Vet Tech Tales: The Early Years

by Phoenix Sullivan

  For a dog like Max who started out with a cute-as-a-button expression and a solid breed dominance, clipping was simply a matter of turning him into a shaved-down version of himself. Eyebrows? Definitely. And even a bit of extra overhang across his eye ridge. Where an elegant poodle might get a clean-shaven muzzle with a simple mustache, Max’s face demanded curly hair over his whole nose, a drooping mustache, and just a hint of beard under his chin. I feathered his cheek hair gradually so that the hairline made a smooth transition from hairy face to closely trimmed body. A bath, blow-dry and fluff and he was ready to go. For some dogs, even the standard personality cut transforms them into an animal often unrecognized by their owners. But Max still looked pretty much like Max, just with a new easy-care coat and a tamed-down face. I scooped him off the grooming table and placed him in a cage, where he promptly sat and barked for attention each time someone walked by.

  When his owner came for him, I paraded him out to the waiting room. I had already come to expect the double-take from most owners as they realized the animal I held was theirs. They would usually chuckle at the transformation, fuss a bit over their pup and off they’d go. If they didn’t like the cut, we generally never heard about it. It was just hair, it would grow back. And the cut served its purpose to detangle, demat or cool.

  Max’s owner did the double-take, but no chuckle followed. I offered her Max’s leash and waited expectantly. Maybe she was just shy.

  “What did you do to him?” The distress in her voice was clear. And no, she wasn’t shy at all.

  How to answer? “You wanted him trimmed for the summer, right?”

  “He’s ugly!”

  The little dog at my feet waved his tail and looked up at us from behind a nicely defined line of eyebrows. He cocked his head. I knew just how he felt.

  Behind the reception desk, Joan rose smoothly and peeked over the counter at Max. “Aww, how can you call that face ugly?”

  “This wasn’t what I agreed to when I left him here.” Max’s owner’s face shifted into a stubborn scowl.

  I was still dangling Max’s leash out for her to take, quite unsure of any response. In the past, I’d heard both Joan and Dr. Norris describe exactly what we were going to do when giving dogs a personality cut. They never failed to mention it wouldn’t be a professional grooming and always reminded the owners they weren’t paying a professional grooming fee either. I couldn’t fathom either of them not going over the same spiel with Max’s owner. Besides, Joan was right. Not even my efforts could turn a dog as naturally cute as Max into an ugly monster.

  “I’m not paying for that!”

  And there it was. The indignant customer refusing to pay. Not because the work was shoddy or the service defective, but because they wanted something for nothing. It wouldn’t have mattered what Max looked like; she had brought him in knowing she was going to complain about the finished results and expecting a discount at the very least or free service if she lobbied hard enough. How do you counter someone whose fall-back would be the customer’s always right?

  To begin with, you set up a system where the customer pays before their animal is brought out to them. Max’s owner had already paid the bill; what she was positioning for was a refund. Thankfully, Joan had experience handling such folk. If Max’s owner expected to intimidate Joan into a refund, she didn’t know our office manager. Besides, even if she got past Joan, there was still a Type A, alpha male in the house to contend with.

  Joan smiled sweetly. “What exactly were you expecting?”

  “Not that.” Max’s owner put as much contempt into her tone as she could. What she didn’t deliver was a real answer to the question.

  “The dog’s been trimmed down – enough to get all his mats out but not enough to get sunburned. Dogs with skin as fair as his can sunburn easily here in Texas, you know. Then, if you remember, you brought him in with a lot of mats in his moustache and around his face. They had to be cut out, so we did have to give Max’s face a shorter trim. If you were expecting us to leave his hair longer, then you’ll need to keep him brushed out better before you bring him in for his next cut.”

  And from Joan, I learned the art of turning the problem back onto the customer, making it Max’s owner’s fault for forcing the cuts we made.

  Max’s owner snatched the leash from me. “There won’t be a next time!” And off she went in a great and exaggerated huff.

  “I sure hope not.” Joan, of course, waited till the owner was out of earshot to express what I was feeling.

  I snickered. But I was still unsure of myself enough that I had to ask, “Did I really do a bad job?”

  Joan looked at me square on. “What do you think?”

  How is it that some people are so naturally deft at handling social situations and knowing exactly what other people need? Not only had Joan demonstrated how to handle a customer complaint by being polite and reasonable, she was now forcing me to confront my doubts myself. She could have easily brushed off my question by assuring me I’d done well and gone on about her business. What she did was encourage me to have faith in my own work.

  I had done my best. I was happy with the outcome. And most importantly, no one was going to laugh at Max because of how he looked.

  There will always be those who are calculating and quick to criticism. They can have a devastating effect on children and young adults still exploring the bounds of their self-image and self-worth.

  Sometimes the number of such influencers in a young life can be overwhelming and the consequences heartbreaking. The fortunate, though, will also have a wealth of Joans in their lives to make them strong.

  Heidi’s Hero

  Getting called into the exam room was still a treat, and late into my first paid day Dr. Norris asked me in to help with Heidi, a nervous miniature schnauzer. The immaculately groomed dog eyed me warily as she paced back and forth at the end of her leash.

  The petite woman at the handle end of the leash was as perfectly groomed as the dog, from the top of her freshly permed hair to the buffed and pink-polished toes peeping from the tips of her white sandals.

  Towering beside her at an easy 6’4” stood the woman’s ruggedly tanned husband dressed in camouflage fatigues with the last name Watson stitched across the breast pocket. His burled body and close-cropped hair suggested he’d seen combat duty in Vietnam. An ex-marine, if I had to guess.

  With a single, fluid motion Tom Watson swept the little schnauzer off the floor and deposited her on the exam counter. His large hands circled her body in a secure embrace. Heidi didn’t stop trembling but did melt as far as she could into the safety of those familiar hands while Tom’s thumbs massaged her shoulders. After a moment, Heidi relaxed a bit. Who wouldn’t, safe under the protection of a strong, confidant man like Tom? Even I, across the table, felt reassured by his gestures.

  Ms. Watson perched herself on the barstool in the corner of the cramped room, apparently happy to let Tom handle things.

  “Just vaccinations and a heartworm check today?” Dr. Norris asked as he glanced at the chart that indicated Heidi was a generally healthy 3-year-old pup here for her annual visit.

  “Yep, no problems at all with our little girl, Doc.” Tom’s deep yet gentle voice echoed the promised security of his hands.

  “Well, let’s just have a quick look at her then, shall we, and get you on your way.”

  That was my cue to slide in next to Heidi and take over holding her. Nervous dogs could be fear biters, especially if they felt their beloved owner was being threatened too. I slid my small hands under the warmth of Tom’s large ones and, reluctantly, he released her and stepped back to give the vet room to work.

  As Dr. Norris performed a quick physical, I kept firm but gentle control of Heidi, loosely circling her muzzle and lifting her head while Norris looked into her ears and eyes and lifted her lips to check her teeth and gums, then simply holding her head and murmuring assurances to her while he checked out the rest of her. When he reached for the syri
nges to vaccinate her, I gripped her muzzle again and pulled her snugly to me.

  “What a good girl!” I praised her for only flinching a little when first one needle then the second bit into her.

  From her perch in the corner, Ms. Watson curved her perfectly painted lips into a smile, happy her little girl was behaving so well. Tom Watson, meanwhile, had taken a step further back toward the wall. With our attention on Heidi, no one noticed that Tom’s tan was no longer quite so rugged.

  “Just a little blood for the heartworm check and we’ll be done,” Dr. Norris told the room in general.

  I switched my grip to tuck Heidi in close to my side with my left arm and circled her muzzle again with my hand. I snaked my right thumb across the top of her foreleg to hold off the vein there and curved my fingers behind her elbow, extending her leg for Dr. Norris to take the blood sample.

  Heidi was a champion, holding perfectly still save for the involuntary nervous quiver that thrilled through her little body every few seconds.

  The same, though, couldn’t be said for Tom. At the first draw of blood, I saw a blur of movement from the corner of my eye and heard a not-so-perfect gasp from Ms. Watson.

  The battle-hardened ex-marine sagged to the floor in a slow-motion faint.

  “Joan!” Dr. Norris bellowed the name to be sure our receptionist heard him through the walls of the exam room as he hurried to Tom’s side. The main concern, of course, was how hard Tom’s head had hit the cold tiles.

  Ms. Watson abandoned the stool and stood in the corner, mascaraed eyes wide and perfectly manicured hands fluttering in the air.

  I held on to Heidi, whose little paws scrabbled futilely against the laminated tabletop. She yipped her concern over the scritching sound of her nails and I wondered how she could ever be convinced to walk into a vet clinic again after this.

  The exam room door opened and Joan popped her head in, assessed the situation, hurried off and returned a moment later with something I’d only read about in classic literature: smelling salts.

  She passed the bottle under the ex-marine’s nose a couple of times as he blinked his way to consciousness. Joan smiled in his field of view. “Welcome back.”

  He touched his fingertips to the side of his head and sat up.

  “You’ll have a bruise and a pretty good-sized knot there for a while,” Norris told him. “Joan, have Charla wrap up some ice for him. Tom, why don’t you go sit out in the waiting room for a bit – at least till you’re back to feeling normal.”

  There was nothing wrong with the words Dr. Norris used. Objective and modulated, they were precisely the words expected from a professional. Still, I could feel an undercurrent of machismo in the room. There was a subtle power play at work here between the short, stocky vet standing over the downed soldier, and the tall, extraordinarily fit ex-Marine looking up at him. Maybe there was a twinkle of victory in Norris’ eyes or a twitch of his lips as he fought the urge to gloat.

  In any case, Tom, his tan having given way completely to a crimson blush, brushed off the ministrations. Without a word, and certainly without meeting anyone else’s eye, Tom gathered his dignity, squared his shoulders and marched past the handful of owners in the waiting room, avoiding the sympathetic glances thrown his way as he headed for the seclusion of his car, leaving Ms. Watson to deal with Heidi and the bill.

  There was definitely a satisfied air about Norris as he bustled around, running the heartworm test, counting out preventative, and jotting down the particulars of the visit on Heidi’s chart.

  Ms. Watson seemed at a loss, having only the presence of mind to take Heidi’s leash when I offered it to her and moving mechanically to the reception desk to pay her bill after Norris escorted her to the exam room door. Poor little Heidi seemed an almost-forgotten accoutrement.

  What struck me most about the incident was Tom’s embarrassment – his obvious fear that fainting made him less of a man in everyone’s judgment. He wasn’t necessarily wrong about that, but those who judged him that way, in my opinion, were the ones who had the complete wrong of it.

  Tom didn’t faint because he was squeamish and couldn’t handle the sight of blood. No doubt he’d seen plenty of his own and that of his buddies during his military career. I’m convinced he fainted because the intensity of emotion – love and concern – that he felt for Heidi was simply too overwhelming; he just didn’t have a socially accepted mechanism for displaying how her obvious distress affected him. His body shut down rather than deal with it.

  Plus, I suspect he was one of those tough guys who spend their lives rescuing folk out of ditches and from burning buildings and then turn to mush whenever they’re around children and animals. If anything, that degree of empathy was a trait that should have endeared him to those closest to him, though I doubted Dr. Norris could ever understand that whatever victory he thought he’d gained here was nothing more than a hollow coup.

  Sometimes real-life romance heroes pop up in the most unlikely places and in the most unexpected ways.

  I hoped plastic, perfect Ms. Watson knew just how lucky she was to be married to a man who could love so deeply. I have no doubt Heidi realized her luck, and that once in the car she snuggled in close to her hero, feeling safe and protected once more.

  Who Else?

  Exactly 8.5 hours after arriving on my first day, I punched my timecard for the second time. The loud clank that resulted in tiny, ink-smeared numbers stamped in the Time Out column made the job feel official. I was really getting paid to work in an animal clinic!

  All in all, it had been a good day. Early summer meant a steady stream of dogs and cats to be bathed and dipped in flea-and-tick killer. I had personally handled one cat, four dogs and Max’s personality cut. Calculating the customer charges for the work I’d done against my day’s wages, I figured out I was already helping to make money for the clinic.

  It felt good to be productive – and needed.

  It also felt good to be leaving at 4:00. Plenty of time to get home and do a little yard work before dinner.

  I let out a contented sigh; I was going to like working here.

  As I gathered my purse and keys, Dr. Norris bustled into the office. He had, I quickly realized, been drawn by the sound of the time clock.

  “You aren’t leaving?”

  From his tone, I wasn’t sure whether that was a question or not. I stole a glance at the clock: 4:05. I hadn’t been mistaken about the time. At a loss as to why he seemed so peeved, I said, “It’s been 8 hours.”

  “We don’t go by the clock. Brenda’s called in sick, so she won’t be here after school to do the evening feeding and cleaning. Charla has her kid to pick up and take care of. I need you here.”

  I blinked. Even if I could clean all the cages, walk the dogs and feed the animals that were staying the night before the clinic closed at 6:00, the vets still had final rounds to make. Say 30 minutes to help hold and treat our overnight patients. Then the clinic had to be cleaned and straightened, from the waiting room and exam rooms to the bathroom and surgery. And finally all the floors had to vacuumed and mopped. That would easily run the clock up to 7:30 – and a 12-hour day.

  Straight time, too, I reminded myself. I had agreed there wouldn’t be time-and-a-half pay when I accepted the job, and I wasn’t savvy enough about labor laws – yet – to realize my mistake.

  All I knew right then was the man who was paying me to cuddle frightened kittens, de-flea itchy dogs and, in general, help make the lives of a few animals – and their owners – happier was asking me to help out during an unusual and unexpected circumstance. Right? Besides, didn’t he and Dr. Reese routinely work 11- and 12-hour days?

  Plus, I told myself as I marked through the timestamp and returned the timecard to the top of the clock, I wasn’t staying for Dr. Norris. I was staying for the animals.

  Who else would give Elmo, the little white spitz, his final fluff when he was dry from his bath?

  Who else would take Bonnie, the German shep
herd boarding the week with us, for a run up and down the block so she could stretch those high-energy legs of hers?

  Who else would smuggle a few bites of canned food to Barney, blood donor and Houdini-cat extraordinaire, to reward his clownish behavior and moocher ways?

  Who else?

  Eight hours in and I was already slaved heart and soul to the dogs and cats who needed me.

  Oh, who was I kidding? They didn’t need me as much as I needed them.

  I was staying because one thing was very clear: from here on out, my life was no longer my own.

  I belonged to the animals.

  About the Author

  In the corporate world, Phoenix was a professional writer and editor for 23 years. Before that, she was a registered veterinary technician, working with small animal clinics and wildlife rehab centers.

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  The tiger in the photo on the cover of this book is a 4-month-old female surrendered to a Big Cat sanctuary in Texas. Phoenix was caught on camera feeding the youngster a turkey milkshake while performing volunteer work for the sanctuary.

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  Phoenix maintains a writing- and publishing-related blog at: http://phoenixsullivan.blogspot.com

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  Her Confessions of an Animal Junkie blog features heartwarming stories about running her small farm in North Texas, what it meant to be a vet tech 30 years ago and how she’s learned to engage with the animals around her. She invites you to come share YOUR stories and pictures too.

  http://animaljunkie.blogspot.com

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  You can also find Phoenix on Twitter @phoenixsullivan

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