The Gift of Pets: Stories Only a Vet Could Tell

by Bruce R. Coston

  I do not say this lightly. I happen to have a much-loved gray cat who, I must admit, has definite behavioral tendencies for which psychoactive drugs may eventually be necessary. I do know there are exceptions to the rule, so please spare me the angry letters that are being composed in your mind as you read this. This tendency is so often seen, though, that in our office, it has come to be known as the “gray cat syndrome.”

  When a gray cat comes into the office and displays stereotypical fractious behavior at the slightest provocation, gray cat syndrome is diagnosed and leather gloves and thick towels are often necessary. You might argue that the insertion of a thermometer into a tightly closed sphincter might provoke any rational being, gray or otherwise. But lots of tuxedo kitties and Ragdolls tolerate this invasion of their personal space with dignity and do not lash out with claws, teeth, and venom or fill the air with vile volleys of volatile verbiage the way gray cats routinely do.

  Gray cats suffer from a common paranoia, an inexplicable deficiency of self-esteem that eventually renders many of them virtually incapable of interacting in constructive ways with others. They seem convinced that everyone around them, human or otherwise, is bent on their immediate demise—probably in cruel and painful ways. Thus their response is one of extreme defensiveness, even in the face of unexpected kindness. This constant state of self-preservation leaves them anxious and fidgety, like an untreated ADD sufferer, flitting constantly from one life-threatening emergency to another. Sudden noises, unexpected movements in their peripheral vision, unwelcome advances from strangers—even friendly ones—or an interaction with another animal shoots their stress hormones to untenable levels and induces in them behaviors that are counterproductive. Some get fractious. Some become sullen and withdrawn. Some develop behavioral disorders, making matters even worse.

  Ditto, as I may have mentioned, was a gray cat and therefore subject to gray cat syndrome. As you might imagine, a veterinary hospital is exactly the environment where such cats are exposed to all the circumstances on the above list and more. With time, Ditto’s gray cat syndrome became more pronounced. Her strategy to deal with the stress, following the “misery loves company” dictum, was to create stress in others by threatening any client who dared to approach her. This was confusing to the clients, many of whom had known her as a kitten when she actively sought their attention. As she got older, though, her warnings to too-friendly clients became progressively more assertive, changing from a simple angry swishing of the tail to a noncommittal hiss and finally to a full-throated cry of rage.

  Adults at whom this venom was directed were quick to withdraw. But children are more persistent with their rapprochement. We became concerned that one day Ditto might actually hurt one of them. The fact that Ditto might be happier in an environment other than a veterinary hospital began to slowly dawn on me. I broached this concept with the staff one day during our monthly meeting, only to be greeted by the human equivalent of gray cat syndrome from the majority of them.

  In an effort to keep Ditto in the environment to which she had become accustomed, I decided that declawing her was necessary to prevent injury to unsuspecting clients. I know mentioning this procedure will bring out the ire of many a cat lover. I have faced this principled stance from cat advocates on many occasions, staring down indignant crusaders who have accosted me for performing the procedure on my patients. I, of course, share their obvious concern about inflicting upon undeserving animals a painful procedure that is merely for the convenience of uncaring people. It is true that some patients who have undergone declawing procedures have suffered horribly as a result of poorly done surgeries. It is also incontrovertible that declawing is not a normal procedure and changes forever the anatomy of the cat.

  But in my experience, I have found that there are situations in which declawing a cat can save a threatened relationship with a loving family. For some people who suffer from diseases like diabetes or cancer or AIDS, which diminish their ability to fight off infections, a cat scratch can be a very serious thing indeed. Others face the obstacle of living with people who are not cat-oriented who would insist upon banishing the cat to the outdoors or getting rid of it entirely if even the slightest damage were to be inflicted on expensive furniture. In my view, it would be far crueler to sentence a cat to a lifetime of isolation from the family it loves than to have it declawed by a caring professional who does the procedure well and provides the patient with adequate pain control. Certainly you would agree with me that this is a better outcome than for the cat to be abandoned at the local shelter, where adoption rates are low and euthanasia rates are not.

  And no, it is not normal to remove the claws of a cat. But the same people who harangue on this point are the first to belittle you if you fail to have your cat spayed or neutered; and it is no more normal to remove a uterus or a pair of testicles than to remove claws. Both surgeries are painful procedures, and I have seen as many patients suffer terribly from a spay or neuter gone awry as from poorly done declawing.

  So, in an effort to salvage Ditto as the hospital mascot, she was declawed, a procedure that resulted in no long-term effects on her, though it failed to achieve its purpose. In the end, Ditto sabotaged our every effort to rehabilitate her. The last straw came when her psychosis evoked the unforgivable offense of inappropriate urination. Technically, it was not the inappropriate urination that damned her, but the inappropriate location in which she habitually chose to relieve herself—my briefcase.

  Ditto was simply not happy in the helter-skelter world of the hospital. Fortunately, I was able to find her a home where the pace was slower, and her stress was greatly relieved. Reverend Cheaver, a quiet and dignified client whom I knew to be a devoted pet lover, agreed to welcome Ditto into his home.

  In the dozen years or so since she left our hospital, I have provided Ditto’s medical care free of charge. She is now a respectable senior citizen of about fourteen years of age. She has been under my knife to remove a hyperactive thyroid gland and is fed a special diet for her failing kidneys. But she is a happy geriatric cat, free of the many psychological demons that plagued her as an inmate of Seven Bends Veterinary Hospital. Like a parole officer, I see Ditto fairly often. Each time, she still cringes and hides, screams and swears when she sees me. Perhaps it is because she, too, thinks of me as a parole officer. But Ditto remains to this day a gray cat, complete with all the psychological accoutrements that so often accompany those with her coloration; so I suspect her bad attitude is more likely a symptom of gray cat syndrome.

  It was several months after Ditto joined the Cheaver family that another monarch came to the throne. This time it was the work of a Good Samaritan. One of the local workers at the regional Health Department brought in an adolescent cat he had picked up on the road after seeing it get hit by a car in a nearby county. He had first taken it to another veterinary hospital, where the cat had been diagnosed with head trauma and discharged with antibiotics and instructions to bring him back in two or three weeks to be castrated.

  When the cat was still not walking five days later, the kind gentleman brought it to me for a second opinion. The cat was mostly white, with patches of brown tabby splashed haphazardly across its sides, back, and head. Its face was distorted by a badly broken canine tooth, which pointed forward like a hood ornament through parted and bloody lips. Damage to the bones around the lower jaw and lips had left the mouth skewed and painful. The cat was alert and followed my every move with bright and soulful eyes, but it could barely keep itself righted as it sat heavily on its chest, its front legs splayed awkwardly to each side. When I lifted the cat into a standing position, it was able to bear weight on its hind legs, but both front legs hung limply, refusing to cooperate with the cat’s obvious intentions. Each time the cat tried to place weight on her legs, it crumpled pitifully onto its little nose, leaving a bloody spot on the table where the injured tooth and lips hit.

  The cat’s left leg buckled painfully between the elbow and shoulder, and the kit
ty flinched noticeably when I felt in that region with gentle fingers. Any manipulation of the dangling leg resulted in a grating of bone, which sent little shivers of pain through the cat’s body. I knew in an instant that the leg was fractured. X-rays would be required to identify the severity of the break, but I was confident that surgery would most likely be necessary to stabilize the fracture enough for healing to take place. This was a major injury.

  The cat’s right leg sagged limply at the elbow, the toes knuckling over, so the top of the foot rubbed on the ground. It had no strength to hold weight or to resist my manipulations of the foot. The fact that progressively firmer squeezes of the toes failed to evoke even the slightest response from the cat indicated that the sensory and motor nerves of that leg had suffered severe trauma. I had seen this type of injury before. It is termed brachial plexus avulsion and means that the brachial plexus, essentially the major neurologic relay station for the nerves serving the front leg, has been damaged. It is an injury from which many cats do not recover. A percentage may, with the passage of a few weeks or months, regain a measure of neurologic function in the leg, but many are left with permanently nonfunctional limbs, which must later be amputated. This, too, is a life-changing trauma.

  The rest of the examination was anticlimactic, though I was surprised to identify a series of soft egg-size water balloons in the cat’s abdomen and a small amount of blood that had collected in the hair under its tail. Contrary to what the man had been told, this was not a male cat; in fact, it was soon to be the mother of four kittens. Because of her massive injuries, I knew the likelihood that she would carry the litter to term was low—especially with the presence of blood.

  I’m not sure what had distracted the veterinarian who initially evaluated the cat that day. Heaven knows, I am not always at the top of my game. But his diagnosis for this patient could not have been further from the mark had it been made by a four-year-old with a Magic 8 Ball. And because of his missed diagnosis, this cat had suffered miserably for five days. I was steamed!

  The reasonable thing would have been to put the hurting and confused kitty out of its misery. There was no hovering and worried owner to provide the cat’s necessary aftercare. Neither was there anyone stepping forward to cover the costs of the extensive surgeries that would almost certainly be required. The Good Samaritan who had brought her to us made it clear that he was not in a position to take the cat himself and that he would understand completely if our recommendation was an irrevocable one. But, though these considerations were valid, when I looked into that little cat’s trusting eyes, rationality gave way to empathy.

  This cat had already been failed by my profession. It seemed somehow too cruel to have imposed on her five days of needless suffering only to give up on her now. She had not deserved to be left alone to care for herself. She had not deserved to become a teenage parent. She had not deserved to be struck by a car. She had not deserved to be misdiagnosed and left untreated. After we had failed her on so many counts, she did not now deserve to be discarded like so much unwanted feline rubbish.

  Despite her debilitating injuries, the cat was exceptionally friendly and trusting, head-butting me and purring loudly as my mind surveyed the options. The broken left leg would have to be repaired with a major orthopedic surgery requiring weeks of recovery. The right leg, I was sure, would eventually have to be amputated. But that could wait for six or eight weeks while her broken bone mended. The dangling tooth would have to be extracted and some reconstructive work would need to be done to the lips and jaw. She would also need to be spayed.

  I knew the care for this unwanted cat could easily top $2,500, an amount I knew I would not recover. But something about this cat had already staked a claim on me, and a quick glance at Susan and Lisa made it clear that they had also been affected. The hesitation and indecision on my face did not go unnoticed.

  “You know,” began Susan, “we don’t have a hospital mascot anymore now that Ditto’s gone. This cat would make a great blood donor.”

  “And the clients always warm up to a disabled cat,” added Lisa, her eyes a plea.

  “Somehow, I just can’t make myself put this cat down,” I said. “Let’s get some blood for testing and see where this goes.”

  Where it went was a rerun of what had transpired with previous rescue kitties. When I pointed this out to Susan and Lisa, they agreed so completely that we immediately began to call her Rerun. It was a name that stuck. I took her to surgery the next day and repaired her broken bone with pins and wires, removed her tooth, repaired the damage to her jaw and face, and spayed her. It was a marathon of unreimbursed surgery. But the rewards were immediate and measured in currency of more value than legal tender. It is, in fact, an investment that is still paying dividends.

  Rerun’s personality blossomed as soon as the intractable pain from the broken bone was addressed. She was playful and endearing, despite being hampered by the useless leg, which she dragged along beside her. Because she could not limp on both front legs simultaneously, she began using the operated leg right away.

  Lisa was right. The clients loved Rerun. She was an immediate hit! There’s something irresistible about a pathetic invalid. She warmed to this new role like a starlet to the lights. Within just a week or so, it was clear that she would be a permanent fixture in the office.

  She displayed none of Ditto’s angst, loving the hectic, busy pace and the constant flow of the dogs and cats that moved like slow breaths in and out of the hospital. She would perch herself on the reception desk and survey each new patient with studied indifference. Some seemed to catch her attention more than others, though I could not discern what spurred her interest in specific animals. It was unrelated to size, gender, or species. She was just as likely to be drawn to a big, imposing dog as to a cat. If anything, she showed more interest in the dogs than in her own peers. When a new patient interested her, she would jump down off the desk and sidle up to it, tail high and leg dragging, to sniff its nose before walking away, apparently satisfied.

  One day about three weeks after her surgery, I was surprised to notice that Rerun was subtly advancing her right foot forward and placing it on the ground with the pads down rather than simply dragging the tops of the toes behind her. At first, I thought my eyes were deceiving me, so subtle was the change. But over a period of a few days, it was clear that she was beginning to regain some neurologic function in the leg. Slowly, the improvement continued, till finally there was no hint left of the neurologic trauma she had sustained.

  Rerun is still a beloved presence in our practice. This year she will pass her twelfth year with us. Her reign, which began with frantic energy and nonstop activity, has now settled into a calm and controlled routine. The clients know her well and look for her at each visit. Her tangle with the automobile as a young stray has left its mark. With time, the right foot has steadily and progressively deviated outward, so that she now walks with those toes pointed to the side, as if to signal a turn. The strain this places on her joints has left her with marked arthritis, for which she is treated with glucosamine, anti-inflammatory medication, and periodic acupuncture therapy.

  She has earned her keep over the years by providing comic relief to waiting clients and overworked staff, by acting as an unpaid welcoming committee, and by occasionally donating blood to anemic patients, a role she would rather avoid. But her life has been full. As a senior citizen with nagging arthritis, she doesn’t venture as far afield in the office as she used to, spending much of her time in the ward with the boarding cats, looking out the window at the bird feeder. She is the employee in the office with the smallest paycheck, the best benefits package, and the second-longest tenure, and as such, she warrants a place of honor in the Seven Bends family. She also holds the record for the hospital mascot with the longest reign, having surpassed both her predecessors by many years. This longevity is testament to a more robust constitution than Cy’s, and a psyche less fragile than Ditto’s. Long live the queen!


  The Bee’s Knees

  If you had told me when I was twenty that at fifty I would be practicing companion-animal medicine rather than equine medicine, I would have laughed you out of the room. If you had followed that prediction with one that said I would have no horses of my own, there might have been physical violence.

  At twenty, I harbored in my mind a pastoral image of the acreage I would own one day. It would have twenty, maybe thirty acres of partly wooded land with ten or twelve acres of open pastures surrounded by white rail fences, two of which would form a lane lined with pear trees down the middle of the property, leading to a spacious home. The house would be perched on a rise overlooking the pastures and be separated from them by an expanse of lush green lawn, free of dandelions and mowed in a pleasing pattern of parallel lines. A dignified but playful golden retriever would be sitting on the front porch under the reaching white pillars and would have ambled with flagging tail out to the car as you drove into the circular paved entry. Beside the house, in a covered portico, would be parked my blue Chevy Silverado with its heavy-duty suspension and a white veterinary box with an array of drawers and cubbies and refrigerators filled with medications and supplies to treat the horses that were my patients. It might also contain a few doses of distemper vaccine to pop into the farm dogs, which would be the only canine patients I treated.

  This image was so well developed in my mind at the time that I could not envision even one component of that scenario being different in my future. But, as you now well know, that picture does not describe my life in any way. What, you may ask, made the difference between my projected plan and my current reality? I can answer that question with two simple responses.