Pets and the City: True Tales of a Manhattan House Call Veterinarian

In this playful debut, Attas shares experiences from her 30-year career as Manhattan’s first full-time house-call-only veterinarian. After a bumpy start as a young vet (including some embarrassing fainting spells and an unscrupulous boss), Attas starts her own clinic, treating, among others, the pets of some of Manhattan’s wealthiest and best-known residents. As she lugs her equipment through the city, Attas takes readers to luxurious penthouses and squalid apartments to give routine vaccines and treat terminal illnesses. The pets are joined by their quirky humans, leading Attas to experience clients who are often entitled (one skirts quarantine laws for a cat by sneaking it into Europe on a private plane) and famous (Billy Joel’s pug, Steve Martin’s yellow Lab, and Cher’s Italian street dog). There are entertaining tales of animal antics, like the cat who gets very high on catnip, and the dog who uses a Van Gogh as a potty. And, as we’d expect in a book about pets, tough moments of loss abound; Attas eloquently describes helping humans grieve the loss of their beloved fur-babies.