Team roping is my hobby, but the ability to toss a loop around a beast and handle it is an asset in veterinary medicine. Matter of fact, a course in roping at veterinary school would have been more useful than the second semester of histology.

THE ROPIN’ VET

Louie used to buy horses for the feedlot. Whenever he’d find a good stout one that was deaf and looked like it could tread mud, he’d send it our way. I’d usually check ’em over, float their teeth, worm ’em, vaccinate ’em, and change their oil. Occasionally he sent one with no faults, but I was only there ten years, so I never saw him!

Feedlot #3 called one morning to say Louie’d delivered a new horse to the yard. As I pulled up to the horse barn, I called Louie on the radio to ask about any “peculiarities.” I’d learned from past experience that all arrived with a flaw of some kind . . . some minor, some fatal.

“Louie, what can you tell me ’bout the new horse?”

“You’ll like him, Doc. Gentle as a puppy. Sound, maybe twelve years old, big’un . . . sixteen hands. Belonged to a little old lady who only rode him to the senior center once a week.”

I waited.

“Oh, by the way, he’s a little hard to catch.”

In the first pen stood ol’ Whitey. He had a gentle look in his eye. I walked right up to him. He backed off. I coaxed, wheedled, cooed, and clucked him ’round and ’round the corral.

Now, as any vet can tell ya, I didn’t hire on to train ’em! Just to doctor ’em!

I ran outta patience, threw down the halter, and got out my rope! Although there are exceptions, most vets are not good ropers. It’s like givin’ a typewriter to a cephalopod! I roped the post, the hay rack, the back rubber, the barn door, the two horses with Whitey, and finally caught him in midair jumping the water tank!

Years later, I still haven’t learned my lesson. To this day, I carry a rope and act like I can use it!

Dr. Huey down in Tennessee is smarter’n me. He went out to look at an ol’ tobacco farmer’s sick calf.

“He’s in the pasture, Doc. I’m busy but you’re young. You can catch him.”

Huey dug his rope outta the truck and started swingin’ it. He knocked the ol’ man’s hat off before it finally hung on the pickup mirror.

“You any good with that?” asked the ol’ man suspiciously.

“Not too, but it don’t make any difference to me,” says Huey. “I charge a dollar a throw whether I catch ’em or not!”

The ol’ man yelled over his shoulder, “Leroy, git out there and catch that calf for the good doctor!”