Here is the really cool thing about dogs. Just like children, they get sick at the most inopportune times. Sunday morning, Christmas Eve, the day your Vet is due to leave for his first vacation in 10 yrs, 30 minutes past closing, three hours before opening...
And of course there are the wait-n-sees: He's been vomiting for two weeks but I thought we'd wait n see.
And the slow emergencies:
He's been limping for two weeks but we think the leg might be broken.
And the It's Your Faults:
He had his rabies shot two months ago and now he's vomiting!
And the genuine emergencies:
Hit by Car
Cant breathe
Seizure
and Mine, surely one of the weirder emergencies:
I got the urinary catheter in part way and now I cannot get it out.
Poor Nigel.
So I wrapped him in Vet wrap and took him in and at the time that the Vets were supposed to be going home to dinner (Or stopping at El Burrito Loco) they were gloved and digging around in Nigel's bladder, hauling out grit by what I am told was the handful. In addition, removing not just his testicles but the purse he kept them in, a tooth and a wart on his eye.
But the important thing was that bladder, because if he cannot pee, if the urethra is blocked with pebbles, he will die.
So the 4 a.m. call from the sitter (who I know well) was good, the post op recovery phase seemed to go well. I will leave him there a day or two.
To remind me that these things happen, there is about 8" of a urinary catheter sticking in my pen holder. (A mug from the Basset Hound Club of America)
And here's a tip: NEVER EVER TRY to pull a stuck urinary catheter out of anything. Let someone else do it.
And thus begins another day at the House of the Repeated Poor (Just when we catch up.....)
Be ye Easy, as a good friend used to say.
