The Gift of Pets: Stories Only a Vet Could Tell

by Bruce R. Coston

  My Run-in with the Law

  I happened to be standing in the lobby of the hospital one afternoon as a state trooper drove up the driveway in his cruiser. I watched with curiosity as Trooper Dalkins unfolded his six-foot-three-inch frame from the driver’s seat of the car.

  Trooper Dalkins had been a client of mine for many years. I had watched his two basset hounds grow from rambunctious adolescents to noble geriatric patients during that time. My mind flooded with the memory of the infected growth on Beau’s front leg, which had responded miraculously to antibiotics after I had assured him and his wife that it would not. Then the scene replayed in my mind of Trooper Dalkins, his wife, and three daughters gathered around the examination table on which Beau lay, too ill to lift his head, before I slipped the medication into his vein that would ease him from his intractable and untreatable illness. It had been a touching and utterly excruciating scene, the tearful good-bye a loving family had bestowed upon a faithful friend after many years of devotion. I liked the Dalkins family very much.

  When I had posed the most inappropriate of questions, Trooper Dalkins had answered it without comment or complaint. I suppose I am not the only one who has asked a state trooper the question. He was probably accustomed to it.

  “How fast can I really drive on the interstate without one of you guys pulling me over?”

  He had laughed offhandedly and told me that it was generally safe to go about six to eight miles per hour faster than the sixty-five limit posted on the highway signs.

  “Yeah, if you go any faster than seventy-four, the troopers are going to start paying attention. But slower, you’re generally going to be okay.”

  It had been several years since I had posed that question to Trooper Dalkins. But every time I drove past a cruiser hidden behind a knoll in the median of Interstate 81 at seventy-two or seventy-three miles per hour, I thought of him, grateful for the insider information he had provided. Armed with that information, I had not been pulled over on the highway since college days.

  I was pleased to see Trooper Dalkins that day, since it had been a couple of years since Beau, his last pet, had passed away. We shot the breeze nonchalantly over the reception desk for a few minutes.

  “Hey, you guys need to clamp down on the truckers on the highway a little tighter,” I said to him. “Just yesterday, one of them literally pushed me off I-81 at full speed. He just came over into my lane without a thought. I had to swerve onto the grass to avoid him. That was exciting at seventy miles an hour.”

  “Yeah, it can get a little dicey out there, for sure.” He leaned heavily on his elbow on the desktop, his biceps bulging his sleeve. The sidearm and his sheer bulk would be intimidating to any lawbreakers on the highway. He paused for a moment before asking, “So, what kind of car are you driving now?”

  “It’s just a little Nissan Maxima,” I responded. “Not much of a car compared to those big eighteen-wheelers.”

  “That’s for sure. You gotta drive defensively.” Another pause. “What year is your car?”

  I’m not much of a car guy; I am equipped with very little car pride. I’m happy if my vehicle just gets me to where I’m going. Details like engine size, available features, or even the model year don’t stay with me for long. I searched my memory for this bit of trivia.

  “Runs in my mind it’s a 2003 or 2004, something like that.”

  “So it’s one of the newer body styles, huh?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  He nodded his head lazily as he scanned the few people seated in the lobby, awaiting their turn to be called into the exam rooms with their pets. Then he turned to me again. “So, what color is your car?”

  The question seemed a little strange to me at the time. He must be a car junkie, I thought, unlike me. Or perhaps he was still trying to imagine how a trucker could have missed seeing me and driven me off the road.

  “It’s gray, so I guess a trucker could have missed it in the evening light. But I honked and flashed my lights at him, and he just kept coming over.”

  Our conversation was interrupted by a page over the PA system, calling me to the treatment room to check on a patient. I waved good-bye to Trooper Dalkins and headed to the back to tend to my patient. The case that awaited me soon erased the mounting confusion about the interaction with Trooper Dalkins, which had begun to tickle at the edges of my consciousness. A young sheltie had had a brush with a car and had suffered a fractured leg. The bone would need surgical repair, a procedure that was scheduled for the next day.

  My mind was thoroughly occupied with planning the details of the surgery as I drove to work the next morning, that and appreciating the beauty of the spring on the mountains. The slopes were dotted with speckles of light purple where the redbud trees were blooming among the brilliant green of the budding oaks and the darker green of the mountain laurel. My mind wandered from the road. I had been on I-81 for only a few miles, driving absentmindedly in the passing lane, when I passed a state trooper’s cruiser in the median. My eyes dropped like stones from the road down to my speedometer. Once again, I was relieved to see that I had set my cruise control at seventy-two miles an hour. Trooper Dalkins had saved me again!

  Out of idle curiosity and without the slightest concern, I looked into my mirror. I was mildly surprised to see the cruiser nosing into traffic behind me. A rush of adrenaline flooded my veins, my heart rate accelerated involuntarily, and I slowed the car down. This is silly, I reminded myself. Trooper Dalkins’s advice had always served me well. I took a few deep breaths to calm my nerves. Certainly, this trooper was after someone else. But a quick scan of my mirrors failed to show any other drivers but the one I had just passed. Must be an accident ahead, I thought. But the needle on my internal stress meter spiked again as I watched the cruiser pull in behind me and flip on his blue lights.

  I was immediately assaulted by two separate but equally disturbing thoughts, which attacked me like tag-team wrestlers, fast and violently. The first was a quiet curse on Trooper Dalkins. He had failed me! Though his warnings had proved true for many years, they had finally left me unprotected. I had set the cruise control at seventy-two, just as he had suggested, and yet here I was being dragged to the side of the road by these blasted blue lights. Trooper Dalkins, I’m going to get you for this!

  The second thought was that I was going to have to call Jim at the school transportation department. For a couple of years, I had been a volunteer bus driver at my sons’ school, logging countless hours behind the wheel of the forty-nine-person coach, driving for music trips, varsity games, and a variety of other school functions. It was a ready excuse for being present at most of my children’s school events and made me feel good about volunteering my time. It was also just plain fun to drive the big rigs. I had driven the coach through New York City on more than one occasion, even parallel-parking it once beside St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Getting a ticket would mean that I would have to inform Jim of my infraction. That would be embarrassing at the very least and might reduce the amount of driving I would be allowed to do—not a thought I relished.

  With these thoughts swirling in my mind, I watched in my rearview mirror as the officer approached my car, half-hoping that the man in uniform would be Trooper Dalkins. But as the officer reached the car and leaned down to look in the window, I realized with regret that I did not recognize him.

  “Do you know why I pulled you over?”

  “I’m guessing it’s because I was going a bit too fast.”

  “Yes, sir, you were. I clocked you at seventy-five miles per hour.”

  I thought about pointing out that his radar couldn’t possibly be right, since I had set the cruise control at seventy-two. But honestly, it seemed a silly argument to make.

  “That’s a little faster than I thought I was going.”

  “Is there a reason you were speeding?”

  This seemed like a ridiculous question to me. There were, of course, a million reasons why I was speeding: I had gotten up a
bit late and was running behind; I had gotten behind a school bus, which had slowed me down even more; there were important things waiting for me at the office; I had grown up in a family of habitual speeders and was a victim of my genetic heritage; my car had tempted me to take advantage of its pep. I could have tried to play the trump card and claim there was a life-and-death emergency waiting for me at the office. But honestly, none of my justifications seemed valid as I looked at the gun holstered at the officer’s side.

  “Not any reasons that would make sense to you, sir,” I responded weakly, resigned to my punishment.

  “In that case, I’m going to have to issue you a citation for driving in excess of the speed limit.” His words sounded officious and punitive, like a judgment of the court. “If you’ll give me your license and registration, I’ll go back to my cruiser and write up the citation.”

  The time it took him to go back to his car and write that ticket seemed an eternity. I watched him furtively in the mirror, drumming my fingers on the dashboard and shaking my head in frustration. I was sure that in a small community like mine, the drivers of every car that passed recognized me. It struck me as I sat there that my name and my crime would be printed in the community section of the weekly newspaper for all to see. No doubt, my lead foot would be the topic of discussion around many supper tables in the days to come.

  “Did you hear that the vet got a ticket for speeding the other day?” my clients would say to one another. “What a shame. You’d think you could count on your veterinarian to obey the laws, wouldn’t you? What is this world coming to?” I envisioned my loyal clients during their appointments in the days ahead, clucking their tongues and shaking their heads at me in reproach, disappointed and disgusted at my lawlessness.

  Finally, I saw the car door open and the officer emerge from his cruiser carrying a sheaf of paperwork. He pushed an important-looking form through my window on a clipboard. I knew it was the ticket I deserved.

  “You are being cited for going seventy-five miles per hour in a sixty-five-mile-an-hour zone. You are to appear in Shenandoah County General District Court in three weeks to answer this charge.”

  “If I want to just pay the fine, do I still have to appear in court?”

  “No, sir, you can go to the clerk’s office and pay the fine if you do not wish to defend yourself. If you do that, this offense will appear on your permanent record and will be reflected in your insurance rates.”

  “Yes, I’m sure they will. Does that mean they won’t if I show up at court?” I asked.

  “They will if you are found guilty of the crime.”

  “But there’s hardly any chance I will be found innocent, is there?”

  “I did clock you at seventy-five, sir.”

  “Yes, that’s what you said.”

  “Do you have any other questions?”

  What is there to have questions about? I wondered. I had been caught red-handed, having trusted the word of a state trooper. I wouldn’t make that mistake again. It had cost me a stiff fine, the privilege of being a volunteer bus driver, and would undoubtedly jack up my insurance rates.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Okay, if there are no other questions, please sign the citation on the line I have marked with an X,” the officer continued, tapping the clipboard with his pen on the line where I was to sign.

  I took his pen and quickly signed my name in the space provided. But when I tried to hand the clipboard to the officer, he pushed it back toward me roughly.

  “In order to make sure we have made everything clear to you, please read the information on the next page, as well.”

  I looked up at him with confusion on my face. I had been in college the last time I had received a speeding ticket, but I didn’t recall any additional information. Perhaps law enforcement was trying to be more consumer-friendly these days, but something about the officer’s approach and carriage made me question whether customer service was his number-one priority. He was pointing at the clipboard, a stern look on his face.

  I flipped the citation over, looking for the additional information he had mentioned. I found only a sheet of yellow notebook paper on which some words had been quickly scrawled in a familiar script. This made no sense at all. I held the clipboard closer so I could read the words. “APRIL FOOLS’, DOC! GOTCHA AGAIN!” And in smaller letters below: “Don’t be mad. You know we love you. Your family at Seven Bends (excluding Susan, Diane, and Marti).”

  Quickly I read the words again, my mind spinning. My head jerked up to the trooper’s face. He was laughing now. I watched the gun in his holster jiggle with his mirth. He had his cap off and was wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.

  “You dog!” I said, smiling now myself. “Who put you up to this?”

  The officer was laughing too hard to answer. In reply, he simply pulled his fist up, his thumb pointing behind my car. I looked in my rearview mirror, surprised to find that now there were two state trooper cruisers parked behind me, both of their racks of lights spinning blue. Walking up behind the officer who had pulled me over was another man in uniform, who was also laughing uproariously. I recognized Trooper Dalkins right away! He was laughing too hard to speak.

  “So that’s why you were in my office yesterday!”

  He nodded his head weakly, the effort of trying to answer me apparently too much for him.

  “And that’s why you wanted all that information about my car, too! I can’t believe you got roped into this.” That’s when the lightbulb went on in my dimly lit brain. “This was all Rachel’s doing, wasn’t it?”

  The two officers of the law were now leaning on each other’s shoulders and holding their sides. Finally, Trooper Dalkins gathered himself enough to meet my gaze. But he just shrugged and kept smiling, coconspirator to the end.

  “So, I’m really not getting a ticket after all?” I asked incredulously.

  Trooper Dalkins and his cohort simply shook their heads, unable to quit laughing.

  “I don’t have to show up in court, either?” I said, more to myself than to the two helpless officers. They couldn’t hear me anyway, given their ongoing laughter.

  Those two state troopers were still laughing as I pulled away from their parked cruisers; their lights and their grins were still flashing. But I was laughing, too. Sometimes there is nothing to do but enjoy it when you are the butt of such a stunt. Rachel was proving herself to be a worthy adversary.

  When I got to the office, I put on a stern face of feigned anger and stormed into the lobby. I marched past the reception desk without a greeting and went immediately to the staff break room, where I tacked the summons up on the bulletin board. I scrawled one sentence across the bottom of the ticket in large red letters: “You’re all fired—excluding Susan, Diane, and Marti.” But it was weak retaliation. Once again, I had been had! April Fools’ indeed!

  Branson Misery

  The phone was clamoring for attention the moment I walked into the house that Sunday evening. Somehow I had a bad feeling about it. As a solo practitioner, I had learned to fear the ringing of the phone. So often it meant that I would miss supper with the family or be called away from my children’s school program or have to leave the lawn half-mowed.

  When I heard Mrs. Kovac’s voice on the other end of the line, my apprehension eased a bit. I didn’t mind so much being interrupted when the ones needing help were some of my favorite clients. Local merchants, Mrs. Kovac and her husband were regular visitors with their forty-pound beagle, Branson. You really couldn’t help liking the Kovacs. Ever courteous and gracious, they were pillars of the community. Both spoke in quiet, relaxed tones, seldom raising their voices. Neither was excitable beyond the quick and easy chuckle that epitomized their approach to life.

  Their devotion to Branson, who was in many respects their polar opposite, was undeniable and obvious. Since their children had long since left home, Branson willingly accepted his status as most favored dependent in the Kovac home.

 
; Granted, Branson did need special attention. That much was true. For years, he had fought chronic ear problems, which had thickened the skin on his pendulous ears and required the Kovacs to clean his ears daily and apply medications even more often than that. As beagles are prone to do, Branson had also developed thyroid problems, which made him plump, to be kind, and required supplementation with pills twice daily. He also battled bouts of skin allergies, which sent him into paroxysms of intense itching, reddened his skin, and predisposed him to recurrent infections on his tummy and legs. All of these problems made Branson a frequent visitor at the hospital.

  We always had advance warning that he was coming, since Branson displayed another common beagle trait. As soon as the Kovacs put him in the car, he commenced to baying, a term that perfectly conveys the action, even if you have never heard the word. This mournful tune could be heard faintly at first, then more loudly, as the Kovacs’ car neared the clinic. It reached an earsplitting crescendo as they eased into a parking space in front of the office. Listening to the racket, you expected to look out the window and find a pack of hunting dogs surrounding a treed raccoon. Instead, you just saw Branson in the backseat, his nose and tail pointed skyward, howling in full cry, with the Kovacs in the front seat, courtly and proper as always, stoically suffering the cacophany with taut, strained faces. Branson’s baying would continue as he lunged eagerly toward the door of the office, snapping the leash tight and pulling Mr. Kovac along like a water-skier.