Set against a gritty backdrop on 27th Street, just north of West St. Paul Avenue near Downtown, is a clean concrete building with a few small windows and a single door.
It's Saturday morning, and the first good weather in seven days has the St. Paul's Veterinary Clinic popping. The waiting room benches are filled with human voices, cat and dog noises, and desk phones gurgling incessantly.
"I have a real compassion for the animals," says Dr. Gursharan Singh, owner and one of the three vets on staff this Saturday morning. "My parents were farmers, so I've always been around them. I like this job, it keeps me busy. I get to see all aspects of medicine, not just one specialty."
St. Paul's may just be the hardest-working animal clinic in the city. The group practice of doctors, assistants, techs and receptionists often see hundreds of pets a day -- six days a week. Monday through Friday the clinic is open until 9 p.m. It sees walk-in clients only, with scheduled surgeries on Mondays and emergency operations as they come. Some weeks the occasional labrador will swallow a toy, while other weeks there will be a bunch in a row.
People come from suburbia as well as the surrounding urban setting. Prices for every treatment and medicine are discussed up front as they arise -- not after the bill is processed. If something is too difficult or specialized, they refer clients out from a list they keep handy on the wall by the medications.
"Mostly we see dogs and cats. Probably around 95 percent. Sometimes we'll get 'pocket pets' like hamsters or a ferret or rabbit," says Dr. Singh.
Dr. Singh has been seeing furry things professionally since 1987, and came on board to this practice in 1999 when it was a section of nearby warehouse. That same year, the new facility was assembled to accommodate parking and more tail-wagging room inside.
Two older gentlemen help a raggedy-looking dog atop the metal table in exam room No. 2. Assistant Miranda McDowell combs the dog and shows the result to Dr. Phil Sower. Sure enough, fleas. The good doctor begins an educational speech in the reproductive abilities of the pests and how they probably escaped the men's best efforts. Sower goes on to describe application of anti-flea liquid and flea bombs with costs for each.
In exam room No. 3, a spoiled looking kitty wails plaintively against her owner's chest as Dr. Singh trims nails (a practice St. Paul's offers more as precaution and health than just a courtesy grooming) while assistant Adam Christenson lines up the booster shots.
It won't be the last terminal patient of the day. For every ten moments of cuteness and checkup, there will be five moments of guarded concern and another one moment that is grim and sad. The mood swings here should be like a rollercoaster. Yet everyone appears to operate on an even keel.
"Things are a little bit different here than in your average animal practice," says Dr. Karla Dietrich afterwards. "We do a lot of stuff the suburban clinics don't do. Everyone has their own specialties, but it get's so busy we often have to jump in wherever to get things done. The benefit of it is, though, when you get stuck there's all these other people to ask."
Dietrich only spends a few days a week here, splitting up the rest of her time doing relief work at various other agencies in the area where needed.
"The population of dogs is a lot bigger (at St. Paul's). We see a lot sicker dogs because people don't necessarily have the money and they can't get the preventative maintenance we'd like them to get. Also, because we're a walk-in clinic you never know what you're going to see," she says.
In the lobby, there is an old fish tank standing in the middle of an open space. The fish and water are long gone, since replaced with a cat skeleton posed like the ones at the Milwaukee Public Museum. From a long way down, Chico the Chihuahua stares up at it unsure what to make of it. His small hind leg is set in a large white and blue cast, sticking out comically to the side. His visit will last only a short time, as the doctors are only checking on his progress.
In exam room No. 2, "Miss Kerry" will wait a long time for her Shitzu named Chewie. The dog looks exactly like his namesake from the Star Wars films.
"Oh, he's not named after that," explains Miss Kerry. "When we first got him, he kept chewing everything up in the house! We got another one who's black and named Cola."
Chewie's mistress just returned from taking her daughter to Washington, D.C. for college. She found Chewie sensitive to the touch in certain areas, but with all the long locks of fur it's unsure what is wrong. Dr. Singh reaches for his scruff, and a loud yelp followed by savage snips to his hand follows.
"We're going to have to put this muzzle on," Dr. Singh says.
Five minutes later, no one can get it on him without being chomped.
"We'll have to sedate him," says Dr. Singh.
Ten minutes later, Chewie pants nervously and looks wild-eyed but won't sleep. Singh wraps a blanket around his head and body and takes the scared dog into the back exam area. They give him a mask and at last Chewie rests.
"It's a skin infection," Dr. Singh reports. "Sometimes when they haven't been groomed in awhile the bacteria will break the surface and cause this irritation."
They begin applying a yellow powder to his paws and use clippers to get to other areas. Then suddenly the dog leaps into consciousness again, wiggling and yelping. It takes both the assistant and Dr. Singh to hold him down and gas the canine. High yelps dissolve.
"Well," Dr. Singh says with shaking head, "he's a fighter."
Sometimes it's not the size of the dog in the fight; it's the size of the fight in the dog.
