More Tales Of Tails

By Howard Pennington D.V.M. and Mary Kottke Tomel, Illustrator in script.

More Tales of Tails was written to share the joy I have experienced over a lifetime with animals. I have learned to love and respect them, whether they are domestic or wild. I strive to give the animals a voice to tell their story and their relationship with other animals. These stories are mostly about the cases I have handled to show some of the variety of animals, people, and conditions a veterinarian experiences. I enjoy sharing my animal stories with others through various nature hikes and conversations.

The sketches were drawn by a friend who shares my love and respect of animals. Animals are a large part of her life, and she shares my respect for all on God's earth.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 19, 2023
• ISBN: 9781638447504

Book preview

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More Tales Of Tails

Howard Pennington D.V.M. and Mary Kottke Tomel, Illustrator in script.

ISBN 978-1-63844-749-8 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-63844-750-4 (digital)

Copyright © 2022 by Howard Pennington D.V.M.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Short Tales

Robin

Pigeon

Swan

English Sparrow

Starling

Duck

Alley Cat

House Cat

The Card Sent to a Client That Had Lost Their Kitty

Squirrel

Nighthawk

Woodpecker

Deer

Spider

Woodchuck

Skunk

O Dark Thirty

Porcupine's Response

Medium Tales

Missing Cat

Exotic Pets

A Clinical Mystery

My First C-Section

Gunshot

Diaphragmatic Hernia

Unusual Cases

Clients

RIP

Snakes Are Animals Also

A Difficult Farm Call

Cow CS

Founder

Colic

The Age of a Horse

Long Tales

Another Rare Case

Horse Show Tales

Lacerations

Choke

More Horse Stories

How Animals Are Affected by Our Lights

Characters I Have Learned From

Monarch Butterflies

The Catapillar's Response

City Animals

About the Illustrator

About the Author

Illustrations by Mary Kottke Tomell

I thank God for many things:

Giving me the parents who taught me to love and appreciate all the earth

Giving me the family and friends who love and support me and my ventures

Giving me the time on earth to learn and share it with others

A cardiac surgeon and a neurosurgeon who returned me to good health

And God said, Let the waters teem with living creatures, and let the birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.

And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds; the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind (Genesis 1:20, 24 NIV).

Short Tales

Robin

I am that Robin you see in your yard.

Being so colorful is really not very hard.

We feed on seeds and bugs early in the dawn.

Often you will see me pulling a worm in your lawn.

I sing loudly in the early morning to welcome the sun.

I also sing in the evening after the day has been won.

Some people say that my chirping announces rain.

I strut, and I hop, and I sing a lot. Yes, I am very vain.

I build a nest of sticks in a tree in your yard.

I line it with mud and grass so it's not so very hard.

Four or five eggs are laid in the nest, sometimes twice a year.

Chicks hatch in a few weeks and soon their cheep, cheep, you will hear.

Many say that I bring the spring back to the north.

Some of us stay there all winter, of course.

We are happy to stay where it is cold.

We find shelter and food, we have to be bold.

When fall comes, most of us fly south where it is warmer.

Then next year, we will return to enjoy the spring and summer.

Many states call us their state bird.

Wherever we live, our call will be heard.

Pigeon

I am the pigeon you see about every day.

I fly over your home as I'm on my way.

I'm looking for food that people throw on the ground.

I'm not very picky about any food that's around.

I build a simple nest of sticks, mud, and some thatch.

And I sit on my eggs until they do hatch.

It's not much of a nest, but there I lay a couple eggs that are white.

The eggs hatch to little chicks, it's quite a sight.

We feed them milk that comes from my crop.

They are always hungry—won't they ever stop!

We have two kinds of us; one group are leaders who find the food.

The rest are followers who make up the brood.

We had a cousin pigeon that was a homer.

It carried messages but was killed off, now is a goner.

Some people have us fly long races.

They take us for miles; we have to find our homeplaces.

Swan

I am a swan, and I swim in the park.

I show my stuff from dawn to dark.

My white feathers are a gem to be seen.

I keep them that way every day as I preen.

I have a long neck that I hold gracefully in an arc.

And I proudly swim around as proud as a lark.

As I paddle by, I stop and eat in an unusual way.

I extend my long neck deep in the water, yes, every day.

I may eat the mud from the bottom which I swallow as food.

Then rest on the shore whenever I am in the mood.

The ugly duckling was a famous Aesop fable.

Of the young swan who wanted to be white but not yet able.

Soon it became a beautiful white swan, white as all the rest.

Patience, my dear, all will come when you learn to rest.

They call them cygnets, but they are really my chicks.

Don't know how they got the name, somehow it fits.

I build a nest on the water of sticks and mud and grass.

Any intruder that dares to come near, I will harass.

Four to six eggs, I will lay in the nest.

And proudly lead my chicks to show off to the rest.

I will fly south when the pond freezes up with cold, cold ice.

And will return when the grass is green and the weather is nice.

English Sparrow

I am an English Sparrow, and I love America.

I am a warbler that was brought from England.

They liked my song and wanted us to eat the bad bugs.

But we produced so many chicks that we crowd out the native birds.

We are so much of a pest that we are called the flying rat.

We gather at your bird feeders and hog the seeds.

We build our straw and grass nests anywhere we can.

Any crack or cranny is fine for us to build.

We will even build our nest on top of another bird's nest.

The male English Sparrows have a black bib that you can easily see.

Our females look much like the other ones and are hard to identify.

We lay five to six eggs of black or brown