The Trouble With Harvey: Tales of a City Vet

‘He’s my little mate, doctor, and so you gotta give him a chance.’

Miss Gladys Gresham looked lovingly at her cat. ‘You silly old flip, Harvey,’ she said. ‘That was a stupid disease to go and get now, wasn’t it?’

Harvey, a fifteen-year-old Siamese cat with the body of a weight-lifter and the demeanour of a saint, has just been diagnosed as having diabetes. What happens to Harvey, especially when the redoubtable Miss Gresham suddenly finds God and discovers the healing powers of TV evangelists, will amaze and delight you.

Dogs, cats, budgerigars, monkeys and rats … all get a look-in in this affectionate collection of true stories, as seen through the eyes of an inner-city vet. But it’s not just his patients that prove entertaining – the human characters that parade through this book are as quirky as their pets.

The Trouble with Harvey will warm the heart of everyone who has ever known, owned or loved a pet.

Tony Sheldon is a small-animal vet. His work has taken him as far afield as Aspen, Wales and New Zealand, but it is in Sydney that he now lives, running his own veterinary practices in the inner city.