When you have 12 dogs you are bound to run the gamut when it comes to illness and injury. Of course, this was not something I thought of as we adopted each of the dogs. I thought "I love him" or "no one else will love him" or medically they were such train wrecks that I knew no one else would adopt them. But I never thought too much about the increased odds of medical issues and heart ache. Kinda dumb in hind sight.So we have seen what I thought was - it all... ruptured hematoma leading to a splenectomy, a dangling lip from jumping through a window, various here-and-there tumors, strabismus (cross eyed), liver shunt, lymphoma, obstructions (once a twist tie and once a q-tip), broken toe, split tail, hypothyroid (two dogs), cuts, sprains, teeth pulled, and probably more that I am blocking from my memory.
But this past Sunday evening was a new one. Clarence was acting a little restless. He was panting and just could not get comfortable. I like to think that Tom and I are pretty hyper-aware of our dogs and their behavior. And we both knew this was not normal. Given that he has had two obstruction surgeries in the past (he's the one that ate the twist tie and the q-tip in addition to some unidentifiable plastic something or other) we thought he was at it again. It was 11pm the night before a holiday - let me pause to say, we have THE best vet EVER. While most folks have to head off to the after hours vet clinic, we can call the clinic, leave a message, and one of the vets will call back within five minutes. Long story short, he met us up at the office within 15 minutes. After xrays we found out that it was an obstruction, but not the kind we thought. He was constipated. Now, I am not going to go into the gory details, and believe me, there are a lot of details and poop talk is not pleasant. So let me just give you this - it was bad enough that he spent two nights and two days at the vet clinic being "evacuated". Lovely.
I feel sooooo sorry for him. I can only imagine that it was beyond unpleasant in addition to being in a strange place and not understanding why you are there. That's the thing with pets - you can't explain to them that this is for their own good and that you will be back to pick them up. It kills me wondering what they are thinking when I have to leave them there. And Clarence is my baby. I love him so much it hurts - I even have his little paw print tattooed on my foot so that he is always walking with me.But my sweet boy is home now. He is very tired and probably pretty disgusted with Tom and I. I am showering him with kisses and affection...Tom says he should have been counting how many times I have said Clarence or Clarbee tonight. Can you blame me? I am just so glad he's home.
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