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Prime Times Weekly publication of the Mail Tribune , Medford, Oregon 63-year-old veterinarian Leon Cruise shows his intense love for cats by taking his 'healing art' to the homes of his sick patients a feline friend By COURTLAND MILLOY The Washington Post WASHINGTON -- At the sight of Leon J. Cruise, who had arrived at my house recently carrying his black medical bag, the cat he'd come to treat had tried to bolt from my arms. Seeing me wince as the critter's claws dug into my skin, Cruise said softly, "Why don't you just put her into a room by herself until she relaxes?" So, into the bathroom went the cat: a high-strung, 6-month-old calico. Cruise, a cat doctor who makes house calls, followed her. "I just happen to be very partial to cats," explained Cruise, 63. "Nothing against dogs. It's just that there is something about my personality and the personality of the cat that comes together and gives me great pleasure." In other words, he can be as picky as the pets he is partial to. "I prefer the word `companion,' " he told me. I heard him actually talking to the cat behind closed doors in the bathroom. "Hi, sweetheart," he said. "Shhhhhh, girl. There now." It was like a feline version of a horse whisperer. When he finally opened the bathroom door, he was holding a cat that looked like it had been hit with a shot of morphine. In a city of big dogs -- pit bulls, Rottweilers and the occasional Great Dane -- finding someone who could truly understand a cat was rare. I certainly couldn't figure it out. Snickers, as my feline is called, was a gift from a beautiful family who had to give her up because of the allergic reaction of a child who has asthma. Once a pretty kitty, she now is a cat. Nutty as a fruitcake, she flys through the house at night as if on the chase. (It's usually just her tail.) Some have said that the best job for a cat, absent chasing mice, is to serve as something of a whiskered canary in the urban household coal mine. If an otherwise-healthy cat is acting loony, for example, could it be a sign of, say, radon in the basement? Or maybe the cat ate lead-based paint chips from a yet-undiscovered nook? Cruise ruled out radon, but could not say immediately if the cat had other reasons for acting weird. "Cats often take on the personality of their owner," he ventured -- unscientifically, of course. Cruise was born in Baltimore. He attended Morgan State University, where he joined the Army ROTC and majored in chemistry. A commissioned officer upon his graduation, he was sent to Fort Benning, Ga., where he served two years as a paratrooper. At Fort Benning, he visited the famous Tuskegee Institute, about 40 miles away. And he liked what he saw. "At the time, the state of Maryland had an agreement with the states of Georgia and Alabama," Cruise recalled. "Because Maryland had no schools of veterinary medicine, any white student who wanted to become a veterinarian could receive a stipend to attend the University of Georgia while any black student could receive the money to attend Tuskegee." After graduating from Tuskegee's School of Veterinary Medicine in 1964, Cruise started a practice in Framingham, Mass. He later sold it and went back to school, earning a master's degree in gross anatomy from the University of Missouri and a doctorate in neuroanatomy from Howard University's College of Medicine. "As I got older, I was able to do exactly what I wanted, which was to make house calls on cats," he said. In 1980, he opened Exclusively Cats in Washington. "Cats are not like dogs in that they are not so dependent," said Cruise, who has two cats of his own: a Russian blue and a long-haired domestic. "They give the impression that they can take you or leave you, and I happen to like that." With his assistant, Thomas Hilliard, Cruise goes into homes throughout the Washington area. "I've been into the most elegant homes and some of the poorest, but the common denominator among all of the people is their relationship with the cat," Cruise said. "It is the same: very close and with a great deal of compassion. No matter how much or how little money they have, they will do everything they can for their companion." Cruise treats felines with all manner of ailments, especially cats that have become too fat and those that have fallen from some apartment ledge. The geriatric cat also is a challenge, said Cruise, who sometimes is called to a home to euthanize a sick or aged cat while the animal is being held in the owner's arms. But Cruise also expertly performs the "healing art," applying that calming touch to cat and owner alike. Snickers certainly had fallen under his spell, at least until Cruise left the house. "In my black bag are the medicines that make up the science of what I do," he explained. "But the `healing art' is about showing compassion, patience and respect for the feelings of others. With science, you connect with the problem. But the art part is concerned with the patient." As he talked and examined my cat, the television set in another room was broadcasting impeachment proceedings. The contrast was striking -- tenderness and healing on one hand, rancor and acrimony on the other. It made me long for a political equivalent to a man like Cruise who perhaps could make a house call on Congress. But, alas, those cats were on their own. Prime Times front page Mail Tribune front page Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1998, Medford, Oregon USA