Hank is asked to care for a soldier's pet cat, which proves to be a pain to dog-lover Hank.
Tropes:
- Bittersweet Ending: Due to wasting their vacation money on Duke, the Hills cannot afford a luxury vacation. Nevertheless, they are happy to have Duke out of their lives.
- Cats Are Mean: Duke is the living embodiment of this to the Hills. Hank even wonders if the reason why they got the cat in the first place is that his owner also got sick of him. Why Duke acts the way he does is never elaborated on and is simply handwaved away.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Tommy, the person selling VERY expensive up-to-date models of the Magnetic Ultrasonic Imager 9220 in both vet places Hank goes for Duke by passing around brochures of it, ends up helping Hank by giving him a brochure of the 9220. Hank uses it to blackmail Dr. Leslie into signing Duke's bill of health by letting his patients know he's ripping them off.
- The Ghost: Duke's owner Sgt. Hennessey is mentioned several times, but is never seen on camera.
- Honor Before Reason: Hank's dedication to take care of Duke in spite of Duke making him miserable is because that he made a promise to care for the cat since he is the pet of an American soldier and feels that it would go against his patriotism if he decides to give up taking care of Duke.
- Hypochondria: It's implied the main reason Dr. Leslie bleeds the Hills and his regular patients dry is because his regular patients are all hypochondriacs by proxy about their pets and they'd start going to other vets if he didn't have top notch equipment. So to avoid going bankrupt, he has to both buy expensive equipment and actually charge people for using it.
- Hypocrite: Dr. Leslie has no problem bleeding Hank dry in order to justify having state-of-the-art equipment he owns for pets but when faced with the prospect of being forced to buy the newest model of said equipment that can be used to help pets? He said that it doesn't justify spending ludicrous prices for it for the sake of it being 7% more accurate. You know, the same logic he uses to get Hank to pay up for Duke's unnecessary tests because there might be something wrong with Duke even with slight chances despite being okay.
- Irony: For a long time, Bill has been an unlucky loser while the Hills are well-off. In this episode, the Hills get unlucky for taking care of the pest cat Duke and Bill ends up being the happy one when he takes care of a soldier's well-behaved dog.
- Kindly Vet: The Hills' vet for Ladybird, Dr. Yandell, is this as he's more reasonable and honest on Duke's current state of health while showing his knowledge of cats to the inexperienced Hank. While he does praise Dr. Leslie for being a top-notch vet and one of the best in the area, he points that Dr. Leslie charges his patients extra just to make use of the advanced vet equipment he owns.
- Shockingly Expensive Bill: Hank ends up going through a series of these in taking care of Duke thanks to his misguided patriotism.
- Hank buys a bag of a high brand of cat food recommended by the local cat store from $17.00 to being extorted by Dr. Leslie to pay for a even higher brand of a bag of cat food for $57.00.
- After Duke gets his first treatment, Hank is forced to pay $574.00 for unnecessary tests such as the bone density and lactose intolerant tests which the salesperson Tommy points out they try to justify by having all the best equipment for vets available.
- If that wasn't enough despite Duke already showing fine health, Leslie tells Hank he needs to do another series of tests because Duke's blood count is SLIGHTLY higher. The estimate? Up to $3,000 which forces Hank to pay in traveler's checks. That was before Hank is told Duke needs to go through even more expensive tests.
- The Magnetic Ultrasonic Imager 9220 is said by Tommy to be 7 percent more accurate than the 9210 which Dr. Leslie owns and also expensive. However; the 9220 is SO expensive that not only no one made money off it due to only two being sold in America, even the brochures of it are also expensive to make. Dr. Leslie ends up being on the other end by Hank in order to get him to sign Duke's bill of health or he'll tell his other patients about not owning the latest 9220, which Dr. Leslie admits that owning the latest machine would bankrupt him. This finally gets him to sign for Duke's bill of health showing he's okay.
- Special Guest: Jason Bateman as Dr. Leslie.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Bill gets a ton of good fortune for taking care of a soldier's dog: he's extremely well-trained and in good health, gets him close to a beautiful woman and at the end of the episode when he returns the dog back to his owner, he gets to visit an aircraft carrier and fly back home in a fighter jet.
- Toilet Humor: One of the hilarious acts of misery Duke causes for the family is defecating in Hank's shoes. Thankfully for the audience, the feces aren't shown on-screen.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Peggy and Bobby repeatedly make it clear how pissed off they are at Hank ruining their vacation plans because of Duke.
