by Laurie Hess
“Not even a bird?” I said, astonished.
“Especially not birds,” he said.
My mouth fell open. “Are you serious? You do realize my specialized area of study is avian medicine?”
He took a sip of wine. “That’s birds, right?”
“Yes.” I nodded, amused. “That’s right.”
“Yeah,” he shook his head. “Birds are definitely the worst.”
He was baiting me, and I couldn’t resist. “Really? How so?” I asked.
“I grew up in Brooklyn, and you know, birds are everywhere. One of my more haunting childhood memories is getting caught in a flock of pigeons as they’re swooping and swarming all around me.” Peter swatted at the air, ducking in mock horror.
“Wow, that does sound horrible,” I said, teasing.
Actually, the fact that he hadn’t had a pet really did upset me. I’m always saddened when I hear that a child doesn’t have a pet. As far as I’m concerned, pets and kids go together like ice cream and a hot summer day. I thought back to our family bird, Chips, a gray-cheeked parakeet who lived in a cage that hung from the ceiling in our dining room throughout my childhood, and of my grandmother’s beloved blue budgies. Their names all began with the letter p—Petey, Popo, and Paulie—and their chirps and chatter were the background noise of my upbringing. I couldn’t imagine my childhood without any of these feathered friends. And furthermore, I couldn’t remember back to a time when I didn’t have a pet to love.
“What if I could change your mind about birds?” I said to Peter.
“Changing my mind about birds will require great persuasion.”
I leaned forward, looked directly into his eyes, and asked, “Do you have plans after dinner?”
If I’d led Peter to believe that I was taking him home to bed, he didn’t give away his disappointment when I asked the taxi to pull up to an after-hours pet store in the Back Bay of Boston.
“It’s called immersion therapy,” I said as we slid out of the car. I linked my arm through his and led him into the store. “I’m going to desensitize you to birds, so you can get over your phobia. I’ll place several different-sized birds on your body. I want you to stand still, if you can.”
Peter regarded me dubiously.
“I’ll be right here the whole time, don’t worry.”
“And then what happens?”
“Nothing. That’s the whole point of the exercise—you will see that in the presence of birds, nothing bad happens to you. You’re safe and okay.”
Ten minutes later, Peter was standing frozen in place as a parakeet rested on his forearm, an African gray parrot perched on his shoulder, and a blue-and-gold macaw sat atop his head. He looked like the Christopher Columbus statue in Central Park, one of the more popular roosting places for pigeons.
“How do you feel?” I asked.
“Pretty silly. But relatively calm. When do I get to put my arms down?”
I fumbled in my purse for my point-and-shoot (yes, our first date took place before we had camera phones). “Stand still for one more minute. I want to document this.”
I had that photo of Peter tacked above my desk at the hospital for many years to remind me that if Peter can conquer his fears, I, too, can persevere on particularly challenging days.
PETER SAT UP in bed, tapping away on his iPad, as I slathered lotion on my hands. After repeatedly scrubbing them and putting on and taking off sterile gloves all day long, my hands look as though I share DNA with my reptile patients.
“So, super sleuth,” I interrupted, “what have you discovered?”
“Not much more than you already have.” He took off his glasses and rubbed his temples. “I tend to agree with you that Bob and Maxine’s gliders are probably linked to this vendor, Sugar Buddies, but then how do you explain the sickness spreading outside the tristate area?”
I’d been wondering that too. “I don’t know, but right now it’s the only lead I have.”
7:12 A.M., STARBUCKS ON MAPLE AVENUE
I PULLED INTO the drive-through. Peter had sent me off with a travel mug of coffee, but with less than four hours of sleep, I needed something stronger.
“Good morning, Dr. Hess. Your regular double skim cappuccino?” Kelsie Goodwin delivered this as a statement rather than a question. I nodded, admiring her pluck as well as her turquoise nails. She punched in my order and asked, “Anything else?”
“What’s the color of that nail polish?” I asked. I like manicured nails, but they were an indulgence I could rarely give myself. What was the point? I’d tried acrylic nails once, when Peter and I had attended a wedding out on Long Island. They’d felt appropriate for the event, but I’d ended up clipping them off a day later, because they got in the way and made it too hard for me to handle the animals at the hospital. I’d regretfully come to the conclusion that my nails need to be clipped short. It’s not a glamorous look, but, hey, it’s what works for me.
“Don’t you love it? It’s called ‘Naughty Nautical.’ I painted Mr. Piggy’s toes with it too. He looks amazing.”
Mr. Piggy was Kelsie’s potbellied pig, who had been my patient since his first annual checkup. The day I met them, I was passing through the waiting room of the hospital as a young woman in a prim, pale yellow, 1950s eyelet dress and black combat boots was pushing a stroller through the front door.
“And who is this little one?” Colette asked, peering over the receptionist’s desk.
“Mr. Piggy,” the young woman said in an adoring tone.
Exotic pet owners vary widely in age, socioeconomic and marital status, gender, and just about everything else. I’ve been interviewed many times about my profession, and when I get asked questions such as “What kind of person wants a potbellied pig for a pet?” I typically respond, “It could be anyone. Exotic animals are loved by all types. I really can’t generalize.”
“Can I see the baby?” I strolled over to sneak a peek. A potbellied pig wearing a baby bonnet stared up at me. (Yes, a baby bonnet. You’d be surprised by how many exotics have their own wardrobes.)
“Isn’t he adorable?” she cooed. The black-and-white-spotted pig snorted.
I had to admit, he was pretty darn cute, with his long eyelashes and tiny, pointed, upright ears. I have a weakness for the little ones, and I guessed that Mr. Piggy was still an infant because he looked to weigh less than five pounds. Of course, that would soon change. I wondered if Kelsie knew what she was in for. To say that Mr. Piggy might go through a growth spurt would be an understatement—a growth surge would be more like it. A few months from now, Mr. Piggy would likely outgrow his stroller and become too heavy to carry, at least not without putting quite a strain on Kelsie’s lower back.
Though most pigs are small at birth, they often surprise their owners when they quickly grow from little piglets into huge hogs. Even tiny teacup pigs, which start out as small as frosted cupcakes, can plump up into fifty-pound adults. The Vietnamese potbellied pig can reach a hundred pounds or more. This is especially a problem in dense cities such as Manhattan. When a pet pig quickly outgrows the average studio apartment, many owners, not having anticipated how big the animal would get, give them up. Some even abandon them.
Bacon, with his pale-pink skin and sparse raven coat, was one of the first miniature pigs I’d treated after I’d graduated from veterinary school and begun my internship at the Animal Medical Center in Manhattan. His owners, Grant and Meghan, brought him in as a new piglet for routine vaccines and a nail clipping. Such a cute little guy—pink and fuzzy and all of eight pounds—but by the time he was five months old and ready to be neutered, he had ballooned to two hundred pounds. Like other full-sized pigs, Bacon needed to be able to run outside and dig in the dirt. Instead, he was running into the walls and digging into the floors of his owners’ second-story brownstone apartment. Getting Bacon down the narrow stairs for a regular walk outside had become a major ordeal for the young couple. They were overwhelmed and didn’t know what to do with their little �
��piggy,” who had become as big as a boar.
“If you don’t feel you can keep him, I recommend a California sanctuary for abandoned pigs called Lil’ Orphan Hammies that might take him,” I told them. Bacon’s owners contacted the group, and the last I heard, Bacon was living a healthy life outdoors on the sunny West Coast.
Franky was another pig I cared for and treated who had grown from a petite piglet into a 170-pound sow. But whereas Bacon’s owners decided they were not able to care for an animal that large, Franky’s owner, Rebecca, was determined to maintain a cozy home for the two of them. Also, because she had a rent-controlled apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, she wasn’t about to move.
So Rebecca managed to pen off an area inside her bedroom for Franky and her favorite blanket, chew toys, and even a small bathing pool. She soundproofed the apartment with panels of foam so that her neighbors wouldn’t hear Franky’s grunts, snorts, and shrieks, and she paid a couple of neighborhood kids to routinely walk her 170-pound sow down the stairs and around the block for exercise and pee breaks. In the dead of winter, when it was just too cold for the sparsely haired pig to go outside without risking frostbite on her ears and tail, Rebecca trained her to relieve herself on wee-wee pads in the apartment, and for daily exercise she rolled balls around the house for her to chase. Cohabitating with a pig wasn’t easy, but for Rebecca it was a labor of love, and she made it work.
The last time I’d seen Rebecca, she’d made the long drive from Manhattan to Westchester with Franky in the back of her Suburban. She was concerned that Franky was scratching at her eyes and blinking often. I suspected she’d developed ulcers on her corneas, which happens commonly in mini pigs. The first challenge to treating Franky was getting her into an examination room. It was a tight squeeze, and once in, she was none too happy about it. She began to stomp around the room, pounding her hoofs into the tile and squealing loudly. When they’re throwing a tantrum, pigs behave very much like toddlers; they shriek as though they’re being clobbered when they’re just objecting to not getting their way.
“Hold her right there!” I shouted to Marnie over Franky’s squealing and snorting.
“Got her!” Marnie held Franky’s head so that I could check her eyes. To determine her condition and what kind of treatment she might need, I had to spray fluorescein dye directly into her eyes. But every time I got close enough to her pig face to administer the dye, she’d shake her head from side to side and shriek.
“Franky,” I said calmly, with my hands on my hips, as if I could reason with her.
She snorted and threw her head back, letting out another screech.
“I need you to sit still. It’s almost over.” I looked over at Marnie. “On the count of three. One . . . two . . . three.”
On my cue, Marnie got hold of Franky’s head again and pulled back her eyelids. In one fluid movement I sprayed a droplet of dye onto each of her eyeballs and shined a light into them. As the spray’s bright reddish-orange color spread out over the surface of her eyes, I could see small ulcers in the centers of both corneas. Untreated corneal ulcers will eventually cause blindness, but since Franky’s ulcers weren’t yet that deep, I decided to treat her conservatively with a lubricating eye ointment and antibiotics to soothe her corneas and protect them from additional irritation.
Nearly an hour later, I opened the door of the examination room. The waiting room was packed with pets and their owners waiting to see me, and I felt I needed to explain the noise and the delay.
“My apologies, everyone. You probably heard Franky . . . just throwing a big pig fit,” I said with an apologetic smile.
Nobody moved or said a word. Rather, the waiting room seemed frozen in place. All eyes stared at me.
Pete Ferguson, a retired professor, clutched his ailing leopard gecko close to his heart monitor and swallowed hard. Even Dorothy Dunham’s pair of chattering parakeets stopped talking to each other. The room was silent save for the sound of traffic from the Saw Mill River Parkway beyond the front door.
What was wrong? Did I have something on my face? Mustard from my turkey sandwich earlier? As I lifted my hand to rub my mouth, I noticed that it was red. The dye! The fluorescein I had used to look at Franky’s corneas was splattered all over my lab coat. If you didn’t know any better, it could easily be mistaken for blood, and it was all over my hands. No wonder everyone looked stunned.
Pete stood up slowly and backed away from me toward the front door.
“No, no, no, it’s not what it looks like.” I held up both hands in surrender. “It’s just dye.”
As another owner stood up to follow Pete’s lead, Franky let out a low, contented grunt from the examination room.
“You see?” I said with wild conviction. “She’s alive! She’s alive!”
FRANKY WAS THE last miniature pig I’d treated at the hospital until Mr. Piggy came along. Baby animals are always a welcome relief from the problems that older and much larger animals need help with. Mr. Piggy was happily snorting and wiggling around in Kelsie’s arms.
I took the piglet and set him down on the stainless steel examination table. He was a sweet little guy with a tightly curled tail and a scarlet snout. He squirmed on the cool table, and I asked, “Can I use his blanket to wrap him up.”
Kelsie smiled and handed me a thin blue blanket with tiny pigs on it. There was no doubt, Kelsie was a proud pig mama. “Stay still,” she gently told Mr. Piggy, “and let the doctor take a good look at you.”
I took my penlight out to look into Mr. Piggy’s eyes and mouth, as Marnie tried to contain his wriggly little body within the blanket. I then listened to his rapidly beating heart with the same small stethoscope that physicians use to examine human infants. Mr. Piggy was in excellent health after Kelsie’s devoted care. His hooves were shiny and trim, and his skin was healthy and smooth.
“He’s so clean and well manicured,” I said as I inspected his nails.
“I bathe him regularly.”
“Really? Most pigs this size don’t like to be bathed.”
“Mr. Piggy’s special.”
“What are you feeding him?”
She waved a disciplining finger at Mr. Piggy, who no doubt had a healthy appetite. “He’s on a strict pelleted diet with a small amount of vegetables.” That explained his smooth, clean skin. Like people, pigs that don’t eat a healthful diet have skin problems and tend to develop greasy, flaky coats, even when they’re as young as Mr. Piggy.
“Plus I use a manna ball.”
These plastic balls have a small opening designed so that food falls out only when a pig pushes or rolls them around, and this activity helps to keep pigs busy. Even tiny teacup pigs like to spend the bulk of their days foraging and rooting around for food. Without exercise, they tend to eat more than they should, so a toy like the manna ball keeps even teacup pigs from rooting around and digging holes in floors and from getting fat and bored.
“Very good,” I said.
“I also walk him around my neighborhood park,” Kelsie added. “On a leash, of course.”
Kelsie had clearly read all the pig-parenting handbooks. I was impressed. When I meet young people like Kelsie with exotic pets, I often worry that they’ve only gotten the pet for attention or in order to mimic celebrities who have a similar animal, like having the latest designer handbag or trendy hairstyle. But with Kelsie, it was clear she loved Mr. Piggy genuinely.
“You’re pretty good at taking care of animals,” I said, raising an eyebrow. “Ever thought about becoming a vet?”
“Not a vet, but a pet designer. I’d like to create my own line—a clothing collection for pets,” she said suddenly excited. “I’m so into embroidery and appliqué.”
With her renegade curls and unapologetic conviction, Kelsie reminded me of myself at her age. She knew who she wanted to be. When I was fifteen and a junior in high school, I did what all my other classmates did and started applying to colleges, except that whereas the majority of the other teens were pl
anning to enter undergraduate programs in business, law, or political science, I decided to pursue veterinary medicine. When I met with my school counselor at the private high school I attended, however, he scoffed at my career choice.
“The students that graduate from this high school who want to work in medicine go on to become physicians,” he said. “I don’t meet many students who want to work with . . . animals.” He regarded me with skepticism. “What do your parents say about your ‘aspirations’?”
My parents were all for it. They’d always encouraged me to follow my dreams, no matter how untraditional they were. And my interest in animal medicine came as no surprise to them, probably because they were animal lovers themselves. Our eighth-story apartment in Manhattan was home to a menagerie of adopted pets, including dogs, cats, guinea pigs, rabbits, and frogs. We also had an aquarium full of goldfish along with more exotic tropical fish. My father, a prominent New York City attorney, easily confesses that he’d really rather be a farmer.
Throughout my childhood and well into my teen years, my favorite family vacations were the weekend trips to our house on Lake Ashmere in the Berkshire Mountains, home to all kinds of reptiles and amphibians, as well as birds and many other kinds of wildlife. There my fascination with exotic animals blossomed and grew. I spent many solitary hours by the lake, observing the natural environment and all the creatures that lived in it. I developed a deep respect for their special habitat and needs and wondered how I could help protect them both in nature and in captivity.
Despite my high school counselor’s disfavor, I followed my own path to vet school, where I sat riveted by lectures on animal curiosities and anomalies, like how penguins keep their feet warm on the ice (they have a special network of blood vessels that circulate heat), how lizards can regrow their tails, and how fuzzy chinchillas release huge clumps of fur—the so-called fur slip—when caught in the mouths of their predators. I loved vet school, as I had known I would, and later in my studies I had my own James Herriot moment when I proudly delivered a baby lamb in the middle of an ice-cold field in early spring. With my team partners cheering me on, I had no doubt that I’d found my tribe—human and animal.