Kickass and brucellosis

Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that in these days of flu shots and the search for a coronavirus vaccine, the keeper remembers when, as a farm youth, he accidentally received a shot in the arm that was intended for a Holstein heifer to prevent her from getting contagious brucellosis, a reproductive disease that causes members of the bovine family to about their fetuses.  The incident happened when the keeper was enlisted by Doc Clafflin to help inoculate a number of the females in his—the keeper’s, father’s herd of milk cows. As the keeper held a heifer around the neck to stabilize her, Doc made a stab with his needle just as the heifer lurched.  As a result, the keeper took the full thrust of the loaded needle in his upper arm.

The upshot was that the keeper’s arm swelled up really big, his usually soft=spoken mother was so incensed at Doc. Clafflin that she almost said something to him; and, Doc, who was known to take a sip or two of medicinal stimulants, was apologetic but did not seem overly concerned.

There did not seem to have been any long-term downside to the incident, and sometimes when the keeper talks about it, he has the poor taste to point out there may actually have been an upside since he has never aborted a bovine fetus.

The keeper will be getting his flu shot now, and Kickass suggests maybe he needs one for distemper too.