Ask the Animals: A Vet's-Eye View of Pets and the People They Love
Bruce R. Coston
Language: English
Pages: 288
ISBN: 0312653433
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
In the tradition of James Herriot, Bruce R. Coston's first book is a warm, funny, and amazingly fulfilling celebration of the wonderful world of animals as seen through the eyes of a small-town veterinarian. The patients are an eclectic and surprising cast of characters who display incredible bravery and nobility at times, and unbelievable goofiness at other times. There's the dog that resurrected itself from death. There's Daphne, the transvestite cat who taught Bruce to be a cat person. And the owners are no less engaging, ranging from the angelic to the squeamish, teaching Bruce what it really means to be an animal doctor.
Readers will gain insight into the pathos and passion, the mundane and incredible, the thigh-slapping humor and the crushing sadness of a vet's life as he seeks to mend and restore people's treasured companions. Written with great warmth, this book imparts a deeper understanding of the pets that enrich our daily lives.
The resulting contact with the car was so slight that I heard the staccato crunch of metal, but felt no impact. The bumper of the oncoming car had connected with the back side of my front wheel well, which peeled the metal from there back to the door panel in an intricate scroll of rusty green metal, like a chiseled filigree, which remained as a reminder of that mental lapse until the day I gave the car away two or three years later. I drove more carefully after that and we arrived back home
by sight or behavior. He had become thoroughly repatriated into his natural environment. We had been successful to the point that we were no longer needed and only distantly remembered, if at all. It made us happy in a rather rueful and nostalgic way. Ralston, on the other hand, wasted not the least bit of sadness or emotional energy on the disappearance of his nemesis. He was very glad to have our attentions to himself and went about the task of making himself the center of attention again.
practically in a tizzy of anxiety and anticipation. My scholastic career had reached its conclusion. Ahead of me to the east, somewhere at the end of this road, stretched a new vista of opportunity, a new beginning. Out with the old, in with the new. I pressed my foot hard on the accelerator. Daphne When we arrived in Rochester, New York, a few days later, we rented an apartment close to the veterinary hospital in which I would work. One thing I insisted on when we signed the lease was
materials I’d need, I gave her a rundown of the whole procedure so she’d know just what to expect. She hung eagerly on my every word, her level of interest bolstering my bravado and clouding my better judgment. I knew from experience that observers, regardless of their level of interest or enthusiasm, do not always make for good assistants. “Would you like to assist me with this procedure?” I remembered the strange mixture of excitement and fear that I had felt the first time I had observed
day. There were no professors present; no students blowing horns in the practice rooms. There were not even any secretaries tapping away at typewriters in the office; no phones ringing. I was alone in this quiet building where I had spent so much time rehearsing with the male chorus and with Southernaires Quartet. It contained a great many nostalgic memories for me as I walked the empty halls looking for Cynthia and thinking through the four years in this building and the events of the day.