The battle cry of the si.., p.1
The Battle Cry of the Siamese Kitten, page 1
The Battle Cry of the Siamese Kitten
Even More Tales from the Accidental Veterinarian
Philipp Schott
Contents
Also by Philipp Schott
Dedication
Preface
Affenpinscher to Zwergpinscher
Assumptions
The Battle Cry of the Siamese Kitten
BD-LD
Believe!
Bob
Buddy
But the Pets Don’t Care
Cat Ladies
Cat Wars
The Cat Who Dreamt Too Much
The Coneheads
Deep Thoughts After Dropping Bluebell Off
Dispatches from the Floofer Cam
Dissection Lessons
Does Your Cat Smoke?
Dolittle Dreams
Doobie and Gator: A Tale of Two Bush Dogs
Double Puppies
Dr. Good News
Emotional Slot Machine
Encounter in the Woods
Feline Transport Lesson
The First Day
A Fish Story
The Heart of a Leopard
Here Come the Ologists!
Horse and Cow and Pig
How to Give a Dog a Bath
The Interviews
James and I
Kermit & Friends
The Lapse
The Last Pet
Licky
Lumpy
Making the Duck Sound
Marigold
Old Dog Lessons
Out of the Wild
Parking Lot Medicine
Parrotosaurus
Pelican Surprise
The Rats Who Love Cats
Sausage
Screaming Beagles
Scrumpy
Skin and Bones
Smelly Pants
Solvitur Ambulando
The Song of the Guinea Pig
String Theory
That Begging Face
Thud
To Err
Veterinary Vocabulary Miscellany
What a Picture Is Worth
What’s Brown and Sticky?
You Stink
Zenith
Epilogue: The Sentimental Veterinarian
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Copyright
Also by Philipp Schott
The Accidental Veterinarian
The Willow Wren
How to Examine a Wolverine
Fifty-Four Pigs
Dedication
For Nico & Alex.
They love all Siamese kittens,
no matter how wild.
Preface
Here we are again. Or at least, here I am again. I suppose this could be your first time picking up one of my books. Either way, welcome or welcome back, and thank you.
And if it is your first time, don’t be afraid. You don’t need to read the books, or even the tales within them, in order as they don’t build on each other. Each tale is a discrete self-contained unit, like a snack, rather than an ingredient meant to be blended. Most other books are grand multi-course meals, whereas I like to think of my three veterinary books as collections of story snacks, or tapas if you prefer.
You have 60 tiny plates in front of you (and about 120 more in the other books — think of them as adjacent tables, easily within reach if you stretch a bit). They are laid out left to right but pick them up as you please. Eat them all in one sitting, or one per day, or ten per weekend, or at entirely random and wanton intervals.
When I began writing the first book, The Accidental Veterinarian, I briefly considered trying to weave the stories into a continuous narrative, like a traditional book. Many of the individual stories already existed as blog posts, so I would have to write some sort of filler to connect them. “Filler” sounds pejorative, doesn’t it? I don’t mean it that way. The filler might have been beautiful and engaging, but it would have been false. I’m blessed with a good memory, but not an unnaturally good one that allows me to conjure up the level of detail needed to turn all these stories into a smooth continuum. I did exactly that with The Willow Wren, the fictionalized memoir of my father growing up during the rise and fall of Hitler’s Germany (yes, that was shameless plug for an unrelated book), and there the filler worked, but it didn’t feel right for my veterinary stories. Moreover I thought that there might be a place in the modern reader’s library for collections of story snacks. I hope I am right.
In the spirit of story snacking, I’ve done away with the sections in this volume. The Accidental Veterinarian and How to Examine a Wolverine were divided into four sections each, roughly grouping stories by type — sort of thematically in the first book and sort of by species in the second. But for a significant number of stories, these categorizations felt arbitrary. Here the snack metaphor breaks down. Until they start making sweet chips, salty fruit, or crunchy cheese, it’s fairly easy to group snacks. Veterinary stories, not so much.
So, here you will have them presented alphabetically, which is as close to random as my relentlessly systemizing brain will permit. But feel free to proceed as your heart dictates.
And again, welcome, or welcome back. And again, thank you. Thank you so much.
Affenpinscher to Zwergpinscher
A picture exists of me at about six months of age being shown a black-and-white dairy cow. My father and I are on a snow-dusted country lane outside of Jülich, in western Germany, where I was born. The lane runs beside a fenced field. Everything is flat and barren and cold-looking, but there is this cow as the singular object of interest. My father is holding me out towards the fence. The cow is craning its neck towards me, but I am looking sideways at the camera and my mother, who is taking the picture. My facial expression is one of pure astonishment. My eyes are wide and my mouth open round like a big O. This was likely the largest animal I had ever seen.
That was the first picture of me with an animal. Later ones in my toddler years, by then in Saskatoon, show me trying awkwardly to pet a random outdoor cat while wearing a Michelin Man snowsuit and feeding old rubbery carrots to the deer at the local zoo. Back then nobody, including the zookeepers, thought this might be a bad idea.
So those were my earliest documented encounters with animals. My earliest clear memory of an animal, however, is of my cousin’s dog, a black cocker spaniel named Tino. This would have been the early 1970s, and I might have been five or seven years old. As I explained in The Accidental Veterinarian, there was no way I was going to have a dog or a cat. My parents didn’t actively dislike them, but it was just that pets simply weren’t part of their world, any more than watching pro sports was, or eating Jell-O, peanut butter, or marshmallows. These were things other people did, and that was fine, but it just didn’t interest them. This would eventually change, but not until much later (and never for the marshmallows or pro sports).
But somehow the interest in animals was there. Was it genetic? My father was passionate about birds and impressed me when they landed on his outstretched hand. He claimed that, according to German legend, because he was born on a Sunday, he had the gift of being able to talk to birds. (What special powers being born on a Saturday might have granted me were never explained.) But rather than genetics, I think it might have been because from a young age I read like a threshing machine. I quickly exhausted the children’s section of the small local J.S. Wood branch of the library. I remember the day clearly when my mother suggested that I have a look at the teen and young adult section instead. I began with the letter “A” on the non-fiction shelves and worked my way through. (Yes, I was an odd child, and a self-confident one, which is an unusual combination and explains a lot about me. But never mind that.) “D” was a gold mine, encompassing both dinosaurs and dogs. In retrospect I realize the library likely didn’t have any cat books. Otherwise, my abstract affection might have alighted on them. But as it was, the J.S. Wood had a gorgeously illustrated dog breed guidebook. It was so orderly and alphabetical. I was captivated.
And there, in that book, was a picture of my cousin’s dog, Tino. Or at least a dead ringer for him. Glossy black fur, long silky ears, warm brown eyes looking right at me from the page. From that point on, in the weird logic of the small child, Tino, although I had only met him once, became “my dog” in my mind and my heart. And that logic truly was weird because not only had I only met Tino once, but he also lived an ocean away. We had immigrated to Canada and all the extended family was still in Germany. My parents were frugal, though, and were able to save enough for us to visit Germany four times during my childhood. This was when flying was still a big deal and people dressed up for the occasion. It was between two of the visits that my dog obsession hit its peak. During this time, I received a dog guide of my own for my birthday. It was a small, white hardcover book that began with “Affenpinscher” and ended with “Yorkshire terrier,” but I liked to imagine that it ended with “Zwergpinscher,” German for miniature pinscher, so that I could say that I had memorized all the dog breeds from “A” to “Z.” As I said, I was an odd child.
&nb
There was another announcement. Lufthansa, the German airline, had graciously agreed to divert its New York–to-Zurich flight to Montreal to pick up passengers headed to Frankfurt. The degree to which this would be inconceivable today tells you how long ago this was. The agent walked around the waiting area, giving out seating assignments on new handwritten boarding passes. He apologized to our family of four. There were no four seats together, not even three. What he had were a pair together in economy, another single in economy, and a single in first class. Would that be okay? Or did we want to wait for another flight? I immediately blurted out, “Can I have the first-class seat?” My father, ever logical, said this would be fine. My brother Daniel was too small to be on his own, so he would sit with my mother, and my father was content to be by himself in economy. He had no need for luxury, and in some ways even found it offensive. That left me.
Within an hour I was in a world I hadn’t even imagined existed. We never went to the movies in those days, and I only watched children’s television, so “first class” and “luxury” were wholly abstract concepts. Flying in economy class seemed pretty darned luxurious to me already, so what proceeded to unfold was nothing short of astonishing. To begin with, the stewardess was plainly delighted to have me in her section, probably because it was a welcome break from the usual hard-drinking businessmen. The seat was bigger and cushier than the nicest chair we had at home, and I was immediately served my choice of juice or soft drink. I ordered ginger ale, feeling quite sophisticated as I did so. Once in the air, the food kept coming — caviar, oysters, olives . . . I was delighted but becoming alarmed because none of this looked appetizing yet.
The grey-haired gentleman sitting next to me noticed my discomfort and leaned over to whisper, “You know, if you ask, they’ll bring you chocolate truffles. They come directly from Switzerland.” He was dressed in a dark suit, and I remember his gold cufflinks and gold tie clip. He was soft-spoken and friendly, evidently also happy to have someone other than a stockbroker or corporate lawyer to talk to. Conversation quickly turned to dogs, and, in particular, Tino. I showed him my dog book so he could picture Tino properly. I didn’t ask what he did for a living or where he lived, but I was most impressed when he opened his briefcase to find a photo of his grandchildren with their beagle, because the case was filled with stacks of high-denomination US dollars and Swiss francs in thick, perfect rectangles. I don’t know why the perfect rectangular nature of these bundles sticks in my memory, but it does. He didn’t seem to think anything was remarkable about it, nor did the stewardess who just then came by to offer me more chocolate truffles.
First class — gotta love it.
The other thing that sticks in my memory was his confidence that my grandparents would bring Tino to the airport to greet me. I didn’t argue with him, but I knew that Tino wouldn’t be there. Only I knew that he was my dog. My grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins didn’t know this. But I was confident, very confident, that Tino knew that I was his person.
Assumptions
Mrs. Martin screamed.
I almost dropped Rufus.
“What have you done to my beautiful boy?”
* * *
Now that I have set the mood, let me back up and explain how things got to this unpleasant point. Everyone knows the old saying about what happens when you assume. Even if you don’t know the specific saying I’m referring to, I’m sure you’re aware that assumptions can be dangerous. Factual knowledge is much safer. Veterinarians, and other professionals, sometimes assume a client understands what we’re saying, when in fact they don’t. This is dangerous. This can lead to people screaming and cats almost being dropped. I like to think that I take sufficient care to avoid this. I never say “cardiomyopathy” without explaining that it means heart muscle disease, and I never say “anything-itis” without explaining that it means inflammation of whatever that anything is in English. However, sometimes I get tripped up on the English. For example, I long assumed that people knew the difference between stomach and abdomen. Neither are technical medical terms, but they turn out to be synonyms for some people. So, when I say, “I’m afraid he’s bleeding into the abdomen,” they reply, “But he’s not pooping or vomiting blood.” So, over time I’ve learned to expand the description: “I’m afraid he’s bleeding into the abdomen, by which I mean into the space in his belly around the organs.”
In Rufus’s case, I assumed Mrs. Martin knew what I was describing. I was wrong.
She had brought him in because he was developing mats. He was a gorgeous middle-aged long-haired cat, and he was a deep orange, like a Viking’s beard. Cats develop mats for a variety of reasons, including some medical issues that can reduce their interest in grooming themselves, but Rufus was in fine health. Sometimes mats stem from arthritis limiting a cat’s flexibility, but that wasn’t the case here either. Most commonly, however, the cause is either obesity or disinterest. The first applied to Rufus, and probably the second as well. He was certainly a hefty customer, and I also got the impression that he was past caring about his appearance. But I could have been wrong about that.
“But I brush him all the time!” Mrs. Martin said. She was an elderly pink-haired woman in a vivid green pantsuit, so she and carroty Rufus made a striking pair.
“That’s great! He’d be even worse if you didn’t, but it never helps as much as we would like, because he needs to get his own saliva into his fur to prevent matting. It acts like conditioner.”
“Oh,” she said, looking unconvinced.
“I can get the nurses to buzz out those mats with our clippers. It’s quick and easy, but I should warn you that he’ll look a little funny after. Kind of patchy.”
“Could they groom him too?”
“No, they’re not groomers, but they could give him a lion cut. Would you like that?”
There. Did you catch it? If not, hang on. The punchline’s coming.
She paused for the briefest moment before answering, “Yes. Yes, please. That would be nice.”
* * *
“Lion cut.” Two simple English words that bring a vivid picture to my mind. Do they bring one to your mind too? And, far more to the point, are they the same picture? In my mind I have an image of a regal male African lion. The adult Simba from The Lion King, for example. See, he has a great wide mane of tousled fur, and a nice little tuft at the end of his tail. The rest of him is smooth. And that’s what Rufus looked like. The techs left him a beautiful big mane and a cute tail tuft but shaved the rest down to a very short, sleek coat. I thought he looked absurd, but that’s what a lion cut is, and it is inexplicably popular.
Unfortunately, it turned out that Mrs. Martin also thought it looked absurd. That’s why she screamed. She thought it was not only absurd, but insulting to Rufus’s dignity. And there was another problem — Rufus went outdoors in all weather. One can only assume (there’s that word again) that Rufus was going to feel ridiculous and ashamed, but it seemed a safe bet that he was also going to be cold.
I stammered an incoherent apology. Normally, if a mistake is made, I do everything possible to make it right. I wouldn’t charge for the grooming, but, as the old groomer’s saying goes, “You can always cut more fur off, but you can’t glue it back on.” Actually, I don’t think that’s an official old groomer’s saying, but it should be. Err on the side of doing less.
