in environmental impact assessments – which is now a requirement before any building work can begin on any land almost anywhere in the world.

For the past couple of years he had been lecturing in wildlife management at a local university and he was living in a small two-bedroom house in Alicedale, a tiny village about 70 miles inland from Port Elizabeth and 50 or so miles from the main university campus in Port Alfred. Alicedale was so small it had just a handful of houses, a pub, a convenience store and a hotel backing onto a golf course. The university had a small satellite campus next to the pub, where Jacques taught his wildlife students and which he referred to as the ‘Middle of Nowhere’ campus.

The morning after the call from Thys I was up at dawn. I borrowed Jacques’s pick-up truck, known as a bakkie, and headed for the rendez-vous point. I assumed Thys would stop, but he just hurtled past me and waved. I set off in pursuit, but keeping up was impossible. Thys drove, as he always does, at 100 miles an hour, even on the little dirt roads, some of which wound up hillsides with a sheer drop on one side. I couldn’t attempt to match his speed, so I trailed along in his wake, occasionally catching a glimpse of his truck. Eventually I arrived to find Thys waiting for me at the gates to the farm. As I drew to a stop he leaped out of his truck and came over to give me a big hug.

‘Well done, Englishman,’ he said, beaming with pride. ‘You made it; you’re a proper vet now.’

Thys is a one-off – a charming, eccentric, talented vet who has been a friend and mentor to me. His skin is deeply tanned to a leathery hide, he has a white beard and an accent so strong that I can’t always understand what he is saying. He has spent his life in turquoise overalls, white wellington boots and a safari hat. In his work he sees the occasional dog and does some wildlife work, but the bulk of what he does is looking after cattle on the region’s many remote farms. Most of them are more basic than British farms, and some are vast, with upward of 1,000 animals, compared with between 150 and 300 on the average British dairy farm.

As a student searching for placements abroad as well as at home, I had written to several vets in South Africa. Thys had been the only one to answer, warmly inviting me to come and work with him any time. A talented and unconventional vet, Thys may have been past what most people think of as retirement age when I first met him, but he was still a daredevil at heart, as well as a passionate philosopher.

When I first came out to South Africa we would rattle up the red dirt roads in his old truck while Thys talked philosophy and I tried to ask him about his practice. He’d give me a brief answer and then go back to discussing the existential theories and origins of the universe that fascinated him.

When we got to work on the farms Thys got me involved in everything he did and was ruthless about throwing me in at the deep end and insisting that I have a go. It really did force me to learn fast. He took to calling me ‘Englishman’ and it stuck. All his clients knew me as Englishman, too.

Thys lives on a large farm, also in the middle of nowhere, and in between jobs he used to take me back to see his wife, Johma, who always gave me a warm welcome and plenty of cold drinks and food. The farm is run by their son Johannes, who looks after their cattle and the horses they bred.

Thys also has an exotic collection of pets that he loves showing off. They include a pack of pit-bull terriers, which he lets out at night to guard the farm and which, despite their fearsome reputation, are actually bouncy, friendly dogs; a caracal – a wild cat about the size of a medium dog that has amazing long ears; and four full-grown, extremely large crocodiles, which, thankfully, are kept in a fenced-off enclosure.

An old-fashioned Afrikaner man, from a culture in which men and women traditionally don’t have the same status, Thys nonetheless always took real pleasure in my achievements, treating me like a daughter and showing me off to his clients. When I passed my final exams he was genuinely proud and pleased and I was so glad that, rather than resisting change, he embraced it.

That morning I followed him up the long track to the farmhouse, where he explained to me that we were helping out a friend of his with an experimental cloning project. His friend was at the forefront of genetic research and had a raft of PhDs to his name. The embryos had been cloned using cells from the ear of an impressive wildebeest bull and then planted into sheep’s eggs, from which the genetic material had been removed. Now we were going to implant them into six young female wildebeest, all at the peak of their reproductive cycles, to see if they would take.

It was winter in South Africa, which meant the days were sunny but mild, which made it much easier working outside than in the relentless heat of summer. Thys set up a table for us to work on and each female, once she had been darted, was gently placed upside down on the table by the farm workers. Thys would then make a small incision down the midline of the abdomen, open her up and locate an ovary. Next to the ovary is the uterine tube, and where the tube meets the ovary there are finger-like projections that capture the egg when it is released from the ovary. Thys placed the embryo right in the top where the ovary was, so that it would be sent down the uterine tube to the body of the uterus, by which time the animal’s body would, hopefully, respond and allow the egg to implant.

It was an impressive and delicate piece of surgery and I watched, fascinated.

‘Come on, Englishman,’ Thys said. ‘You need to suture the incision closed and you’d better be quick.’

I sprang into action, closing the abdominal opening with a rather blunt needle so that the wildebeest could be removed from the table and the next one, that Thys was busy darting, could be lifted on.

As we worked our way through the six of them, hot and sweaty from the intense pressure of the work, I reasoned that only Thys could get me involved in something this bizarre.

Finally all six implants were completed, the wildebeest were back on their feet and our work was done.

‘Let’s hope they take,’ Thys said, pushing his hat to the back of his head and wiping his brow.

‘Let me know,’ I told him. ‘I’d really like to hear how it goes.’

‘All right, Englishman. Time for a cold beer now. I think we’ve earned it.’

We headed back to the farmhouse where the owner was waiting with cold drinks, which we downed gratefully before climbing into our trucks and heading back home. The last I saw of Thys was a hand waving from his window as his truck roared away in a cloud of red dust.

Before we headed to Johannesburg for the wedding of Jacques’s best friend, I went to visit the local SPCA (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals), where I was hoping to volunteer when I returned for a longer visit in December and January.

Alicedale is about 30 miles from Grahamstown, which is the nearest decent-sized town, and I’d often noticed the small single-storey building on the main road into the town with the letters SPCA painted in blue on the white surrounding wall as I drove to buy groceries. When I emailed the SPCA head office it turned out that the Grahamstown centre was one of the few with no vet, so they were very happy to have me there. They had Maloli, a qualified animal health worker, and they hoped that I might be able to give him some extra training.

The SPCA serves the townships – areas where poor housing and poverty are the norm. Most of the residents keep dogs, for protection, and most can’t afford the prices of the vet in Grahamstown, where the charges are similar to those in England and many times the local wages. So the SPCA, which charges a minimal fee, does vital work.

The day after my wildebeest adventure with Thys I went in to meet the employees there and to find out more about the kind of work they were doing. As I drove into the compound I could see dozens of dog kennels, most of them full, and a couple of cat cages, which looked more like aviaries.

Inside the small office I met the staff of three: Maloli, Yasmin and Liz. Maloli told me he came from a Xhosa family and he lived in one of the local townships with his girlfriend and their son. Short, with a round face and a big smile, Maloli was probably in his mid-thirties. He explained that he spent every day travelling round the townships helping people with their animals – most of them dogs.

Yasmin was a very tall, blonde Afrikaner in her forties. She explained that she went out collecting stray dogs, investigating welfare cases and helping to set up temporary clinics. Liz, also an Afrikaner, remained in the office, dealing with people coming in off the street and with phone calls. All three of them were friendly and welcoming and they showed me around the offices, the examining room, the kennels and the field at the back where the rescued donkeys were kept.

It was good to meet them and I could see that they had their hands full. I was excited – and nervous, too – about joining them in December and keen to do what I could to help.

A couple of days later Jacques and I headed to Johannesburg for the wedding. Jacques and his best friend Eugene, known as Snap, had been friends since they played on the same chess team as teenagers at school. Both of them were talented players – at one point Jacques was extremely high-ranked in South Africa, able to plan 30 to 40 moves ahead during a game. He still plays and he can still see 10 to 15 moves ahead. I do play with him, but as I can just about manage to plan two moves ahead there are no prizes for guessing who wins. It’s more a case of guessing how long I can stay in the game.

As a team Jacques and Snap would surprise their opponents. While the geeky kids plotted and planned, Jacques and Snap would go out and party and then get up the next day and wipe the floor with the opposition, who almost always underestimated them.

Snap’s wedding to his fiancée Yolandi was in a pretty, rustic, wood-beamed chapel at the bottom of a steep hill on an estate just outside the city. Further up the hill was a lodge that had a lovely garden with a fountain at its centre, which was where the reception was held. We all stood around the fountain as the photos were taken, enjoying strawberry daiquiris and canapés. It was beautiful, but cold! August is one of the chilliest months in South Africa, so I was glad when we headed into the lodge for the meal.

It’s the custom with Afrikaner weddings for the groom to be heckled by his friends during his speech, so poor Snap had to put up with the jeers and catcalls of his mates, but Jacques, as best man, had an easier time.

After the speeches everyone danced the traditional Afrikaner sokkie dance – a mixture of jive, boogie, swing and foxtrot, which is energetic and lively and a lot of fun. Jacques is a good dancer, but he has size 13 feet so he sometimes finds it hard to avoid my toes and we end up teasing one another about whose fault it is.

Being in Johannesburg was a lovely opportunity to spend a couple of days with Jacques’s parents, Elna and Johan, who live in one of the suburbs. I’ve known them since I first came to South Africa; they treat me like one of the family and I’m really fond of them. Elna is an interior designer, while Johan works for an engineering company. Jacques’s younger sister Sonia came round to say hello, too. She works in the law, and like Elna she’s warm, chatty and outgoing. Sonia always looks glamorous. As a vet that’s pretty hard to do – we spend our lives in practical clothes, with hair scraped back, short nails and no make-up, so I love it when Sonia brings out my girly side and we talk fashion and hair.