Why The Hearts?
Sampson
Sampson wearing a heart on his hip.
Over three years ago an owner brought her cat in to be euthanized. Sampson was old and had started urinating in the house. The owners felt that given his age and the likelihood that he had a medical condition that would require testing and treatment, the best decision was to let him go. Sampson was waiting quietly in a plastic carrier while Dr. Allen talked to the owners about his condition. They described him as an old, decrepit, painful cat… but when Dr. Allen got him out of the carrier, what she found was a somewhat fat, quiet cat with about 2 inches of matted fur encasing his entire body lying in a huge puddle of his own excrement. Her assumption was that he was put in that carrier long before the owners were able to bring him to the hospital. At that point she didn’t know what his long-term prognosis was, but what Dr. Allen did know was that she didn’t want this to be his final day… She talked the owners into giving him to the hospital and the plan was to at least clean him up and make him comfortable… then, if his health was as bad as the owners thought, we would go ahead and euthanize him.
Sampson today.
Well, cleaning him up involved completely shaving him down to the skin and his little round body looked so adorable hairless, Dr. Allen was compelled to draw a heart on his right hip and that was the start of an Indian Bend Animal Hospital tradition… Some of our cats don’t like it, but when you come in you may notice a number of our pets with hearts on their hips!
Sampson, by the way, is doing great… He now lives with Tammy and still sports a heart on his right hip!
Sampson’s not the only one with a heart! It’s kind-of become our “thing.”
UPDATE: We lost Sampson on Easter Sunday 2010… definitely the end of an era… 
Rosemary and Chelsea, the fat girls.