The Incredible Dr. Pol

This time on The Incredible Dr. Pol...

We got our second one!

- It's a baby boom! - Hey!

But frigid temperatures...

Man, it's cold this morning!

...may ruin the party.

I don't want this calf to freeze.

We love our donkeys!

Meet Dr. Jan Pol.

He's a local legend

with over 22,000 clients.

And a team that does whatever it takes.

Bitter cold is sweeping central Michigan.

And it's brutal out there with that wind chill,

feels like negative 25, this is nuts.

Despite the freezing temperatures...

Clean glove.

...things have been heating up at Kris Gerred's farm.

- Morning! - Morning!

- How ya doing, Kris? - Good, how are you?

I'm here to see Dr. Pol to have a pregnancy test done

on my one mare.

This one here I want to know if she's pregnant.

Yes.

Jesse is my white paint mare, and she's really sweet.

News of a pregnancy is usually

cause for celebration,

but Kris' plans for breeding Jesse may have been hijacked.

I had a rescue stallion, I had him gelded.

I put him out with everybody else.

I know that they were together.

And she's kinda gettin' fat... er...

than what she should be.

Kris is crossing her fingers

Jesse isn't pregnant.

Take it easy.

But she has a sneaking suspicion the stallion

had one last fling.

Even after you castrate horses,

the hormones are still there,

and they have one last possibility to get 'em pregnant.

Just so you know, he's going in her butt.

Come on, take it easy.

Jess, Jess.

This horse has not been checked many times,

so it doesn't like

that I touch it and try to put my hand

up her rectum.

Stop it!

Got her?

- That's enough, hey! - Hey!

You've done this before.

- Man it's cold this morning. - It is.

- Want my hat? - No.

Okay.

Could have gone to the bathroom first.

You tell me that every time you do this, you know that?

I know, look how dry everything is.

They expect it to be pregnant, almost,

they hope not.

Oh, my gosh, she's due in... end of April, beginning May.

This horse is pregnant.

Great.

Fantastic.

So she says, "Darn it."

- Get in there. Hep. - Go on.

We had an oops mistake.

Not what I wanted to hear, but okay.

You're so naughty.

I didn't do it.

I know you didn't do the gelding,

but, you know, that one last shot in there.

Uh-huh. Oh yeah, that happens.

Oh yeah, yep.

The horse had one last fling, and got the mare pregnant.

Dang!

Not what you wanted.

Can't contain my excitement on that one.

Obviously, we'll still love the baby and stuff, but...

I would have preferred something out of a little better stock.

The lesson to learn here is that if you have

a stallion that's castrated, you still gotta keep them away

from mares for about a month.

Otherwise, they still gets them pregnant.

Severe weather has virtually shut down Isabella County.

That goes for the animals, too.

Dr. Brenda's on an emergency.

We called Dr. Brenda today because our donkey is sick.

He's down and I can't get him back up.

We're hoping she can help us.

Let's go take a look at your donkey.

He's down here.

Mario is the donkey.

- Pretty skinny, though. - Yeah.

'Kay.

He's all around...

friendly, loves people.

However, not today.

He is very sick.

There we go.

I think he's pretty far down.

Mario's body temperature is dangerously low.

Thermometer's only registering 90,

- should be closer to 99 for him would be normal. - Uh-huh...

Um, so that's not a particularly good prognosis that he's so cold.

I think that this particular animal

is having some hypothermia issues,

along with his generalized, uh, poor body condition

that makes it so he doesn't... Doesn't feel like getting up,

doesn't care if he gets up.

If you want to pull on his head,

I want to see if I can't help lift his behind, see if we can get him to stand.

Come on buddy, come on.

- Up, up, up, up. - Come on.

Mario is so cold and thin, he needs help just to stand.

Is he eating this afternoon now for you or not?

Um, he did eat this morning.

Worst-case scenario he's gonna die.

Want me to get some oats and see if we can get something down him?

Uh, sure... actually, try a little bit of warm water and see if he'll drink.

Not hot, but just something with the chill knocked off of it.

They need to stoke Mario with food to warm him up.

But when the oats arrive, his problem becomes clear as day.

Oh yeah, one will eat.

- Oh yeah, he'll eat. - He eats anything.

Yeah.

Mario's pen mate, Willis, is the dominant male,

and he's eating Mario's breakfast, lunch and dinner.

He's being bullied by the other donkey,

so he's not getting as much feed as he should.

Think that's probably part of the issue.

All that has to happen is our sick one

needs to look at the hay pile,

and then look to see what this one's doing, and he's giving him that...

look of death that the mothers give the children,

you know, when they're misbehaving in public, it's like "don't even try it."

He's pretty happy to eat

about as quickly as the pen mate is.

So, I think that's a good sign.

The one needs nothing, 'cause he's chubby and happy.

This one needs everything we can throw at him.

Tangi's granddaughters are eager to help.

We love our donkeys.

Alright.

Mario will need his fair share of food and space

to get back on his feet.

The one thing I might do is when it comes to feeding time,

either separate them or tie-tie the heavy one up

so the thin one can eat.

Any food we can get him is gonna help warm him up.

Prognosis for this animal, actually, is kinda fair to guarded,

because of the poor body condition.

We're starting kind of in a hole and have to work ourselves up.

I know we're not out of the woods,

but we can turn this around.

It's frigid.

But Dr. Pol and his son, Charles, are up extra early.

Come here.

They've got work to do at the family stable.

Is she in the barn or not?

Yeah, she's in the stall.

Doc's put together a plan

to celebrate Diane's birthday

with something she's always wanted.

You want this one, or the red one?

The red one.

Diane has surprised me several times.

I like to surprise her sometimes, too.

Diane is going to get the one-horse open sleigh ride for her birthday this year.

The real stars of the surprise are Doc's Friesian horses,

Anneke and Johansa.

To my dad, they have a real special place in his heart.

It was something he grew up with.

Put your nose in here.

I think he wanted to bring a little piece

of that childhood over here to his new home.

- Got hair in my mouth! - You gotta stand up wind!

When my dad brought his Friesian horses

over here from the Netherlands,

part of the selling point to my mom was, "Hey, we can get a sleigh.

We'll train 'em up and we'll go for a ride."

I've always had this, I guess, romantic dream

of, you know, going behind the horses in a sleigh

and going for sleigh rides.

And that was about 14 years ago,

and they've never gone for a ride.

Okay, bring 'em out.

And that sleigh ride won't happen by itself.

Come on!

With a little help from his friends,

Doc's having his Dutch work horses re-trained,

to take Diane dashing through the snow.

Come on, hey, wrong side, come on!

Diane has no idea what's going on so far.

This is hopefully going to be a big surprise for her.

Behave yourself.

It is a payback, I got you this time, lady.

See you guys, drive careful.

Driving in these conditions can be treacherous.

But when there's an emergency, Dr. Emily shows up.