     | september 8, 2010
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| september 8, 2010
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Animal trauma Zachary Slobig -- 06/05/2008  In front of my house in Silver Lake a small shrine appeared yesterday. Two pieces of wooden trim, fashioned into a crude cross, a scattering of bougainvillea, and a candle of Santo Nino de Tocha burning through the night in front of a pool of dark, drying blood. My neighbor's thirteen-year old mini pincher never saw the car, and apparently the driver never saw the dog. Bloody tire treads every three feet down the street mark the driver's flight.Elaine, my neighbor, is deaf, as is her partner. I rushed outside as soon as I heard the squawking to find Elaine cradling "Puppy" in one arm and waving wildly down the street in the direction of the tire tracks. I grabbed my keys and got her into my car with the dog in her lap. I've only lived in the neighborhood for a month, and though I too have a dog, I couldn't place the closest animal hospital. We sped off down the hill. Elaine was shaking so badly she couldn't light her Newport. At the bottom of the block a middle-aged man was walking a dog. "Where do we go?" I asked through my car window. He didn't know. I drove south on Silver Lake Blvd. Another dog walker, same hopeless shrug. Still another dog walker, this time with three dogs near Sunset. No clue. Running every yellow light, I floored it down Sunset, keeping my eyes out for a vet sign. North on Hillhurst. There's one up there somewhere, I thought out loud. I ran into a pet supply store at Franklin. "We've got no vets here," they said and handed me a photocopy of a list of nearby animal hospitals. "Closest one is down on Beverly between Hillhurst and Vermont," the clerk said as I dashed back out the door. It had been at least five minutes and it took us another seven or eight to get down to Beverly. We burst through the glass double doors. "My neighbor's dog just got flattened," I blurt. "I'm pretty sure it's too late." A tech brought us into the first exam room on the left, laid Puppy on the table and listened through his stethoscope. He shook his head. Elaine rocked back and forth, sobbing, bloody hands cupped to her mouth. A young veterinarian appeared in the doorway a few minutes later. "I'll send in the receptionist to explain your options," she said. Elaine grabbed my hand and mouthed a single word with exaggeration. "ASK," I thought she was saying. I give her a pen and a piece of paper. "A-S-H," she wrote. Ten minutes later, after the receptionist had dealt with a persnickety customer who seemed displeased with his dog's nail trimming, and fielded a few phone calls; she came into the room to "explain our options." I had her write it down for Elaine. "The price depends on how much your dog weighs," she said flatly. "If it weighs less than 25 pounds, the cost is $140. If it is 26 to 50 pounds, the cost is $180." Clearly this dog weighed no more than a couple of gallons of milk, but no matter. They unceremoniously weighed Puppy on the spot. The exam table, doubling as a scale, displayed her weight at 12.7 pounds. The receptionist circled the "$140" on the piece of paper next to the dog, and Elaine nodded. "It takes a week," she said and walked out of the end of page 1 [ 1 ] read more ... [ 2 ] |
