Muskrat rape--Veterinary emergency, or upcoming ep. of Crank Yankers?

In My Humble Opinion
1

We got the strangest call tonight, and I’m still trying to decide if it was a real bit of idiocy or an incredibly elaborate and skillfully done crank call.

Some man called claiming to have an Egyptian muskrat that had “taken a shine” to his cat called around 2 this morning to get advice on getting the two of them unstuck. After consulting with the vet, we advised him to apply some cold water to the muskrat’s penis region, carefully grip the muskrat by the scruff while someone else holds the cat’s scruff, and pull them apart, then bring the cat in to be checked out. After a long, drawn out discussion of where the scruff is, and whether Crisco would help, and how traumatized the guy’s 7-year-old son would be by having to help with this chore, the guy says he may try to find the money to bring the poor cat in.

On the one hand, I’m tempted to dismiss it as a prank. I mean, it’s just such a ridiculous story. Who the hell would have a muskrat? It’s not even legal to have such a creature without a wildlife permit. People do shit like that all the time, though. They keep deer and raccoons and all kinds of stuff. And what the hell’s an Egyptian muskrat? I don’t think there even is such a thing. However, people will believe damn near any animal is something rare and expensive, and I certainly wouldn’t put it past somebody to sell him a faux Egyptian muskrat.

I also wouldn’t be the least bit surprised by someone having money to buy an expensive pet and not having enough for a vet visit. It happens all the time. People buy $300 puppies and don’t get them vaccinated because they can’t afford it. So then the pups die from parvo, but that’s a whole other thread, one that belongs in the Pit.

Interspecies rutting is unusual, but it does happen from time to time. And it’s not really all that unusual for a male to have trouble withdrawing. Dogs get stuck, and so do cats, so it stands to reason that muskrats would, too.

What really makes me wonder, though, is the background noise. The other tech put the speakerphone on for a few minutes, and I could hear the kid yelling in the background, and horrible, ear-splitting howls from the cat. If it was a prank, somebody went to an awful lot of trouble. The guy sounded pretty upset, too, so if he was a crank, he was a damn good one.

So, Dopers, what do you think? Legitimate emergency resulting from genuine stupidity, or elaborate prank? You make the call.

2

The one thing I am certain of is this: It’s a damn good thing videophones aren’t standard. It would probably upset callers to see a tech staggering around the ICU with her hands clapped over her mouth and turning purple trying to stifle hysterical laughter. It just looks so unprofessional.

(Yes, I know it’s horribly tragic for the cat if this really happened. But sometimes a sick, twisted sense of humor is the only thing that keeps you from climbing a tower with a rifle.)

3

The question is unanswerable, but the description is fascinating.

4

A quick Google suggests that there is no such thing as an Egyptian Muskrat.

IMHO–you been had, mah sistah! :smack:

5

Yes, I know there’s no such thing as an Egyptian muskrat (in fact, I always thought they were indigenous to North America but I’ve been wrong before). That’s not the question. The question is, could this guy have believed he had an Egyptian muskrat? Based on the ridiculous things people are willing to believe about their pets, it’s certainly possible.

Hell, we had a lovely, clearly very well-bred boxer come in a couple months ago. Guy got all pissed off when we complimented him on his gorgeous boxer, because he had papers claiming it was a pit bull. If that dog was a pit bull, I’m Nancy Reagan. (Although I suppose it could have been a really badly deformed pit bull, in which case the guy got ripped off when he spent $250 on it.) Just last night we had some folks bring in a cat the adoption agency had claimed was only 3 years old. Based on physical exam, we put the age at more like 10, but they insisted that no, the cat was only 3.

People will believe damn near anything about pets, and shell out ridiculous amounts of money for the most preposterous claims. I call it the Arkansas Prank Hound effect, after the Patrick McManus story.

6

Now I have the tune “Muskrat Love” stuck in my head. Ew.

7

I’ll bet dollars to donuts that it was just a prank call. It’s not that difficult to set up a fairly elaborate prank call, even including the background noises. It might have even been the Crank Yankers people themselves. A friend of mine worked as a directory assistance operator for a while and actually got called by Crank Yankers. He didn’t respond in a funny enough manner, though, so they didn’t use his version of the call on the air. But when he saw the exact same call on the show he knew they’d called him. In case anyone’s curious, it was the one where someone called directory assistance looking for a number for Batman.

8

I had some geese that raped my best laying (no pun intended, here) chicken to death. The weird thing is that the geese were a male/female pair, and they would take turns nailing that poor chicken. Kinda like a Rick James party gone fowl. (pun intended this time)

As for the OP: I wager on crank. If you *didn’t * hear any wacky action in the background it would have been more realistic. You may very well have a puppet being made for you are we read this. :smiley:

Why is it that all lost dogs “need medication”?

9

Muskrat Abdul, Kitty Cat
Do the jitterbug
Out in the muskrat’s habitat
And she’s so forlorny
And Abdul’s so horny

And they whirled and they twirled and they tangoed
Singin’ and jinglin’ the jango
Floatin’ like a cloudlike shape
It looks like . . . muskrat rape . . .

10

Crank call. I wish I had the transcripts to the phonecall in question tho. It sounds hilarious, especially about the 7 year old having to help with the separation.

Too many details that dont add up. Things being a bit contribed. Gotta be a crank call. You shouldve told them to bring the animals in for a free treatment. It wouldve been worth that just to get a picture of it.

11

Well, actually, I wasn’t the one who took the call. I was the one staggering around the ICU and turning purple from my efforts not to fall to floor cackling like a hyena. I think it was the repeated “No, sir, the scruff…the loose skin…Sir, just grab the cat by the back of the neck” that got me. Or maybe the speculation I was doing while poor Cindy kept repeating, “No, just cold water…no, that wouldn’t be a good idea, just use water.”

Given some of the things people have asked me, I could pretty accurately predict most of the things he was suggesting.

The truly sad part of it all is that if it did happen, it still wouldn’t be the stupidest call we’d ever gotten.

12

Bravo, Eve!

13
      • After thinking about this a few hours, I’d bet it was a radio-show prank call. The DJ’s on the local station to a thing where they have background sounds and extras in the studio and all, and they call up places and have goofy emergencies. The last one I remember was they called the customer service number of the CraftMatic Adjustable Bed Company, and pretended to be an old guy trapped in a bed, as there’s grinding bed noises going on in the background.
        ~
14

Don’t keep us hanging here! What IS the stupidest call? :smiley:

15

Oh, probably the guy who wanted emergency treatment for his dog because there were all these little black-brown bugs crawling on it. Apparently, he’d never seen a flea before.

16

Muskrat rape - now there is something I’ve never tried!

17

Perhaps what he called an Egyptian muskrat was in fact a Gambian giant rat (which is found all over Africa and is not a rat, BTW), in which case if the story is true the caller and his son will soon come down with monkey pox.

Normal cat copulation behavior is for the female to signal that’s she’s had enough by viciously attacking the male. So if the caller didn’t indicate that the cat was trying to kill her paramore, I’d guess that the call was a prank.

As a person who spent some time answering the phone in the emergency department of a veterinary hospital, I can attest to large number of truely wacko calls.

I once was called by a person who thought her son’s turtle might be dead, but they weren’t sure and didn’t want to throw it out if it was just sleeping. I suggested that they try poking or pulling one of it’s legs to see if that got a response. The reply: “EEEEW, I’m not going to touch it, it might be dead.”
We finally agreed that they could use a board to carry it out into the woods. If they came back later and it had crawled away it was alive. If it was still there unmoved, chances were it was deceased.

18

Damn you, damy you to heck.
That piece of drivel has now been awakened in my self consious.

Grr, bite, sting…