Dining on a family friend

EDITOR'S NOTE -- This week's Express Lane was written between contractions -- involving the writer, not the writing. Ronda and Jon Graff became parents of their third son, as yet unnamed, this morning. He also joins a sister.

As I reflect on recent personal experience, I realize parents usually don't think twice about fixing a child's broken arm or leg. But what about an animal or the family pet? How far should a person go, how much will a person be willing to pay to medically treat a pet? Within the same week, I made visits to the doctor for my son's broken arm and to the vet for the cat's injured leg. (For a quick refresher, let's review my favorite cat joke: I like cats. I've got two of them. One one each side of the fireplace.) With that in mind, when the family cat developed a problem with its hind leg, the debate started over how to treat the cat.

For all you cat-lovers out there, stop the sneering and bickering. My husband and I decided to fix the cat. Not that fix -- that had already been done -- but treatment for the infection in the leg.

When the operation was over, the cat's vet bill would have bought a nice birthday gift for one member of the office staff. Our dog, on the other hand, has required so much medical attention in the past that we have likely paid for Christmas presents for the entire vet office's, plus gift wrap. And in the end, our 150-pound dog, which had shattered its hind leg, ended up with a stick leg, albeit a very expensive stick. Since the dog had been part of the family for quite a few years, we felt the cost was, for the most part justified, especially since pets are not easily replaced, a fact my family learned the hard way.

My grandmother owned a Pomeranian, a larger version of a dust mop. When it went to the great kennel in the sky, my family bought a new dusteranian to replace the first dog. Within two weeks, the dog had moved on to live with a family friend. To put the situation in perspective, my grandmother would have sold her left kidney to save the first dog, but wouldn't have tapped her piggy bank for the second.

Many pets don't require that kind of financial consideration, especially if the animal didn't start out as a pet. I grew up with cows around, which managed to hang around for several years, until the animal was finally sent "away," only to return in little white packages for the freezer. Or a pot-belly pig was pawned on our family, destined to live out the remainder of its productive years eating itself into immobility.

I was never fond of eating animals with which I had had a personal relationship. The one-on-one contact eliminated any tastiness I might have found in the animal. That aversion has evolved. I cannot eat a hamburger if I can hear or smell a cow.

If there is a cow within sight, I don't even want a steak in front of me. For some reason, a cow staring at me as I eat what could likely be his cousin makes me lose my appetite. This many not sound like a big problem, but it is playing a role as we construct our new house. Our new deck, along with its grill, will likely overlook the barn and the stock pen, future home to a cow or a chicken or two.

There's always vegetarianism, if only I liked veggies.