For more about Critter Way

Retirement from Veterinary Practice

The Transition

Retiring in 2006 allowed me to tackle activities and projects that I've been putting off until I had more time. For the first few months, assisting the new owner, Dr. Shura Bugreeff, with the transition of the practice helped to wean me away from the pace I had maintained for forty years. The publication of Critter Way is one of those projects it has allowed me to complete.

Those chats with friends and clients whose animals I've attended over the years is something I miss, but it was time to step aside and allow a new generation professional become established. The incredible expansion of knowledge in our field and the public's expections are better suited for the young and energetic, like I once was! The day when a general practitioner can treat all species with acceptable proficiency is passing. Today's highly skilled veterinarians start with a fresh mind and fill it with only the latest, up-to-date information, and their brains aren't cluttered with the years of discarded information that has become obsolete. It's been an enjoyable career that has provided me with the ability to raise a great family in a beautiful place during a peaceful era. Critter Way will give you a taste of what it was like.

The Early Years

On the small dairy farm in Wisconsin where I grew up, I took a special interest in our animals' health, and nursing sick animals sparked a further interest in working with our local veterinarian. I spent countless hours with my mentor, Dr. Mel Seeliger, "riding shotgun" with him evenings and weekends while absorbing the art of the profession. Following in his path, I attended Michigan State University where I met and married Teck. After graduation in 1966, we were drawn to the mountains of the West where I accepted a position in Boulder, Colorado. Within two years I felt ready to establish my own practice, but the Viet Nam war was heating up and even veterinarians were being drafted. I felt called to serve my country, as many of my contemporaries were doing, and enlisted in the US Air Force where I was assigned to the Aerospace Medical Reasearch Center in San Antonio. Although my principal duty as Base Veterinarian was to monitor food safety and public health, I conducted a weekly clinic on the base and was also able to participate in some of the space research projects going on there.

After discharge two years later, an opening developed in Montana. Much as the book describes, I entered into a partnership that lasted only a few years and I then ran the practice alone for most of my career. Teck and I have been married for nearly 44 years. She worked as a biochemist for the Michigan Department of Agriculture to help get me through school and then became a fulltime mother after we moved to Colorado. More recently, when our last daughter graduated from college, Teck became the office manager for a landscape architect and thoroughly enjoys her job. We have four children, all of whom have earned college degrees and are successful in their careers and raising new families. Holiday get-togethers are treasured family events that draw us together and we enjoy traveling to Los Angeles and Salt Lake City to visit our daughters and their families, especially those grandkids. Last, but not least, is my annual Father's Day trip to Alaska to visit our son, to do some fishing, touring, and just hanging out with him. In addition to these excursions, there is so-o-o much awesome scenery and history right here in Montana, like Glacier and Yellowstone parks along with explorers' trails and Old West sites that we like to see, too.

Current Activities

Our home and little hobby ranch is my primary interest. Grazing a few steers and growing some hay each summer requires constant irrigation, which means carrying 40-foot sprinkler pipes up or down a 30% slope twice a day during the five month growing season. It was a great way to teach our kids a good work ethic when they were young and when they left we justified it as aerobic exercise for ourselves, although that excuse is wearing rather thin now! With our increasing age and the cost of fertilizer and pumping utilities, I've undertaken a reforestation project that involves rebuilding fences, trimming and thinning an existing forest plot, and planting over 600 seedlings this spring to start this multi-year program. (If you're looking for energy credits to offset your overproduction of greenhouse gases, this should qualify--make me an offer!) This project will eventually preclude continuous irrigation as it evolves, and will return the site to an open wooded hillside ecology similar to how it might have appeared when Lewis and Clark glanced this way as they trekked along the Bitterroot River over two-hundred years ago

"You can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy," is an old adage that Teck will tell you certainly applies to me. From grading/plowing the neighborhood road, to mowing weeds and manicuring a huge lawn, to repairing and building things, I'm content with the satisfaction of accomplishment awaiting me. Like many men, I enjoy working with tools and may occasionally develop a project to justify buying new ones. I've always had a motto that anything built buy a man can be fixed and one of the projects awaiting me is to restore my grandfather's 1925 Model T that's still in running condition. Then there's that nice trout stream a few hundred yards down the hill that I haven't frequented much over the years, but it will get more visits from me now. Hunting used to be a passion when the family was younger, not only for the meat that helped fill our freezer, but for the camaraderie of the hunting camp and the splendor of the outdoors. With only two of us now, a ribeye steak or thick-cut pork chop provides ample meat that's fresh when we want it, so I only hunt with my Canon camera now.

Stargazing and astronomy have been hobbies I haven't had time to pursue as much as I'd like, although my interest compelled me to learn more about atronomical physics which led to studying the Theory of Relativity and quantum physics, which required trying to learn the calculus I never had in college. My kids think I have a penchant for weird hobbies!

I really enjoy writing and reliving the fond memories of my life. From this perspective, I can see the blessings and joys, while overlooking the stresses and frustrations that sometimes clouded daily living back then. Working with computers is another love and they have been an invaluable asset in writing and many other areas, such as the challenge of developing this web page.

Above all is my Christian faith. I'm often remiss in not speaking openly about it, but I'm aware that my conduct is not always "Christian." If my life doesn't witness to my faith, making a lot of declarations about it will only discredit Him.