Our kitty Mario doesn’t like going to the vet. A chip off the old blockhead as I’m not fond of doctors’ appointments either.
But Mario goes to the “pet hospital” when he is required to do so, not that he has a lot of choice once caged up in one of our plastic cat carriers. Typically, he cries all the way there. No dummy is he and he is silent on the way home. How does he know he’s going home and not to an even more frightening facility somewhere?
In any case, all our pets have always preferred “Mom” take them to the vet. I am not sure why. She has a special way with people so maybe that carries over to non-people too.
And when I use the word “prefer”, I mean there is someone else in our home with whom they would rather not share a car ride to anywhere, including the vet’s. That someone, of course, is me.
Today, poor Mario was stuck with his second-choice for vet-visit companion but he hid his disdain pretty well. I have no idea why I have come in last in the pet popularity poll of people best placed to transport animals to the vet. I try hard. I talk to them pleasantly and reassuringly from the front seat as they cry in their carrier in the back. And even though he does not ride in a carrier, our doggie Toby bawls like a calf all the way there too.
Today, Mario and I hauled our portly bodies to the vet for a weigh-in. He likes being weighed as much as I do but at least nobody shoved a sharp needle into him or a thermometer up his thermometer receptacle.
Unusually for him, however, he cried for most of the way home today. Maybe his sixth sense was kicking in.
When I carried him into the garage in his carrier, I set the whole affair on the landing while I kicked off my boots. I knew the carrier was precariously situated there, but I also knew it would only be there a little while. As it happened, it was there less than a little while as Mario shifted his weight and the whole affair tumbled down the three steps, ending up upside down with Mario aboard. He cried like a Dad at his daughter’s wedding.
Mom will be doing the cat carrying from now on. I have been retired.
The cat will be pleased.
©2020 Jim Hagarty
