EAST COUNTY HORSE DOCTOR My Life with Animals
	DECEMBER 2005

by Renée Golenz
Photos by Russell Byrne

I’ve been doctoring horses for 16 years and it’s a job that some people dream about — one that I dreamed about myself for a number of years.

Mom tells me that as an infant my first three words were, in order, “mama!” “dada!” and “horse!” My experience with these wonderful animals began as admirer and progressed through owner and trainer, before finally reaching doctor.

At the tender age of five I asked my father to get me a horse. He told me, “I’ll buy you a horse when you are 13 years old.” I’m sure he said that hoping and expecting that I would outgrow the desire. However, all he did was to get me started on counting the years. When I was 12 years old, I announced to him, “Time for my horse.” However he threw in an extra caveat, “Only if you pay for its care and upkeep.”

I was born and raised in Ohio, East of Dayton, which is horse country, so I was able to get a job at a boarding facility mucking out stalls, and grooming and feeding horses. Then one glorious day my dad bought me a big gray gelding.

Starting with Horses
I began riding English saddle and before long started to compete in local horse shows. In a little while I began winning in these events and got enough prize money to buy a purebred Arabian so I could enter the Class A shows.

I was a real competitor and won more ribbons than I was able to count. I wasn’t interested in the ribbons so much as the prize money, which was usually enough to pay for the next show. I sometimes won huge championships that paid prize money at a profit-level that was pretty good for a high school kid.

I really wanted to be a horse trainer and eventually landed a job in the bluegrass country of Kentucky, which is the Mecca of horse breeding in America. That training facility was a 300-acre home to more than 100 horses. It was a showcase for Arabians. The place was the equine equivalent of a five-star resort. The stalls were not only maintained in an immaculate state, but they were both heated and air-conditioned. It was not a place for middle-income horse owners. The equine residents actually had their own swimming pool.

During the time that I worked at that facility I met the local veterinarian who came daily to the ranch. I worked side-by-side with him in the care of those magnificent animals. The vet’s name was Dr. Scott Bennett. He gave me my preliminary education in the career of vet medicine. He thought I had what it took to become a vet. The qualities he looked for included intelligence, plus a caring and disciplined attitude. He strongly encouraged me to pursue a career as a horse doctor.

As I worked with Dr. Bennett and listened to him talk, a light went on and I began to prepare to enter the field. I continued working at the facility for a couple more years and entered the pre-vet program at Ohio State when I turned 21.

First Steps on a Road
to Equine Medicine
My parents never paid a dime for my education, which turned out to be a plus. I never missed a class because I was unwilling to squander even one hour of the education that I was working so hard to pay for. As a result, I maintained a straight-A average. My undergrad major was Animal Science with a minor in Equine Nutrition. I got scholarships and grants, and took out student loans to supplement my part-time work as a Teacher’s Assistant in the school’s chemistry labs.

My application for veterinary school presented me with the biggest challenge of my life. Getting accepted into that institution was a truly monumental achievement, since 39 out of 40 applicants were being rejected. The school was seeking well-rounded students. Applicants were accepted on the basis of grades, community service, and veterinary exposure.

That “veterinary exposure” bit presented the real challenge. It meant that the medical school didn’t want, for example, someone who was interested only in horses. So, in order to pad my resume for admission, I took jobs that covered a variety of veterinarian practices. I did whatever it took. I got a job, for example, working for a veterinarian whose specialty was caring for injured raptors. My tasks included chopping up mice and putting them into a blender, since some of the birds were too ill to eat on their own.

For a time I worked in a piggery for a swine vet, and then with cattle for a bovine veterinarian, followed by a job working with cats and dogs for a small animal veterinarian practice.

The happiest day of my life was the day I at last entered that school of veterinarian medicine, but it was the beginning of a tough period of time. I was too poor to afford to eat anything but Mac and Cheese, peanut butter and jelly, and ramen. My weight fell to 98 pounds. The only regular meat source I had came in our Friday Night cookouts. Friday was the day we castrated the horses and all of us students would BBQ the mountain oysters for a real feast. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, look it up.)

Getting Down to Work
When I graduated from Ohio State with my degree in Veterinary Medicine, I took a job at an equine practice in a small northeastern Ohio community. Five percent of our practice was Amish and I discovered that I enjoyed working with them. Amish are extremely honest people who really care for their families, friends, and their farms. They maintain their barns in an immaculate state. Their farms look like something that could be on a picture post card.

Some of my worst emergencies were with the Amish animals, however. They might have been struck by a car or perhaps had run through a fence. Sometimes it would take five hours to sew them up. At other times one of the huge Amish draft horses would have a breech birth and I would be called upon to reposition the foal inside the horse’s huge uterus. This was a tough job. Try to imagine me there, at 106 pounds, up to my armpits inside a 2,000-pound animal, trying to reposition her 200-pound baby. It isn’t a pretty picture!

I loved those Amish people but didn’t always love the situations they got me into. The Amish I worked with were naïve and needed to be educated. They didn’t believe in vaccinating their animals, for example, so I saw a lot of tetanus in their horses, some of whom I had to put to sleep.

That first practice also included work with a lot of show horses and pleasure horses. I developed an embryo transfer program because we did a lot of reproduction work. I would collect a seven-day-old embryo from a donor’s uterus and place it in the recipient mare.

The procedure would diminish the danger of damage to some expensive horse, while freeing her to continue her show career. The procedure would also extend the breeding life of an older mare with incredible bloodlines.

Back to School; Learning and Teaching
I decided to specialize in internal medicine so I applied for a program of Equine Internal Medicine at UC Davis. During my three years of residency my obligation involved patient care both in the hospital and in the field. I also taught students, conducted research, and published articles — all the while working for wages comparable to what I would have made selling hamburgers out of a McDonald’s drive-up window.

During my research I developed a life-saving procedure for newborn foals called Intraosseous Infusion, which is a process that involves placing a needle into bone marrow and infusing it with fluids and antibiotics.

When a patient is in extreme shock, it is difficult to get an IV into the veins, which might be collapsing. I demonstrated how relatively easy it is, on the other hand, to inject the same medicine into the horse’s bone marrow, generally using the tibia bone as the point of entrance. I discovered that the procedure was being used in human applications, especially infants. I simply confirmed how the process could be redirected to newborn horses.

Any time you puncture a bone there is the possibility of complications. We took x-rays and followed the progress of the foals for three months to ensure that there were no problems following the procedure. In twelve research subjects and six real-life cases I never encountered a single difficulty.

My research was published in three journals and I went on a tour speaking about my procedure in vet colleges across the United States. My procedure has now also been published in emergency medical books. Veterinarians are now applying the procedure in hospital situations as well as at farms, stables, and ranches. My research had proved it to be safe and effective.

Searching for a Place of my Own
Once I completed my residency, my old boss wanted me to come back to Ohio, but I hated the thought of returning to the cold and dreariness of eastern climates. I had fallen in love with Central California’s gentle weather, so I worked for six months as an associate veterinarian with the Bay Meadows and Golden Gate Fields racetracks.

All of my patients, of course, were 2-4 year-old thoroughbreds. The experience was quite different than dealing with patients whose ages ranged from less than an hour to over 40 years. The sameness of the racetrack environment eventually grew monotonous.

I began a private practice in Davis, starting out with $3,000 in capital. This was kind of scary and I knew that I was going to either sink or swim. My practice kept getting busier and busier, however. One day a client from the Brentwood Area called. He was having trouble getting his mares pregnant, so I began commuting to Brentwood and all six mares ended up with healthy foals.

Word of mouth continued to get me more and more business in the East County. I commuted from Davis for seven years before finally relocating to Brentwood in 2001.

I love Brentwood. The ranches are small and close. My commute has dropped from 200 miles per day to less than 20 miles. I’m using my reproductive knowledge, my knowledge of internal medicine, plus my general practice experience.

I do a lot of equine dentistry, as well — especially during the fall and winter. People who are unfamiliar with the topic tend to laugh about doing dentistry procedures for horses. The fact is, however, that horses’ teeth often grow into points and they have trouble chewing. The animals experience weight loss, colic, and impaction. They have a lot of problems that are cured by a session with my dentist tools.

Dark Valleys
I spend most of my days in a heady delight because I’m doing what I love to do, while working with animals that I really love. My passion works against me, however, when things go wrong, which they sometimes do.

Euthanasia is the hardest part of my job but it is a form of medical therapy that can end suffering. The procedure simply enhances the ultimate end, which is death. I know that, but when I have to perform that procedure I, nevertheless, experience a grief that seems to take over my entire body, and literally robs me of energy for a time.

Over the past five years we’ve going through increasing tough times with the West Niles Virus infection. I charge $25 for a vaccination, which is 96 percent protective against the disease. Wes Nile Virus is moderately dangerous to human beings, since only a small fraction of the people who come into contact with the disease have any serious effects. It’s a lot worse for horses, however. Fifty percent of them fail to survive the neurological damage that the virus inflicts.

The death of a West Nile Virus victim is an awful experience! I walk up to the bewildered creature. The horse is staring — partly terrified, partly confused. It wants to stand up and can’t comprehend its inability to do so. I always wish at that time that I could reverse the process and give the suffering animal some magical remedy. But I can’t. He is staring with his big, brown eyes while I explain to the owner the limited options — of which, by that time, there is actually only one.

Then I inject the solution, stand back, and watch the light in his eyes slowly fade. I think with great sorrow that if only he had been vaccinated he wouldn’t have had to go through that experience — nor would I. I’m dreading the return of the mosquito season.

My best days far outnumber the bad, thank God. When I help get a mare pregnant, for example, I feel like I’ve hit a home run. Things like helping an ill horse recover, conducting a newborn exam, or making a lame horse comfortable are daily experiences that far overshadow the few awful things that happen.

The Loves of my Life
I reserve a spot on the left side of my bed for a Labrador Retriever. I named my first Lab Nike because he was my running partner. Besides that, he was my bodyguard, my vet assistant, and my soul mate. Nike influenced me in developing a great love for the breed because he was such a magnificent animal.

When Nike developed lung cancer, it was tough to let him go. We were going to remove his lung and put him on chemo but the disease was too advanced. Putting Nike down was the hardest decision of my life. Dogs play on your heartstrings. They make many of us laugh louder and cry harder than any other animal sharing our planet, I think.

I now have two two-year-old puppies. They play with each other and keep each other company. My two new dogs are athletic, intelligent, protective, and especially loving. They forgive me when I’m late. They don’t hold grudges. Their only shortcomings are that they are terrible bed hogs.

Horses have a dog-like capacity to show love and even compassion. They have personalities just like people. They can become our friends. Some of my clients regard their horses as their children, or at least they treat them as beloved family members.

Winter weather seems like God’s ways of calling older animals to himself. Aging horses have orthopedic complications, internal problems, kidney failures, heart disease, and cancers. These animals suffer and die from the same things that kill us.

I see God’s hand in my work. I believe that He has helped me throughout my entire life. He has blessed me immensely and has blessed my business, in particular. My work is ultimately His work. My attitude is expressed in a simple prayer of admission, “I’m your tool for helping your animals.”

I’m both humbled and proud about the role I’m playing. What better task could a person be given to perform in this sad but astonishing world than to be the hand of God accomplishing His purposes with these magnificent creatures that He and I love so much?