Don't Look in the Freezer

The Very Strange Life of a Veterinarian's Wife

Patti Eddington

• Publisher: She Writes Press
• eBook ISBN:
  9798896361312
• Year: 2026

For James Herriot fans and pet lovers, a modern-day, funny-yet-poignant memoir about what it is like to be the only person in a small family not employed in the veterinary profession.

Patti Eddington should have known when she married her veterinary student boyfriend that she would spend anniversary and birthday dinners not sitting at tables at fancy restaurants but kneeling under a surgery table in a cocktail dress, desperately trying to mop up a steady stream of blood and urine with cheap paper towels. She should have guessed that every knock at the door or ring of the phone would mean her husband would be torn away from the family for hours—sometimes returning deflated, sometimes smiling. But she could never have dreamed that her beautiful, curly-haired young daughter would one day bathe and sleep with an inflatable tick (until the day it was mysteriously punctured by a salad fork) or that she would go through her marriage of forty-five years opening every freezer door with caution.

Don’t Look in the Freezer is a humorous, poignant, loving look into the sometimes strange, mostly unglamorous, life of a veterinarian’s wife. Patti’s little family is not at all like that of famous veterinarian James Herriot’s—but is still absolutely filled with compassion and love for animals and the people who adore them.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Author’s Note (I don’t want to see the dog die, either)
• Preface
• 1. Of Goat Heads and Moving On
• 2. I Just Hope Someone Comes
• 3. The Making of a Veterinarian and His Wife
• 4. False Starts
• 5. The Great Mouse Roundups and Pigs in the Night
• 6. Dr. Moore’s “Office”
• 7. Of Course, These Things Can Always Turn Around
• 8. I See Lost Pets
• 9. Beware, Falling Cats
• 10. Don’t Look in the Freezer
• 11. Ornithophobia and Fenster the World’s Most Beautiful Duckling
• 12. The People Problem
• 13. Then There Are the Staff
• 14. Let’s Just Make Sure Nothing Bad Happens
• 15. Houndapalooza
• 16. Here’s Why Not
• 17. Mr. Cranky Pants and Company
• 18. Why Are You Playing with That Tick?
• 19. In the Event of a Zombie Apocalypse
• 20. Standing on the Corner, Watching All the Squirrels Float By
• 21. Doggie Talk
• 22. I Hate the Smell of Wet Cashmere and Other Small Tragedies
• 23. More Than Just a Building
• Epilogue
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Looking for your next great read?