Pulling calves before the sun's up, deworming smelly and occasionally lustful goats or removing a dog's ruptured spleen in the middle of the night: the life of a country vet never lets up. Dr Dave Perrin, on the line from Creston says one must weigh such demands against the benefits. "You can be so exhausted that you can hardly stay awake, and yet when you pull a calf through a cow's side and you see the eyes open, it's such a fantastic feeling.

Don't Turn Your Back In The Barn: Adventures of a Country Vet by Dr David Perrin (Dave's Press $23.95) is a humorous and vivid account of his first year as a vet on a shoestring budget. "I started my practice much the way I self-published this book, with a wing and a prayer. I had a 1963 Volkswagen and eight thousand dollars in student loans and I made up my mind I was going to start a practice and make the most of it.";

Fresh out of Saskatoon's Western College of Veterinary Medicine, he opted for a rural practice not far from his childhood home in the West Kootenays. He packed surgical instruments, a bachelor's food rations and a box of playful kittens into an abandoned log cabin overlooking the Creston plateau where his grandparents had lived years before. It was a cheap way to set up shop. "A leaky roof had left gyproc and paper dangling from the ceiling and walls, but a myriad of spiders had done its best to weave a matrix to hold the structure together."; Messages from prospective clients were relayed through a party line of farmers, pet lovers and friends eager to see him establish a name for himself.

Years of veterinary school theory were quickly put to the test. The morning after performing surgery on a calf's twisted bowel, he imagined the worst. "From the time I got out of bed, my thoughts revolved around the pathetic little creature we had done surgery on the day before. One minute, I pictured her tearing across the pasture as if nothing had ever been wrong. The next, I jerked myself back to reality and saw her lying there bloated, with her feet in the air."; As it turned out, this calf did live to kick up its heels. Perrin's confidence blossomed, and it wasn't long before he was moving into an office in town seeking an assistant. A local widow named Doris didn't flinch when she was called upon at a moment's notice to help save a cat crushed by a farmer's truck. She got the job.

Perrin covered the countryside, resetting dislocated hocks on horses; stomping through manure piles to conduct pregnancy checks on heifers and performing caesareans on mountainside pastures. That first year also included a memorable encounter of the human variety. "When you're a young country vet and going to a small town you're fair game. I got this call from an under-appreciated woman who had a mess of kids, and her husband didn't pay her much attention. She decided to get some extracurricular activity, and claimed her cow was sick. It was after hours, and when I got to the barn there was this woman--a good looking woman at that--with nothing on but a negligee. Fortunately I had Doris with me.";

English vet James Herriot didn't begin writing his stories about animals and his beloved Yorkshire dales until he turned 50. After 26 years practicing in the Kootenays, Dave Perrin felt compelled to do the same, with a focus on being as realistic as possible. "Herriot took a picture in the 50s, 60s and 70s. I felt like I wanted to take a picture in the 80s and 90s. Some practitioners are dead on their feet - for long periods of time. They go day after day with hardly any sleep - one caesarean after another."; Perrin tells a good story, and there's enough detail about maneuvering a breeched calf or amputating a cat's leg to satisfy the curious - not to mention aspiring students of veterinary medicine. The doctor's compassion for animals and admiration for people who treat them with respect and dignity underscores each of these stories. Box 616, Lister, B.C., V0B 1Y0; 0-9687943-0-0

[Mark Forsythe / BCBW 2001]