After browsing through my logbook, the shelter manager asked me if I planned to take up veterinary medicine.
"It's not too late," he remarked, flipping a page and looking at the measurements (cm) I made on Scratch and Kururu when they were still alive.
"Maybe," was my answer.
The question hit me hard. I really do want to take up veterinary medicine, but the problem is I had a bad experience relating to that course.
Being an animal and environmental advocate all my life, I grew up beside a veterinary clinic where I witnessed dogs and cats come in and out all day. Little did I know that my father, a former veterinarian, influenced by his female assistant, injected these animals (I admired from afar) with water ---- for the selfish reason of ---- that's right, making more money.
Sick animals were brought in and eventually died. My aunt told me one devastated owner was sensible enough to have his dog checked for a second opinion. When that particular client sued my Dad, their schemes were revealed.
I was seriously apalled when I learned about this ballyhoo years later. Now I know why he couldn't return to his profession, though my mom insisted on him pursuing it, because of his shame and his ruined reputation as an animal doctor.
As told by my aunt and mother later on, my Dad was seduced by his female assistant into using water instead of real medicines on their patients. I didn't know who to believe. But all those years I've known my Dad, I've known him as a chronic push-over (also known as a male doormat) with an aversive style of confrontation and a secret rebellious nature. I decided it was more logical that he had been influenced by someone else, because he won't instrinsically put a living creature's life on the line out of his own motive.
I remembered his assistant very well, a slim and tall young woman who I always kept my eyes on. Even when I was very young, instinct told me not to like her. She had this hostile aura when I was around, as if she was trying to hide something from me; knowing my younger self, I was never intimidated by the dirty looks she threw at me. I took her on without a second thought.
When I wasn't playing, I spent most of my time hanging out inside the clinic where I stay close to my father like a guard dog. She'd stand near my father, occassionally flirting, and I'd pretend to play with my feet by swinging them wildly with every intent to hit her. I recall my father scolded me because swinging my feet was dangerous --- so I obeyed him and stopped ---- resting my feet on top of the table across me, thus separating them. Whenever my Dad left the clinic to get something, I would swing my feet again.
I refuse to blame my Dad for not pursuing his veterinary practice; it's the mess he got himself in to that led to the demise of his veterinary career. I could just imagine the shame he went through, and the consequences of his mistake that slowly took its toll on his morals.
When I told my mother's side of the family during my senior high school year that I was considering Veterinary Medicine as a course, she reacted like I just licked my baby brother's shit off his diaper and told everybody else in our "tight-knit" family about it. Their tongues lashed out unheard of insults and criticisms faster than a bullet train. Their discouragement could match President Bush's hatred towards Iraq. Veterinarian became a dirty word in our family, and although I secretly wanted to take up that course, I eventually changed my mind to cease the negative feedbacks.
Maybe Veterinary Medicine wasn't made for someone like me, but I do as much as research as I could on my animal friends and the animals we rescue with all due respect to their natural instincts.
It may be the most I could do, but every new discovery excites me more than any material luxury.
This is Emil, a gorgeous 5-year old dog from PARC looking for a home.
Find out more about Emil in Me Find Home. Make a difference today --- adopt a dog and gain a friend. :)
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