Lots of people talk to animals.… Not very many listen, though.… That’s the problem.
—Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh
I had done all that I could for him. Pongo lay on his side in the run, a stack of threadbare blankets beneath him and jugs of warm water swaddled at his sides. For close to an hour I’d been struggling to get him stabilized, since that moment I’d first caught sight of him as he was carried through the treatment room door. Even when I was tugged away to attend to the stream of other patients who’d gathered that night just inside our doors—a stoic coonhound I’d seen before who’d stubbornly tangled with his seventh porcupine, a threesome of cats who’d delightedly grazed on the children’s collection of Halloween chocolates, a raccoon with a snotty nose and runny eyes I feared foretold of distemper, a Newfoundland puppy whose paw had been stepped on, a robin stunned from flying headlong into a plate-glass window, and the others taking refuge on that bitter, stormy November night—my thoughts still drifted back to Pongo.
He’d arrived at the height of the first wave of patients as the techs triaged each animal amidst a flurry of phone calls, frantic clients, and paperwork. Whisking past the blur of faces lined up against the waiting room walls, Pongo’s owners, Claire and Turner Wallace—a graying professor and his stately wife decked out in their finest clothes for a night on the town—had shunned the gurney the techs rolled to their car. Instead, cradling the whole of his body in a makeshift sling formed by their arms, they maneuvered Pongo through the short maze of hallways leading from reception back to the clinic’s treatment room, the hub behind the scenes where we did our most intensive work. Huddled arm in arm together in a growing puddle from their rain-soaked clothes, they stood behind me watching over my shoulder as I tended to their beloved dog.
Ready at hand on every wall surrounding us, tucked into cabinets and tightly packed on rows of shelves, stood most every foreseeable supply, device, and piece of equipment needed to care for our patients each night: sutures, bandages, catheters, needles, boxes of color-coded syringes, sterile packs of surgical tools, a curious array of oddly shaped instruments uniquely fashioned for animals’ bodies, rows and rows of medicine bottles holding powders, injections, and pills—a state-of-the-art formulary of drugs designed to treat whatever ails the body. Within view on either side of us, the surgery suite and a row of runs stood at the ready whenever they were needed. And sprawled on his side before me lay my patient.
Pongo, a two-year-old flat-coated retriever, was the first hit-by-car victim of the night after dashing toward a poodle in a pickup passing by his home. His long black hair, tangled in mats from being thrust and dragged against the pavement, effused an odor of rain, oil, and asphalt. Yet, other than a few contusions and abrasions, I’d failed to find any signs of trauma. His lab work and X-rays were likewise unremarkable. At eighty-five pounds, his barrel chest and solid frame had served him well.
But despite these minor injuries, Pongo’s body betrayed it was in crisis. Through the ear tips of my stethoscope, I listened to his heartbeat pound while my fingers searched for a matching pulse. Yet, running my hands along his veins, I could barely feel the faintest flutter. His pupils gazed beyond me unfocused. His shivering skin felt icy cold. In response to a moment’s pressure from my thumb, his dry, ashen gums blushed a gloomy gray-pink. Pongo was in progressive shock, if from nothing more than the sheer concussion of his impact with the speeding truck.
As a doctor in the emergency room seasoned by four grueling years of practice, I had grown to trust my knowledge and skills. Eight years earlier, as a freshman in vet school—well before my first hospital rounds—I had learned that “animals don’t walk on their X-rays,” a maxim repeated by our professors to stress the limits of diagnostic tests. As I write these words now, thirty years later, that lesson has borne out time and again. Above all the tests we may run as doctors—ultrasounds, blood work, or MRIs—we must trust in our sense of touch, eyes, ears, and instincts.
As I stood next to Pongo, weighing our findings, the results of our tests suggested he should be fine. Yet, in spite of my searching, something was missing—a piece of the puzzle, a hidden clue—and I was at a loss to find it. I knew that the best I could do for my patient was simply to step back and give him some time. Time to respond to the meds for shock. To the steady flow of sustaining fluids dripping through the IV line. To the soothing warmth of a quiet bed waiting for him in a nearby run.
Turning to Dr. and Mrs. Wallace before I stepped away from Pongo’s side, I saw in their faces not only their angst but also their bleary-eyed looks of exhaustion. Facing Pongo’s mortality had clearly taken its toll on them.
So, promising to keep in touch with any changes in his condition, I nudged them home for a bit of rest. And leaving Pongo in the care of Melissa, our more-than-capable treatment room tech, I left to begin removing the quills from my old familiar coonhound friend.
Though I checked on Pongo from time to time, it was not until a few hours later—when both exam rooms were at long last empty and each of the patients I’d seen in them were nestled in cages or runs for the night or safely back at home tucked in their beds—that I could focus on him once again. After repeating a thorough exam from chest to belly and limb to limb, I stepped back a pace to take in the whole picture. If anything, his condition had worsened. Despite our aggressive supportive care, he lay on his side where I’d seen him last, indifferent to all we had done for him. Each breath he took was a labored effort—a familiar blend of rasping sighs and guttural moans I’d heard before in trauma patients. His eyes drooped half-closed with a far-off focus. His gums remained pale, though, I fancied, less gray. Though before he flicked his ears to the sound of my voice, now he lay oblivious when I crouched beside him and spoke his name. Despite my best efforts, I was losing my patient.
Facing Pongo at three a.m., with the lights turned low and the clinic hushed, I surrendered to my growing frustration and sank exhausted to the floor. Too tired to talk, I sat by his side, leaning my back against the wall, while I worked at updating medical records, a daunting foot-high stack of charts. While my left hand scribbled my thoughts onto paper as diagnoses and treatment plans, my right arm draped loosely on Pongo’s chest, lifting and falling with labored breath.
As we shared those blankets in that dim-lit run, I imagined picking up on some vague shift in Pongo: a slight ease in breathing, a softer moan, a lean of his body imperceptibly closer. While I worked at my notes, what at first seemed just whimsy—barely more than a passing thought—in that hour became unmistakably real. I felt his pulse strengthen. His heart rate slowed. But most telling of all, he shifted his focus from some distant planet to there by my side. With the weakest of wags at the tip of his tail, he licked my hand as I spoke his name. In medical terms, he became more responsive. But, simply put in other words, Pongo grew present in body and spirit.
Pulling his chart from the stack by my side, I pored through the entries on each of those pages—lab tests, exam results, treatments given, technician notes. In spite of his sudden, remarkable change, I could find nothing in our care of Pongo that differed that hour from all those before. Nothing, that is, except for the time I spent sharing those blankets with him. With Pongo then nuzzling into my lap, I came to realize the obvious. It wasn’t my medical knowledge or skills that had strengthened Pongo’s will to live. Instead it was simply those moments we shared, a soft word spoken, a simple touch. Indeed, those seemingly small acts of caring, I have no doubt, saved Pongo’s life.
That evening with Pongo twenty-two years ago forever changed the course of my life as a vet. How I look at the ties that bind me to animals—their roles in my life and mine in theirs—took on dimensions I had never known possible. Doors opened into a profound new reality that I had only glimpsed and begun to comprehend: a world of insights into behaviors and relationships. My role had evolved beyond that of doctor to student, philosopher, teacher, and therapist.
Since my earliest memories (I was maybe four or five years old), I’ve felt drawn to animals by some unexplained force. At holiday gatherings, my parents’ dinner parties, or days around town—especially in crowds—I could be found somewhere out of the way, comfortably sitting alone on the ground with a cat in my lap or dog close at hand. Sometimes I’d talk to them, other times not. I was simply content to be with them in silence and escape all the pressure of being with people—words freely spoken with so much unsaid, unspoken meanings, hidden agendas. With animals, I felt at home. Their messages were clear and true. What mattered in those moments was nothing more than our relationship.
Yet, somewhere in the process of becoming wiser and growing up—classes in science and analytical thinking; bullies and best friends and lessons learned; the death of our first dog; bringing home a new puppy; parties and dances and kissing a girl; walking alone through the canyons near school or for miles on the beach, sorting everything out—Why is physics so hard? Why is chemistry easy? Why can I not get that girl off my mind? What did she mean last night when she called me? Why does the moon look so orange tonight? It is because of pollution or just where it is in the sky?—going off to college; living in the dorms; courses and field trips and countless exams—my sense of belonging with animals diminished. Though I still held those feelings, the bond, the attraction I felt merely being with them, I resolved I would best serve them being a doctor: diagnosing diseases, sewing up wounds, showing I cared with my mind and my hands. Until I met Pongo.
I left general medicine several years later—first the emergency room, then my own clinic. While my practice had thrived for those years in between and the challenge of difficult cases endured, I felt something was missing in most of my work. The best medical care, diagnostics, and treatment, while part of the picture left more unattended—the behavioral needs of my patients and clients. Wondering why I was an hour behind schedule, my technician would softly crack open the door to find me sitting somewhere on the floor with a cat in my lap or a dog sprawled beside me, discussing with clients their routines at home. The message was clear.
So, leaving our life in the Oregon foothills, my practice, and our friendships we’d formed through the years, my fiancée and I packed up and moved with our dog and three cats to follow our dreams—to practice (after residencies) as veterinary specialists, Tiffany in dermatology and me in behavioral medicine. And though we had both been in practice for years, the work we were meant for had just begun.
The Soul of All Living Creatures traverses the world I’ve discovered since then in behavioral-medicine specialty practice, considering all different species of animals, from leopards and whales to cats, dogs, and wolves. It delves into the lives of my clients and patients: the problems they’ve faced, how I’ve tended to them, where I have helped, when I have failed, and, perhaps most of all, the lessons I’ve learned. But this book is as much about people as animals. Exploring behaviors and traits that we share with all sorts of creatures, it endeavors to show what animals can teach us about our own lives. What can a whale say about how we listen? How can an ocelot help us notice more? What can a girl and her fearful cat show us about being sensitive to those that we love?
Through unlocking such mysteries of animal behaviors, we can open a door into our own lives for new insights, perspectives, and ways of being. And as much as we’re willing, if we listen and notice and embrace what we all hold in common with animals, we can bring more meaning and fulfillment to our lives.