Problems with Neutrality
Mut had been very special so I didn't want my next cat (for me there will always be a "next cat") to in any way replace his memory. I answered an ad in the paper and adopted an adventuresome little pastel calico kitten. Neither she nor I knew what adventures would fill her five years of life.
Harlequin seemed an appropriate name for my little patchwork kitten. I was still living with Amy and Daphne so I had to introduce her to the household carefully. Amy loved her right away but Daphne had to watch her carefully for a while before she was able to ignore her.
I had been accepted into graduate school at U.C. Berkeley for the fall semester. Harley was six months old and it was time for her to be spayed. I had decided to wait to do that until we had gotten to California, but then something happened that tipped the balance in an other, fateful direction.
Amy's boss, an M.D., said he wanted to show a group of pharmacology graduate students how to spay a cat and needed a volunteer. He said he had spayed a dozen dogs and at least that many cats. Time was short and the operation would be done a day before I was planning to drive to California. I checked with my vet to see if that would be dangerous. He said the incision was so small that travelling would present no problem to a healthy cat a day or two after spaying. It was sheer stupidity on my part, but I agreed to let her be spayed by an M.D. I let Amy take her to the Medical Center.
That evening a horror awaited me when I went to pick Harley up. A veterinarian when spaying a cat carefully shaves the animal's abdomen then scrubs it with an iodine soap to cleanse it and kill any lurking bacteria. A tiny 3/4 inch incision is made through which the uterus and ovaries are drawn. First the abdominal muscles and then the skin are carefully sewn up.
That was not what the doctor had done with Harley. Her abdomen had not been shaved and an extensive six inch incision had been made down the middle. After rummaging around and probably removing something the "doctor" had callously stapled her shut like a package leaving hair and dirt from non-sterile instruments inside her.
I ranted and raved at him, but he cold-heartedly shoved her into my hands and left. I went home weeping for my abused baby cat.
The next day Gray, Harley and I left for California. It was extremely hot so we kept a bucket of ice on the floor next to the still-groggy cat. We sponged her off when she was panting but were unable to do much more to help her. We made it to Reno by mid-afternoon the second day and decided to stop. Harley staggered out of the car and it was obvious she was not going to make it to California in that condition. With each step huge drops of pus oozed out of the stapled incision. We called the first vet we found in the phone book and rushed her to his office.
"I can't believe this! I can't believe anyone would do such a thing to a living animal much less someone's beloved pet!" he declared in disgust. "I'll have to open her up right away. She may not survive the anesthesia in her condition but I'll have to try!"
That dear, heroic vet who would never see Harley or me again but who cared about the well-being of his fellow creatures stayed into the night to try to save Harley.
The next morning we arrived at his office full of trepidation. I was afraid to hope. It was too possible that my stupid choice had killed my kitten. Not so, the vet cheerfully informed me!
"I removed a great deal of hair, washed out her abdominal cavity with antibiotic solution and shaved the edges so more hair won't get into the wound," he explained.
Unfortunately the infection within her little body was so rampant that most of the six inches had to be left open to drain. As a consequence I had to several times a day tuck her gut back up through the hole. But she was alive. She had survived in spite of the odds. I wanted to hug the vet and hug Harley, neither of which was practical, so I enthusiastically pumped the vet's hand before gently taking Harley out to the car. I vowed to never again put a pet's life into the care of anyone but a competent veterinarian!
Harley slowly healed after settling down in California but the final indignity from the whole sorry mess was yet to come. Almost three months later Harley came into heat. I told myself I was imagining things. Harley was just being exceptionally friendly out of loneliness. In part that was true - she was achingly lonely for a tom, any old tom. She rubbed her way around the room uttering mournful mrroes from deep in her throat.
I didn't know what to do. Cats are induced ovulators which means a queen won't ovulate until her vaginal tract has been stimulated. If a female isn't mated she will keep coming into heat with fair regularity. Harley had been cheated into having the desire but not all of the equipment.
After a wall-climbing month of indecision I called a local vet and explained the situation to him. I asked for his advice.
"Are you sure the ovaries were removed?" he asked dubiously.
"They were supposed to be but I don't trust a man who staples hair inside the incision" I responded.
The vet suggested I call the incompetent butcher and ask if he could have left any tiny bit of ovary. Even a tiny bit could have been able to produce enough hormones to bring Harley into what he called psychic heat.
It seems the fellow's abilities, first surgical and now linguistic, were fading fast. He declined to talk to me so I had to go through Amy. Poor kid, she was very defensive about the whole thing. She had inadvertently guided me into this whole mess.
"Of course he removed the ovaries Mary Jean!"
"Oh. So Harley's just imagining her desires. Or do you think I'm the one imagining her desires?" I sputtered.
"You got her into that. My boss didn't guarantee he'd do it like a vet."
I pieced together enough from our conversation to get the picture. Harley had been an anatomical model. Her insides had been exposed to the probing of the students and probably a bit of ovary had been carelessly poked off and not removed when the bulk of her ovaries had. I guess Harley was lucky it had been a part of an ovary instead of a piece of the intestine. That would have probably resulted in a rather gruesome death. I hung up in disgust.
The California vet was willing to operate but warned me the piece of ovary might be so tiny that it couldn't be found in the mass of tissue. He suggested birth control pills instead. Harley became the first cat to be put on birth control pills to control not her fertility (that had been taken care of when her uterus had been removed) but to eliminate her desire. Birth control pills neutered her where the bungling operation of an irresponsible M.D. could not. I gave her 1/4 of a human birth control pill each week. Occasionally I would forget and before long local toms would leave smelly calling cards at the door and sing mournfully throughout the night.
On one such occasion Harley slipped outside. I chased her all around the neighborhood but she eluded me. Later I saw her under a bush being mounted by a big, scruffy tom. I rushed outside just as he was about to consummate the act. At his anticipated moment of glory he was thwarted by a Denver M.D. and me. Harley dashed into the open door.
I decided it might be better to at least try to find the bit of ovary so surgery was scheduled. The vet had to make a larger incision than for a usual spay since he had to be able to look around, but he took all the usual precautions of shaving her abdomen and disinfecting everything. I was in the waiting room when he came out after the surgery.
"Did you find anything?" I asked anxiously.
"Well her uterus was gone, but I found two intact ovaries. Some spay!" I think it's worth mentioning that in humans the ovaries are sometimes not removed when the uterus is, the thought being the hormones from the ovaries help the woman age more naturally. This is not the situation in cats! I bet the M.D. had never performed a spay before because any animal owner would have noticed the result of intact ovaries!
Yet again Harley had to heal but this time she didn't come into heat again. She reverted to the curious little cat I knew. One evening when I got back from classes I found smudgy little cat tracks coming from the fireplace. Harley was peacefully sleeping on her sheepskin. I decided she must have just walked into the empty fireplace to check it out. Perhaps she had heard birds calling down the chimney and walked over to investigate. I thought no more about it.
A few days later Harley was nowhere to be found when I came home. I dashed out to the kitchen to see if I could have left a window open but it was tightly shut. Puzzled, I went back to the living room. A faint rustle, a sprinkling of soot, and bam! A little black cat descended precipitously from the chimney! Somehow Harley had found purchase in the chimney and gone exploring. It's possible she had even paid my upstairs neighbors a visit and left ghostly little cat tracks behind.
I snatched her up before she could make a mess of the whole living room and marched with her at arms' length directly into the bathroom. Several towels later she was an indignant dishwater gray. I went right out and bought a fireplace screen. Harley in blackface was not funny!
The next morning we arrived at his office full of trepidation. I was afraid to hope. It was too possible that my stupid choice had killed my kitten. Not so, the vet cheerfully informed me!
"I removed a great deal of hair, washed out her abdominal cavity with antibiotic solution and shaved the edges so more hair won't get into the wound," he explained.
Unfortunately the infection within her little body was so rampant that most of the six inches had to be left open to drain. As a consequence I had to several times a day tuck her gut back up through the hole. But she was alive. She had survived in spite of the odds. I wanted to hug the vet and hug Harley, neither of which was practical, so I enthusiastically pumped the vet's hand before gently taking Harley out to the car. I vowed to never again put a pet's life into the care of anyone but a competent veterinarian!
Harley slowly healed after settling down in California but the final indignity from the whole sorry mess was yet to come. Almost three months later Harley came into heat. I told myself I was imagining things. Harley was just being exceptionally friendly out of loneliness. In part that was true - she was achingly lonely for a tom, any old tom. She rubbed her way around the room uttering mournful mrroes from deep in her throat.
I didn't know what to do. Cats are induced ovulators which means a queen won't ovulate until her vaginal tract has been stimulated. If a female isn't mated she will keep coming into heat with fair regularity. Harley had been cheated into having the desire but not all of the equipment.
After a wall-climbing month of indecision I called a local vet and explained the situation to him. I asked for his advice.
"Are you sure the ovaries were removed?" he asked dubiously.
"They were supposed to be but I don't trust a man who staples hair inside the incision" I responded.
The vet suggested I call the incompetent butcher and ask if he could have left any tiny bit of ovary. Even a tiny bit could have been able to produce enough hormones to bring Harley into what he called psychic heat.
It seems the fellow's abilities, first surgical and now linguistic, were fading fast. He declined to talk to me so I had to go through Amy. Poor kid, she was very defensive about the whole thing. She had inadvertently guided me into this whole mess.
"Of course he removed the ovaries Mary Jean!"
"Oh. So Harley's just imagining her desires. Or do you think I'm the one imagining her desires?" I sputtered.
"You got her into that. My boss didn't guarantee he'd do it like a vet."
I pieced together enough from our conversation to get the picture. Harley had been an anatomical model. Her insides had been exposed to the probing of the students and probably a bit of ovary had been carelessly poked off and not removed when the bulk of her ovaries had. I guess Harley was lucky it had been a part of an ovary instead of a piece of the intestine. That would have probably resulted in a rather gruesome death. I hung up in disgust.
The California vet was willing to operate but warned me the piece of ovary might be so tiny that it couldn't be found in the mass of tissue. He suggested birth control pills instead. Harley became the first cat to be put on birth control pills to control not her fertility (that had been taken care of when her uterus had been removed) but to eliminate her desire. Birth control pills neutered her where the bungling operation of an irresponsible M.D. could not. I gave her 1/4 of a human birth control pill each week. Occasionally I would forget and before long local toms would leave smelly calling cards at the door and sing mournfully throughout the night.
On one such occasion Harley slipped outside. I chased her all around the neighborhood but she eluded me. Later I saw her under a bush being mounted by a big, scruffy tom. I rushed outside just as he was about to consummate the act. At his anticipated moment of glory he was thwarted by a Denver M.D. and me. Harley dashed into the open door.
I decided it might be better to at least try to find the bit of ovary so surgery was scheduled. The vet had to make a larger incision than for a usual spay since he had to be able to look around, but he took all the usual precautions of shaving her abdomen and disinfecting everything. I was in the waiting room when he came out after the surgery.
"Did you find anything?" I asked anxiously.
"Well her uterus was gone, but I found two intact ovaries. Some spay!" I think it's worth mentioning that in humans the ovaries are sometimes not removed when the uterus is, the thought being the hormones from the ovaries help the woman age more naturally. This is not the situation in cats! I bet the M.D. had never performed a spay before because any animal owner would have noticed the result of intact ovaries!
Yet again Harley had to heal but this time she didn't come into heat again. She reverted to the curious little cat I knew. One evening when I got back from classes I found smudgy little cat tracks coming from the fireplace. Harley was peacefully sleeping on her sheepskin. I decided she must have just walked into the empty fireplace to check it out. Perhaps she had heard birds calling down the chimney and walked over to investigate. I thought no more about it.
A few days later Harley was nowhere to be found when I came home. I dashed out to the kitchen to see if I could have left a window open but it was tightly shut. Puzzled, I went back to the living room. A faint rustle, a sprinkling of soot, and bam! A little black cat descended precipitously from the chimney! Somehow Harley had found purchase in the chimney and gone exploring. It's possible she had even paid my upstairs neighbors a visit and left ghostly little cat tracks behind.
I snatched her up before she could make a mess of the whole living room and marched with her at arms' length directly into the bathroom. Several towels later she was an indignant dishwater gray. I went right out and bought a fireplace screen. Harley in blackface was not funny!
Poor little Harley- a beautiful cat! Good thing you took her to the other vet...
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