Photo by Erda Estremera on Unsplash
THE VET
I wish the word VET meant Veteran around here but alas, it does not. If someone were a Veteran we would be looking at a nice reduction in medical marijuana and I’d be sharpening up my rolling skills.
Tragically, VET stands for veterinarian and we have met our share.
I can’t remember ever going to the Vet for an actual appointment. Maybe we had the odd one here and there over the years, but most of the time it involved a speeding car, screams of TURN LEFT HERE, some kind of animal in a carrier and towels, lots of towels.
When I was single, I had a Sheltie named Scooter who ate a huge pile of cooked rib bones to ensure I spent a full night at the downtown emergency clinic in a bad neighborhood while he digested these tasty bones under the watchful eye of a guy in a white lab coat. We got home just in time for me to go to work. Scooter slept the day away and I worked like a rented mule because I was now broke after paying the Vet the Regular Fee plus the Emergency Fee, plus the After Dark Fee, plus the Dumb-Ass Fee for letting my dog get at the bones in the first place.
We got Reggie, our parrot, in 1997 and Bruce had to rush him to the vet one day after work when Reggie broke his beak. Oh yes, he broke his beak. Bru got home in his full police uniform and let Reggie out of his cage. Reggie immediately grabbed onto the chandelier and then fell to the table, breaking off the end of his beak. It bled like a stuck pig. Bru picked him up, jumped into the truck and Reggie would not sit anywhere but on Bruce’s shoulder, bleeding.
When they arrived at the vet, I believe the staff thought Bru had been shot several times, they didn’t even notice Reggie and if I remember correctly STARS was practically airborne before the story came out. Maybe I exaggerate because I wasn’t there; I was still at work, but there was lots of blood and it was all over Bru’s police shirt but they did manage to put Reggie back together again.
So we have bones and a bloody beak along with other stuff I have forgotten, so naturally we got a wiener dog. Not too long after he was full grown he began to have troubles with his back end. Why can’t they just have a loose eye-lash or a runny nose? Not this one. The first time it happened, he was obviously in distress and oddly enough, it was a Sunday. So in I went, and the vet gleefully recited that dogs of this species have difficulties with their Anal Glands. What’s that now? Doesn’t “Anal” come from the Greek word meaning “toe”? Nope. The Doctor showed me how he expelled ‘stuff’ from the Anus area which was causing the discomfort. The dog looked a bit happier, I did not.
What kind of a sick world is this that makes a dog that has Anal Glands in the first place and then, stuffs them full of foul smelling stuff at which time the dog will become so uncomfortable he will actually lay at the back door where he knows the vehicle is parked that will take him to the Vet? AND, said stuff will top out to the maximum of uncomfortable on Thanksgiving Day, Sunday, Christmas Day, Sunday, Easter Sunday, Sunday but never, ever on a Wednesday morning or a Friday afternoon?
TJ, this little wiener dog with the timing of Evel Knievel’s Montana jump, may have retained one or two memories of his own on those forays, because forever after his first ordeal, he would visit the Vet for his check-up or a gland squeeze and as I was at the register paying, he would take a massive dump on the carpet in front of the counter.
This was no ordinary dump either. It was something he saved up, sometimes for months. I began to put together a theory that he had a second, larger intestine that he kept full, just for the Vet and it had no physical effect on his day to day comings and goings. Then, when we were ready to leave the office, he could conjure up this foul and hideous mixture that had been brewing in that extra intestine and leave it for them to clean up. Kind of his version of an instant Hallmark Thank You card – Scratch and Sniff version.
It never appeared at any other time than in front of the regal counter where we, as customers, were invited to pay and perhaps purchase additional items like insurance for thousands of dollars in case our pets got even sicker.
I eventually fixed his little wagon by holding him under my arm while I paid so he couldn’t get off that last steaming turd concoction and I know he was even madder when I carried him out, but this Vet was close to home and I wasn’t changing to a new Vet at this point, so something had to be done.
Things never altered with this little jackass. If even once I let down my guard and I left him on the floor while I paid, he let it all go and we had to hustle out of there, me speaking sternly in front of the other customers – BAD DOG, WAIT TILL I GET YOU BACK TO YOUR OWNER – WILL SHE EVER BE MAD TO HEAR WHAT YOU DID…
And finally, my absolute favorite vet visit was one day, years ago when we owned two parrots, Reggie and Zekey-D. In an unclear moment where I was likely mixing two brands of cold pills, I booked the two of them for full physicals back to back. This meant I was going to have to wrestle them both into carriers and get them into the car. Zekey would get into the carrier if you put a jelly-bean in there first. The secret was to snag the jelly-bean back from him just before the door closed so the Vet didn’t get wind of his eating habits. Then I would lightly spray them both down so they didn’t reek of the pizza they had the night before and we would be off.
This particular morning as I was getting the carriers ready, the rodeo got underway early. No one wanted to go, least of all me, and jelly-beans weren’t going to do it for Zekey-D. He clearly had other plans for the day and wasn’t going to be attending – apparently his RSVP had been clear; I just hadn’t opened the mail yet and was unaware.
As I placed the jelly-bean in his carrier and picked him up, he flew off (the vet clips his wings and he can’t fly, so I’ve been told). So he flew off and landed somewhere in the living room. I snagged him and brought him back to the carrier but he spread his wings wider than the door, so I pulled him back and he settled his wings. Back to the carrier door, wing spread of an albatross; Score: Human – zero Bird – two.
Just as I was looking around for something to use as either a straightjacket or a little tiny blindfold, the phone rang. It was the Vet’s office. She had been called away and we would have to re-schedule. They were very apologetic and I said I would phone them back and re-book.
Bru looked at me when I hung up, the carrier door open, Zekey-D flying away again, bright green feathers in my hair, Reggie sitting on his cage getting ready for his turn to refuse, jelly-beans all over the place and I said – THE GOVERNOR CALLED. My favorite vet visit of all time. The one where we didn’t go.
THE THIEF
This is now mid-2000 and we lived in Rocky Ridge in Calgary. We had Reggie and our wiener dog TJ. He was a short little guy, a thief and a liar and he wasn’t allowed on the furniture. As such, he was always up on the couch.
One night Bru and I were sitting in the living room watching TV. Bru was drinking a nice cup of coffee with cream and sugar, placing it on the little table between our Lazy-Boy chairs. I was sitting up at the kitchen counter where I could oversee the entire kingdom of Cole. TJ was sleeping on the couch.
Bru left the room for a minute and the second that he was out of sight, TJ awoke, stealthily made his way over to the Lazy-Boy by walking along the couch, over the couch arm and stepping gingerly onto the arm of the Lazy-Boy chair. He crossed the chair and stepped onto the little table.
He then proceeded to drink half of Bru’s coffee, and then made his way back to the couch like a greasy little snake, by the same route, and arrived where he started just seconds before Bru got back. He curled up in the same position and closed his eyes just as Bru came back into the room, completely unaware of the drama that had just taken place.
I watched Bruce walk back in and when I couldn’t take it anymore I yelled “STOP”. He froze and looked over at me like I was in need of more than my usual medications.
I started babbling because I still couldn’t believe it myself. I mean, we knew TJ was evil. No argument there. But this was pure genius. The crime, the timing, and even now, as I was ratting him out, he was pretending to be asleep. What an excellent dog!
Bru checked his coffee to confirm that, indeed, he had been robbed. TJ never opened his eyes, not once. He kept on sleeping and unfortunately, missed my salute.