Creatures of the Rock
A Veterinarian's Adventures in Newfoundland
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4.6 • 12 Ratings
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
A James Herriot for the 21st century recounts his adventures as a newcomer to Newfoundland.
When Andrew Peacock made the move from Ontario to Newfoundland, he thought he was kicking off his career as a newly qualified vetenarian with an adventure in a temporary location. It was certainly an adventure, but there was nothing temporary about it. He practiced in Newfoundland for nearly 30 years and is still living there. In fact, he has lived there so long, the locals are starting to think of him as one of them.
Creatures of the Rock chronicles a career spent working with and getting to know a rich variety of animals and their owners, on farms, in homes and zoos, and in the wild. Andrew was the only vet for miles around. A day of practice could include anything from a Caesarian section on a cow in a blizzard to freeing a humpback whale from a trap designed for cod to capturing a polar bear after its surprise visit to a bingo parlor. And, on the human side, anything from trying to impress a surpringly large audience of farmers with your first boar castration, to taking care of a family just as well as its stricken cat, to discouraging farm hands from helping themselves to hypodermic needles. All this against the background of a domestic scene in which Andrew's wife Ingrid—also freshly qualified, as a doctor—shares the adventure of making new life, and in due course of starting a family.
Told in a series of brief, endlessly engaging stories, Creatures of the Rock is a funny, thrilling, unflinching but ultimately heartwarming narrative about the connections between people and animals, and people with each other.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Peacock's memoir of his veterinary career in Newfoundland includes the expected inoculations, breached births and gusty weather but also a whole lot of hilarity, colorful characters and amateur hockey matches. Born and raised in Ontario, Peacock was hired straight out of vet school by the Newfoundland government on the condition that he stay for two years. He never left. Readers are treated to stories from his school interview all the way to his acceptance as a real Newfoundlander and each story is poignant and well-told. Despite much of the content being foreign to the average reader, such as cutting open a bloated cow or dealing with clients who speak a very particular and oftentimes barely comprehensible form of English, the book is eminently relatable. There's the loyal secretary, the adopted grandmother and the guy who thinks every good idea was his. There's black ice, good meals and unexpected friends. There's birth, illness and death; embarrassment, heartache, and triumph. Some of the medical descriptions can get gory, but this is an authentic look at a big animal practice. Newfoundland language, culture and geography feature prominently. Joining Peacock in his vet truck is a rollicking adventure.
