Veterinarians

As the city of Los Angeles spends millions revamping its animal shelters, 10 of 12 veterinary positions in the Department of Animal Services, including that of chief veterinarian, go vacant. The lack of veterinarians has raised questions about the department's ability to care for the thousands of animals under its charge. It is especially notable given the stated priorities of the department's general manager, Ed Boks, whose promises upon taking the job a year ago included more humane treatment.

Richard Shapiro, chairman of the California Horse Racing Board, has ordered an independent review of an incident last summer at Del Mar involving a veterinarian and the Eclipse Award-winning mare Intercontinental. Scott Chaney, a steward at Santa Anita, will conduct the review of veterinarian Amy Lee Nevens, who falsified a bleeder medication report for Intercontinental last Sept. 3, the day the Danehill mare won the Palomar Breeders' Cup Handicap as the 3-10 favorite.

In this noisy den of brine and ice, scales and slime, fish always have been part meat, part missile. One man points to an enormous white-bellied fish, and another man in a wet apron scoops it up from the ice, hoists it over his shoulder and sends it flying 15 feet toward the counter. "Hali-BUT! Hali-BUT! Heyyyyyy!" six men scream in unison. "Goin' right home! Goin' right home!" The counterman catches the hurtling fish neatly between the head and tail fin and slaps it onto a wrapping sheet.

The gates fly open, the announcer barks, "And they're off!" and six superbly fit, muscle-bound thoroughbred racehorses burst forth, their hooves drumming the track, replaying the sport's ancient anthem in rumbling thunder. Seconds later, two vehicles peel out in chase, their wheels churning up a spray of tiny black balls of fiber, wax and silt that make up Hollywood Park's synthetic track. One is an ambulance, there in the rare case a jockey is injured.

Kathleen Ramsay doesn't scare easily. Two years ago, the wildlife veterinarian climbed a 100-foot tree to rescue a bobcat cub, and almost made it down with the wriggling baby before a branch snapped and she fell to the ground, breaking her back. "Cowabunga!" she said, describing the sickening splat that led to a two-year recovery. The paramedics "were just scared to death of that bobcat," Ramsay said, her face crinkling in a smile.

Natalia Bendik was told that there was no anesthetic available to perform surgery on her 17-year-old dog, but the clinic had a muscle relaxant that would at least immobilize him while his painful tumor was removed. As the drug was administered, Bendik said, the animal went into convulsions, then began to struggle for breath. "He was shivering all over, and his eyes were wide open. He couldn't breathe. The dog died, and the death was horrible," she said this week, angrily brushing back tears.

A man who sued his Fountain Valley veterinarian for malpractice has been awarded nearly $39,000 for the death of his dog. Five years and $375,000 in attorney's fees later, Marc Bluestone, 61, of Sherman Oaks, persuaded a Superior Court jury in Santa Ana that his dog's veterinarian, Craig Bergstrom, was guilty of malpractice.

Federal drug enforcement agents on Wednesday seized narcotics and clinic records from a Riverside County veterinarian being investigated for illegally dispensing drugs used to tranquilize and euthanize animals.

Not hurricane winds nor rain on Saturday could keep Patricia Ries from walking her dogs. All 137 of them. Ries is a veterinarian in this Central Florida shore town -- directly in the path of Hurricane Frances -- with an animal practice that can board as many as 37 animals. But area Red Cross shelters, where hundreds of evacuated residents were sitting out the storm, do not allow pets. So Ries boarded as many as she could at her Savanna Animal Hospital. And not just dogs.

A nationally recognized veterinarian accused of letting a former heavy-equipment operator perform surgery on a cat, passing staff doctors off as specialists and altering medical records is at the center of a legal fight dividing pet owners, animal rights activists and peers. The state is trying to revoke Dr. Robert L. Rooks' license and close his high-volume Fountain Valley veterinary hospital, All Care Animal Referral Center.