Sidney, Montana remembered from 1960

Jan. 19, 2012 - PRLog -- “Animals Don’t Blush” depicts the memories of David R. Gross, a young veterinarian who comes to Sidney with his new wife. The veterinary practice Dr. Gross joins is located near the confluence of the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers, a region of the USA steeped in histories of the mountain man, fur traders and the northern upper plains nomadic tribes. The clients included townspeople, river valley farmers, high prairie dry land wheat farmers and ranchers, and North Dakota Badlands ranchers, the later doing their best to wrest a living from government grazing leases and their too small homesteads. All were determined, independent-minded folks who expected their veterinarian to be physically tough, knowledgeable about all species of animals, and skilled in the practice of the profession. The animal patients were the same as they are today prone to the same illnesses and injuries. They were for the most part stoic and never embarrassed by anything they did. Nor did they seem embarrassed by what the veterinarians, or their owners, did to them. The characters in this book are those people, those animals, and that time and place.

This is also the story of the personal relationship between Dr. Gross and his new bride as they learn to cope with being away from family, making new friends in a community and culture foreign to them, and being Jewish in an area of the country with few Jews and a history of anti-Semitism. The story becomes complicated because of the strained marriage of the veterinarian for whom Dr. Gross works.

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writer/author of "You Can Nail It" a self-help guide for getting into and succeeding in a medical, dental or veterinary school program. Also writes veterinary, animal stories and historical fiction.