Ever since Frances turned on the stove while I was gone and nearly burned the house down, I’ve removed the knobs when I’m finished cooking. Last night, I dropped a knob, and it rolled under a shelf. I left it, thinking Thomas wouldn’t be able to reach it, and I’d look for it today.
I was wrong. I came home to find the knob on the couch, full of teeth marks. Thomas found it and made some art. And of course, he’s totally unrepentant.
Thomas was ready to go to bed before I was. That never happens. And now he’s snoring away.
On the one hand, I was trapped under the dog. On the other hand, this happened.
Thomas went to a new vet today. He was urinating every 15-30 minutes yesterday evening, so I called my vet. The earliest appointment they had available was Monday. They would take him as an emergency between 8-5 today, but that would cost an extra $80, on top of the $38 office call fee.
Um, no. I’m still a little bit angry about the receptionist offering an appointment FIVE DAYS LATER, for a suspected UTI. A UTI is not an emergency, but it’s an urgent care issue, and if an owner doesn’t understand that, the receptionist should explain it to them.
I’m also annoyed that my vet–a practice I’ve been going to for ten years, is no longer able to provide urgent, non-emergency care. That’s unacceptable to me. I’m not asking them to drop everything to examine my dog, but they shouldn’t be so booked up that they can’t fit in urgent care cases. And they should have office staff who can triage those appointments, putting the non-urgent ones farther off and leaving a few slots open for more pressing problems.
So, I called another practice, and they were able to get Thomas in as a new patient this morning. They also had a couple of new client discounts that brought the bill down to $57. It would have otherwise been $87, which would have still been very reasonable!
You know how this story ends, right? After being stressed out about Thomas and pissed off at the old vet practice yesterday, I got no sleep last night. And of course, Thomas was back to peeing normally today. His urine looked normal under the microscope and everything else looked great. They did a needle urine draw, so they had a sterile sample to culture. Results of that should be back Monday, but I expect they’ll be negative.
All that angst and drama for nothing!
I usually get dog baggies at Target (120 for US$6.99). I was out of them and had stopped at Petco for something else, so I looked at their prices. Wow! Not good. But I needed baggies, so I thought I’d test the “baby powder” scented ones (120 for US $9.99).
And then I stopped at Dollar Tree for cleaning supplies. They not only had dog baggies (80 for US$1.00), but also boxes of 75 diaper disposal baggies for a dollar. I bought some of both to try, because the price was right.
It never occurred to me to look for dog baggies at the dollar store. The Dollar Tree baggies are thinner, but they should work fine. Plus they’re black, so hopefully they arent so gross looking when full.
I got the cats and Thomas some new toys. He and Piglet knew the bag on my work table was full of goodies for them, and they sat and stared holes in it.
Thomas got a Tuffy shark like the one Frances had, only in orange, to match him. He loves it. If you have a dog who destroys stuffies, it’s worth investing in a couple of Tuffy toys. They won’t last forever, but you’ll get your money’s worth out of them.
I also got a package of BilJac treats, for training. I especially wanted something high value to trade for things that Thomas steals and plays keep-away with. Whoever taught him that game needs to be smacked. I’d been trading some kind of crunchy salmon treats, but Thomas wasn’t overly impressed. After a couple pieces of BilJac, he was bringing me everything he could find: socks, used dryer sheets, junk mail, etc. Success! He may still think that keep-away is fun, but he has the idea now that trading up is also pretty awesome.
Thomas has refused to get in his crate. I haven’t forced the issue, because I wanted to try to wait until he decided to test drive it himself. It took him two months, but today was the day. I heard a noise from that direction and thought it was Polly. She uses the crate as her fortress of solitude. But no, it was Thomas!
Now that he’s taken the first step, I’ve been randomly asking him to “crate” and giving him yummy treats when he does. He’s still doubtful, but he’s being a good sport about humoring me and my silly whims.
So today was a good day. Hopefully we won’t have a repeat of this:
If you have junk mail you want shredded, I know a dog, and I hear his rates are pretty reasonable. I will happily hook you up!
I trimmed Thomas’ nail today. Just the one. And now he’s judging the hell out of me.
Just wait until tomorrow, when he finds out I’m going to trim another one. And another one, and another one, and another one.
I like to think that Thomas ate my cable bill as an act of political protest against our corporate overlords.
Left to right: Harriet the Boxer, Frances the Boxer x Pit Bull, and Thomas the Boxer x Klingon
I got into a bizarre discussion on Facebook with a former animal shelter ACO who believes that folks who live in apartments should not own dogs. She thinks that a fenced yard should be required, and that lack of one is dog abuse. (And weirder, she feels that it’s also abusive to have children in apartments.)
Can you just imagine if the millions and millions of city dwellers in the world no longer had dogs (or children)? We would have to kill even more dogs than we already kill, and for what? The lack of a mythical “perfect” home? That’s kind of monstrous.
So here are the three dogs I’ve had while living in my current apartment. I don’t think they look miserable. Sure, in a perfect world, we’d all have acres of flowered fields and enchanted forests to play in, but that isn’t the world most people inhabit, and that’s okay. Dogs are incredibly adaptable, and lucky for everyone, they mostly just want a chance to play, to go for walks, and to hang out with their people.
red paper boat 