Another ER run: What price peace of mind?
For me, apparently, it’s about $100. Twice. In three days.
It’s hard not to be paranoid when you spent the first 11 years of your career reading letters from readers about their dogs’ freak accidents, poisonings, injuries and range of health problems and the next 13 years writing about those same things. I’ve gotten better about not rushing my dogs to the vet for the least little thing–better safe than sorry is usually my motto–but the girls have been in pretty good shape since Darcy’s death three years ago, knock on wood.
But in the dusty back corners of my mind, I’m always waiting for that Hush Puppy to drop. So when Harper woke me up in the middle of the night a week or two ago, pacing and panting and trying to climb onto my head, I was worried. Her behavior was completely out of character. My girls eat hearty and sleep hard. They’re vigilant during the day, but when that bedroom door closes, they’re out for the night. I took her out to potty. Didn’t help. Jerry took her out to potty. She performed both times, but she didn’t have diarrhea and she was still frantic. What to do? Had she eaten something poisonous? They’re always snatching crap up off the ground and snarfing it down before I can grab it–and sometimes I don’t want to grab it. I called our vet’s night line and asked if anyone was on call. They were, but I was informed that the call had gone to voice mail. What good was that?! What to do? Surely she was too young for pyometra. What if I waited and it was something that should have been treated immediately? The vet still hadn’t called back (the office is still trying to find out why the call didn’t go through).
So, off we went to the ER. Naturally, by the time we got there, Harper was fine. No pacing, no panting, no freaking out. I figured I might as well have her checked out. What else were we going to do at 3 in the morning? “I can’t find anything wrong with her,” the vet said. “I could do some diagnostic tests, but that would just run your bill up.”
Yeah, let’s not go there. We went back home and damn if she didn’t start acting weird again as soon as we walked in the door. I began wondering if an earthquake was in the offing or if she’d just had a bad dream about cats. Maybe we had a carbon monoxide leak or she was trying to alert us to some health problem. Nah. I went back to bed. She broke Jerry, though. He went to sleep on the sofa where she curled up next to him, right by his head. We had a little talk the next night before bedtime about not doing that again and the message seems to have gotten through.
A couple of nights later, it was Bella’s turn. Despite being on a diuretic, she usually sleeps through the night, but this time she woke up and vomited. Then she went back to sleep, so that was okay. I cleaned it up and didn’t worry too much. At least, not until Jerry woke me up to report that she hadn’t eaten breakfast. She was clearly on her deathbed. I had her in to see Dr. Hamil a few hours later.
She was fine. At least as far as he could tell without doing anything invasive. He gave her a shot of anti-nausea meds and a couple of pills to follow up. I didn’t even bother giving her those. She ate dinner with her usual voracious appetite, and it hasn’t slackened since.
I’m persuaded that they’re just messing with my head. “How much can we get her to spend on us, and how often?”
Maybe I should start reading them bedtime stories. We can start with The Boy Who Cried Wolf.
Dog Behavior Training | steveniam | December 31, 2009
