 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||
 |
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Funded Projects |
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
FCAP Veterinary Profiles |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Dr. Lisa Pierson: Horse (and cat) Doctor Not long ago, Dr. Lisa Pierson got an emergency call on her pager: horse hit by car, needs immediate attention. She jumped in her pick-up and sped 25 miles to treat a 4 year-old Quarterhorse suffering from multiple lacerations and a corneal abrasion. As she tended the injured animal, she noticed several feral cats scurrying about the barn. "There goes the baby machine", commented one of the horse caregivers. As soon as the horse was cared for, Pierson pulled the ever- present Tomahawk trap from the back of the truck. Minutes later, in walked a 7-month old male cat, which Dr. Pierson quickly neutered. A few minutes later, the baby machine strolled in and the gray tabby was whisked to a nearby clinic for the spay surgery. Horses and cats. It's all in a day's work for Lisa Pierson. Dr. Pierson has run a mobile equine veterinary practice in the Los Angeles area's Rolling Hills and Palos Verdes Peninsula for the past sixteen years. Like the turtle that carries his house on his back, Dr. Pierson carries everything she needs in the back of her pick-up truck. With her refrigerator for vaccines, tank for running water and her special large animal vet pack complete with motorized Dremel tools, she's fully equipped to treat the dental, intestinal or orthopedic needs of her equine patients in the field. But more and more, Dr. Pierson is turning towards the cats. In fact, for the past year she's stopped taking new horse clients in order to devote more time to felines. "I've been pretty heavily involved in cat rescue for quite a few years". She says. "I work with a group called TLC Adoptions, fostering domestic cats, taming ferals and placing homeless cats up for adoption at PETsMART. And since 1999, I've also been active in the California Veterinary Medical Association's Feral Cat Altering Program." In the first year of the FCAP Program, Dr. Pierson spayed or neutered 99 feral cats over her baseline of 6. " The hard part is, I'm not just doing the surgery, I'm doing the trapping, too." Many a night, Dr. Pierson is out on the horse trails or in the barns at 11 PM, setting her traps. "Once you set them, you have to come back and check them. And if a cat is in there, you don't want to leave them. Right now, I'm definitely burning the candle at both ends. But the job is getting done and for the time being, that's enough." |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
