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Off the Clock: Agriculture Commissioner Mike Strain

Lucy-fur, the hospital cat.
Claiborne Hill Veterinary Hospital
Lucy-fur, the hospital cat.
Lucy-fur, the hospital cat.
Credit Claiborne Hill Veterinary Hospital
Lucy-fur, the hospital cat.

What do Louisiana’s statewide elected officials do when they’re off the clock?  Agriculture Commissioner Mike Strain invited me out to Covington, to show me.

“The main building here is over 10,500 square feet now,” Strain said, as he looked fondly at Claiborne Hill Veterinary Hospital.

“How big was it when you started?” I asked.

“15-hundred,” he said, as we walked in the front doors.

“These are the original doors. Just think how many times they have open and closed for healing, over the past 31 years,” he said with a smile, as a parakeet in a cage on the front counter began to chatter at him.

Strain is a veterinarian, and he and his wife Susan -- also a veterinarian -- have built their clinic into an actual hospital, with four doctors in practice.

“Where that exam room is, that was our bedroom. We lived downstairs because we only had enough money to do one floor.”

Now they live upstairs, atop the hospital. Strain is justifiably proud of the business.

“This one machine cost more than the original clinic and land combined.”

He’s talking about his 3-D sonography machine, but he’s got digital x-ray capability—really all the latest medical equipment.

“And so this is more of a clean lab.”

Clean lab? I had to laugh, for lolling about on the counter was a very self-satisfied tabby.

“With a cat?”

“Well, yeah. Hey, Lucy-fur,” Strain said as he stroked her head, and she vibrated the entire counter with her purring.

Lucy is one of the hospital’s cats. Another kitty was not as happy.

Yowls of misery greeted us at the door to the laundry and grooming room. One of the veterinary techs was sudsing up a mesh bag filled with indignant feline.

“Don’t like a bath. Don’t want a bath this morning,” Strain said, his voice conveying both humor and sympathy.

“And here are the puppies,” he said, opening the door to the dog kennels. From a Rottweiler to a German shepherd, to a pair of Yorkies, all greeted us with woofs and yips, and wagging tails.

I asked him how hard it was to give this up—even temporarily—to go into politics.

“It’s not how hard was it. How hard still is it?” Strain said wistfully. “You know, because I love veterinary medicine. I could go back into practice tomorrow.”

But, he says, as Ag Commissioner he does oversee the office of the State Veterinarian.

“You know, the diseases I used to treat as one patient, now I’m the one that makes the rules, the regulations, the oversight, makes the decisions, deals with those diseases—but on a much broader scale.” Strain said. “And so I still practice veterinary medicine, every day.”

He also said he checks in on the clinic often, when he’s in Baton Rouge or out on the road.

“I have closed circuit cameras in the clinic, and I can check the video feed through the internet, on my tablet. I do it three or four times a day – whenever I get a chance.

“Yeah, I could go back into practice tomorrow.”

Copyright 2021 WRKF. To see more, visit WRKF.

Sue Lincoln is a veteran reporter in the political arena. Her radio experience began in the early ’80s, in “the other L-A” — Los Angeles.

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