My Night At The Emergency Vet Clinic

By the time I got home, I was too tired and too stressed emotionally to write, but we had some dachshund drama here last night.

Rudy and Bosco were outside playing, and I went to let them in to feed them dinner. The girls were already in the house. Rudy had a blob of something on his back...looked like Bosco slobber which would not be out of the ordinary at all...so I went to wipe him off and realized it was blood. I don't do blood and guts. I don't do it more when it is coming out of someone I love and care for. Fortunately, nothing was actively bleeding, or it would have been more exciting than it was. But Rudy had a gash on his back that looked to be about 1-2 inches long and about a half inch wide when the skin was stretched. That was it for me. I do not want to see insides of anything, and most especially not my dog. Of course I was already in my jammies, planning to stitch all night. Of course when I got out of the shower, I just pinned my hair back because no one was going to see me; I was going to sit home and stitch. So I threw on a sweatshirt and some jeans and pulled my hair back in a headband and grabbed Rudy and we headed to the emergency vet. I had been on the phone with my friend Cathy when I discovered that spit was really blood and I called her back on the way to explain my "OMG-that's-blood-I-have-to-let-you-go-Cathy-bye" comment as I slammed my phone shut. The whole time I was driving to the vet ER I kept wondering if I was over-reacting, because I get freaked out over something being wrong with my dogs and I follow the better safe than sorry rule. They probably have gone to the vet for things that ordinary normal people would not take a dog to the vet for more than once. Anyway. So we get to the vet, and give them the story and they weigh him. He weighed 27.5 lbs. That scale better be wrong. No way has he eaten 5 lbs of treats trying to teach him to come here and to not pee in the house. I have not gotten 5 lbs of results, that's for sure. So they vet comes in a checks him out and goes to have them figure an estimate for me so I can decide what I want to do. What the hell does that mean? I want you to fix my dog, that's what I want to do. So just about the time that the tech came back to give me my options (sew my dog up? is that one of my options?) the exam room door opened and my friend Cathy came in with a bottle of water for me and a pet for Rudy. So she got to hear them start talking about the pre-anesthesia bloodwork and the "catheter just in case we need to get in there quick". I think they told me that the estimate was between $275-325, but I got lost at the word anesthesia. Rudy is not neutered because I refuse to put him under anesthesia. My mother was always afraid that something would happen to him and that she could not stand that, so she didn't have him neutered. And after she was gone, I was afraid that something would happen to him and I couldn't stand that, so Rudy is an intact male. (Now this is not all paranoia...I did adopt a little dog from the shelter a few years back who died on the table being spayed...although a good bit of it is my irrational fear of losing my dogs) So what I heard was that they were going to potentially kill my dog with anesthesia and charge me more than I had in my checking account to do it. I agreed to the pre-surgery bloodwork because I figured that was one variable I could control, and they barely gave me time to kiss my dog goodbye before they took him away. Up until that time I had been fine. Thank God Cathy came to sit with me...it would have been an unholy 2 hours otherwise. They finally brought me my dog with a 2 inch Frankenstein-looking stitched-up wound across his back. He got some pills for pain and inflammation, and some antibiotic, and he has to go to our vet in 7-10 days to have his stitches - all 6-7 of them - out. So obviously I did not over-react. I WANTED to react when I had to write that check for $405.43. I don't even know what the extra cost was. I just wanted to get my dog and come home. Cathy followed us home so that she could help me get Rudy settled in while the other 3 went outside, and finally everything settled down and got quiet. Except for Rudy. Who was not quiet at all. He had to stay separate from the other dogs so they won't lick him and possibly hurt him and he was NOT at all ok with that. He whined. And whined. And whined. And made mournful noises. And it just about killed me to have to make him stay in his crate. Bedtime killed me worse because there was no Rudy snoring right up again my neck.

I have kept them separate for most of today...I started letting him out with all the dogs but Bosco because Bosco is the one who will try to play too rough with him. I have let him out all evening though, and they have been really good. He basically just laid on the bed with me while I stitched and watched a Munsters marathon. He looks like a Munster-dog right now.

I think he is going to have to spend tonight in his crate again though because he burrows and I'm afraid he will rub his back and get his stitches caught on the blanket or something or that I will hurt him by accident in the night. So it's about time for the chorus to tune up for the night...what a sad little lullaby.