Large Animal Vet Holds Her Own

When Laird Laurence came to Fredericksburg to begin his career, clients would sometimes pay with a dozen eggs or a prime cut of their backyard beef. Now the times and the economy have changed. Most of the local ranchers have in-town jobs because they can’t support their families with mom-and-pop operations. In the mid-’90s a property tax exemption changed its wording from cattle to “wildlife,” meaning anyone with an acre and an eland could claim tax-exempt status — a savings of thousands of dollars per acre. Sitting shotgun in Pilmer’s F-150 pickup, Laurence’s light blue eyes flicker with amusement recalling how much things have changed. “When I started in 1975 the most exotic animal was a parakeet,” he said. “Now I have to help deliver zebras.”

Pilmer got her taste of the exotic on one of her first mornings on call at the clinic. Awakened by a truck and trailer at the loading dock, Pilmer stumbled down the stairs from her apartment to meet the beady eyes of a five-foot-tall delirious red kangaroo in the fluorescent light. She leapt to scale the nearest fence. Though her training had covered many things, there had never been a mention of what to do with an escaped, dehydrated kangaroo. She could hear the client’s laughter from the darkness, and Daryl Whitworth had his first glimpse of the new vet in town.

Laughing as she told the story, Pilmer remembered feeling pretty foolish. “I had just got here and I was trying to blend in,” she said. “This didn’t help.”

Blending is tough for any new arrival in a small Texas town, and being the woman vet doesn’t make it easier. And, Pilmer said, “It doesn’t help that I look like I’m 12.” On her first cow call (a breach calf that needed a tug), Pilmer remembered that she got out of her truck, knees knocking from nerves, and the cow’s owner said, “Where’s the veterinarian?” That was the first of the many times Pilmer has had to prove herself through her work before a client will accept her.

On a recent April morning, one such client phoned at 6:30. Elgin Durst had a bellowing heifer in troubled labor, the fourth this month, and he thought he had a stillborn calf that wouldn’t come out, putting the mother cow’s life in danger. Durst is a seasoned rancher who wears plaid shirts over his rounding middle, suspenders to hold up his baggy khaki pants, and a baseball cap, depending on the day. The first time he called Pilmer with an ailing heifer she asked him if he would bring it into the clinic. “No ma’am,” he said, “I’m 87 years old.”

Durst has lived in Fredericksburg since 1946 and, in his estimation, takes care of 60-odd cows on seven properties at any given time. He’s one of five brothers, all World War II veterans, and said he’s seen it all except, until this season, a woman vet. When his heifer was ailing and he heard that Pilmer was the on-call vet he didn’t know what to think, but what he saw that morning impressed him. When Pilmer found the heifer in the middle of the pasture she told him she needed to tie it to a tree so it wouldn’t try to escape when she went to examine it. This was a new idea to Durst, but he conceded. Pilmer lassoed the cow, marched it to the closest tree and got to work. After the stillborn calf was safely removed and the heifer was stitched up, Durst kept exclaiming, “I can’t believe you’re a girl!”

“Goddang!” Durst said later. “She didn’t back off for nothing.”

Part of learning how to blend in was earning not only the acceptance but the respect from clients like Durst. The heifer experience was enough to convince Durst that, girl and all, Pilmer was a skilled veterinarian: “She’s top in my book, I tell you what.”