Dr. Tanja Molby cringes when Sally Hepler calls about her horse, Shazraff.

Molby knows how important the quarter horse is to the Maple City-area woman. Hepler, 80, has owned the 35-year-old Shazraff since he was 9.
DR. TANJA MOLBY is shown Friday with Riley, a horse owned by Thea Senger.
“It’s most unusual for a horse to live to that age,” Molby said, adding that Hepler takes great care of the horse. “I’m always hopeful there’ll be something I can do for him.”

For Molby, the visit to treat Shazraff was one on three stops made Friday in her role as Leelanau’s County's only “large animal” veterinarian. During an earlier visit, Molby was summoned because Shazraff wasn’t eating. Knowing how serious that refusal to eat can be in older equine, Molby’s mind raced as she drove to the farm with two high school students riding along.

“I thought, ‘What if I have to put this horse down?’ It would have been so traumatizing for them,” she said.

Fortunately for Hepler and Shazraff, the source of the problem was easily found and even more easily resolved.

“He had a stick lodged across the roof of his mouth,” the vet said. “It was an easy fix.”

Last Friday the horse was suffering from laminitis, an inflammatory disease that interferes with the hoof wall and bone. In advanced cases, the bone becomes detached from the hoof wall and may rotate or sink. In lay terms, it is called “foundering” – from the maritime term meaning to sink. Hepler listened carefully as the vet talked about the horse’s diet and prescribed an anti-inflammatory medication, and what the horse’s farrier could do to ease the pressure on its hooves.

“I think you caught it early on,” Molby told Hepler. “Give me a call if he gets any worse.”
Molby, who lives in Suttons Bay, travels all over northern Michigan to see “patients” and their owners. The German native first came to the U.S. when she was 17 as an exchange student with Youth for Understanding. She returned to her homeland but came back to the States to attend Olivet College and later the University of Kentucky, where she earned her bachelor’s degree. She then enrolled in Michigan State University’s veterinary science program.

“I tell most kids that they should prepare for college by studying math and science,” Molby said, adding that getting into vet school is very competitive. “That way, they are prepared for a number of things if they aren’t able to get into vet school. I prepared for human medicine, never dreaming I’d get into vet school.”

Only 106 of 923 applicants were accepted at Michigan State University’s School of Veterinary Medicine for 2009-10. But the numbers don’t accurately demonstrate the severe shortage of large animal vets, which is reaching nearly crisis levels. Officials from the U.S. States Department of Agriculture are concerned the shortage could put the nation’s food supply at risk. The American Veterinary Medical Association has gone as far as to call the shortage a threat to national security.
Earlier in the day, Molby gives instructions to Sally Hepler on treatment required for her horse Shazraff.
Earlier this month, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the implementation of the National Veterinary Medical Services Act that will repay up to $25,000 of student loan debt per year for each year served in an area affected by the shortage of large animal vets.

Molby is one of three such veterinarians and the only woman practicing in this sub-speciality in northwest Lower Michigan. The others are Drs. Shanti Bhujan of Kingsley and Todd Rabb of Cadillac.

“The small animal vets have an on-call rotation,” said Molby, who carries most everything she needs — including an X-ray machine —in the back of her Chevy Suburban. “We have to be ready 24/7.”

Molby’s patients include horses, sheep, goats and llamas, but she also treats dogs and cats though she does little work with cattle.

“I wouldn’t refuse to see cows, but most of the farmers do the medicines themselves,” she explained.

Molby’s second stop Friday was at another Maple City barn where she checked in on Lily, a white Sonnen goat who started out as a 4-H project but became a part of the family.

Molby, who said she was the only woman in a group of eight during her clinical rotations, demonstrated that it takes more than brute strength to work closely with large animals.

“Animals have long memories. You might get away with (heavy-handedness) once, but it won’t happen twice,” Molby explained.

During her student fieldwork, there was one horse known to pose difficulties with examining vets. After repeated attempts by male doctors to examine the horse, it was Molby who was successful in getting the blood sample needed.

“I took a deep breath and took another minute to calm the animal down,” she said. “It was a bonus for us.”

The soft-spoken vet approached the goat Friday with reassuring words while she stroked her coat. “Oh, that’s a good girl. That’s it, Lily. You’ll be all right,” she said.

Lily checked out OK despite having what the doctor believed to be a hairline fracture of her leg bone. Her owner, Nancy Wright, was given instructions to continue to limit the goat’s activity while the bone mended.

Her third stop was at a Cedar-area home to check on Riley, a quarter horse owned by Laura Dungjen’s daughter Thea Senger.

Besides looking over the 8-year-old horse to see how he was weathering the winter, a blood sample was needed to test for equine anemia, a particularly contagious viral disease for which there is no vaccine or cure. To secure the sample, the 5-foot-3 Molby stood next to the chestnut-colored giant that appeared to be a little skittish.

“He remembers me as the lady who comes around with the 5-inch needles,” Molby said as she calmly stroked the horse’s neck from which the dark crimson fluid was drawn.

“That’s not so bad,” she said to Riley.

Molby said her decision to become a vet was based on her passion for animals, not a “rational economic choice.”

Eight years after receiving her degree in veterinary medicine, she still has $115,000 in student loan debt. A typical equine vet earns about $50,000 to $60,000 per year “tops,” Molby said, “unless they are working at a horse track.” She said money isn’t her motivation, though.

“Given the level of education versus the income potential … it’s a job you’ve got to love,” she said. “People in the county have a high equine IQ. They’re here for the right reasons … I’ve got the best job in the world.”