The Vets of our Lives

Last Thursday we went for our annual vet visit. I know you are all concerned with the results so let me tell you upfront we are both fine. We call this our annual trip to the vet, but it’s like saying our annual trip to the Super Bowl, because our vet is never in the same place from year to year.

The first vet I went to was in Norton MA. He wasn’t a bad vet. But his waiting room was cramped and I went there with Blake, and Blake did not like the vet at all. She was a terrible panter and shaker. And the vet was always running late. Blake was ill, and the trip alone got her so worked up, that the next year we went to a new vet,

This vets was in Raynham. They seemed like the perfect vet. There was a large waiting room, they were very good when Blake was transitioning to the Bridge and very comforting when she finally passed over in Mommy’s arms in one of the examining rooms. We were all very happy there, then my new brother, Jax, began crying out in pain. Mommy took him to Raynham. There was a new vet there. He said that Jax had a shoulder strain. Mommy said she doubted it was a shoulder strain. To this day she is still mad at herself for not getting a second opinion. The vet gave Jax some medicine for the pain. A week later Jax took a serious turn for the worse. He couldn’t move without crying, he had bloodshot eyes, he was in horrible pain. Daddy called the vet who refused to see him saying Jax just needed another prescription. Mommy and Daddy took Jax to the the emergency vet in Bridgewater. They told Mommy and Daddy there was nothing they could do and Jax was put down. When Daddy got home there was a message from the vet in Raynham giving results for a dog that wasn’t even Jax. Oh how Daddy wishes he saved that message. Mommy, Daddy, and I sued in small claims court, we won, but lost the appeal because the vet spent thousands of dollars on “expert” witnesses. Anyway, once a vet kills your dog, you sue him, win, then lose, you can’t go back.

So then the hospital in Bridgewater became our vet. They might have killed my sister Copper. We can’t prove it. Copper got her rabies shot and it caused a large tumor to grow in her leg. They operated on her and took it out but three months later she passed away in her sleep. They said her little heart gave out but could it have been something that entered her blood stream from the shot and traveled to her heart? We don’t know. Then we took in little Skye. The poor dog never breathed a healthy breath in her six month life. A week of that was spent at the Bridgewater hospital where they lost her. Oh not lost her like she went to the Bridge. They just didn’t know where she was. It took them a couple of hours to call us back telling us they found her and how she was. They sent her home but she couldn’t walk in a straight line. We took her back to the hospital but since they had so many different vets we got who hadn’t seen her yet and wanted to run the same tests that kept coming back inconclusive. We had to fight our way out of there with her.

A woman Daddy works with told him of a very nice vet in Middleboro. They took Skye there. Skye didn’t come home. But they were grateful to the vet because he told them the truth. There were all sorts of tests, operations, and procedures he could do, costing thousands of dollars, and at the end of the day, after much suffering, chances were very high Skye would die anyway. He helped send little Skye to the Bridge last night.

He was a good vet, but a little old fashioned. He liked giving shots, lots of shots, even when we didn’t want them. And he was very expensive. And he was far away. And old. He started giving some of his practice time to a younger doctor who we didn’t trust as much. My Daddy’s cousin told him of a vet he went to right down the road from where we were living. We made as appointment and were very happy with this vet. And he didn’t kill any of us.

But he too was older and phasing out of his practice. He had another vet helping him and we did not like him at all. He used to hold us by our front legs and let us hang to look us over. It took his and his assistant four time to weight Pocket getting different weights each time which is remarkable given that she weighs five pounds. Then he became insulting to us. He told us we had bad breath, said we had bad teeth, he was the worst first date ever. Most of all he stressed that I had to have my teeth cleaned immediately. If not it could lead to premature death and peace without honor. Mommy didn’t want me to get even light anesthesia but it was stressed to her the importance of having my teeth cleaned. He had me put on a list to get my teeth cleaned immediately. This was in January of 2011. They called in November 2011. By this time we decided not to get the teeth done, and to find a new vet.

We found one is Swansea, that my cousin Bailey goes to, which was good news, because we were running out of towns. We rode there in style in our new car seats. We got there and we found a nice big waiting room. Of course everyone came over to tell us how cute we were, again, being beautiful is work. We got brought in the room, weighed, and then the doctor came in.

I was up first. He checked out my teeth, and, while they aren’t pearly white, he said if we continued using some gel on them they should be fine. He found everything about me perfect and Pocket the same and it is one of the best vet experiences we’ve had. And we’re quite confident he won’t kill either one of us.