Metro Pulse/Cover/The Spring Issue

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In Deep Water
Tamar Wilner looks deep into the mysteries and histories of Knoxville's many abandoned quarries

Dishing the Local Dirt
Adrienne Martini visits Sunlight Gardens to root around in the complexities of growing native plants

Increasingly, pets are becoming full-fledged family members. And that doesn't always make for household harmony.

by Joe Tarr

I have a small black cat named Fluffy that likes to sleep on the pillow next to me at night. I fancy that it's because she likes to cuddle up next to my head, that she feels safe and comfortable next to me. It's a delusion, I know—she really just likes to stare all night out the window my bed rests against and my pillow makes a comfortable perch. Still, I enjoy my little fantasy and also the added benefit of self-heating fuzzy, purring pillow. But last month, it all became a lot less cute.

I noticed what looked like a piece of curled up string clinging to her back leg. On closer inspection, I realized that it wasn't string at all, but a worm. My cute, warm fluffy pillow was an animal filled with roundworms. Had they crawled out of her butt in the middle of the night and wiggled their way down my throat? I don't like to think about it.

A vet visit later, a friend and I had a towel wrapped around Fluffy as we struggled to jam two very large pills down her throat. She was not crazy about the idea, as she tried to dig her claws into our legs and arms and squirm away. When we finally did manage to stuff them down, she began frothing at the mouth, and spent the next 20 minutes drooling a yellow foam all over the apartment. I shut her in the bathroom and waited for it to subside.

But maybe what would never subside was the realization that although my cat was indeed cute and fluffy, she would always be a living animal who doesn't think at all like me and could not be reasoned with. It's a realization most pet owners come to eventually. For all their cuteness and companionship, keeping pets can be a royal pain in the ass. Sometimes you might wonder, is it worth it? Although many pet owners sporadically ask that question, most of them probably don't think too long about the answer.

When Aaron Jackson, a doctor at the University of Tennessee Veterinary Hospital, was a kid, his mom never allowed pets indoors. Today, Jackson has four dogs and three cats, who are all allowed inside. One of the dogs is on medication for the canine version of attention deficit disorder. Don't laugh. "He has an inability to pay attention, which makes training difficult. A lot of animals end up at the animal shelter being euthanized because of behavioral problems. If he doesn't get [the medication], he's unbearable to be around," Jackson says. "He'll chew everything, bite, chase the cats, self-mutilate by chewing his own tail. Or he will constantly annoy the other animals. But as long as he's on his medication, he's fine. It's not like I have to keep him sedated. He's a pleasure to be around when he's on his mediation."

As veterinary medicine continues to advance and people become more devoted to their pets, such measures are increasingly common, both to improve an animal's attitude and extend its life. As a vet surgeon, Jackson sees many of these owners at the hospital. More and more, dogs are getting hip replacements and treatment for cancer. A hip replacement, which is only practical on dogs weighing 40 pounds or more, can run around $2,000, after which the dog must be kept immobile for a month. For cancer, chemotherapy, radiation, surgery or some combination of treatments can cost $2,000 to $3,000. These treatments are given to cats and dogs of all sizes.

"In general now, pets are more of a family member. I have quite a few people who say they have no children, this is their child and they treat them as such," Jackson says. "Dealing with some of the older owners, pets are extremely important because a lot of elderly people live by themselves. It's their companion. It might be the only interaction they have with a living thing over the course of a day."

Even if your pets aren't sick, simply taking care of them can be an ordeal. Bob Benz grew up with pets around the house. But the first dog he owned on his own was Crystal, a cocker spaniel his wife gave him when they lived in Birmingham in 1989. Shortly after she gave him the dog, the couple moved to Albuquerque. Benz had to drive their packed Ford Escort across the country to their new home with Crystal and the couple's two birds. "All three were running amok. I was like, 'Should I really have a dog?'"

But somehow, he kept getting more. Today, he has four dogs and he gets up every morning at 6 to spend close to an hour feeding and caring for them. He goes through about 40 pounds of dog food a month (one of the dogs, Xena, is a 140-pound Newfoundland). He's also built a dog run connected to the garage for them. And then there are the two birds. When the family lived in Colorado, one bird injured its leg and had to be watched 24 hours a day to keep it from chewing its leg off. At the time, Benz worked on the sports desk at Denver's Rocky Mountain News, and he took the animal—which could talk—to work with him. "All day, it's doing Three Stooges imitations. I had to keep yelling at it to shut up," he says.

One of the biggest worries is what to do with the dogs when he and his wife travel. Sometimes they hire a pet sitter to check on them twice a day. But Benz has rented a Ford Explorer and taken the dogs with him on some vacations.

He's nursed perhaps his most beloved dog—PigPen, or Bubba—through Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and a rattlesnake bite that almost killed him. PigPen, the namesake of his Grateful Dead vocalist, died earlier this year, and Benz plans to spread his ashes in New Mexico where the dog was born and liked to run.

"I honestly don't know what I get out of it. I've heard it said that animals lower your tension," he says. "My dogs are my friends. Maybe they're child substitutes in some way. The main thing is loyalty. I can bark at them and 10 minutes later they'll come back to me. They don't carry the same baggage around that humans do."

Everyone knows cats and dogs aren't people, but more and more, they view them as such. Sharon Startup, a veterinarian at Beaverbrook Animal Hospital, says she's seen the change in the 15 years she's been treating animals. "Most of my clients view their pets as a member of the family. In the olden days, we used to view pets as a chair. If you decided you didn't like that one, you might get rid of it and get another one," Startup says. "Today, these critters live in people's homes and people realize they have their own personalities."

Jackson says he's had couples with a dog who was devoted to one spouse but loathed the other. "A lot of owners put so much emphasis on animals being like humans, and they treat them as such. But dogs are pack animals, and you have to establish yourself as the leader of the pack. Sometimes a dog ends up getting along with one spouse and not getting along with the other spouse because it sees itself as second in line. It looks at the other spouse as inferior," he says.

Sometimes establishing yourself as boss isn't so easy—especially with cats. Michael Haynes, a computer systems manager who lives in South Knoxville, says he used to keep a spray bottle around whenever one of his cats misbehaved. "One day he got on the coffee table, so I picked up the spray bottle and squirted him, and he flinched but he didn't move. So I sprayed him again, and he flinched but didn't move. And I kept spraying and spraying and spraying, and he didn't move. So I put away the spray bottle and that was the last time I ever used it. He had won."