Little Animals

     As promised, tonight is about small animals.  When I was a little boy, we lived in a very rural setting so there were always animals around like domestic dogs and cats as well as orphan wild animals like rabbits, skunks or raccoons.  Usually we just saved their lives, kept them fed and safe until they were big enough to let go.  They would hang around for awhile and eventually following the call of nature go looking for a mate.  An idyllic place and time to grow up.

     There was only one vet in the area but no one every called him for anything except for a sick, pregnant or injured cow or horse.  I suppose he treated dogs or cats for sickness or injury.  No one had much money in those times and the solution to most injuries was to "be put out of their misery"  as it was euphemistically called.  I remember crying as this was done with my dog when he was hit by a car, asking why they don't have animal doctors for dogs too.  When I grew up, my question was answered emphatically.

     My wife and I had two little preschool girls.  They had become attached to a cat that had turned up at our door one day looking for a home.  One night when returning home, we heard a pitiful mewling coming from our back door.  She had evidently been run over by a car and had drug herself home from an unknown distance.  The girls were crying as I had as a child, asking why we  couldn't call a pet doctor.  I decided we could and got the phone book. The vet was a young man just starting out  so we went to his office around midnight with Kitty wrapped in a blanket.  He had a deal with the town doctor to use his X-ray machine so we went there next.  Upshot, she a broken back leg and a broken pelvis.  He gave her a pain shot and a sedative and agreed to operate first thing in the morning.  We went home with two very sleepy and happy little girls.

     The next day he operated successfully and after a few days she came home with a metal brace around her pelvis, a plaster cast on her extended back leg, a mile of adhesive tape and two prescriptions for antibiotics and pain.  The two girls with some help from their parents tended to her dutifully for the months it took for her to heal.  Finally she was back on her feet and as cats will, immediately got pregnant.  The birth problem and the caesarian section is a story for another time. 

     What I intended to tell was how the Humane Society said we weren't suitable to adopt an unwanted puppy.  I've adopted three children with no problem but a puppy from the pound was a no-no.  We finally bought a dachshund puppy in a Walmart parking lot who we loved for twelve great years.  What these shelter animals need more than any other criteria is someone who loves them and allows them to love you back.