One of Washington Post's 5 "Feel-Good Books" of Summer 2024! Dr. Amy Attas, PETS AND THE CITY: True Tales of a Manhattan House Call Veterinarian
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[0:31]Dr. Amy Addis is the author of Pets and the City, True Tales of a Manhattan House Call Veteranarian.
[0:38]Dr. Amy is an award-winning veterinarian and founder of City Pets,
[0:42]which for more than three decades has been the premier veterinary medical house-call practice for dogs and cats living, working in, or visiting Manhattan.
[0:50]Her new book, Pets in the City, True Tales of a Manhattan House Call Veteranarian, came out in June.
[0:56]She shares a home with her husband, Steven Shapiro, and, if she is lucky, some rescued pugs.
[1:01]Welcome, Dr. Amy. Thank you so much for coming on Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss Pets and the City.
[1:07]True Tales of a Manhattan House Call Veteranarian. So juicy, very exciting. Thank you.
[1:13]Very exciting for me. I'm very happy to be here.
[1:16]So tell listeners, when did you decide to write this book, has it been in the back of your head for a long time?
[1:23]And then talk about which I know you do in the book, how you got into being a veterinarian, and how you ended up in this house-call business.
[1:30]Sure. So yes, there's been a book in my head for a really long time.
[1:34]In fact, some days I would wake up and get already written a book and realize, no, no, it's only written in my head.
[1:39]And the genesis of it was that I would come home from work every day and say to my husband,
[1:44]you will never believe what happens today.
[1:46]And when it kept going on and on for months, he said, you better go in the other room and start writing things down
[1:51]because as much as you think you're going to remember things, you don't.
[1:54]And it got to the point where I could just write two or three sentences down.
[1:58]And then I would remember the entire scenario.
[2:01]So I had been a vet for five years prior to starting my house-call practice.
[2:06]But things were not the same in a brick and mortar hospital.
[2:09]You know, people would come in. I would see their pet.
[2:11]They would go home. I would know nothing about their lives, their families, their homes.
[2:15]You know, all the little things that make us who we are, we don't show them when we go to a doctor's office.
[2:22]So everything became an interesting story.
[2:25]Driving around in a car, driving through Manhattan, dealing with traffic jams and emergencies out on the street.
[2:31]The dormant of the buildings I go to, the entire experience of getting up to the apartment and then of course being in the apartment.
[2:38]And sometimes I feel like I'm invisible.
[2:41]You know, even though the people have called my office and scheduled an appointment and told me I've told them when I'm going to be there, when I show up, it's like they forgot that I was coming.
[2:50]And I say that because the things I see when I arrive at the apartment, you would think people might want to hide that.
[2:57]So I'm a little bit invisible. And as a result, I've been a voyeur of good things, embarrassing things, sometimes bad things.
[3:06]But all in all, it's been a very interesting experience.
[3:11]Now add to that that the animals are completely different in their own homes.
[3:16]And it just you get to experience the unique bond that occurs between people and their animals when they're in their natural environment.
[3:27]So I've witnessed all of that and realized I really had some great stories to tell.
[3:33]My life was greatly influenced by the writings of James Harriet, the fictionalized memoirs of a veterinarian in the north of England in the 1940s, 50s, etc.
[3:46]I read all of the books. I watched the BBC television series and I was literally 14 years old when I said that's it.
[3:53]I just realized the first real job as a veterinarian. I distinguished real job from not real job, because prior to that I played veterinarian by injecting my stuffed animals with syringes filled with tap water.
[4:05]I would go to bed at night with very soggy stuff animal.
[4:09]Really, at the age of 14, I was already in high school. I had skipped a grade. I was really in a race to become a veterinarian.
[4:18]And I went out to get my first job with a veterinarian. Obviously everybody said no. I mean, who wants a 14 year old kid hanging around the veterinary hospital.
[4:27]One man said, why don't you come by for one day and observe. And I did. And I observed a little bit of an examination and a blood test on a cat and promptly fainted when he handed me the blood tubes.
[4:41]And then I just kept going back, even though I wasn't invited.
[4:45]And then as I helped a little bit and a little bit more that kind of depended on my help and one's up working there all through high school, all through college.
[4:53]He was a mentor to me. He's still a very dear friend.
[4:57]So that was my first job in veterinary medicine. Later on, I was an intern at the animal medical center for those of your listeners who don't know about this.
[5:08]Like a human hospital for animals. It's an eight story building. They have all kinds of specialties and emergency services.
[5:15]And they have an internship and residency program just like a human hospital would have.
[5:20]So I did a competitive internship there and then started my first job in Manhattan at a very high end park avenue hospital.
[5:28]I really learned a lot there both about veterinary medicine and about how the world works.
[5:34]I met some very, very interesting New Yorkers.
[5:38]And in that process, I was led to believe by my boss that he was going to make me a partner or even tell me the practice.
[5:46]And then one day he said, your fire take all of your belongings with you.
[5:50]I had built a very strong following in the hospital. And I believe that he had a fear like previous veterinarians work there that I would believe and take all of those people with me.
[6:01]So therefore he thought just doing this on a day that he was planning on celebrating my anniversary. I would have no idea it was going to happen.
[6:09]I didn't have any idea it was quite quite sick.
[6:14]And it's a story that I've heard over and over again from women professionals. So I don't think this is a unique story.
[6:21]The unique story is what I did about it afterwards.
[6:24]But in any event, it turns out that many of my clients followed me.
[6:29]I just didn't have any place to go. So I was fired on a Wednesday afternoon and on Thursday morning because I had no hospital.
[6:37]I made two house calls. And then I made four house calls the next day. And then I thought, hmm, I wonder if this is a potential new practice.
[6:45]And 32 years later, I'm going to venture a guess that it's been successful because we are now a two and a half veterinary practice and keep it at that size, because I think house calls lend themselves to being a bit more personal.
[7:02]And people often say, or you a concierge veterinarian, I am not. I am just a veterinarian who gives every single person who's part of our practice as much time as they need and same for their pets.
[7:16]So that was the origin of how I started the practice. No business plan. No thoughts about how I was going to do it. I was trial by fire.
[7:41]It turned out to be a way of practicing veterinary medicine that even exceeds what I thought it would be. I love what I do and I'm happy to go to work every single day.
[7:52]Oh, how amazing is that? I mean, if everyone had that sort of clear vision of what they love early and that they could attain it and do it and pivot, you know, it's not that's really great.
[8:05]I speak to a lot of young people who want to become veterinarians. It is an extremely competitive profession to enter students have to have extraordinary grades test scores experience.
[8:19]I mean, I think about it, realize I probably wouldn't get into veterinary school now if I had to compete about against the quality of the students that are applying.
[8:28]It is extremely difficult, but when I talk to them, many of them express the same thing that I felt it's not a choice. It's a calling and you have to just devote all of your energy into getting into veterinary school.
[8:43]So, as I said, I still love it.
[8:46]And what is your own pet situation right now?
[8:49]I have a very sad pet situation. I love pug dogs. I've always had them and they've always been rescues.
[8:56]And what I've done for my entire life is as one pet is starting to get older. I'll put the word out that I'm looking for a younger rescue pug.
[9:07]I usually take ones that nobody else wants. Sometimes they have deficits. I've had two blind dogs. I've had, you know, ones that have some serious medical problems.
[9:18]My last one had been abused and it took us some time to help her get out of her shell.
[9:23]My current situation was that I had two dogs. One passed away at an age appropriate time. He also had a cancer stumer.
[9:34]And my Cleopatra, my black pug who had been a rescue, was really mourning him and having a very difficult time.
[9:43]My pug club of New York put me in touch with a club in Chicago. They had a dog that had recently come back to them who had been abused. And I flew out to Chicago to bring her home with me.
[9:54]And now I had, you know, a 12 year old dog and a three year old dog. And that was wonderful when my 12 year old dog.
[10:00]A dog turned 16.
[10:01]She started having a lot of medical issues
[10:03]and she passed away of what we would consider,
[10:06]at an age appropriate time.
[10:08]But here's the sad part.
[10:10]My nine-year-old rescue got sick.
[10:12]And she passed away three months to the day
[10:15]from when her older sister did.
[10:16]Ah, we're just having a really tough time.
[10:19]I thought I planned everything perfectly,
[10:22]but for the first time in my life,
[10:24]there isn't a dog in my home.
[10:26]I'm sorry.
[10:28]I'm me too.
[10:29]So, you know, here this over and over again,
[10:30]I write about it in the book.
[10:32]People say never again, because their hearts are so broken.
[10:36]And I'm not saying never again.
[10:38]I know that one day they'll call me and say,
[10:40]Amy, we have a pug.
[10:42]It has a problem.
[10:43]Can you help us?
[10:44]And I'm going to fix it and I'm going to keep it.
[10:47]And it will happen naturally.
[10:48]And I will rescue that pug.
[10:51]And that pug will rescue me too.
[10:53]Oh, that'll be my story.
[10:56]Oh my gosh.
[10:58]I'm sorry.
[10:59]I'm sorry.
[11:00]You have so much love to give.
[11:01]I can just feel it using out of you.
[11:04]No, soon.
[11:07]Yes, whenever.
[11:08]Whenever the right time.
[11:11]Lovely.
[11:11]What I was struck by in the book is how much you
[11:14]learn about people, not just pets.
[11:17]That is one thing as you're going to people's homes
[11:20]and human nature and all of that.
[11:22]Having been to so many, having this crazy bird's
[11:27]eye view, not bird's eye, like up close and personal view
[11:29]of so many people in their native habitats said to speak,
[11:34]what are some things you've taken out of that?
[11:37]So first of all, it was that ability
[11:41]to see people in their own homes
[11:43]that I really felt was the genesis of Friday in the book.
[11:46]A lot of books written by veterinarians or stories
[11:48]about animals.
[11:49]And then I gave this vaccine.
[11:51]I gave this shot.
[11:52]I operated.
[11:53]And I think those are really interesting.
[11:55]And I know people like them.
[11:57]But I felt that I had this unique insight into human nature.
[12:01]So you know that the saying that you don't really
[12:04]know a person until you live with them?
[12:06]I feel like you don't really know a person
[12:09]until you're within their homes
[12:12]and experiencing them sort of when their guard is down
[12:17]a little bit.
[12:18]So my first reactions and meeting a person
[12:22]sometimes have proven to be completely different
[12:25]after I get to know them in their own environment.
[12:28]So crazy things.
[12:30]Like, I'll go to someone's home.
[12:32]We often work in the kitchen.
[12:34]And I'm struck by the fact that the dishes
[12:37]are just piled in the sink.
[12:39]And the garbage hasn't been taken out for weeks.
[12:41]And it's like, oh, you would never expect that from this person.
[12:46]Just little details of things that you see around that
[12:50]make you realize that the evening's activities
[12:53]might have been very exciting the night before.
[12:56]I went into one client's home during COVID.
[13:01]This was one of the sweetest things ever.
[13:03]Now remember, during COVID, we're wearing full PPE.
[13:06]Our clients weren't even allowed to be home.
[13:09]They would speak to them over the phone beforehand.
[13:12]And then we would work with the animals.
[13:13]And then we would speak with them afterwards.
[13:16]And I opened the door to the apartment
[13:18]and I was completely shocked for a second
[13:20]because they were like 30 people standing in the living room.
[13:24]And then as we walked in, we realized those weren't people.
[13:27]They were cardboard cutouts of all of the husband's friends.
[13:33]He had had a milestone birthday
[13:35]and they couldn't have a birthday party.
[13:37]So they made believe they had a birthday party
[13:39]by having all of these life-size pictures of their friends.
[13:43]And the husband and wife just had some champagne
[13:45]and celebrated a birthday.
[13:47]I mean, that was just a unique thing
[13:48]that we got to experience
[13:50]because we were in that home right at that moment.
[13:53]It's crazy that we all lived through that,
[13:56]like the things that we did and the Zoom birthdays
[13:58]and the, you know,
[14:00]some days I'm like, do that even happen?
[14:02]That was so-
[14:02]It was like a bad dream, right?
[14:04]So I started out trying to do Zoom
[14:07]that are nearing medicine.
[14:08]And you just can't do Zoom that are nearing medicine.
[14:11]You know, the animals don't hold still
[14:13]and there's so much I learned by touching
[14:16]and you just can't touch a computer screen.
[14:19]So as soon as we figured out how to do it safely,
[14:22]we went back to doing house calls
[14:24]and we wore spaces for each patient
[14:28]and then discarded them
[14:29]because no one on my team wanted to catch COVID, of course.
[14:33]And I didn't want anyone to say
[14:35]after you came to our house, we got COVID.
[14:37]So we did it as safely as possible.
[14:39]But thank God those days are behind us.
[14:42]What do you do if and when you see someone
[14:46]not treating their pet the way you would want them
[14:48]to treat their pet?
[14:49]Fortunately, it doesn't happen often
[14:52]that I see someone mistreating a pet
[14:55]in a malicious manner.
[14:57]You know, sometimes there are people
[14:58]who are not competent enough to treat their pets
[15:01]as well as I would like.
[15:03]And then we do our best to help them.
[15:06]So I have elderly people who have elderly pets
[15:11]and I love that combination.
[15:12]I think it's very helpful for both of them.
[15:15]But sometimes it gets to the point
[15:17]where their pets need medical care
[15:19]and they just can't do it.
[15:21]And so we help them out.
[15:23]I'm not saying I advertise for people who can't,
[15:26]you know, take care of their pets.
[15:27]But if I have been with you
[15:29]and been your veterinarian for years
[15:30]and it's at the point now we're you
[15:32]and your pet need our help,
[15:34]we go that extra mile to help them out.
[15:36]So I have the most wonderful team of veterinary nurses
[15:40]who will, you know, help out in the evenings,
[15:43]giving fluid injections,
[15:44]be vitamin injections, whatever the people need.
[15:47]Because we feel really strongly
[15:49]about both the people in the pets
[15:50]and want them to have the best medical care possible.
[15:54]I have, I can tell you stories about my nurses
[15:57]going on the weekends to seniors' homes
[16:01]to help them with their pets.
[16:03]And calling me up and saying, you know,
[16:05]I don't like the way the client looks.
[16:07]And in this particular case,
[16:08]so they got a woman in her 90s.
[16:11]And as we started talking to her,
[16:13]my nurse was there.
[16:14]I was on the phone.
[16:15]We found out that she hadn't eaten that day.
[16:17]So my nurse went into her refrigerator,
[16:20]which was empty.
[16:21]And she wound up going to the supermarket
[16:23]and buying eggs and orange juice
[16:25]and cooking her breakfast.
[16:26]Oh, we chatted to her family.
[16:29]Now that's not in the role of what a veterinarian does,
[16:34]but it's in the role of what a person who cares
[16:36]about people does, and we're in their home
[16:39]because of their pet and ultimately caring for them too.
[16:42]We have, I have intervened in so many cases.
[16:47]I write about it in the book about a client
[16:50]who is so distraught over the death of her cat.
[16:55]And this was a cat that I euthanized,
[16:58]but it was something that really needed to happen
[17:01]and should have happened weeks before,
[17:03]but she was a single woman
[17:04]with a lot of emotional issues
[17:07]and she just couldn't bring herself to do it.
[17:11]And ultimately when the cat was suffering
[17:13]and literally couldn't breathe,
[17:14]and we explained to her that it was cruel.
[17:16]And I had no choice.
[17:17]I had to recommend that she do it right then.
[17:20]She went into a tailspin of emotions at that point
[17:25]and I went through her medicine cabinet
[17:28]until I found what looked like pills
[17:30]that would be used by someone who was having emotional problems
[17:34]called the doctor whose name was on the label.
[17:36]It was her psychiatrist.
[17:38]I explained what was going on.
[17:40]He got on the phone with her.
[17:42]Was able to calm her down and we stayed there
[17:44]until he felt it was safe for us to leave.
[17:48]So again, way more personal in her home
[17:51]that she felt comfortable to have that reaction
[17:54]and we cared about her enough to see her through the crisis
[17:58]until her own medical professional could help her.
[18:01]Wow. So you are basically just a saint
[18:03]is the way for this.
[18:05]Is your practice just blowing up since this book?
[18:08]I mean, this is crazy.
[18:10]It's coming out really, right?
[18:12]So even the prep of stuff.
[18:16]It is definitely blowing up.
[18:17]I think COVID really was a factor for us
[18:20]when people realized, oh my God,
[18:23]one more thing in New York City.
[18:24]I can get delivered the veterinarian.
[18:26]So that was definitely something that opened people's eyes
[18:29]that house calls are a really good thing for pets.
[18:32]I tell people when I come to their home
[18:34]for the first time, especially when I'm going
[18:36]to be taking care of a cat,
[18:38]your cat is going to hate me
[18:39]because I do all the things that cats hate,
[18:41]but your cats can hate me a lot less
[18:43]than the vet in the hospital
[18:45]because they don't have to get in a carry bag.
[18:47]They don't have to go in a taxi.
[18:48]They don't have to sit in a waiting room with barking dogs.
[18:51]So for the most part, what I do is unpleasant.
[18:54]You know, I shine bright lights in them
[18:55]and I poke them and prod them and I trim their nails
[18:58]all things that they hate,
[19:00]but all the other ancillary things are much, much less.
[19:03]And for the dogs, dogs are easy.
[19:06]You can buy them off with delicious treats
[19:08]when you're done and they're happy to see you afterwards.
[19:10]Is there anything that you know as a vet
[19:16]and having these decades of experience
[19:18]that most people don't know about
[19:21]or should know about in terms of taking care
[19:23]of their animals or I don't know,
[19:25]making sure they're healthy and wonderful
[19:28]and all of that.
[19:29]Thank you for that question
[19:30]because that is one of the things I've learned
[19:32]after decades of doing house calls.
[19:34]And that is how many hidden dangers
[19:36]we have in our homes that we might not be aware of.
[19:39]So for example, beautiful days in the spring,
[19:43]people are like, oh, thank God,
[19:44]I can open the windows to not open your windows
[19:47]unless your windows are protected.
[19:49]An open window is an invitation for a pet
[19:51]to come over and start sniffing.
[19:53]You know, they can smell everything
[19:54]that's going on outside.
[19:56]Cat's love to sit on windowsills,
[19:58]take a nap on a windows.
[20:00]So, and if that window is open wide enough and there's no protection, there's a danger that as part of that nap as they're rolling over, they can fall out the window, or in fact see a bird that looks so close and I can just reach out and grab it and of course they can't.
[20:15]So do not open your windows if you must open windows, put screens in that are very tightly sealed in in the window frame.
[20:24]So pets cannot fall out windows, and the same is true for terraces, you know, I do go to homes and I see terrace stores open and explain to people how dangerous they are, and then they'll tell me, oh don't worry my dog can't reach the parapet wall.
[20:38]Well, they might not be able to jump onto the parapet wall, but they have furniture right next to the wall, so they jump up on the chair table and then they're just right at the parapet wall.
[20:48]They are dangerous and I can't tell you how many times I have given that warning and people haven't listened and then their disastrous outcomes, there are certain plants that are poisonous, especially flowers like lilies.
[21:03]So dangerous for cats any bite of belief the pedal the stem even drinking the water that the lily flower sitting in is toxic, so just, you know, be aware that things around our homes are dangerous in the old days when people had hanging telephones.
[21:21]And that's a cord that hangs down is a potential choke hazard. So, so is, you know, picking up those chords and I do the same thing for curtain cords.
[21:30]Just think like a dog or a cat about anything in your home that could be a potential, I mean it's the same for kids right we want to protect them from any potential danger.
[21:43]But your puppy's name, her name is Nia and she's actually almost 10 but she seems like, yeah, see her all puppies, but you do need to get a lighter colored couch, so we can also see how pretty she is she blends in on the black couch.
[21:56]That's true.
[21:57]Well, I wouldn't want all the attention to her if the like couch or later because then people stare at her the whole time and get completely distracted and not talk about their rocks because she and then you would see all the dog for a new couch that too.
[22:09]Okay, what's one funny story to leave listeners with it. I know you saw Joan Rivers and that was like one way you got started and you have so many anecdotes in here. What's one choice story.
[22:22]So, I had a very lovely elderly park Avenue couple as clients for many, many years.
[22:31]She always wore a three piece pinstripe suit. She was always in Chanel. Her hair was perfect pearl earrings.
[22:37]They were just the ultimate park Avenue senior couple and she called me one night completely hysterical that she walked into the bedroom and she found their nine month old puppy standing on her husband's night table and he was chewing and he had been chewing through all of the bottles of her husband's medication.
[22:57]So she, she was like, oh my God, is this dangerous and I couldn't tell her if it was dangerous until I knew what the pills were.
[23:04]So he had chewed through much of the labels and we had to get her husband on the phone. So we eventually do get him on the phone.
[23:11]And as she's going through the bottles, he said, Oh, that pill is the one I take for my arthritis.
[23:17]That was the one I take for my heart condition. Oh, that pill and then he gets a little embarrassed and he said, you know, sweetheart, that's our special night time pill.
[23:26]So of course, the last pill was his Viagra and we had to calculate how many pills the dog ate and we had to do that by figuring out what day the prescription was filled and then how many pills were left.
[23:39]And I was listening to this couple describe how many nights he took Viagra that past month and I was incredibly impressed.
[23:48]But he had eaten quite a few Viagra and animal poison control gave us the list of things we needed to do.
[23:56]And the poor puppies spent the night in the hospital.
[23:59]During his blood pressure and keeping them on fluids to flush out all of the chemicals that were in his system.
[24:04]When the husband picked him up the next day, he kind of joked with all of us and saying, poor boy, he was neutered just two months ago. It was a shame. Well, that Viagra was a waste on him.
[24:15]See, you never know the truth about people. Well, my goodness, behind closed doors.
[24:22]I once actually when I was pregnant with I think my third child anyway, I have four kids, but I think I was pregnant with my daughter.
[24:30]You have five. You have five.
[24:32]So you have five. Oh, yeah, I have five. Yeah, with night.
[24:36]And I used to have a bulldog named Mabel and she used to take a lot of medicine because she just said so many issues and it was just constant.
[24:44]And, you know, wrapping up pills in American cheese like for that's like what we did all the time.
[24:49]Anyway, I was talking to somebody kind of distracted as I often am like in the kitchen as I was getting her medicine ready and I accidentally took it myself.
[25:01]And after I was like, oh my gosh, I just took my dog's medicine. I just took her medicine.
[25:06]And I start my husband and now my existence like freaking out. We're like, call the OB right away. Like what's going to happen? I was like, I don't know.
[25:15]So I remember calling my OB is so funny and wonderful and I called her and she was like, we looked at what it was and that it was totally fine.
[25:24]But you wouldn't maybe won't get heartworm disease. Yeah, exactly.
[25:28]Anyway, she told me to call her if I started marking.
[25:32]I think that's so funny about this particular dog. He wouldn't take his own medicine.
[25:37]And we see this all the time. People will call me and say they dropped their own pill on the floor and their dog ran and ate it.
[25:43]But yet when it's time to give them their monthly pills, they won't take their pills. So I suggest, you know, just take your dog's medicine and go oops and drop it on the floor and watch them run and take their own pills.
[25:53]Funny, good idea. Well, Dr. Amy, thank you so much. Congratulations. And, you know, thanks for all you do for our little friends. It's really wonderful.
[26:03]I'm having a good time doing it. So, all right. Amazing. Thank you. Okay. Bye bye.
[26:10]Thanks for listening to moms. Don't have time to read books. If you love it, please leave a review and follow us on social at city Owens and at city readers.