Innehållsförteckning för May/June 2020 från All Creatures

JULEE CALLED TO SAY that something was wrong with Gracie, our four-year-old golden. I rushed home, praying Gracie would greet me with her usual exuberance. Instead, she moved tentatively, leaned into my leg and looked up at me imploringly. She was in pain. Julee said our vet, Dr. Barbara, thought Gracie might have strained a muscle, but we wouldn’t know without a full-body scan. “She prescribed pain pills and said to watch her for a few days.” Julee’s eyes were red with tears. She was fighting her own pain, having just had back surgery. She should have been in bed herself. But Gracie comes first. How terrible to see our beloved animals suffer. They can’t usually tell you what’s wrong or even how to help them. But they want your…

Q My 13-year-old border collie, Charlie, has severe arthritis in his shoulders and hips. He doesn’t seem to be in pain but is stiff when he tries to get up. I was shocked that some vets told me to put him to sleep. Could natural treatments help? —Dirk Ebeling, Prague, Oklahoma A I have good news for you and Charlie: Holistic treatments really do work. In almost 30 years of practicing holistic veterinary medicine, I’ve never seen a dog euthanized because of arthritis. Many holistic treatments can address this debilitating condition, without the danger of severe, even life-threatening side effects caused by some conventional drugs. There are several types of arthritis. Osteoarthritis, the most common type, is a progressive deterioration of joint cartilage and bone, resulting in Charlie’s stiffness. He’s…

Accountant Steve Greig’s motley family of 16 animals has taken over his suburban Colorado home. Crazy? Not to him. The all-senior crew, which includes a moody 110-pound pig and a music-loving turkey, has helped him heal after his greatest loss and given the lifelong animal caregiver unexpected blessings of joy, fame and friendship. Have you always had pets? I grew up in a little town in New Mexico. My parents were animal lovers and let me bring home any creature I wanted, as long as I could take care of it. We always had a dog. I also had hamsters, gerbils, rats, a duck. I’ve only ever known life with a bunch of animals. Tell us about the special dog that came along when you were an adult. I became…

Who she is Linda Merryman is one of the Assateague Pony Patrol volunteers watching over the wild ponies on Assateague Island. The landmass, which is off the eastern coast of the Delmarva Peninsula and spans parts of Maryland and Virginia, is home to more than 300 feral horsesdescen dants of domestic horses that have reverted to a wild state. These ponies have inhabited the beaches, the for est and the marshy grounds since the 1600s. Today the island is also a popular camping ground and vaca tion spot, which means there’s a need to manage interactions be tween visitors and wild animals. That’s where Linda comes in. “I pro tect the horses from the people and the people from the horses,” she explains. What she does The horses are beautiful.…

IN JANUARY, California became the first state to waive pet adoption fees for veterans. State Senator Ling Ling Chang, who wrote the bill, said that she’s “glad we can reduce the barriers for bringing together veterans seeking companion animals and pets in need of a home.” The Golden State is home to two million veterans, and its shelters take in 800,000 animals a year. But only half of those animals are adopted, which gives this law even more meaning. For veterans outside California, several organizations can help. Vets Adopt Pets has a network of shelters around the country that have agreed to waive adoption fees for veterans. Founder Barbara Teasdale discovered as a child that her great uncle Freddy, a World War I veteran, opened up more when her pup…

I glanced over at the passenger seat. My 17-year-old daughter, Emma, was on her phone again. “I drive you to school every morning, and every morning you ignore me,” I said. “Can’t you put down that phone and talk to me?” Emma shrugged. “About what, Dad?” “I don’t know. Your life?” “Why would I tell you about my life? You’ll just get mad at me, like you always do.” “I shouldn’t get upset when I see you making poor choices?” I said, my voice rising. “I only want the best for you. You should be grateful!” I pulled up to her school. Emma got out and slammed the door without saying goodbye. When I got home, my wife, Sandi, took one look at my face and said, “You fought with…

I HAD LIVED IN AND AROUND SYDNEY, Australia, for the majority of my life and had never been out on the ocean until that April day. It’s not that I was afraid of the water, though I never learned to swim well. My life just took me in another direction: up. I discovered hot-air ballooning at age 32. Something new, thrilling. Floating through the skies, I could see the beauty of God’s creation from a different perspective. By my forties, I was established in the ballooning community. Maybe I needed a new adventure. When my friend Shawn invited me to go marlin fishing, I said yes, intrigued. It took some time to get used to the motion of the boat—something a balloon doesn’t have as it glides on the wind.…

Taking care of an animal is not the same as taking care of a child. Still, having a pet requires many of the same responsibilities. That animal is part of your family, depends on you and yearns for you to love it unconditionally. Here’s why all of us with pets in our lives can be called parents too. 1 We feed them. We try to provide our pets the best-quality food we can afford. We keep the water bowl full, especially on a hot summer day. We heft 50-pound bags of kibble through crowded stores. We scoop out cat food with our good soupspoon. We hope the pet food really does have “new and improved flavor.” We might even prepare homemade meals and bake special treats. A meat-and-veggie 2 birthday…

NEW RESIDENTS at the Bernadette House, a senior care home in Lincoln, England, are asked to make a wish when they move in. But Joyce Gardner, 99, didn’t ask for just anything—she wanted to meet a penguin. “I’m always looking for something different to entertain the residents, so…I thought it was a great idea,” home director Elizabeth Stephens told Birmingham Live. A few months after Gardner’s request, Pringle, Charlie and Groot—three Humboldt penguins who are no strangers to the limelight—were waddling around the Bernadette House. Originally from Chile, the two-foot-tall birds live at Heythrop Zoological Gardens and often work at events or on camera. Gardner’s wish turned out to be a gift for all—her peers enjoyed the unique visitors, who sat on the seniors’ laps with the help of a…

THE CASSEROLE WAS IN THE OVEN. Our five young children were running around the kitchen. They’d been cooped up in the house all day. My husband, Eric, knew I needed a break. “Mom called a little earlier and said her washing machine quit working,” Eric said. His mother lived not far from us. “I’m going to go over to take a look at it. The kids can come with me. How long before dinner?” “Maybe an hour,” I said. Before he and the kids had their coats on, I was already upstairs, crawling into bed. I set the timer on my phone and reached for a new book I’d bought. I’d been dying to read it for weeks. Now I would finally have time to myself while the casserole cooked.…

WHAT IS THAT SOUND? I heard it as soon as I pulled into our driveway that autumn afternoon. Some kind of wailing. I’m a civil rights lawyer, and I’d been away for four days on business. My clients and their families depended on me for their livelihoods. If I wasn’t researching cases or writing briefs, I was meeting with clients or other attorneys. My brain was constantly in work mode. But now I couldn’t think of anything except that wailing. My wife, Robin, and I had moved into my grandmother’s old house in northeast Texas 11 months earlier. I’d lived in San Francisco and Washington, DC, for more than 20 years, but I’d felt called to return to my rural roots, though I wasn’t entirely sure why. Readjusting to…

FUN FACTS: There are 13 otter species around the globe. These semiaquatic mammals can hold their breath for up to eight minutes. Sea otters carry food in the loose skin of their armpits, have the thickest fur of any animal and are the only otters to give birth in the water. River otters open their eyes for the first time one month after birth and hunt at night, sometimes eating turtles and amphibians. Send Us Your Otter: Remove the back cover and mail your finished coloring to All Creatures, 110 William Street, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038.…