Pet Pal

The San Francisco Chronicle reader had a love problem: "General Custer is my twelve-year-old racing pigeon. I just bought a year-old hen. I have introduced them and they get along fine. I'd like to breed them. What do you think about the prospects?" Chronicle Columnist Frank E. Miller knew the answer to that one: "Custer might still be good for one last stand."

For a teen-aged boy whose horse, Cheyenne, bit him whenever his master's back was turned ("usually in the seat of the pants"), Miller's advice was equally direct: "Face Cheyenne." Nor was Miller buffaloed by the dilemma of the dog-doting husband whose spouse preferred cats. "We can't have two animals. Is there a way we can reach a compromise?" asked the reader. "Of course," Miller assured him. "Buy a cat."

Since the Chronicle introduced Mil ler to its readership 2 1/2 years ago, his column, "The Wonderful World of Animals," has spread to 34 other papers. It may be an unpalatable fact to those who do not find enough news in their newspapers, but this Ann Landers of the furry set now reaches a readership surpassing 5,000,000.

To his expanded practice, Veterinarian Miller, 39, brings a kennelside manner that is frequently more tolerant of the animals than of their keepers. Yet Miller's readers have responded by sending him 1,000 or more letters a month, covering a comprehensive range of problems. Miller is up to most of them. "I had a pet worm named Elmer and my little brother ate him up," wrote a youthful Lumbricus fancier. "Could Elmer still be alive?" Replied Miller: "I'm afraid Elmer passed on long ago." A woman reader wanted to know if her male canary, who spent narcissistic hours kissing himself in a mirror, needed a mate. Said Miller: "Give him the bird." But he was little comfort to the mother who wondered what to do about her son's turtle, which hadn't stirred in months and smelled funny. Miller's advice: "Burial."

What bothers him these days is the letter that, because of his syndication, arrives from some outlying paper a week or two late. "There is nothing more pathetic," says Miller, "than a letter dated ten days ago that reads: 'My eleven-year-old cocker spaniel shivered and wheezed all night. What can I do?' "

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