Benji

This is Benji's story. Benji was arguably the most unusual patient ever to come to Birchwood - more unusual than the giant Burmese pythons and more unusual than the deadly poisonous fish. This kind of ranking is very subjective of course, but in my opinion, Benji comes out on top. Benji was an African lion. He was a cub mind you, but an African lion nonetheless.

Benji came to Birchwood well before my time, so it is not technically "my story", but it's the clinic's story and it's my clinic, so I'm going to claim it as part of my series of posts about the history of Birchwood Animal Hospital. 

Dr. Al Clark doesn't remember exactly when this happened, but the mid 1960s is likely. One morning he got a call from the Hudson's Bay Company downtown. It seems that Sunbeam, the makers of small kitchen appliances, thought that having a live lion cub in their display would make for a nifty promotion. It was the mid '60s, so people did stuff like that. And they used words like "nifty". This three-month-old cub was in a small cage beside the stand mixers and blenders. His name was Benji and he was extremely cute. Whether this helped sales or not is unknown, but it certainly attracted attention. The Bay was on the phone because Benji had become ill. Could Dr. Clark help them out? It was basically just a big house cat wasn't it? Same diseases and disorders?

Al immediately did two things. The first thing was that he told them to bring Benji right down. The second thing was that he found the phone number for the top Sunbeam executive in Toronto and gave him heck for subjecting a lion cub to that kind of stress and absurdly inadequate housing. Once Benji arrived at the hospital Al declared that he would have to stay and would not be sent back to sell toasters and electric can openers. Benji was basically depressed and poorly cared for and had picked up a secondary opportunistic infection. Chastened, there was no argument from Sunbeam or the Bay. 

The nurses then set about pampering Benji back to robust health. Initially, they went down to the Dairy Queen at Ronald and Portage every day and brought back hamburgers for him. Then it occurred to someone to phone the zoo and ask for advice. With his diet improved and with all the medicine and care, Benji was soon on his way to a full recovery. Once he was well enough to leave the hospital, Al would take him home sometimes and the neighbourhood kids would play with him in the yard. Can you imagine?  Your neighbour is a vet and brings home a lion cub and lets you play with it? Different times... 

After a couple of months Benji had grown from cocker spaniel size to small Labrador size and was becoming "a little nippy". Clearly, a long-term plan was needed. This had been on Al's mind for a while and he had made inquiries. The best solution seemed to be the Okanagan Game Farm, a sprawling exotic wild animal park near Penticton, where there were other lions and there was lots of space for Benji. It was tearful day for everyone when he was loaded into the back of a staff member's car and they headed west down Portage Avenue.

Several years later another staff member was on vacation in the Okanagan and decided on a whim to try and visit Benji. She walked up to the fence and peered out across the fields and clumps of trees. There were no animals in view. In the heat of the day the lions were probably in the shade somewhere. So she called out, "Benji! Benji!" and wouldn't you know it, but a beautiful fully grown male lion came bounding up out of the distance and put his paws up on the fence. It was Benji.