Cat Abuse

The veterinarian who set aside Fred for us and suggested we take a look at her is a nice enough fellow. He even stopped us in the parking lot of his office the day we adopted her, stroked her little head, and gravely informed us, “She’s a good one.”

In our subsequent visits to his office for Fred’s booster shots, however, we’ve been getting his assistant, a pinched-faced middle-aged woman I don’t particularly care for. Every visit starts out with a false note when she looks at the little kitten trying to scramble away from her and says, in the voice that sounds like a creaky old millstone grinding gravel into dust, “Frederica!”

“It’s just Fred,” The Mont will correct.

“Let’s see how you’re doing, Frederica,” she’ll say, ignoring him. Then the interrogation will begin.

I don’t have a problem with the vet asking questions about the cat’s health and behavior. That’s their job. What I don’t like, with this particular woman, is the accompany tone that somehow manages to imply abuse and mistreatment with every syllable, accompanied by the insinuation that the moment she slips out of the room, she’ll be calling the SPCA anonymous tip line to have Fred taken to a shelter. “Does she groom herself?”

“A few times a day,” I’ll say.

“I suppose her mama taught Frederica well,” she’ll murmur, giving my beard and wild hair a look that can only read as, since she certainly won’t be learning grooming from you. “And how is her appetite?” she’ll ask.

“Healthy,” I’ll say, trying to keep it brief.

“Hmmmm.” There will be a long pause while she looks over the cat’s frame. “She is on the lean side. I suppose from all the exercise.” Or the beatings you give her, her tone conveys.

“Oh, she gets plenty of exercise,” The Mont will say, trying to be friendly. “She’s always running around, getting into the Christmas tree. . . .”

“Oh?” The doctor will raise an eyebrow. “She likes the tree, does she?”

The Mont, unaware that the vet is using her Do you know how many innocent kittens are killed by Christmas trees erected by their negligent owners every December? voice, will keep on talking. “Yes, we had to take all the decorations off this year because she kept pulling them off.”

“Is it a metal tree?”

“Well. . . .”

“So she’s ingesting parts of this metal tree?” the doctor will ask, making rapid notes.

What I really want to say is something along the lines of Yes, it’s a lovely uranium ore tree frosted with lead paint and liquid mercury for that extra festive holiday sparkle, but instead I stick to a curt, “No. She does not ingest the tree, or any part of it.”

“Because that can be dangerous,” the vet will say, seeming to hope I’ll give in and confess to thrusting the branches down the cat's throat in an attempt to keep Fred’s lean frame top-model thin.

“Yes, I’m sure,” I’ll murmur, rubbing Fred’s ears. And the doctor, frustrated in another attempt to take away a helpless kitten from her evil and abusive owners, will sigh, jab Fred with a needle, and tell us to come back in another three weeks.

I hate to think what’d she’d say about this morning, when I had to pluck a guilty and gleeful Fred, still trembling with excitement, from the very top of the Christmas tree. She might be a good one, as the real vet informed us, but she’s not a good one.