Vet Goes Extra Mile In Pet Health Care

Solomon Perl prepares to neuter Parker, a stray cat found in New York. Perl, a mobile veterinarian, performs all manner of outpatient care for his 1,500 to 2,000 clients. (Juana Arias - The Washington Post)

Most animals, it seems, love veterinarian Solomon Perl—except Wally, Karen Huizinga's blind 6-year-old Australian shepherd. And Wally didn't even have to go to the doctor. The doctor came to him.

The Huizinga home in Chevy Chase was the third of six house calls on a recent weekday for Perl, an Olney-based vet who works out of his Honda Accord. The bushy-haired dog, white with brown streaks, wasn't kidding around. He and his border collie buddy, Harry, barked mightily at the sound of Perl coming down the stairs. But Harry was bluffing; Wally was not. Facing down Perl in the basement of the Huizinga home, Wally raised his nose and howled as Perl reached out to greet him.

The confrontation continued for about five minutes as Perl and Huizinga chatted about pets and kids. But five minutes after that, Perl had the upper hand, and Wally was muzzled for a shot. Then, "We're done. Take the leash off; he's a free man," he said to Huizinga, who nonetheless had to tell Wally: "It's over! Stop!"

Usually the traffic gives Perl more headaches than his patients. The 50-year-old animal doctor, whose work clothes consist of blue jeans, a soft cotton long-sleeved shirt and a khaki vest with lots of pockets ("my office"), is prepared for almost any outpatient care.

During his calls on this weekday, he drew blood from a cat in its owner's living room, played with a favorite dog on the floor, examined a poodle's ears in a kitchen, neutered a cat on a hassock and diagnosed a potential cancer in a dog in its back yard. All that came after he performed surgery at Washington Animal Medical Center in lower Northwest Washington, home of the Washington Animal Rescue League, where he performs operations three days a week.

Perl chose a mobile practice 14 years ago over working for the government or going $750,000 into debt to open a hospital. Now, with an investment over the years of about $30,000 -- including his car and instruments, some bought on eBay -- he's making a good living, he said. It's a far cry from his early days, when the phone rang "once every three days."

Thanks to an expanding network of people and animals, "one in every three calls I get is a new client," he said. The practice, called House Calls for Pets, has 1,500 to 2,000 clients.

"I urgently need help, but it's very hard to find. Most vets can't think in this mentality. They're used to the stainless steel tables. I usually work on the floor with the animal in my lap."

At his first call of the day, in Prince George's County just over the District line, a table was ready, padded and covered by a cloth. The task was fairly simple: to vaccinate Elizabeth Webster's black kitten, Kharma, a male stray about 5 months old, against the feline leukemia virus.

Webster's other cat, a 7-year-old contented calico named Gizma, carries the virus. Webster initially thought Kharma also carried the virus, making him a suitable companion for Gizma, but a more sophisticated blood test showed that he did not. Now Kharma needed protection against it.

"Yes, I'm going to stick you again," Perl told Kharma teasingly. Not that there was much the kitten could do about it after Perl had wrapped him in a zip bag with a hole for the head and other holes for easy access.

Webster's bill was $120, including $40 for the house call. "I try to be cost-conscious for my clients' sake," Perl said.

"You're, as usual, a peach, Dr. Perl," said Webster, who prefers his visits to having to bundle her two cats off to the vet. "With two immuno-compromised cats, minimizing stress is a big issue for us," she said.

The convenience of not having to go out on the road for one more thing is why Huizinga, who has four children ranging in age from 8 to 15, calls on Perl. His visit to Wally and Harry cost her $340 after he and Huizinga caught up on overdue care for the dogs.

"He comes to my house," she said. "What more can I ask for?" Perl also placed a call to a mobile grooming service that had not returned Huizinga's calls and advised her on whether to let her daughter have a lizard. One client in Potomac calls on Perl even though an animal hospital is less than a half-mile away.

An average day for Perl includes 10 house calls or 15 surgeries at the Washington animal hospital. House calls provide clinical benefits for Perl as well as the animals and owners.

"You get to see the pets in their own environment" and observe how they and their owners interact, how the animals eat and what hazards they might be living with, from household chemicals to children who share their Oreos. "We also try to treat the behavioral issues," said Perl, with Prozac or BuSpar if necessary.

Most of Perl's patients are dogs, which he attributes to his personal experience. He had a collie growing up and has a Bernese mountain dog now. The large-sized, long-haired, black-tan-and-white breed has played a big role in Perl's life, introducing him to his wife and to a number of his clients.

Before she married Perl, Darcy Perl asked him for help with her dog, Ernie, who had cancer. He couldn't save her dog, but she married him anyway, he joked.

Ernie was the first Bernese in Perl's life, but hardly the last.

The second call of the day was at the home of two Bernese in Chevy Chase. Perl knows the family's dog breeder. As it turns out, Tess and Andy Wald's 5-month-old dog, Jasper, who is happy to sit on the floor in Perl's lap and have her face scratched, simply has a skin reaction to a tick.

The vast majority of Perl's clients are within 15 minutes of Chevy Chase Circle, he said.

He is comfortable with the cosmopolitan set. An Army brat who was born in Germany and grew up in College Park, Perl went to the University of Maryland, then to veterinary school at the University of Perugia in Italy because, he said, his grades weren't good enough for him to get into the relatively few and highly selective schools in the States.

"At the time, the adage that it's harder to get into vet school than into medical school was true," he said.

Perl tries to keep comfortable hours, from about 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. weekdays. That is how he deals with the traffic. Once he is home, he might answer a few more calls or put lab work in a box outside to be picked up, but from then on, he's Daddy to his children, who range in age from 19 months to 9.

Occasionally he visits clients as far away as Gaithersburg or Upper Marlboro, but he asks that they use a vet closer by for their pets' routine care. Even within his inner-suburban territory, there are calls that he dreads because of traffic and parking hassles, Perl said. "Georgetown -- I try not to go there."

You won't find a vanity license plate on Perl's car, although the car is key to his professional identity. He prefers the anonymity.

There is another kind of anonymity that Perl does not like, but it is a necessary part of the job: the one-time visits, which he calls "death by appointment," that he makes to people who want their animals put to sleep at home and would rather not have an ongoing relationship with him.

There are also animals Perl can't help, such as a bichon frise, his last call of the day, awaiting him in a backyard pen. Perl has been asked to check out a skin irritation and finds what may be a lymphatic tumor, complicated by the dog's heart murmur. He leaves a bill for the house call and a note referring the owners to a specialist.

In addition to treating the animals of affluent neighborhoods, Perl performs a large dose of public service. "The Potomac castle is not my average client," he said. Besides working at the animal hospital, Perl sometimes picks up animals to be spayed or treated at a hospital, takes them there and delivers them home or even to a hotel.

One of Perl's calls on this weekday was at the Bethesda apartment of a woman heavily involved in cat causes, taking in strays and having them spayed or neutered. Perl neutered Parker, a sleek, healthy, tabby cat -- after he caught him behind an armchair as several other formerly stray cats peeked in before scurrying off to their hiding places.

"Half my patients are under the bed," Perl joked.

The surgery took place in the living room, on a large upholstered footstool covered with a blanket and cloths. A water bottle with a squirt cap held Perl's Betadine antiseptic.

Five minutes later, Parker was no longer able to father kittens, and Perl headed out on the road again.