Sparky

Christmas time is both a blessing and a curse in vet clinics. It's awful because the euthanasia rate often doubles, and pets love getting emergently ill over holidays when fewer clinics are open and everyone is flat broke. However, Christmas is also the time of client presents. Every year we are inundated with cards, boxes of chocolates, and the occasional bottle of wine. And by "we" I mean 97% my boss, but he's very nice and shares everything with us....except the wine maybe. The entire clinic LOVES "Chocolate Month". At one point there were 4 boxes of assorted chocolates on our break room table and it was about 60% of our daily meals. But every now and then we get a client who shucks off tradition and decides to show their appreciation in a new and creative way. Enter: Sparky.

"Sparky" (as I have dubbed him), is a 3 foot tall fake dog, molded from plastic and made from real rabbit fur. He is supposed to be a black Lab, but is half the size of one and had a distinctly feline tail. He also has a voice box in his neck that barks 3x4 times when tapped. Sparky is creepy and weird and I love him. A client got him for us as a Christmas present and it is the most bizarre gift I have ever heard of. Where do you even buy a 3 foot fake dog made of rabbit fur that barks? We had no idea what to do with him: we can't keep him in any areas where animals are since he's so life-like he'll scare them, and he's too big to tuck away in a cupboard. So obviously I immediately used him for pranking.

I had the great idea to put him on the x-ray table with the door shut so the next tech to open the door will get a startle. This was right before we closed for the holidays, so after we got back, guess who was the first one to go into x-ray? I got a good fright, since apparently I have the memory of a goldfish. My boss found this karmically hilarious. So then I put him on the staff room table for the next unwitting victim. One by one I scared each of my staff with him, which was the high point of each day. You can't really explain the rush of confused shock and fear when you open a door to find what looks like a smallish dog staring at you from 2 feet away. You can't explain it, but you sure can enjoy the looks (and curses) from other people.

Alas, the thrill of Sparky has waned. We no longer jump when we round a corner to see Sparky staring us down, and have banished him to the corner of the isolation unit out of the way. We have experimentally introduced Sparky to my cat and someone's dog, and both decided it was a demon sent from Beyond and reacted accordingly. Smart creatures.

Dr. Jump-Scare