We all have things we have to contend with in life. Luckily, however, a 360-pound constipated lioness is not one of them.
 So where does one of Vegas’ “top cats” go when she’s too pooped to pop?
To the office (yes, we said to the office) of Dr. Randy Ceballos, who operates his own clinic, the Sunridge Animal Hospital in Henderson on Eastern Avenue, about 15 minutes from the Las Vegas Strip. While this fearless doctor (who possesses great intestinal fortitude, we might add) usually makes house calls, every once in a while, a gal expresses the need to get up and go. And when a woman (or a guy) roars, Dr. Ceballos listens.
 In reality, Ceballos is one of Las Vegas’ coolest cats himself. While his medical establishment generally treats ordinary-sized dogs, cats, reptiles and live exotics (hamsters, gerbils, turtles, ferrets, rabbits, and other pocket pets), he also is the vet for the big cats, or exotics as they are termed, owned by illusionists Dirk Arthur (currently performing at the Tropicana) and Rick Thomas as well as for the MGM Grand lions owned by Keith Evans on display at the hotel’s Lion Habitat. Ceballos also takes care of all the animals at the Las Vegas Zoo as well as the various species in the aquarium at the Silverton and exotic breeds owned by private individuals.
“It’s thrilling to work with these animals,” says Ceballos. “I feel very privileged. I have actually been working with Dirk’s cats for five years now. He and the others found me through Dr. Gary Weddel, who was the top exotics vet here. When he retired, he gave me all his good clients. He has been and still is my exotics mentor.”
“Where the cats are concerned, while physiology is physiology and anatomy is anatomy -- although medication, administration and blood values vary between the species -- there are also behavioral differences between them,” he continues. “But cats are built for survival. They also have an incredibly high pain threshold and will often mask illness and pain. Tigers are the easiest to work with; they are friendlier and more trusting. Lions are more dominant, especially the males, and are harder to work with. They really recognize the vet and act accordingly -- they can smell me. Leopards are fast and unpredictable. You have to know their behaviors so that you don’t get hurt. My safety is always first.”
The fact aside that the animals are under anesthesia when he is administering medical care to them, Ceballos notes that he is pretty fearless although he holds these highly intelligent animals in high regard. Before tending to one of the big cats, he always watches it first, observing its eyes, face and reactions. Because it offers a lot of body language, he can easily tell if it is scared, aggressive, in pain, affectionate or defensive. An upset cat will have dilated eyes, a puffed-up coat and may be hissing or stand-offish, for example.
“These cats have emotions,” he states. “They like attention, they like to cuddle, they like to be scratched and petted under the chin and behind the ears. They’re playful and will roll on their backs. Conversely, they also experience the negative end of the emotional spectrum.”
Key to Ceballos is giving the animal a chance to know him. He’ll put his curled hand up to the bars and let the cat smell the back of it while gently talking baby talk to it and letting it get used to his presence. He says that it is important for him to remain in a position of dominance, never getting eye-to-eye with the cat or letting it stand up and be taller than he is. He will hide the jab stick containing the anesthesia alongside him and while its owner or handler is also talking to the cat, he’ll sneak a shot into the cat’s rump. He may also use a blow dart. The amount of anesthesia given is calculated by the animal’s weight but once it is under, Ceballos tests the level of anesthesia before administering to the cat.
“The thing you always have to keep in mind, as a doctor does with humans, is ‘first do no harm,’” Ceballos explains. “For example, if a cat is limping or if there is a lump somewhere on its body, I’ll give it antibiotics or other pills before I knock it down and put it through surgery. In the wild, a lot of these things work themselves out – injuries heal and benign cysts or abscesses will break -- and so it is the same here.”
Ceballos says that though they can live 20 years or longer as can domestic cats, exotics suffer from the same diseases as their smaller relatives. Just a few of the myriad of ailments he has treated range from tooth abscesses and extractions to constipation, diabetes, tumor removal, spaying and neutering, nutritional issues, removing a cancerous eye and treating bone marrow cancer.
“One of the most difficult procedures is extracting canine teeth,” he relates. “It takes forever to get the tooth out – at least an hour or an hour and a half – because it is imbedded halfway into the cat’s skull. I use normal bone instruments, such as osteotones and dental elevators. I also recently did my first vasectomy on a lion. That was also tricky because the key is not to destroy the blood supply, If you do, the animal’s mane will fall off and its testicles, which house its hormone supply, will die.”
Despite his love for all animals, Ceballos admits that he is a “reptile freak.” It began when he was in college and couldn’t have dogs or cats in his apartment. So he had snakes, tortoises, fish, frogs and anything that could live in a cage. Today at his home, he has four tortoises (two are 75-pound Salcattas), four dogs, two cats, one four-foot-long King snake, a Molluccan cockatoo and fish.
“At the Silverton aquarium, I’ve sutured up a 30-pound puffer fish that somehow got injured, taken a polyp off the nose of a stingray, and diagnosed another puffer fish with cancer,” Ceballos acknowledges. “I recently re-attached a clasper, which is an accessory thing on the male, on a three-foot-long Tiger shark. The Silverton staff really knows what they’re doing -- they teach me. I work on the fish by using a big rubber net and putting them in anesthetic water. You can tell a sick fish by its movements or the fact that it may be secluding itself or not eating or there is a haze over its eyes.”
The latter may be one of those “fish” stories but, to all creatures great and small, Ceballos is simply the cat’s meow.
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ADDITIONAL
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BY
BOBBIE KATZ
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Letting the Cat Out of the Bag
