Dr. Peggy Larson – Spurred On to Defend AnimalsBy Gretchen Gross
As a teenager, veterinarian Peggy Larson rode broncos bareback in North Dakota’s rodeo circuit. Bronco riding is dangerous by design: a horse that is scared and in pain will buck. With sharp spurs banging into its shoulders and flank straps digging into its underbelly, the horse’s goal is to move away from the pain. And the greater its suffering, the rougher the ride for the cowgirl and the more it takes for her to hang on.
Larson, now 74, has no good ol’ stories to tell of her dust-filled days in rodeo; they all seem to involve cruelty, whether inflicted on animal or human. Once, after finishing a bronco ride, a male pick-up rider scooped her off the horse and then dropped her back in the dirt, just to make the point that women don’t belong in rodeo.
It was in this world of animal abuse and macho competitiveness that Larson’s life as an international animal advocate first began to take shape. The Williston resident eventually founded the National Spay and Neuter Coalition to prevent animal overpopulation; overhauled Vermont’s meat and poultry inspection programs as State Veterinarian; and served as consultant for French-, British-, and U.S.-produced television documentaries on rodeo animal abuse – while also running large- and small-animal vet clinics, working for the USDA, and earning a law degree.
How did she do all this? We’ve all heard the expression, “When you fall off a horse, get right back on.” Well, Larson likely wore the back pockets off that expression.
After leaving the rodeo behind, Larson married her childhood sweetheart and put him through medical school. She satiated her own intellectual curiosity by studying his texts right alongside him. He graduated with his M.D. and she, in the meantime, gained a significant understanding of human anatomy, physiology, and pathology – which led to her pursuit of a degree in veterinary medicine.
There were only three vet schools that admitted women at the time – because they were under court order to do so: Iowa State, Texas A&M, and Colorado’s university.
True to form, Larson applied to the veterinary schools at Ohio State College and the University of Pennsylvania – and was accepted at both. She chose Ohio State, whose dean told her outright that they were accepting women only “to keep the courts off our back.” At the end of her first year, she held a top spot in her class, but one professor still told her she would be getting a D in his class because he didn’t believe women should be in vet school. When Larson spoke to the Dean about this, he reminded her that “women are too neurotic to be in vet school” and suggested she see a psychiatrist. Instead she graduated in the top 10 percent of her class.
Larson faced down her all-male vet school professors the same way she once went toe-to-toe with rodeo men – and there would be plenty more challenges. Having graduated from veterinary school, and now divorced, Larson’s career then found her working as a USDA inspector of animal welfare and livestock disease programs from 1979 until 1985: she sued for being unlawfully fired, she says, “after I had blown the whistle on my boss who had stolen over $100,000 from the travel voucher fund. (My boss, the regional director, and the head of veterinary services all lost their jobs after I filed my lawsuit.)” The bright spot of this experience is that it whetted her appetite for law school. She went on to graduate from Vermont Law School in 1988.
Subsequently, as a member of an international animal welfare committee, she met with Mitt Romney, then president and CEO of the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Games Organizing Committee, to argue for elimination of the Games’ rodeo event.
She has consulted with Hard Copy, Inside Edition, the Washington Post, National Geographic, ESPN, the BBC, and French TV station ARTE, focusing consistently on animal welfare and abuse. Seeing the rodeo atrocities up close, and then incident after incident of animal cruelty while working in medical research labs (Larson worked for seven years in medical research at the University of Minnesota, the Bowman Gray School of Medicine in North Carolina, and the Department of Neurosurgery at Ohio State University, has molded Larson into a fierce and formidable spokesperson for animal welfare.
Holding onto her heart has not always been easy. The gross neglect and abuse of small and large animals has been difficult for her and her colleagues to witness.
“Sometimes I hate people for what they do to animals,” Larson says. “Sometimes people just suck. When you spend time with animals you come to see their intelligence. They don’t deserve the treatment they sometimes get.” She has treated kittens that have been set on fire and puppies who were being beaten by their owners. In one case she and a colleague stole an animal that was being badly abused to keep it safe.
Larson has been on the national forefront of the spay-neuter movement, and currently co-owns a clinic in Colchester with her husband, Roger Prior (who retired two years ago). “We have spayed and neutered over 57,000 dogs and cats in our local clinic,” she says proudly. The clinic, the Cat Spay and Neuter Clinic, is run entirely by volunteers, and she is quick to recognize people who have kept it going, such as Kathleen Ludwig, Doris Lashway, and Ginny Shores. Currently, she says, “I work with some remarkably dedicated people. [In addition,] Steve Hindi and Eric Mills have been powerful allies in the anti-rodeo coalition.”
Larson does not see herself ever fully retiring. Perhaps she will live in New Zealand or some other country that fascinates her, she muses. But until that point, she continues to work in her local clinic treating animals and promoting spaying and neutering. She consults on the national and international level on behalf of animals’ health. When back in Vermont, she takes one of her vintage motorcycles out for a spin, collects older Porsches, reads non-fiction by a sunny window, skis, oil paints, or settles in to a game of poker.
If you find yourself seated across the poker table from Larson, be aware that you are playing against a woman who has held many challenging hands, played many risky rounds, and gone face to face for years with “you don’t belong here” macho attitudes – and who has come away from the table a winner.
Gretchen Gross lives in So. Burlington. |
|
|
|
 |
