Must Love Dogs

It was close to 9pm at night and I was elbow deep in dead dog guts. The dog had been dead for 3 hours at least but the guts were still warm and soft and very very slippery.

"Make sure you push the rectal contents cranially so that they don't spill out when you cut out the intestines!" shouted my instructor. He was from somewhere in Eastern Europe and had a strong accent which made everything sound as though it were the most exciting thing you could possibly imagine.

I felt around for the bowels and squeezed the sh*t forward. Taking my hardcore pathology knife, I sliced away the tissue holding the guts into the body cavity and slowly, loop by loop, removed the intestines.

I finished with the guts and was looking down at the neck and then I stopped.
Something wasn't right.

It was moving.

I looked again.
"Uh, guys, is the dog's neck supposed to be, uh, doing that?" I pointed and everyone stopped.

The neck muscles were pulsing at a steady rate and twitching like crazy. "It's just some post-mortem nerve twitches."
"It's creepy."

It kept twitching till we finished the next part.

"Now we want to remove the head and slice out the tongue from underneath the jaw!"

"You can do the honours" said my partner.
"Gee thanks."

Much hacking and slicing later, my dog's tongue, esophagus, trachea and lungs were on one side of the table while his head was sitting at the other end. There's something so unnerving about that feeling you get when you slice through that final joint ligament holding the head to the spine. It's like biting on tin foil.

I had the same sensation as I took the giant bone clippers from the wall (we're talking a metre and a half long pliers) and cracked through all 13 ribs.

The dog's eyes were open when it died and it still wore the strange grin that dogs persistently show. By this time, it looked like a mass of chopped meat and guts on the table and I was surprised by how much it still smelled like . . . well, dog.

I picked up the head and using both hands, made its jaws open and close like a puppet. "Hellooooooo." I said with the dog head. My partner and the girl at the next table laughed. The technician came and took the head away from me. Probaby for the best. It had been a long day.

"Now you want to make butterflies! YES BUTTERFLIES!" shouted my instructor.

He was referring to the stomach which, when cut perfectly along the greater curvature and spread out, looks like a nightmarish pink butterlfy.


"Very good Vivian! GOOD! LIKE A BUTTERFLY!"

I scissored open the stomach. There was still whole kibbles of dog food inside.

Next, we had fun slicing open the guts and then squeezing the gall bladder to watch bile flooding into the duodenum. I also got to slice the kidneys, lungs, liver and spleen. There was something wrong with the dog's kidneys and they were covered in little white foci which my prof got very excited about. "BEAUTIFUL PATHOLOGY! Look at dis!!! Dis is classical kidney lesion!"

Everyone gathered round our dog and oohed and aahed.
By the end of the night, I was dead dogged out.

I had somehow managed to get dog blood splattered all over my lab jacket and during cleanup, I'd sprayed bloody water all over my face. It was close to ten as I got into my car and carefully drove home, trying not to lean back my head on my seat in case I contaminated it with dog blood.

All in all, it was a good night. Great time had by all . . . except the dog of course.

Take care everyone and till next time, remember: disembodied dog heads are not toys and always wash your hands before you eat!