New graphics advertising Mobile Equine Veterinary Services wrap the supply box of a truck from the VTH’s Rural Veterinary Practice fleet.

Recent news from the wildlife center is good. As part of her rehabilitation, volunteers have been chasing the eagle around her 80′ pen trying to force her to fly as much as possible. She has been steadily improving and now is flying so well, center director Jeff Picton is considering sending her to to another wildlife center with a bigger flight cage where she can get really good workouts. “She really needs something huge to practice in,” says Warnock. The ultimate goal of all this activity is to strengthen her wing enough to return her to the wild.

The teaching hospital staff love the cheerful fleece blankets that Diane Ostergaard makes with TLC.

A couple of years ago, Diane Ostergaard brought her kitty into the OSU Veterinary Teaching Hospital. Wolf was critically ill with cancer and was not eating so he spent some time in the ICU while the hospital built his strength up and treated his cancer. Today Wolf takes cancer medication every two weeks and most of the time eats pretty well. “I’ve had to adjust his diet to keep him eating,” says Ostergaard, “but he seems happy and acts like a normal cat.”

While Wolf was in the ICU, the students who were on rotation at that time came into the hospital on the weekend so she and her husband could visit their cat. Ostergaard appreciated that extra effort and wanted to find a way to give back. After giving it some thought, she came up with a terrific idea: make bright, fun, custom-fitted blankets to replace the towels that lined the cages in the ICU. Client services coordinator Mandy Seals loves the blankets not only because they are beautiful but also because they don’t bunch up and are easy to get in and out. “They are such soft fabric and fit perfectly,” she says. “A small thing like that makes a big difference.”

The hospital staff look forward to seeing Ostergaard every few months when she stops by the hospital with bags and bags of new blankets. She chooses colorful fleece fabric with animal prints or OSU logos to cheer up owners who are visiting seriously ill pets. “It is payback for all the nice things the hospital staff have done for us,” she says.

Jason Wiest, a CT technician at the Veterinary Teaching Hospital, helps scientist Gerald Conlogue ready the mummy for her CT scan.

When a Portland woman inherited a creepy old mummy, she wasn’t sure who or what it was. That changed when she put it up for sale on E-bay. Two scientists from Quinnipiac University saw it and contacted her. Ron Beckett and Gerald Conlogue — former hosts of the National Geographic program “Mummy Road Show”  — were so intrigued by the mummy, they arranged to have it x-rayed at the OSU Veterinary Teaching Hospital.

Last week Beckett and Conlogue, plus several cameramen from Portland television stations, accompanied the mummy to Corvallis to run it through the vet hospital’s CT scanner. It turned out the mummy was a dummy. The scanner revealed a largely empty wooden shell wrapped in layers of bandage. Beckett said the fake mummy most likely travelled with P.T. Barnum’s circus as a sideshow hoax.

Watch the video.

Last week the Chintimini Wildlife Rehabilitation Center (CWC) north of Corvallis, brought a bald eagle with a badly injured wing to the hospital. Small animal surgeon Dr. Jennifer Warnock consulted with CWC director Jeff Picton on how best to repair the delicate bones. “It was a nasty, comminuted fracture that could not be anatomically reconstructed,” says Warnock.  “Bird bone is particularly thin and brittle, making implant placement a delicate affair: pins placed in bird bone can easily strip out or further fracture the bone.”  The team decided to use a minimally invasive procedure with the C-arm fluoroscope to place a pin and external fixator through tiny incisions. “By not disturbing the soft tissues we use the principle of biological osteosynthesis to assist in fracture healing,” says Warnock.

The damaged wing also created challenges for anesthesiologist Dr. Ron Mandsager. “The avian humerus is pneumatic, meaning it is connected with the respiratory system making the bird lighter for flight and keeping them cool,” says Warnock. This caused air to leak out of the injured wing and Mandsager kept loosing pressure on the anesthetic machine causing it to indicate the bird wasn’t breathing when they could see it taking breaths on the bag.

The two-hour surgery went well and the eagle came out of anesthesia feisty as ever. In fact, immediately upon waking, he bit Picton and drew blood. “We were all saying, “Oh great, he’s fast! That is a good sign,” laughs Claire Peterson, a third-year veterinary student and regular volunteer at CWC.

In a couple of weeks, the external fixator on the wing can be removed so that physical therapy can begin. The sooner he can begin using his injured wing, the greater the chance of successful return to function.

The jury is still out on whether the bald eagle will recover well enough to be released. According to Peterson, he has a better chance of returning to the wild than other raptors. “If it were a falcon, it would be unlikely,” says Peterson. “They are the athletes of the bird world. They are hunting ducks and songbirds so they need to be able to fly really well. Eagles can scavenge and they can catch fish. He doesn’t need to be an athlete; he just needs to be able to get along. We’re hoping that it’s enough.”