Free Vet Tech Tales: The Early Years by Phoenix Sullivan Page A

off?” I joked with her once.
    “Not from this, no ma’am. The missus gives me three days off a week, except for this. Since I live with her, it isn’t that inconvenient to bring her here, I guess. And the work really isn’t hard. She has a cook come in on my days off, and I only have to take her out shopping once a week, and maybe to the doctor every now and again. We visit her son every other week, and we go to church together. That’s it, so how much trouble can one old woman and her house be? Besides, if something should happen to that dog, I don’t know what the missus would do. Up and die, maybe. Then I’d be out of a job. And where else would I get three days off and still get a full week’s pay and board?”
    I wish I knew for Doris’ sake, because about six months after I first met Susie, the old dog died peacefully in her sleep. The mornings seemed awfully lonely without our familiar friends stopping by every day, though the occasional box of donuts still showed up. I wondered how Mrs. Van Buren was doing, and found out about a month later when Dr. Norris came in with the newspaper. In it was Mrs. Van Buren’s obituary.
    That’s another lesson I learned about working in an animal clinic where, during a crisis especially, a few of the owners become fixtures, often for only a few days at a time, some for much longer. There’s an intense sharing that occurs between owner and staff. A sharing of concern, of support, of confidences. You and they connect for a time, become best friends, family almost.
    Then the crisis turns and you drift apart. Leaving you to wonder if little Johnny’s softball team made the playoffs, if Aunt Pearl and Uncle George decided to divorce after their trial separation, or if Grandpa Phil survived his stroke and by-pass surgery. Wondering, until chance or the next annual exam throws you together again. But by then, the mood has swung, the closeness once shared gone. You engage in small talk and rhetoric, neatly sidestepping the important issues reserved for close friends and family. Important issues that by unspoken, mutual consent, are no longer to be brought up, no longer to be acknowledged. You bury them, and soon forget those little vignettes of life that brush so fleetingly by – but that shape the future self you are still becoming.

     

Please Check Under the Hood – Er , Tail
     
    After my first meeting with Susie and Mrs. Van Buren, I was headed back to the kennel when Joan, holding a black Chow on a leash, stopped me. “Phoenix, will you take Samson to the back for me? He needs a bath and brushout . And check his tail end. Mr. Jackson says he’s been biting his rump.”
    I took the leash and peered down at Samson. He was a handsome-looking Chow with a full coat and friendly disposition. He had a few mats, but overall the hair situation didn’t look too bad. We walked to the kennel and, before I put him in a cage, I ran my hand up the back of his thighs and against the fur in front of the full tail that curled tightly over his back. Rump biting in the summer usually means fleas, but I didn’t immediately see any, although the black coat and black skin did make spotting black fleas a bit of a challenge.
    Samson turned his head to give my hand a lick and smiled at me, ready to play. I patted his shoulder, then tugged on his tail, lifting the plume up and away from where it curled over his back. At once I knew the patch of white where tail met body should not have been there. I knelt down beside Samson and pushed his tail out of the way to get a better look. The white patch moved.
    “ Ewww !” Within a circle about the size of a silver dollar, a couple of dozen short, plump bodies wriggled. Instinctively, I knew what they were. “Maggots!”
    Charla came hurrying over. “ Ewww ,” she echoed. The expression on her face validated my first “official” diagnosis. “Get him in the tub, and I’ll go get one of the doctors to take a look.”
    Dr. Reese ambled in