The Incredible Dr. Pol

On The Incredible Dr. Pol...

Don't you spit at me.

No!

The pace at the clinic heats up.

Sage. Buddy.

Bring Halo in, please.

Doc's got to finish all this work...

Now I can go home and pack my suitcase.

...before an epic trip to the Netherlands...

Hi.

...where the animals are waiting for him!

Very impressive! I loved it.

He's a world famous vet

with thousands of patients and a team that lives for animals.

He's the Incredible Dr. Pol.

Somebody will come out there and see what we can do.

A relentless schedule calls for a change of pace.

Alrighty then.

A big trip is in the works for Doc.

Tomorrow we're flying back to the Netherlands.

That's right, the Pols are heading to Doc's birthplace.

It's good to go back.

We still have a bunch of relatives there.

This is not going to be a vacation,

this going to be work, work, work.

Before he can get to the animals abroad,

there are some here in Michigan that need tending to.

Rosemary has a paint horse, Sammie,

that got a little bit too close to a porcupine.

We had taken a few of them out,

and she got very wise to that,

and I'm sure it's very, very, very sore.

So she's a little bit leery about us coming close to her.

If Dr. Pol doesn't remove the quills,

they could lead to a pretty nasty infection.

Yeah, she's already wise to this.

Let me see. How bad is it?

Most of the time it's dogs,

but yes, we've seen porcupine quills in horses,

in pigs, in steers.

They just put their nose to it to want to find out

what kind of animal it is,

and then the porcupine swings his tail.

Ow!

And whoa, you got a bunch of porcupine quills in their nose.

Doc has to work on

a rather sensitive and wounded nose.

Sammy is going to need some help calming down.

Now, the horse we don't have to lay out flat,

we just give it a tranquilizer painkiller

and just start pulling quick.

If you don't get 'em out,

you have a big chance of a big infection around it.

Here. Feel this. Feel how rough they are.

Oh, yeah.

These quills have a barb on it,

and when you pull them out, yes, it hurts more than going in.

There, two at a time.

And especially a horse's nose that is so sensitive,

pulling them out hurts like the dickens.

Hey, four more to go.

A necessary evil

to prevent even more pain down the road.

Sammie's not having fun.

Would you have fun if you had porcupine quills in your nose?

Poor baby.

And the last one right now.

In no time flat we have the quills out.

Okay, turn him loose.

So after a little while, the tranquilizer wore off

and he'll be as happy as before.

Okay. You're done.

Thank you.

You're very welcome.

It was quick for the horse.

I'm very pleased with the way that they came out.

Okay, guys.

Okay, alright, thank you very much, Doc.

You bet, thanks!

He's our go-to vet. Always has been.

This go-to vet has one more farm to 'go to'

before he can call it a day.

There's just something different with llamas.

They have magic, those batting eyes.

Llamas are very strange animals.

Ah, ah.

Deb rescues llamas

when people get sick and tired of them.

And Schroeder here is one that is 20 years old already,

and now is sick.

Schroeder has been experiencing an abscess

under the jaw for the last week and a half.

Where there's fluid gathering under the jaw, then it drains.

So we're very concerned about Schroeder's well being.

Hey, hold still.

No, and don't you spit at me.

And I know you have very sharp teeth.

Oh, you're right about that.

That was, are you sure that was not food?

The teeth feel completely good. Here look at this.

This was a fluid buildup.

Fluid sac. Fluid? Worms.

I'll be darned.

This is not an abscess.

This is just fluid,

because this animal probably has a heavy worm load.

I am just so surprised

that Schroeder did not have an abscess.

Most of it is due to the worm problem

that we're trying to get under control.

And I just did him.

Schroeder recently finished

a round of deworming meds.

Okay.

So Dr. Pol shifts gears

to steer away from reinfestation.

'Cause how many llamas do you have here?

We have nine. Nine.

Biggest problem is that all these llamas are in together

in the same place,

they eat off the ground, and they pick up the worms.

So we have a vicious circle.

You can treat them, but they reinfect themselves instantly.

All the larvae that are hatching from the stool,

crawl to the top of the blades of grass.

Okay.

You mow it. It dries. They die.

Okay.

The grass dies, the larvae dies.

So then you worm 'em.

And you put them in here.

You have them in one pen, you worm 'em,

you put them in another pen that's clean.

And that way you control the reinfestation of worms.

Spit.

Prognosis for Schroeder's very good.

We have to make sure that he does not reinfect himself

with new larvae off the ground.

No. We will do a pasture rotation,

and the way he's laid out for us is really a great idea.

Schroeder has a personality of a survivor,

and I know he's going to pull through.

Doc's local farm calls are finished.

Now, it's time for the animals overseas.

The Pols are traveling to Doc's homeland, the Netherlands.

Are you ready?

Of course I'm ready.

Are you packed?

Yes, I'm packed.

I'm more packed than you're packed.

It's stressful to leave the business.

We're never ready until about ten minutes before we leave.

You have to bring,

like, cold weather and hot weather

and rain gear and non-rain gear and ice skates or whatever.

Uh, you know, it takes a while.

Well, I'm not packed, so I think I better get home.

Alright, cool.

I'm really looking forward to our trip

to the Netherlands, but I am also very stressed right now.

I think I'm done.

Now I can go home and pack my suitcase.

Have a good trip. Thank you.

Take care.

We'll see you guys. See ya.

While the Pols ready for their European expedition,

Dr. Emily has an emergency a couple miles away.

I'm going out to an Amish farm this afternoon,

because they have a horse that's colicky.

Ralph is a Percheron.

Typically they use the Percherons to pull carts,

whether it's in the fields or to carry heavy loads down the road.

The work horses are pretty important on Amish farms.

Okay, what happened to this guy?

I think he's got gas. Colic?

Colic is an obstruction

in the digestive tract and is usually very painful.

This is a big horse. Yeah, he's big.

If the blockage or gas buildup is bad enough,

it can become life-threatening.

The owner says he's been pawing and circling

and biting at his belly sometimes.

I listen to his guts and don't hear anything,

which is a bad sign in horses,

they should have very active intestines.

On the right side you should hear

like a toilet flushing sound,

like a bluh-bluh-bluh every 11 seconds.

He has none of that.

He has no sounds.

The gut's either blown up

or something's happened where it's not moving now.

He's pretty painful.

Dr. Emily needs to push the blockage through

and force the gas out.

Oh, yeah.

Funneling water through a tube

is the common fix.

But it can be rather uncomfortable for the patient.

What I'll do to tube Ralph is give him some sedation.