I got Zuzu to the emergency room at 10:20 P.M. Her symptoms were ambiguous but unnerving: lethargy, distension, moaning. Only two cases were ahead of us. The first must have been fairly serious, since the doctor sent the family home without the patient.
Next to us, the second patient was listless, a bit bloody but sedate. The woman with her smiled at me and asked, "First time here?"
"Yes."
"I'm here every few months," she said. She looked tired and resigned and had a battered tabby in her arms. She had six cats, she told me, and hardly a month went by without one or another of them getting clawed up in some brawl. "The wait shouldn't be too long," she said. "I've only been here two hours."
I tried to look grateful.
"What happened to your dog?" she asked politely.
"Oh," I said, betraying the frustration I felt at the sudden turn my Saturday night had taken, "she ate my daughter's pacifier."
Priscilla was born nine months ago, and to Zuzu, our 2-year-old Welsh terrier, the blow was devastating. At first she only growled at the baby, but now she expresses her jealousy by eating Priscilla's pacifiers.
Zuzu scours the floors for fallen pacifiers, digs through the diaper bag for hidden nipples, noses her way through the bars of Priscilla's crib. Given the opportunity, she'll snatch the thing right out of the baby's mouth.
And once Zuzu has a pacifier locked in her fierce little terrier jaws, it's gone. In seconds, she chews off the soft rubber nipple and chokes it down. The hard-plastic remainder she discards like the bones of a good kill.
I must have spent a hundred dollars on replacement pacifiers by now, and I knew it was only a matter of time before one of them got stuck and there would be vet bills to pay.
The receptionist at the 24-hour animal hospital told me it was quiet for a Saturday night. The next rush would come about 2 A.M., prime time for pets to be hit by cars.
Just when it looked like Zuzu and I were next, another patient arrived, a nervous beagle with four adults. The man checked in and told the receptionist that Ruben seemed to have eaten rat poison. The man and his wife recounted in necessary but disgusting detail the evidence leading them to surmise that the poor dog had snacked from the sack with the skull and cross-bones on it. The receptionist agreed that Ruben should be tested for poison.
Ruben and his entourage settled down next to me to wait their turn -- I hoped. By now, I had recognized his owner, Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman, and was wondering, this being Washington, whether they'd get VIP treatment. Instead, they offered Zuzu a sympathetic smile and joked about their own misfortune. They chatted about some upcoming wedding plans, but my thoughts were elsewhere. The secretary, I inferred, bemused, has a rat problem.
And modern rat eradication relies on poison, sometimes with collateral casualties, as the Glickmans discovered. I'm sure the secretary has many scientists working for his department who are dedicated to finding poison-free ways of eliminating pests. But research wasn't needed to uncover the obvious answer for the Glickmans. It was sitting in my lap.
Welsh terriers were bred to kill rats and other small vermin. In fact, I once read that at the turn of the century, when the English still indulged in such sports, the champion English ratter was a Welsh terrier named Billy who could annihilate scores of critters in a minute.
So it occurred to me: Instead of keeping toxic substances around his home, Secretary Glickman could just borrow Zuzu and let her have at it. That would solve his rat problem, keep Ruben safe, and frankly, solve my problem too: Zuzu could chew on something more worthy of her than pacifiers stolen from a baby.
By this time Ruben and Zuzu were getting fidgety, pacing and sniffing each other as dogs do. Secretary Glickman was pacing too. Before I had time to broach our joining forces, the doctor came out. It was our turn.
The vet examined Zuzu and took some X-rays, then treated her for a semi-blocked intestine and dehydration. She was starting to perk up by the time we got home, and the next day she was her old troublemaking self. According to the secretary's office at the Department of Agriculture, Ruben is fine, too.
I still think it was a good idea, though, and I'd like to extend a formal offer: If you'll keep the rat poison out of reach, Mr. Secretary, I'll lend you Zuzu. Think it over. If Zuzu can do for your rats what she's done for Priscilla's pacifiers, you'll never see another one again.
JENNIFER FELTEN