Date: Sunday, May 13, 2007 12:09 PM
Subject: Pets R fine
Took the cat and dog to the veterinarian on Thursday last week. They were long overdue. Stuffed the totally uncooperative 13.8 lb. cat into a 10 lb. cat box, bought the dog a new blue collar because her old one got melted on the barbecue grill, grabbed the leash, called the dog and off we went, merrily, I might add.
The cat was in the back of the truck so I couldn't hear her hiss to the dog, "GET ME OUTA HERE OR I'LL SCRATCH YOUR EYES OUT WHEN YOU ARE SLEEPING. DON"T BE FALLIN" ASLEEP ON ME HERE! WAKE UP. YOU GOTTA GET ME OUTA HERE I'M SUFFOCATING. I'M DYIN' I'M TELLIN" YOU. HE PUT ME IN THIS BOX WHEN I WASN'T LOOKIN'. I WILL SO CLAW YOUR EYES OUT! CLAW YOUR SIX NIPPLES TOO AFTER YOU'RE BLIND AND CAN"T SEE ME! HOOHAH! THAT'LL BE GREAT, YOU'LL BE TURNIN" THIS WAY AN'-- WHAT? WE'RE HERE, ALREADY?????? SHIT!"
So there I am, wearing my leather chore gloves, my belly and chest covered in static cat hair, tellin' the nurse we're here and askin' for sedation for the wild cat I have in the back of my truck, while Cubby and Jackie are dealin' with a male Lab and his owner who is restraining him by the collar, makin' him wheeze and cough.
Danni is now silent in her box in the truck waitin' for her chance to escape the second the box door is opened. I carry her in her box into the vet -- where the male Lab is checking out Cubby with a lustful eye and where she, all 85.4 beautiful lbs. of her is lying seductively on the fragrant mat just inside the door ignoring him, acting oblivious to his bizarre behavior.
However Danni is not. I feel her tense in the box, all 200 lbs. of torque winding up in her chunky thigh muscles; she is in her low growl, laser-eyes, teeth and claws on 'KILL' mode reserved only for those fight-to-the-death situations that occur in a cat's life sometimes.
"ARGH, HACK, Uuurgrh...." the restrained Lab garbles out. "SIT DOWNNNN!!" its owner says in that teeth-clenched manner I've used myself on many an occasion, but Jackie just laughs. It doesn't work on Cubby either.
Ennaways, we felt bad for the male dog especially when the nurse asked if Cubby was around anyplace where there was mosquitoes or high grass. "Oh yeah. Cubby lives in the perfect Lab environment,' I said looking at the male dog, then at his owner who wasn't the least bit friendly, 'Water galore, high grass, woods, a place to lay in the sun in the mornings, the shade in the afternoons, 160 acres to roam and swim whenever she wants. Two square meals a day. She's got it made."
The male dog asked me if he could go home with us, I heard him plain as day. Cubby looked at me expectantly. But his owner man-handled him out the door and we never saw him again. Some dogs lives are to be pitied, alas.
Ennaways the nurse said, "The doctor will see you now," so I grabbed the cat box with the cat in it and following Jackie and Cubby went to the last room "on the left". A gay place it was too. Now I mean 'gay' in its original context, not the other, well, meaning/useage one. I mean as far as veterinarian examination rooms go, this was a pleasant non-intimidating place. But this was all lost on the cat, who I wasn't sure was still alive at this point because she was, well, absolutely silent.
She crouched in her reinforced plastic fortifications there looking steadily out the little openings in the door, and noted in particular where the door to the room was when it opened--then, she turned her head--whiskers first, ever so slightly over her left shoulder and noted the position of the only window in the room. "Hmmm,' I thought, 'I'm onto you."
"So should we do Cubby-wubby first?" the assistant said, gaily. (ditto) "We'll weigh her here on this mat." I find their 'baby-talk' to them strange, realizing there are some pet-owners who do baby-talk their pets -- or put their pictures in emails as feature kitties or doggies --.
Me, on the other hand, tolerate pets and they tolerate me; I treat them as semi-equals. I'm fiercely allergic to dog and cat hair which was, as we speak, making the skin crawl on both my hands as we stood there. I opted to wash my hands in their ample sink.
"Looks like she's 83 . . .84 . . .84 . . .85.4 lbs." Okay Jackie, you get off the scale and let Cubby on. . . . Well, okay Jackie isn't really that tiny. Cubby does weigh 85.4 lbs. officially. The vet says she looks fine to him, well-muscled, she has great teeth, has the appropriate 'look' from above'; we had her blood-test checked for heart-worms. Was negative but started her on a preventative program all the same.
"Okay, want the cat?" I said, looking forward to getting al this over with. "Sounds like she doesn't want to be here, the nurse tells me." the vet says, looking at the two yellow-brown owl eyes that stare directly into his from the 'cage'.
"This is the reason I've procrastinated getting her here. It's a fight to get her in the box (actually it took only to tries; the 2nd time I had to get a different grip on her tight-muscled badger-like loose-skinned body; she's like a fur-skinned eel, in a way, you know if you've ever dealt with one . . . I railroaded her head into the box first, and tucked her leg-locked splayed snowshoe-like feet back below her chin to get past the door opening--followed her butt with it, snapped the door shut and ran to the house so I wouldn't have to hear her yowling.)
"Okay, here goes' I said, opening the two locking latches on the round-cornered door,'Here she is. . . ." I had decided not to wear my gloves for the fact I actually have a better grip on the situation without them --even if my skin crawls, and too the cat won't be quite as scared should she feel me touch her with my hands than with my gloves.
Trying to pull the cat from the box was like extracting a wet blanket from a plastic bag. Danni had so effectively owned her surroundings she had become one-with-the-box and it was almost impossible to separate her from it. She had inflated her body to the size of the cat box and all she had to do was thrust her front legs out and just run like hell dragging the box behind, she looked like a mauve-colored turtle with a hip-roofed shell. She shot right over my forearms, passed over my shoulders the box scarring my cheek and temple knocking my glasses off, careened along the wall, off the corner of the room over the weigh scale registering a 13.8 lbs. on the Ricter, bounced against the cabinet, to stand stalled at the closed door the veterinarian thought to close during the melee, the box heaving with each tension-filled breath.
"Nope, she don't wanna be here." the vet said.
"Hmmmph, she's matured', I said. 'I thought'd be a lot worse than that. This is goin' to be a breeze." And so I bent over and picked her up, box 'n all and put it on the examining table, slowly pulling her out a little at a time as she relaxed. Jackie took the box away. And there, in all her glory, was fat Danni at last.
"Her ear got frozen at sometime, I see." the vet said, examining the now-sleeping cat. No he hadn't sedated her. She was just in sleep-mode, as her batteries recharged from all the synergy in the room. Cats can do that, take energy from us, especially back-to-the-earth cats who are attuned to the very ground on which they walk. Urban cats, in their artificial environs, have alternative ways to get the same thing -- this explains the static forces in their hair and across the carpet when you go to kiss someone's nose or touch a metal doorknob and get a shock. Cats utilize this 'outlet' for their unique physiology; we drink a sweet or caffeinated drink to do the same thing, for its buzz . . .
"Yeah, she ran off when we were watching a neighbor's dog for the weekend. It was 40 below and we couldn't find her to bring her in the house,' Jackie said, 'We called for her and looked everywhere we could think of."
"Now she has an elevated, insulated house all her own she can escape to that I built that next spring. I hated for that to happen.' I said, looking into the veterinarian's eyes, then down to the cat's shortened ear, 'She and the dog are brought into the house whenever it gets too cold. They have their own places in the basement, food and water."
"Danni's a little overweight,' he said attempting to open her jaws and look at her teeth, 'But she seems fit as a fiddle. Teeth are good. Does she supplement her diet with mice and birds?"
"Oh yeah,' I said, petting her back as I kept a good grip on her girth,'She leaves only the choicest morsels for us by the back door, a mouse hind leg and flank steak portion fit for a king -- or queen,' nodding toward Jackie, 'Or sometimes, she sets aside a bladder or abdomen . . .She's really considerate along those lines. She's fed MeowMix twice a day --little helpings in the summer, bigger in the winter and eats it all. She's an active hunter, walks long distances with us sometimes on our walks, she isn't the proverbial lazy cat. So, all of this is fat then?"
"No, a lot of it is muscle, there's some fat of course. We'd rather see her look like 'this',' he said showing us a size chart of how a cat should look from the side and from above, ' But for her age, and her conditioning, she's as good as it gets. I wouldn't worry. Okay, Danni you're set to go."
He gave Danni three injections; one for rabies, one for distemper and one for tapeworms. Cubby got three too, except the third was her heartworm preventative booster shot, after which she gets one tasty pill a month through November.
I tucked Danni back into her box, no problem. She felt safe in there by then. Cubby got a treat for 'being a good dog' and didn't pee on the floor the whole time we were there. Neither did Jackie, I was so proud of her . . .(She won't read this until later) just wanted you to know Bonny, that at long last the pets are all vaccinated and good for a couple years. I opted not to start leukemia treatments on Danni, some preventative program they were mildly hawking. As I wrote out the check for $189.43, I felt even better about my decision.
It's not like I don't accept responsibilities of having a dog and cat, it's just that I don't plan on getting anymore pets after they 'go', you know what I'm saying? Danni may well live another 12-15 years, a 20 year old cat is not uncommon. Cubby, on the other hand, maybe has 5 years, maybe. Dogs require more attention than do cats and I'm not sure if we're up to it, although we read Lab/cross puppy ads when we see them. I don't want to go endure chewed-through extension cord plugs again. I just got Jackie broke from doing that and well, new influences just may drive her back to her old habits... You gotta watch her constantly.
Well, thanks for reading me,
Y'all come back now, y'hear?
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