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  Praise for Enslaved by Ducks

  “All of us who feel a deep emotional connection with animals will respond to this book. As Bob Tarte realizes, there is no drug or therapy as effective as an animal who loves you.”

  —Jeffrey Masson, author of When Elephants Weep

  “A beautiful, honest, hilarious, and touching book about the subtle and blatant ways animal companions take over our lives. It’s impossible to read Enslaved by Ducks and not fall just a little in love with Bob Tarte, his charming, heroic wife, Linda, and their menagerie.”

  —Jana Murphy, author of The Secret Lives of Dogs

  “As the adoring owner or former owner of dogs, cats, parrots, rabbits, and six hundred gallons of saltwater fish, I was utterly delighted with Enslaved by Ducks. Bob Tarte profoundly understands and brilliantly articulates the extraordinary connections between humans and animals.”

  —Robert Olen Butler

  “If you thought one backyard duck was much like another, wait till you meet the tiny, indomitable Peggy, who laid down her life to save her fellow ducks. What May Sarton did for cats in The Fur Person, Bob Tarte does for ducks. And destructive parrots and fierce rabbits and a talking baby starling and a whole house and yard full of demanding oddballs that, by comparison, will make you feel better about your own domestic life.”

  —Barbara Holland, author of They Went Whistling

  “I started to read a page and ended up reading the book! … As Bob Tarte shows, with animal after animal, it’s not enough in the end to provide just the basics of food, water, and shelter; you have to love them like family. And he’s right: if you are an animal lover, your bond with animals goes far deeper than just companionship. It really is a way of life.”

  —Marty Becker, D.V.M., Good Morning America

  “In his hilarious debut, Tarte—a city boy at heart—chronicles how his blissful, animal-free life took an unexpectedly raucous turn when his nature-loving wife decided to share their spacious, early-twentieth-century Michigan farmhouse with a menagerie of furry and feathery friends: a malicious bunny with an appetite for live wires, a homicidal turkey, a horny ring-necked dove, a trash-talking African grey parrot, and more than a dozen other quirky creatures. Though each new animal is wackier and more demanding than the last, Tarte rebels against his urban instincts and learns to love his personal zoo. After reading this delightfully punchy account, you may never look at Fido the same way again.”

  —Entertainment Weekly

  “Hilarious and poignant … not just for animal lovers, but for all who have loved another living thing.”

  —The Charlotte Observer

  “The wholly disarming story of a music reviewer’s move to the country, where he gradually, inexorably gathered about him a ragtag band of animals…. His furred and feathered companions took Tarte out of himself, gave him a satisfying flinch of pleasure, taught him to live within chaos, introduced him to the strange ceremonies of animal care. As well, they pulled his chain, broke his trust, ate up his time and patience, showed him a thing or two about violence, and died on him. His chronicle of those processes ties them all neatly together, and it sounds like love. ‘Why didn’t anyone warn me?’ Tarte asks about the consequences of sharing a home with animals. It’s a good thing they didn’t, or we might not have had this affecting debut.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “This rich and funny personal account of Bob Tarte’s noticeably never-ending (and largely inadvertent) acquisition of pets will warm your heart…. For anyone who has ever opened heart and home to an animal or experienced the love-hate relationship of being owned by pets.”

  —The Dallas Morning News

  “With dead-on character portraits, Tarte keeps readers laughing about unreliable pet store proprietors, a duck named Hector who doesn’t like water, an amorous dove named Howard, a foster-mother goose, patient veterinarians and increasingly bewildered friends. Tarte has an ordinary-Joe voice that makes each chapter a true pleasure, while revealing a sophisticated vision of animals and their relationship to humans.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Here’s a challenge: Try reading Bob Tarte’s Enslaved by Ducks without laughing out loud over and over. Even if you’re not a pet person, it simply can’t be done.”

  —Sanford Herald

  “Bob Tarte’s deprecating humor, honesty, sarcasm and fine style will keep you turning pages as you fall in love with the animal family he and his wife, Linda, have adopted. You’ll be thankful Tarte endured the domestic chaos that comes with being owned by a multitude of pets.”

  —Grand Rapids Press

  “Hilarious…. Part Gerald Durrell and part Bill Bryson, this heartwarming book will find many readers among Rascal and That Quail, Robert devotees.”

  —Booklist

  “A book that will be enjoyed by pet owners, animal lovers, and anybody who knows what it’s like to have room for more than one critter in his heart.”

  —Council Bluffs (Iowa) Daily Nonpareil

  “Highly recommended for those who appreciate the value of good humor and a positive outlook on life.”

  —Library Journal

  ENSLAVED BY DUCKS

  by BOB TARTE

  Published by

  ALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL

  Post Office Box 2225

  Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225

  a division of

  Workman Publishing

  225 Varick Street

  New York, New York 10014

  © 2003 by Bob Tarte. All rights reserved.

  First paperback edition, October 2004.

  Originally published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill in 2003.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  Published simultaneously in Canada by Thomas Allen & Son Limited.

  Design by Anne Winslow.

  While the people, places, and events described in the following pages are real, location and human names have been changed for the sake of privacy.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Tarte, Bob.

  Enslaved by ducks / by Bob Tarte.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-56512-351-9 (HC)

  1. Pets—Michigan—Lowell—Anecdotes. 2. Animals—Michigan—

  Lowell—Anecdotes. 3. Human-animal relationships—Michigan—

  Lowell—Anecdotes 4. Tarte, Bob. I. Title.

  SF416.T37 2003

  636.088’7’0977455—dc22 2003057756

  ISBN-13: 978-1-56512-450-9 (PB)

  10 9

  To my wonderful wife, Linda, who somehow keeps the chaos at bay.

  Contents

  Cast of Characters

  Introduction

  Chapter 1: Belligerent Binky

  Chapter 2: Ollie Takes Over

  Chapter 3: Stanley Sue’s Identity Crisis

  Chapter 4: Howard the Clumsy Romeo

  Chapter 5: The Real Trouble Begins

  Chapter 6: A Wild Duck Chase

  Chapter 7: Raccoon Rustlers

  Chapter 8: Enslaved by Ducks

  Chapter 9: Creatures of Habit

  Chapter 10: Let’s Talk Turkey

  Chapter 11: Who Cooks for You?

  Chapter 12: Comings and Goings

  Chapter 13: Hazel Eyes

  Chapter 14: Weaver in the Weeds

  Chapter 15: The Parrot Who Hated Me

  Acknowledgments and Culpability

  Cast of Characters

  (Listed more or less in order of appearance and by type)

  INDOOR ANIMALS

  Bunnies

  Binky: stubborn dwarf Dutch troublemaker

  Bertha: feral Netherland dwarf, captured in suburbia

  Bertie: Netherland dwarf, brother to
Rollo

  Rollo: Netherland dwarf, brother to Bertie

  Walter: large-headed Checker Giant, rescued from barn

  Parrots

  Ollie: ill-tempered brotogeris “pocket parrot”

  Stanley Sue: gender-switching African grey Timneh

  Dusty: chatty, author-biting Congo African grey

  Other Birds

  Howard: amorous ring-neck dove

  Chester: non-hand-tamed canary

  Elliott: feisty canary, successor to Chester

  Farley: parakeet senior citizen

  Rossy: Ollie’s female parakeet suitor

  Reggie: Howard’s male parakeet suitor

  Sophie: demure female parakeet

  Tillie: visiting dove

  Weaver: special guest starling

  Cats

  Penny: grey reclusive female, intended as Binky’s friend

  Agnes: bold outdoorswoman, discovered under bird feeder

  OUTDOOR ANIMALS

  Ducks

  Daphne: Muscovy from auto-parts parking lot

  Phoebe: black-and-white Cayuga, smitten by wanderlust

  Martha: Blue Swede with ear-splitting voice

  Peggy: heroic call duck, protector of Chloe

  Chloe: mallard who learned to limp

  Blabby and Wing Ding: “smelly” call-duck delinquents

  Stewart: Khaki Campbell, brother to Trevor

  Trevor: Khaki Campbell, brother to Stewart

  Marybelle, Clara, and Gwelda: unexpected mixed-duck offspring

  Hector: cantankerous, shoulder-sitting Muscovy

  Richie: Richmond Pond foundling

  Timmy: unexpected son of Richie

  Geese

  Liza: lap-sitting African goose, sister to Hailey

  Hailey: slightly less-friendly goose, sister to Liza

  Turkeys

  Hazel: victim of sneak attack

  Lizzie: presumed perpetrator of sneak attack

  And two that remain nameless

  ORDINARY HUMANS

  Bob Tarte: put-upon author

  Linda Tarte: long-suffering wife to unfortunate author

  Joan Smith: sister to victimized author

  Rupert Murdoch: nonbillionaire duck breeder

  Jacob Lestermeyer: operator of petting zoo/meat market

  LuAnne Grady: owner of indoor orphan Green-Winged Teal

  Bill Holm: mocking yuppie friend of pathetic author

  Marge and George Chedrick: DNR-affiliated animal rehabbers

  LETTERED HUMANS

  Alanson Benedict, DVM: “So you’ve been bad-mouthing our practice.”

  Katherine Stallings, DVM: prescriber of questionable ointments

  Michael Hedley, DVM: amiable zoo-consultant genius

  Alice Colby, DVM: doesn’t do turkeys

  Owen Fuller, DVM: avian expert extraordinaire

  John Carlotti, DVM: made Howard a collar

  Carl Glaser, MD: “Do you hear voices?”

  Jerold Rick, MD: heartless hippie shrink

  Introduction

  I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN I was doomed to write a book about our animals. Since they had taken over just about everything else in my life, it was only a matter of time before they commandeered my word processor, too. This began to seem inevitable when I was working on a music column for The Beat magazine about a vocal group from Sardinia, and my editor CC Smith asked me, “Are there any animals in it?”

  “No, of course not,” I protested.

  “No parrots or rabbits?”

  “Not even a sardine.”

  “Well, that’s a first. Every column this year has had a goose in it or something.”

  “Not this one,” I answered defensively, though I had very nearly written about a goose, but a pang of conscience had stopped me.

  Though not quite as frequently as my editor had claimed, animal anecdotes had steadily gnawed their way into my music column over the years. I never could figure out why she allowed them to inhabit a magazine devoted to reggae and international music. I suppose they added texture to The Beat, like sand clinging to a strawberry. And they certainly made the other writers look even more expert by comparison.

  I had started contributing to The Beat back in 1989, when record stores still sold records. When I bought my first CD player, I was seized by a rare fit of extroversion and penned a letter to the magazine suggesting that someone cover the scant few reggae, African-music, and world-music albums then available on CD. My letterhead made the bold claim that I was a writer. I had little experience with magazines, except for an article on strange coincidences involving clowns and the number 22 that I had written several years earlier with a friend for a British paranormal magazine. But CC liked what I had sent her and christened my CD-review column “Technobeat,” never suspecting that this would one day become the name for a type of computer-generated dance music—and never dreaming that I would one day hand in a story about chasing runaway ducks.

  My main difficulty with my new column was a profound ignorance of the international music I was supposed to be an authority on. But I figured that as long as I concentrated on obscure genres like Tuvan throat-singing or Finnish Karelian runo songs, most readers of The Beat probably wouldn’t catch on that I didn’t know any more than they did. To help discourage informed readers who might expose me, I began leading off my column with an obfuscating essay on a nonmusical subject—typically one that presented me in an unflattering light. A ready subject was my jarring change of address to a rural setting after thirty-eight years of urban life.

  One column described how, just after I had moved from an apartment in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan, to a one-hundred-year-old farmhouse, I was tortured by a sign outside GoFer’s restaurant up the road that apparently proclaimed CONGRATULATIONS BOB TARTE. This troubled me. Who knew I had bought a house? Who should care? When I pulled into GoFer’s parking lot to get a closer look, I discovered that the sign actually read, CONGRATULATIONS BOB & TATE. But why the strange confluence of names the week of my arrival? What person is first-named Tate? And why was fate snickering at me?

  I wrote about my wife, Linda, our vacations to oddball places like Wawa, Ontario, and, increasingly, the animals that started invading our lives. The topic of pets became hard to avoid. One evening I was reviewing a CD by Foday Musa Suso, a musician from Senegal playing the West African kora harp. Our rabbit, Binky, had been roaming the living room in search of electrical cords to chew when I fired up the stereo, and the plucked strings of the kora unnerved him. He hid behind an overstuffed chair, loudly thumping a hind foot against the floor until I finally turned off the CD.

  Subsequent animals cut deeper into my listening hours. Noisy parrots—who were themselves inexplicably sensitive to noise—protested if I played music in the evening while they were soaking up their beauty sleep. Animal concerns eventually restricted daytime listening, too. I needed to keep my ears open for signs of mischief from woodwork-destroying parakeets, or for quacks of distress from an outdoor duck that had fallen afoul of its flock.

  I still loved music as much as ever, but it no longer played the same role in my life that it had in the days before I had reluctantly begun accumulating pets. Back when I was still an apartment dweller, if I found myself unavoidably thrown into a social setting with a stranger, I would quickly worm my musical tastes into the conversation.

  “We just built a new deck onto our house,” a fellow might brag.

  “Oh, where do you live?”

  “On Bali High Boulevard.”

  “No kidding!” I’d marvel. “Speaking of Bali, are you a fan of Balinese gamelan music? I just got a really good album of small-ensemble shadow-puppet music.”

  The relentless onslaught of animals changed all that. The quick dart of a question, “Do you have any pets?” usually led to camaraderie rather than strained silence. Most people owned a dog or cat whose bad habits they were eager to discuss. If the stranger was a harried bird or bunny owner, I immediately considered that person a
friend. And if an eye-rolling remark about parrots followed, I would add the friend to my will.

  But this newfound love of animals perplexed me. If I had grown up swooning over animals, I could better understand my devotion to them. I was as diffident about my boyhood beagle, Muffin, as she was about the family. She wouldn’t endure petting unless a snack was somehow involved. I used to tease her using two of the phrases she knew best, “Go for a ride in the car,” which never failed to elicit great excitement, and “Get a bath,” which sent her scuttling to her hiding place behind the dining room door. “Muffin,” I’d address her brightly, “Go for a ride in the bath?” Her change in demeanor from happiness to confusion delighted me, as did talking to her through the vacuum cleaner hose or calling her over a speaker that carried my voice into the kitchen while I hid in the closet with a microphone.

  Oh, those were the days. Now it’s our pets that confuse, control, and tease us.

  This morning Linda’s large African grey parrot, Dusty, blocked my path to the bathroom by squaring off on the linoleum and threatening to chomp my toes. Other times, aiming for a coffee refill, I’ve been forced to stay out of the kitchen rather than suffer the consequences of a starling drilling his beak into my scalp. At least our ducks and geese live in backyard pens, though trudging outside to fill their plastic swimming pools involves a trip through the basement, where two convalescing turkeys yip pathetically if I don’t coo and hand-feed them grain.

  Pound for pound, these animals don’t add up to much. Dog fanciers with a couple of Rottweilers trump us in terms of sheer biomass. But, when it comes to sheer insistence, even the largest, most unruly dogs—or, for that matter, your average herd of cattle—are no match for our ducks, geese, parrots, parakeets, turkeys, cats, rabbits, and other birds.

  And over time, I have found myself thinking of them less as “animals” and more as beings, as little packets of alien intelligence. People who hunt for sport probably never consider the deer or turkey they’re about to blast to smithereens as a unique individual. But pat the hunter’s hound on the head, idly suggest that one of these days you’d like to bag a dog with a .22, and expect a heated discussion. Viewed from an emotional distance, animals do tend to blend together into an undifferentiated mass, like a crowd of spectators at a football game. Yet even a common-as-mud pet like a parakeet will reveal a vivid personality if you pay close attention. When I was a kid, we kept a parakeet in a cage by itself, tucked away in a corner of our dining room. I regarded it as the essence of dullness. But our three parakeets are radiant souls. Sophie is shy and ladylike. Reggie is mischievous and a copycat. He will flutter to my shoulder only after Rossy has already landed there to nibble on my neck.