HIGH MEDICAL BILLS?
IT’S A MATTER OF VALUES

Journal of Healing – Nov. 9, 2005

By Mary Koch

Seventy-five dollars and seventy-eight cents! Something has got be done about the high cost of health care. Especially when it means spending $75.78 on a CAT!

Yes, it’s me again, Sadie the People Dog. It’s an issue of values. Money spent on the cat’s vet bills is money that could have been spent on something worthwhile, like rawhide bones or doggy biscuits.

Do you know how many biscuits a dog could buy for $75.78? Almost more than I could eat in one sitting. Almost.

            The problem began when RC, the Recluse Cat, didn’t live up to her name. She does well enough at staying away from humans – allowing them to pet her with one hand only if they’re providing food with the other. But she failed to keep her distance from another cat.

            Marlenea, the Boss’s No. 1 assistant and daytime caregiver, was the first to notice – at a distance, of course – that RC had fallen on hard times.  A closer inspection, possible only after extensive cajoling and wheedling on Marlenea’s part, showed deep, infected bites on RC’s head.

*     *     *

            THE BOSS LADY decided the wounds warranted a trip to the vet, but RC wasn’t buying that idea. She’s got a lot to learn. Life is a gamble; and you have to live by the odds.

            For example, if a human calls “come,” odds are good that you’re going to get a treat, or dinner, or maybe just a little pet and scratch. With the odds in your favor, you might as well do what they want.

Same with jumping in the car. Odds are excellent that the window will be rolled down and you can sniff a wonderful goulash of smells and bark “hi” to other dogs. Only rarely does the car stop at the vet’s, so it pays to play the odds.

RC just doesn’t get it. She certainly doesn’t come when called. She holds her ground and if humans want to give her a treat, they go to her. She’s missed an important lesson: If you’re going to make the world come to you, you’re not going to get as many treats.

*     *     *

BECAUSE RC is so stubborn, when she goes to the vet she has to ride in a cage.  It’s quite entertaining to watch two humans struggle to stuff one small cat into a space where she doesn’t want to be. The humans had, combined, at least 10 times RC’s weight and strength, but I’ve got to say, she beat them paws down on the basis of sheer determination.

After futile attempts at putting her in head first and then feet first, they finally dismantled the cage. One held onto her while the other rebuilt the cage around her. Tedious but effective.

The vet cleaned her up, started her on antibiotics and theorized she’d been attacked by a tom in a territorial dispute. But, protested the boss lady, RC is a spayed female. Doesn’t matter, said the vet. If he cant’ have his way with her, he won’t tolerate her in “his” territory.

So after the bill’s paid and RC’s back home, who gets blamed? Me, of course.

I didn’t do anything!

That’s just the point, says the boss lady. You’re responsible for keeping other cats away.

Hunh. If you ask me, the ones who aren’t being responsible are the humans who let those toms run around and abuse little spayed females. But then I’ve always known. We dogs are way more trainable than humans.

© Mary Koch, Omak, Washington 2005