Taking an Old-School, No-Nonsense Approach to Veterinary Medicine,
Dr. Pol Has More than 40 Years in the Field, and Is a Legend in Rural Michigan
Nat Geo WILD’s New Series, The Incredible Dr. Pol
Premieres Saturday, October 29, 2011, at 9 & 10 PM ET/PT Then Moves to 10 PM ET/PT
“I’m in the business to help farmers make money. If they go out of business, like so many of these farmers around here, I go out of business.” — Dr. Jan Pol
Sick horse on the verge of death? A German shepherd with no appetite? A pig with an abscess? Not exactly easy tasks to tackle. But one man has it all under control. With a “you name it, and we’ll treat it” attitude, this house-call-making veterinarian has seen it all. A senior with a Dutch accent, working countless hours a day, is not slowing down any time soon.
Meet Dr. Pol, an expert in large farm animals and pets. This senior is anything but retiring as he takes an old-school, no-nonsense approach to veterinary medicine. Nat Geo WILD presents The Incredible Dr. Pol, premiering Saturday, October 29, at 9 & 10 p.m. ET/PT then moves to 10 p.m. ET/PT, as he travels across rural Michigan to care for every family pet and head of livestock in need of his expertise and kindness. Treating numerous patients, including horses, pigs, cows, sheep, alpacas, goats, cats, dogs and even an occasional reindeer, Dr. Pol is not your average vet.
Whether at the clinic or speeding off to an emergency farm call, Dr. Pol’s fast pace and stamina amazes his staff and clients. In fact, he is a local legend in the community! His right-hand team includes his wife of 44 years, Diane, who is the office manager handling clients who come in or call the clinic. Dr. Brenda Grettenberger, Dr. Pol’s long-time colleague, began her career at Pol Veterinary Services 18 years ago. And Dr. Pol’s son Charles, who helped his father as a child, has extended his stay from LA to help with the challenging workload and farm calls.
Unflappable and unstoppable, Dr. Pol works 14-hour days to help the diminishing population of family farmers survive. He plays an integral role in keeping local farmers’ livestock healthy and in turn, their businesses profitable. We’ll ride along with Dr. Pol as he is called on by a farmer to take blood samples of his sheep to check for disease to ensure that he can continue selling the meat for human consumption. Dr. Pol and Charles will have to wrestle and hold down squirming sheep before they can take the samples. We’ll also see Dr. Pol treat a cow with a twisted stomach by putting a surgical stitch through the cow’s belly and holding the stomach where it needs to be.
With such a busy practice, we are on call right alongside Dr. Pol as he treats a variety of cases, including two dogs with faces stuck full of porcupine quills, sick horses that may need to be put down and a pig with an abscess that needs to be drained. We’ll also get a front-row seat as Dr. Pol examines a cow to check for pregnancy by reaching his arm into the rectum and feeling the ovaries. For local farmers, while many of these animals are their livelihood, others are a part of their extended family.
Premiere Episodes Include:
The Incredible Dr. Pol: Vet and Wild
Premieres Saturday, October 29, at 9 p.m. ET/PT—Special Premiere Time
Dr. Pol receives an emergency call from a client who finds her horse down and fears he may not make it. Suffering from a spinal cord injury, he decides to give the horse a cortisone shot. Will he survive? Dr. Pol’s son, Charles decides to extend his visit to help his father with the work overload. His only request—to palpate a cow. But trouble creeps up when Dr. Pol and Charles perform an emergency futotomy, an intense procedure to extract two dead fetuses from a cow in hopes of saving the mother’s life. And, the clinic celebrates its 30th anniversary with a special pig roast with old friends, former employees and longtime clients.
The Incredible Dr. Pol: How Now Downed Cow?
Premieres Saturday, October 29, at 10 p.m. ET/PT
A K-9 Hungarian German Shepard with no appetite? Dr. Pol conducts a series of blood tests to get to the bottom of the real issue. He wonders if the toxins the dog has been exposed to for police work could have caused cancer. Then, two elderly horses are extremely sick and in danger of being put down due to intestinal problems and neurological disorder. Will Charles perform his first euthanasia? In another emergency farm call, Dr. Pol must treat a dairy cow with a Left Displaced Abomasum, or a twisted stomach which means that one of the cow’s four stomachs has floated to the top of the abdominal cavity. Dr. Pol will have to perform a procedure to suture that stomach to the wall of the cow’s belly.
The Incredible Dr. Pol: Up Sheep’s Creek
Premieres Saturday, November 5, at 10 p.m. ET/PT
An Australian Sheepdog is brought to the clinic after eating a dead deer carcass. Since raw deer meat is poisonous to dogs, Dr. Pol gives the dog shots of antibiotics and recommends nothing less than good old Pepto Bismol to line his stomach. Dr. Pol’s next farm call requires him to take blood samples from a flock of sheep in order to test for OPP – Ovine Progressive Pneumonia, a progressive disease that is incurable and highly contagious. But it’s not as easy as it sounds, Dr. Pol and Charles will have to wrestle the sheep before they can get the samples. Back at the clinic, Dr. Brenda tests a lump in a Doberman’s mammary gland and concludes it is pre-cancerous. Will she be able to successfully remove it to save the dog’s life?
The Incredible Dr. Pol: Got Your Goat
Premieres Saturday, November 12, at 10 p.m. ET/PT
A Boer goat has lost 50 pounds after refusing to eat. While examining the goat, Dr. Pol assumes the goat must have some sort of parasite. He confirms it is Coccidia–-a dangerous, one single-cell parasite that infects the intestinal tracts of animals. A French bulldog is brought into the clinic after being hit by a car. Bloody, in shock and with his eyeball literally hanging out of its socket, Dr. Pol tells the distraught owners to leave the dog overnight so he can x-ray him for internal injuries and surgically remove the eye. And, Dr. Pol is praised by a local family for treating their English Springer Spaniel who has mange, a contagious skin diseases caused by parasitic mites.
Dr. Pol is produced by SUPER! ALRIGHT! for Nat Geo WILD. For SUPER! ALRIGHT!, executive producer is Chris Butler. For Nat Geo WILD, executive producer is Jenny Apostol, and senior vice president of production is Geoff Daniels.
For more information, visit www.natgeowild.com or www.ngcpr.com.
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NAT GEO WILD
For more than 30 years, National Geographic has been the leader in wildlife programming. Now the animal kingdom is taking center stage on a brand-new network, Nat Geo WILD. Offering intimate encounters with nature’s ferocious fighters and gentle creatures of land, sea and air, Nat Geo WILD and Nat Geo WILD HD will draw upon the cutting-edge work of the many explorers, filmmakers and scientists who have long-standing relationships with the National Geographic Society. Nat Geo WILD is a joint venture between Fox Cable Networks (FCN) and National Geographic Ventures (NGV) the same partnership behind the National Geographic Channel (NGC), which launched January 2001 and has since been one the most successful new networks on the landscape. Nat Geo WILD launched globally more than three years ago and is the fastest growing channel among the international portfolio of National Geographic networks.
