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Reviewed by Jack Magnus for Readers' Favorite
Animals Don't Blush is a non-fiction memoir written by David R. Gross. The author was in his last semester of veterinary school when he saw the posted notice on the student locker room bulletin board at the teaching hospital. There was an opening for an associate vet in Sidney, Montana. Dr. Schultz had established a predominantly large animal practice that extended over Richland County and into the North Dakota Badlands at the confluence of the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers. His clients were mostly ranchers and farmers and, as his associate, Gross would be providing him with some much needed relief from the demands of his busy practice. When Schultz asked him when he could start, the author indicated that he would be graduating on June 4 and had promised his new wife a honeymoon before he started work. Schultz told him he had a job if he was there on June the 9th, and thus began the author's career as a veterinarian.
David R. Gross's non-fiction memoir, Animals Don't Blush, is well-written, engaging, and a joy to read. It should be required reading for any student considering a career as a veterinarian, and those readers who had at one time considered that career will find themselves ruefully pondering the road not taken. Despite the harshness of the conditions, the long hours, and cringe-worthy procedures that are part of the vet's practice and trade, the miracle of saving those four-legged beings so many of us love and share our lives with was so obviously the impetus that kept this author going.
There are moments in this book where he's had little sleep for days; it's a dark and wintry Montana night, and the excitement, joy and satisfaction of having delivered a difficult calf, or saved a beloved horse shines through every word this author writes. There will be some inevitable comparisons with James Herriot's classic All Creatures series, but Animals Don't Blush stands out both as a marvelous memoir as well as a fascinating historical account of the culture and people in the area where the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers join up during the last half of the twentieth century. This is a remarkable story and it's most highly recommended.
