vet tales, part I

The vet has featured prominently in my life with Tigra. I was living alone and catless in Turkey when I saw an English-language newspaper column written by a vet. At the end of the article, Dr. Ates mentioned that his clinic had free puppies and kittens to give away to good homes. After an exchange of e-mails and a phone call, I arrived at Dr. Ates' veterinary clinic to choose my cat.

There were two females and their brother, all six weeks old and covered in varying shades of tufty, tabby-colored kitten fur. I finally chose the little girl with the black and grey stripes and white paws and chest. I was later told that she was the "bossy" one of the litter and the most "talkative." Yep, that's my Tigra!

I knew Dr. Ates was the vet for us when he finished examining Tigra and kissed her right on her little face. There are large numbers of stray cats and dogs in Turkey; in fact, the dogs sometimes roam in packs, and Dr. Ates told me that the large stray cat population means that cats in Turkey have diseases that don't even exist in Europe and the U.S.