Driving Miss Kitty--and All Your Other Household Pets
Easy come, easy go--or so Mooshu was learning on this sheer Los Angeles morning.
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The potbellied piglet had already accomplished the first half of that familiar equation. Now Mooshu was working on the easy-go part--a mere few days after arriving at her new and suddenly old home. And Steven May, chauffeur to the animal kingdom, was doing all he could to see that her going was easy.
” Pig pick up .”
Today May is in his pig-hauling best, which consists of a natty black bow-tie and work shirt embroidered with commercial poesy: “Pet Limo--We escort your pet to the vet.” The limo, actually a 1991 Chevy Astro van, is outfitted for Mooshu’s riding pleasure.
The floor is carpeted and littered with cartoony blankets and bestial company, albeit agreeably stuffed. An 8-inch color TV sits below a spray of silk flowers, a boomerang antenna pokes up from the roof and stereo speakers dip from the ceiling.
“The birds love rap,” says May, 33. “They just jam. They’re screamin’.”
This particular day called for squealing, however, and not all of it courtesy of Mooshu. Mooshu’s ephemeral mom had done her share when she handed over her porcine charge for the journey from Westwood back to the breeder in Thousand Oaks. The return trip was arranged because Mooshu had made an unscheduled rest stop on her owner’s $400 comforter.
“She could take the animal back herself, but it was hard for her to do that,” says May, who affectionately redubbed the porker Oinkerhead and Wigglebutt en route to Thousand Oaks. “This was more for her than it is for the pig.”
For eight years, May has escorted pets wherever their usually well-heeled owners bid them go--to airports, to the vet, even to weddings and drive-in movies. One client garbed a boxer in a wreath and dress with pink flowers, then had May deliver her to a Hotel Bel-Air wedding in high style. The dog preceded the bride down the aisle, and May promptly hauled her home.
“She didn’t get to stay for the reception,” he notes.
Another client who’d entrusted May with shuttling her two Dobermans from the kennel while she was out of town called from a plane to say she’d be late. Under the circumstances, she requested that May entertain them.
Literally.
“She told me one of their favorites things to do was to go to a drive-in theater. We saw ‘Double Impact.’ They were glued to the windshield. I felt like saying, ‘Should I go get some popcorn?’ ”
May has also been known to do some impromptu rescue work--rescuing owners, that is. One woman summoned him with the news that her Boston terriers were attacking her.
“I figured if she got to the phone, how bad could it be, right? So I get to the house, I look in the window and she’s on the ottoman. She was a little old lady, and there’s five of them out of control, frothing at the mouth, just jumping straight up.
“So I tapped on the window and they all came teeth first. Somehow I was able to jump the fence, open the side door, and I got them all out the side gate. They were like a tag team--one I’d catch, the other four would come and attack. So I nicknamed them the Boston Terrorists.”
Because the pack of males was unspeakably territorial, May advised his client that peace might be restored if she had them neutered. But even if talk is cheap, she wasn’t buying.
“So after six months, I get a call--same situation over again.”
May’s cargo has run the rarefied gamut of spider monkeys, lion cubs, alligators, cranes, flamingos, emus and deer. Some of his human clientele are equally exotic, among them Julia Roberts, Earvin (Magic) Johnson and the occasional blue blood.
As the sole human behind his Pet Limo operation, this is one pet hauler who never sleeps. May is on call seven days a week, even counseling bemused pet owners who occasionally beep him in the middle of the night. His weekday travel toll can average five to 10 trips (there are also Pet Limo franchises in West L.A. and Rancho Mirage).
The tab? From $34 for a quick one-way jaunt near his West Hollywood base to well over $600, the charge for a door-to-door escort from Studio City to Santa Barbara for one family’s personal zoo--three dogs, four cats and a parrot.
If that sounds pricey, his clients nonetheless reason that when it comes to pet schlepping , better May than they.
“The people don’t like it because they leave gifts on the back seat, and the pets don’t like it because they don’t understand why they’re getting car sick,” says May, whose own brood includes a Chihuahua, a hulking 18-pound Russian blue kitty and an African gray parrot. “Because you cut out all the elements that make them sick. You give them smooth driving and something to look at that’s stationary.”
May started the business after his earlier incarnation as an animal technician--the rough equivalent of a registered nurse. Some of those clients had trouble getting their pets to the vet, especially if the animals were too large or ill.
Voila .
“All the clients have this one general thing--they say, ‘I can’t believe they go with you where you wanna go.’ You just understand what makes them tick, what makes them scared. Traveling is scary for pets. Except for the ones who hop into cars to go to the park and they’re used to it, they can’t stand it. They’re either going to get a shot in the butt or a shampoo.”
Such sensitivity has won the hearts of Tarzan and Jane, the fussier two of law office administrator Donna Acosta’s four basset hounds. “There are probably only four people in this world they like, and Steven is among the four. The others are myself, my husband and their vet, and the jury’s still out on my father.”
He’s also won the hearts of his Homo sapien clients. “You can’t just leave your little babies with anybody,” says event promoter Mark Siegal, who leaves his progeny--Labradors Coco and Shelby--with May for biweekly baths.
So it shouldn’t be any great surprise that when Pet Limo pets pass away, May is invited to the eulogy. Or that eight pets could be headed in May’s direction permanently--their owners have willed them to May in case something happens to them.
“It hasn’t come up yet,” muses May, “but it’s very flattering when you think about it.”
