MMM Publications 1944                          Ireland                       04.09.2024

No house of our Congregation is complete without a cat or a dog and in Africa we have cats and dogs and other pets too. It is possible to train many wild animals if you get them young enough.

We have our own cat, a tiny blue Persian kitten. A boy brought it to me – a little bedraggled limp object, apparently dead. He said it had been bitten by a snake. It was scarcely breathing and I thought there was no hope. But I wrapped her in a warm woollen stocking and forced some brandy down her throat and I put her on a chair at the side of my bed. In the middle of the night, I was awakened by a great commotion.

Hurriedly, I lit my lamp and saw our dog, who slept outside our door, was being chased around the room by this minute kitten who was hissing and spitting like a steam engine and staggering, obviously still half-drunk from the brandy. The poor dog was terribly embarrassed. I suppose she had come in to investigate the stranger and this was the welcome she got. They became very friendly later on.

The next pet we had was a bush buck – a deer who lives in the bush. We had her presented to us on Christmas Eve in the morning. Its mother had been killed in the hunt and it was not yet able to feed itself although we were told it was. We left it at home all day with a plentiful supply of green food while we went about our work in the hospital. We were very busy, it being Christmas Eve, and also we had an emergency operation so we were late in coming home. When we arrived, we were greeted with “The deer near to die. He no able for to eat.” Again, we doctored the poor thing with brandy and tinned milk and put it in the kitchen by the fire. It soon revived and we fed it for a few days on milk until it was able to take green food for itself. It got very tame and would follow us about everywhere like a pet lamb.