Get 'em Dan
01/30/06 “ Got a big black dogWhose name is DanLives in my backyard in BirminghamHe is the meanest dog in Alabam'Get 'em Dan” Lyrics from Birmingham by Randy Newman As part of the PhD program, at UT in Austin, my first wife, Alice (W1) was enrolled; she was required to take an animal surgery class. Mostly they used rats, doing things like intestinal drug absorption studies. As part of the course, however, she was required to perform a sterile surgery on a larger animal. Dogs purchased from a pound somewhere in Arkansas (or so they were told) were used. For her particular surgery, she performed a splenectomy. While performing the surgery, she remarked to her coworkers that she had always wanted a dog such as the one she was operating. A coworker insisted she would be a dog murderess, because the splenectomy was part of the preparation for his next procedure. He was to undergo a terminal cardiac output experiment in a couple of weeks. About one week later W1 bounced into