Dr. Art Otto was Marcus Welby of the pet world

When I arrived in Kalispell in 1984, I had a couple of suitcases, a couple dozen boxes of books and one gently used basset hound named Gwendolyn, age 11.

Gwennie was prone to a variety of ailments common to her breed, plus needed medicine to prevent heartworm disease, which meant that soon after our arrival in town, we headed for the Animal Clinic and began a lifelong friendship with Dr. Art Otto.

Dr. Otto was then a young man, just 38, but the twinkle in his eye never went away as he aged, which was something he shared with Gwennie. Veterinarian and basset hound bonded instantly, and every visit to the Animal Clinic was a time of celebration. Gwennie toughed out her shots for a chance to gobble down a treat at the end of the visit, and Art and I shared banter based on our common respect for each other.

Like me, Art was a voracious reader and news junkie, so in the midst of updates on Gwennie’s bad back and dietary ailments, we would also share our thoughts on politics, the economy and world events. Art was a dyed-in-the-wool conservative and I was a New York liberal hiding out in Montana, but we both enjoyed a good argument, so we would rib each other mercilessly about our mutually exclusive failures to understand the Ronald Reagan presidency and Paul Volcker’s economic policy. One of us was right, and one was wrong, but Art was too much of a gentleman to ever play the “I told you so” card. It was more “I knew you were smart enough to figure it out” when I finally became a conservative after Sept. 11, 2001.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Let me tell you a little more about Gwendolyn, the matchmaker that brought me and Dr. Otto together.

She had been my miracle puppy, the equivalent of a baby given to a woman who had been told for years she could not bear children. Growing up in New York, I had been cursed with allergies to everything from grass and dust to cats and especially dogs. So despite my love of all dogs from a very young age, I had been cautioned time and again that I could never have my own dog.

For some reason though, when I was halfway through high school, my mother relented and agreed that I could have a short-haired dog. We had the pick of the litter and singled Gwennie out almost instantly because of her enthusiasm and joyful spirit. She became my faithful companion and best friend for the next 15 years.

When I went to college at Tulane, I had to leave Gwen home with mom, but in 1979, while I was attending graduate school in Arizona, Gwen took her first plane trip — from Newark to Tucson — and then accompanied me for the next six years, as I followed my peripatetic career from Tucson to Bismarck to Los Angeles and then to Missoula and Kalispell.

Having been through so much together, Gwen and I were hesitant to part, however briefly, such as when I needed to go to work. Being a basset hound, she could make her disappointment in me well-known to our neighbors, and when I left our house, she would begin baying mournfully. It was great to be wanted, but sometimes I wondered what it would be like to have a well-trained pet instead of an emotionally needy friend! Art told me to just enjoy it because at her age, she was living on borrowed time.

 That time — along with Gwennie’s heart — finally ran out in 1988, when old age, the bad back, and years of hauling around 50-plus pounds of basset hound on those tiny little legs led to a series of seizures. I tried to tough it out as long as I could, and Doc Otto gave me some medicine to give to Gwennie when the pain got too bad, but finally it was just too painful for both of us. Gwennie’s back legs weren’t working any more and those seizures were happening more and more often when her heart couldn’t pump enough blood to keep things running the way they were supposed to.

After one particularly scary episode, I hauled her onto the front seat, good traveler that she was, and headed down to Airport Road to see Dr. Otto one last time. Art explained to me that it would be quick and painless, and we both held onto Gwennie as she drifted away. I was crying, of course, just as I am now while I write this, and I think Dr. Otto may have teared up a little also. He let me stay with her just as long as I needed to say goodbye, and then I drove home to a now hugely empty house where I howled at my own loneliness.

I suppose it was that loneliness which led me not too many months later to drive to the animal shelter to pick up Ernie the cat. Yes, I went from being a dog person to being a cat person. It was partly that I knew no dog could ever live up to Gwennie for cheerful companionship, but also that I had come to realize that having a dog is like having a permanent 3-year-old baby in the family.

I certainly got lucky with Ernie, who despite an independent streak that led him to spend considerable time outdoors was about as good of a lapdog as any cat has ever been. And because of his adventures in the great wilds of our back yard, Ernie was a regular visitor to see Dr. Otto. Turns out that being a good hunter made him prone to infestations of roundworms.

Unlike Gwen, Ernie wasn’t much of a traveler though. As a matter of fact, when I took him home from the animal shelter his first day with me, I nearly turned around to re-deposit him back in custody when he made such a racket on the way home. Talk about caterwauling!

Because of his fear of cars, Ernie had to travel in a little kennel when we would visit Dr. Otto, which happened at least once or twice a year for more than a dozen years. I suppose a veterinarian has to take an interest in all the animals he cares for, but it always seemed to me that Dr. Otto went out of his way to make us feel welcome. He was sort of the Marcus Welby of the veterinary world. Robert Young played that kindly doctor on TV in his later years, and I would swear he had that same twinkle in his eye that Art had. They also both had a caring soul that made it easier for them to give the bad news that sometimes was inevitable.

When Ernie got hit by a car in 2002, we brought him to Dr. Otto with hope for a miracle, but it wasn’t to be. He was too badly broken up inside. The next day, my family and I came to Dr. Otto’s office to say good-bye to Ernie. Carmen was 7 and Meredith was just 3, but I thought it was important for them to be there to pet Ernie one last time. We brought his favorite blanket and huddled around him while he got his last shot. I’m pretty sure that time, even Doc Otto was crying out loud.

My next two cats, the ones we have now, were inside cats. We’d learned our lesson from Ernie’s death and didn’t want to put the family through another trauma, so Tiger and Lily only get to go outside when they do a re-enactment of “The Great Escape.” That means fewer illnesses, and thus fewer trips to the vet. So for the past 10 years, I hadn’t seen Art too often.

After he retired in 2008, he did make it in to see me at the Daily Inter Lake from time to time. We would talk mostly about the crazy mixed-up world, but sometimes about our own crazy mixed-up lives as well. Earlier this year, Art asked me for some help with a difficult situation he was facing, and I was happy to oblige. Helping Dr. Otto was just repaying part of an outstanding debt. It was my pleasure to trudge the road of happy destiny with him for a short while.

I don’t think he ever fully realized how lucky the rest of us were to get to know him. Maybe I didn’t know it myself until I saw that he had passed away last week at the age of 69. One thing I know for certain, if dogs and cats go to heaven, then Dr. Otto is in good company.