Wow - over 2 weeks since my last post. Bad girl!

Saturday was definitely a productive day for me. As I mentioned in my review about UNLEASHED, I was able to walk away with some interesting information about dogs that I had never heard before. But the learning experience didn’t stop there! After I took a very tired Pekingese home from playing at UNLEASHED, I swapped him for the two little ones and went to a much less fun place (for them) - the vet’s office.

It was time for Buster and Fudge’s 6-month Bordatella vaccinations and yearly heartworm tests. I figured while I was there, I should let some professionals handle the ugly task of clipping their nails. (Let me digress for a minute here. I have been trying to trim and file their nails using PediPaws, a regular emery board, clippers, everything - but they have gotten increasingly more impatient. I stopped trying when Buster snapped at me and I walked around with hurt feelings for a whole day. So for several weeks, Buster’s nails have been growing longer and longer. I can trim Fudge’s nails, but only a few at a time, so the entire four paws takes like a week and who has time for that?)

OK, back to the vet. Fudge got his shot and had blood drawn and nails clipped and handled everything like a trooper. Well, he did pee on the vet tech. Actually, maybe a few vet techs. And on the floor. He and Buster are super-shy around people and places that they are unfamiliar with, no matter how much I try to socialize them. (Another aside, I know some people think I don’t like my other two dogs since I tend to take Chewy with me for all my product reviews but it’s not true! I just don’t like to handle their nervousness when I’m reviewing a business. It’s not fair that I may walk away with a negative experience because of the kiddos and not the business.)

Where was I? Oh yes, Fudge went through all his procedures and was shivering in my lap. Then it was Buster’s turn. As you may remember from other posts, Buster is no ordinary Chihuahua. He is mixed with Dachshund, I think, and weighs in at almost 20 pounds. He is the most loving dog I’ve ever known, and looks at me with such soulful eyes that sometimes I can’t take it. But he is also strong. Freakishly strong. The vet tech wisely suggested a muzzle, so I put it on him and they proceeded to give him his vaccination. No problem. Then came the nail clippers, and my Buster is no fool. He knows a set of nail clippers when he sees them. So he peed on the two techs that were clipping the nails but of course they were undeterred and kept clipping. He pulled his legs with all his might and slowed them down, but they kept at it. Here is when the tech accidentally cut his nail into the quick and he started bleeding. (I take responsibility for this. The groomer at UNLEASHED as well as the poor tech holding the clippers both told me that when you don’t clip your dog’s nails regularly, the quick continues to grow. So the quick of Buster’s nails were probably almost as long as the nails themselves.) Back to the nail clipping. I think Buster knew things could only get worse. He then resorted to something I have never seen before. Or heard of. And apparently it’s a common occurrence at veterinary offices but I was SO not prepared.

Buster expressed his anal glands. Now, when I’ve seen Dr. Manley do this procedure on Chewy, it looked very neat and clean, albeit a bit smelly. Buster took another approach and used a projectile method to get anal gland…um…juice, for lack of a better word, all over the wall, me, the chair, and poor Fudge. So naturally I freaked. The three techs who had already been slimed by the Brothers Nasty were unfazed and cleaned everything up, including me and Fudge. Buster ended up going “into the back” to finish his nail trim and get rinsed off and a few minutes later they brought him back, no longer bleeding or smelling of urine or The Other Stuff. But he was still very unhappy, as you can imagine.

We booked it on out of there and I did something I am not even the slightest bit ashamed of. We went through the Chick-Fil-A drive-through and I bought a value meal and gave them both some grilled chicken and waffle fries. Because geez, that was just traumatic.

Until next time!