The Rhino with Glue-On Shoes Read online

Thirty minutes later, just as Paul finished bandaging the second rear foot, the rhino blinked and opened his eyelids extremely wide. The initial narcotic anesthetic had begun to wear off at just the right time. Minutes later, with most of the staff and equipment cleared away, I gave Mo a drug that would reverse the remaining effects of the anesthetic, took a last set of vital signs, and removed his catheter. Erin stayed with me at his head. Her shoes spattered with blood, she looked tired, having spent most of the time bent over, helping to hold Mo’s feet.

  “He’ll feel so much better in a few days,” I said quietly as we waited for the effects of the reversal drug to kick in.

  “I know,”Erin responded.“I just wish we didn’t have to put him through this much, at his age.”

  As the anesthetic reversal took effect, the rhino took a huge breath and lifted his nose. We pulled out the ear gauze, removed the blindfold, and backed out of the stall. Mo heaved himself to his feet, wobbling. Watery blood dripped from his elbows. He took a few steps, shaking his bandaged feet. The duct tape held. Once again, he’d sailed through the anesthesia. When I stopped by to check him two hours later, he appeared remarkably normal.

  From past experience, we knew the rhino’s feet would improve after the trim. We also knew we hadn’t solved anything. The infection would return within several months. In fact, Mo had been suffering from this problem for much of his life. It started long before he came to Washington, DC, while he lived at a zoo in Florida. Maybe the antibiotic perfusion would knock down the bacteria and keep them away for a bit longer this time. Like Erin, I wondered how many more times we could anesthetize him safely.

  Some months later, at a veterinary conference, I attended a presentation about foot problems in rhinos, expecting to hear the familiar advice: trim and trim again; try antibiotic footbaths. Instead, the speaker, Dr. Mark Atkinson, focused on what he had learned about greater one-horned rhinos in the wild. Throughout India, Nepal, Bhutan, and Thailand, this species—also known as the Indian rhino—lives in swampy grasslands and mud wallows.

  Mark recommended that zoos dramatically change the way they housed these rhinos. A pool isn’t enough, he said; give these animals the swamps and mud their feet need. Take the pressure off their soles by getting them off gravel and cement floors. He also pointed out that many zoo rhinos were overweight, compounding the problem. Why weren’t zoos providing the proper conditions? It was partly due to lack of understanding of what this species needs to be healthy, partly the cost of adding wallows, and partly the weather.

  For nine months of the year in Washington, Mo had access to his outdoor pool and the mud around it. And he spent most of his time there. During winter, however, he lived mostly inside, protected from the cold. Mo’s feet worsened within weeks of the start of wintertime housing routines.

  While he spoke, Mark flashed images of normal feet from wild rhinos in Nepal alongside images of abnormal ones living in captivity. Rhinos have three toes and a main foot pad. They naturally bear most of their weight on their toenails, each analogous to a horse’s hoof with a hard outer wall that extends well below a concave sole. Healthy wild rhinos are “toe walkers.” Since they naturally walk on soft ground, their toenails show very little wear. Captive rhinos have short nails with flat soles that fall even with the main foot pad; they are “pad walkers.”

  Suddenly, Mo’s real problem became crystal clear: his toenails were completely worn down from a lifetime on hard ground, exposing his soles—and then his main foot pad—to excess weight. Swampy ground might have prevented this problem, and it certainly had to be part of the long-term solution, but for now this rhino’s feet were caught in a painful vicious cycle. Every time we cut the overgrown sole tissue back, it barely came even with his nails. He walked mostly on his sore soles.

  I arranged for Paul to stop by to see Mo so I could show him some of the photos. He reacted to Mark’s findings with a new idea.

  “Okay, so let’s put shoes on him,” he said.

  “Shoes?” I was surprised. “Paul, you’re crazy. How do we do that?”

  “We’ll just glue ‘em on. No problem. I’ve been putting these aluminum shoes on the US Equestrian Team dressage horses because they’re light, and you don’t have to put nails through their feet to keep them on. We use epoxy and a fiberglass patch. You know, the way you fix broken turtle shells. If we can just get him up off his soles and give his nails some relief, they might have a chance to grow out more normally.”

  “But won’t we have to go back and take the shoes off at some point?” I asked, worried about the number of times we’d have to put the rhino (and ourselves) through anesthesia. The more I thought about an aluminum shoe glued onto the bottom of a rhino foot, the crazier it sounded. I imagined two scenarios: the rhino would wake up from anesthesia, tap around inside his enclosure, and throw off the shoes. Or the glue would hold them in place forever.

  “Nah, he’ll wear ‘em off eventually. Most people probably won’t even notice he has them on.” Paul thought for a moment. “Send me measurements of his back feet—the really bad ones—and some tracings of his footprints, if the keepers can get them. I’ll make a prefab set of shoes so the whole thing goes quickly. I think we should do this sooner rather than later, before his feet get really bad again.”

  We were all excited when the time came to give Mo his new shoes. Once again, there was extensive secondary infection in his rear feet, though the front feet were not so bad. After the trimming and antibiotic perfusion, Paul pulled the shoes out of his bag. I’d visualized thick pads of some sort. Instead, they looked a lot like standard horseshoes, without the holes, and shaped a bit differently. Of course, the other difference was that Mo would wear three shoes on each back foot, one for each of his three toes.

  Paul started prepping the shoes for the epoxy. He checked each one for size and shape. The shoe for the middle toes was a larger C shape than those for the smaller inner and outer toes. Since rhino toes spread out when the animal stands, the three shoes would support a fair amount of Mo’s weight; his main foot pad would support the rest. The combined surface of the shoes would function as surrogate toenails.

  Working at his usual rapid pace, Paul applied a thin layer of glue to the underside of each shoe. The bitter smell of adhesive filled the air. He pressed the shoe onto the sole close to the edge of the toe, and covered it with Kevlar fiberglass strips slathered in more glue. This patch acted like a Band-Aid to create a better seal and extend the life of the shoe.

  Paul pressed the shoes in place for several minutes, allowing the adhesive to take hold, and then wrapped the foot lightly: no need for the heavy gray tape today. We wanted Mo to shed these bandages by nightfall so he’d be walking on his new shoes. As Paul finished side two, I said, “Hey, wow, snazzy shoes! Bet this is a first for a greater one-horned rhino.”

  “Yup. I’m happy with them. He should feel a lot better. Let’s see how he wakes up.”

  Later in the morning, I came back to check on Mo. He stood drowsily eating hay. Erin smiled at him. Good old Mo—another uneventful recovery.

  His bandages already off, Mo walked over to us, his feet making a light tapping sound on the concrete floor. He pushed his great one-horned nose between the bars for a piece of carrot. The eye ointment from the procedure had seeped into the skin around his eyes, making them look even rounder and darker than usual. Mo seemed exceptionally calm and relaxed, and we thought the shoes were already giving him some relief. Erin joked that he might start tap-dancing at any moment.

  The shoes lasted longer than I’d imagined. Though the ones on the smaller inner and outer toes fell off by three months, the central toe shoes were still in place and doing their job for another six weeks. And although the chronic infection began its slow recurrence, Mo’s nails did grow out. When he and Mechi left the zoo for a wetter, swampier exhibit and a warmer climate, we felt we’d given him a better footing for what remained of his captive-rhino life.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Lucy H. S
pelman grew up with a menagerie of animals on an old dairy farm in rural Connecticut. While in middle school, she looked forward to “old clothes Wednesday,” a day set aside by one of her teachers to explore the nature trails across the street. She earned a bachelor of arts in biology from Brown University, then her veterinary degree from the University of California, Davis, and completed her postdoctoral training at North Carolina State University. Board certified by the American College of Zoological Medicine in 1994, Dr. Spelman’s work experience includes nearly ten years with the Smithsonian National Zoo, half as a clinical veterinarian and half as its director. She joined the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project in October 2006 as its Africa-based regional manager. Dr. Spelman enjoys sharing her work with others through all forms of media. In addition to writing, she has been filmed at work with animals in more than a dozen cable television documentaries, and has served as a consultant for various media and education divisions of Discovery Communications, Inc. “We’re all in this together,” she says of today’s conservation challenges.

  Pandas in Their Own Land

  by Carlos Sanchez, DVM, MSc

  In 2005, I was in Chengdu, China, preparing to perform a colonoscopy on a female giant panda with an undiagnosed intestinal disorder. This visit was the latest of several I’d made to the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. My Chinese colleagues had picked out several animals with chronic illnesses, and we’d planned to give each one a complete physical under anesthesia—including endoscopy and abdominal ultrasound. This particular panda, Yaloda, had been losing weight, her coat had lost its shine, and she hadn’t come into heat in several years.

  In my capacity as staff veterinarian at the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington, DC, travel to China is part of my job. I like foggy Chengdu, despite the challenges of working in a place where the language and the culture differs so much from mine. And I’ve gotten into a regular routine when I visit the Panda Base, which houses 35 or so of the world’s 260 captive giant pandas. Even so, it’s impossible not to feel a bit nervous the night before a scheduled procedure on a giant panda. I know that I’m one of very few veterinarians who will ever have the chance to take care of the animal many people consider the world’s rarest and most loved.

  I still remember the day in July 1981 when the first living cub was born to a giant panda outside China, at the Chapultepec Zoo in Mexico City. I was twelve years old. A few months later, my mom took my brother, my sister, and me to see the cub, Tohui. We stood in line for almost five hours before reaching the viewing glass that framed the panda’s night-house. Because of the great number of people, we were allowed to watch for only a few minutes. We waited anxiously until the mom turned around. Then we saw the fuzzy little black and white baby panda, moving about and trying to climb up his mom’s arms. When I saw Ying Ying with her cub, I realized that we were in the presence of an amazing creature. But I never imagined that this exotic species would become a focal point of my career, and indeed of my life.

  By the time Tohui turned fourteen, I’d finished veterinary school. That year, the Chapultepec Zoo hired me as staff veterinarian. Working there was a dream come true—the zoo had six giant pandas by then. And yet I wanted to learn more. Unfortunately, no program in my country could offer me further training in zoo animal medicine. Though it was a difficult decision, I decided to leave Mexico in order to become a better veterinarian. I moved to London to do my master’s at the Royal Veterinary College under a full scholarship from the British government. Next came a three-year zoo medicine residency at the National Zoo.

  Washington’s favorite old panda, Hsing Hsing, had just died when I started my program. But two young giant pandas, Mei Xiang and Tian Tian, were on their way from China. Playful and dramatic, they stole the show at the zoo. As in Mexico, people couldn’t get enough of watching giant pandas. And they wanted more. So did the zoo staff and its scientists. After some seasons of trial and error, Mei Xiang became pregnant via artificial insemination and gave birth to their first cub, Tai Shan. This was an exciting time for us all, and especially for me: I finished my training that year and was hired by the National Zoo as staff veterinarian, a second dream come true.

  On this trip to Chengdu, we planned to examine eight pandas—several with intestinal problems, including Yaloda—over the course of three busy days. Our first day went well. But as we prepared for the next, someone accidentally pushed our endoscope stand. Our fiberscope (a very specialized and expensive piece of equipment) fell to the concrete floor. I reached for it, but wasn’t fast enough; as if in slow motion, I watched the delicate instrument land on its base and saw three pieces detach themselves from the lens. A long silence filled the room. No one had to say that we needed the scope tomorrow, when we were scheduled to examine Yaloda.

  I evaluated the damage. The piece that attaches the camera to the scope was broken. Without the camera, I could not attach the TV monitor, making it impossible for me to show my Chinese colleagues how to interpret what we’d be seeing inside the panda’s stomach and intestines. Nor could I make a recording to document the exam. Without the camera, the scope was virtually useless.

  Determined to solve the problem, I gathered my tools: medical tape, scissors, and hair clippers. My improvised fix didn’t result in a perfect view through the lens, but it was better than the alternative, which was to cancel the exam on Yaloda. She’d been suffering from some kind of gastrointestinal disease for months. I didn’t want her to go any longer without a diagnosis and treatment.

  With the key piece of equipment repaired, we reviewed the schedule for the next day: first Yaloda’s exam, then two more. We’d start early in the morning, setting up and checking all our equipment, including several plastic crates’ worth of veterinary supplies I’d brought from the US. Once everything was ready, each panda would be anesthetized with a combination of drugs injected via a plastic dart.

  I also made a point of running through the techniques we’d be using for the endoscopy. Every time we do this procedure together, the Chinese veterinarians gain confidence in their knowledge; one day, they will perform it themselves. When it was safe to handle the panda, we’d move it from its night-house to a room with an operating table. We’d insert a tube into its windpipe to protect its airways and place a catheter in one of its arm veins to give it some fluids while under anesthesia. The exam would include an oral exam, abdominal palpation, a blood sample, and endoscopy. This last procedure would be performed with our special, now-repaired fiberscope. We’d introduce the endoscope inside the stomach (gastroscopy) and into the colon of the animal (colonoscopy). Each exam would take two and a half to three hours at least, maybe longer for Yaloda, since we knew she was the panda with the most severe problem.

  The night before Yaloda’s exam, our excellent hosts took us out to a restaurant, where we ate many colorful, delicious dishes. I felt completely at ease with my Chinese colleagues. Though most of China’s traditions are very different from Mexico’s, some things are the same. For one thing, Sichuan food is spicy, just like Mexican food. And as at home, friendship and trust are established here over a social meal—socializing that usually includes drinking the traditional Chinese liquor, unless you’re doing giant panda anesthesia the next morning! (We had tea, instead.) Chinese baijou is very strong, not unlike Mexican tequila. We all looked forward to a proper banquet at the end of our three-day stint.

  The next morning, I awoke to the sound of Chengdu’s incessantly honking cars, a brutal alarm system, and took a taxi to the Panda Base. Before we anesthetize our patients, we like to look at them first. So I found the head veterinarian and we went together to see Yaloda. She was in her night-house, sitting on a wooden platform surrounded by stalks of bamboo and piles of loose leaves. It didn’t appear as if she’d eaten anything overnight. The room temperature was comfortably cool in spite of the heat outside; still, Yaloda seemed uncomfortable. I could see that her feces were soft.

  The panda was thin, her abdomen appeared slightly bl
oated, and her coat looked dull and coarse. Though only eight years old, she looked older. I’d been told that her feces had been abnormally soft for several years now, and that she had not responded to conventional therapy. In China, “conventional” therapy can vary from traditional Chinese medicine to powerful antibiotics. Although I didn’t know why she had not responded to previous treatment, I felt confident that if we could make a definitive diagnosis, we could propose a different treatment and possibly cure her.

  Our team had agreed we’d need to perform a colonoscopy on Yaloda as well as gastroscopy. We didn’t know for certain which part of her intestinal tract was affected. We’d take small pieces of her stomach and large intestine to be evaluated under the microscope. We hoped this procedure would explain why she’d been sick for such a long time.

  Yaloda is a gentle animal, and she was calm before her procedure. When one of the Panda Base vets darted her with the anesthetic drug, she jumped slightly, but then sat back down and watched all of us with her mild dark eyes. I had the impression that she knew that we wanted to help her. I’m sure she found it strange to have so many people paying her all this attention. She fell asleep slowly, having experienced a smooth induction, and continued to do well under anesthesia.

  Although I still worried that the scope might break in the middle of the procedure, I felt we had no option—we had to try.

  With Yaloda sleeping deeply on her side, we placed a mouth gag between her canines to avoid the possibility of her jaws crushing our scope. I passed the scope in slowly, first into the back of her throat, then down into her esophagus and into the stomach. With the camera and TV monitor running, we could all evaluate the images. Nothing in her stomach looked abnormal. We decided not to take any biopsies there but to move on to the colon. I pulled the scope out of her mouth and went around to the other end. So far, we’d found no explanation for her illness. The puzzle was still unsolved.