While any house pet can check in for treatment, most often Fluffy and Fido end up here after their friendly neighborhood vet--a UM alum, chances are--throws up her hands. That's because the University of Minnesota Veterinary Teaching Hospital specializes in caring for the truly infirm, the weirdly afflicted, and the so-stinky-no-one-but-you-loves-them. A bulletin board in the human-hospital-sized lobby bears testimony to the parade that has hissed and howled its way through the clinic: Dog amputees pose with the specially designed carts that replaced their haunches. Cats old enough to run for a seat in the U.S. Senate glower out from Polaroid portraits stapled to letters describing their diets in excruciating detail. Located on the university's St. Paul campus, the clinic offers an astonishing array of cutting-edge veterinary services, 24-hour emergency treatment, a pharmacy, and a host of clinical research trials that might mean Miss Kitty can get care for free.