Animals–and the people who love them–are hilarious, quirky, and sometimes terrifying. I never know what I’m going to hear when my wife walks in the house at the end of the day. The best thing about being married to a veterinarian, besides the comfort of knowing my animals are in the best possible hands, is the stories. It is also about real animals and how they enrich our lives, so I thought I would share with you some pictures of the animals that have shaped my life. Not any real people in specific–that’s against the rules of fiction–but about the choices and difficulties that face real veterinarians, as well as the rewards and the joy. This is all to say that Spindrift is about real people. They are freaking heroes and I am so proud of them. They save lives, despite the odds, despite the hours and the pay (the income to student loan ratio for veterinarians vs human doctors should be enough to refute any accusation, which vets hear every day, that they are in it for the money instead of a love of animals) and the emotional stress of the job. They’re all doctors now, and still working their asses off. Helpless, I waited with them for exam results, listened to them talk about the relationships that didn’t make it through those years of sacrifice, and worried about the emotional and physical toll the student loan debt and stress put on them. I watched her and her fellow vet students give everything they had to their studies.

I accompanied her to vet school, helped quiz her on anatomy, critiqued her suturing, baked stress treats, feigned excitement about formaldehyde soaked cadavers, and did my best to support her through the grueling four years of her veterinary medicine degree. (My parents are very patient, tolerant people) Later, chickens, goats, turkeys, sheep, horses, rats, dogs, cats and even a wild human or two joined the menagerie. She primed the pump, so to speak, by reading me James Herriot books, which for the uninitiated, are about an English veterinarian and his adventures doctoring around the English countryside, and by letting me bring a variety of creatures into our home. This was not a calculated choice, despite the fact that my mother told me that I really should consider marrying a vet in order to sustain my animal habit.

Sea wolf anna burke