Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Pets, a.k.a. Money Pits

Last weekend was vetting weekend for me and my poor animals. Lately my kitty Gretel has been pulling the fur off of her belly, and started doing the same to her back feet and just below the tip of her tail. She's looking a bit... mangled. I've tried flea meds in case it was fleas or mites, changing her food in case it was an allergy, still working on getting the dog to stop chasing her if its stress. Well, the other morning she was standing in the windowsill above my bed and I saw a big lump hanging from her belly. Vet time!

I took Gretel to the Banfield pet hospital at our local Petsmart and I must say I am quite happy with their service! The tech looked her over and then the vet came in. The consensus: fat. Yup, my little chunker is just overweight and the lump that I feared was a mammary tumor is just fat padding, all the more noticeable since she's made herself nekkid. And the nekkid part? Psychogenic (i.e., we don't know, probably not medical. Here, give your kitty some anxiety pills.).

We left the vet with antibiotics for the little lesions she's caused, amitriptyline for her anxiety, and a prescription to use flea meds again and lose about a pound and a half. The antibiotics are in liquid form and I give them with a dropper by grabbing Gretel's head, shoving it in her mouth, and squeezing while she makes awful "ack ack ack" noises. But I follow that up with a special little blue pill in a salmony-stinky treat that zonks her out for a while. I don't really like that, but I'll use the course and see what happens.

The next day I took Ayla in for her vaccinations. Poor girl had drops put in her nose (kennel cough), blood drawn from the front of her neck (heartworm test), three shots in the side of her neck (giardia, distemper/parvo, and corona virus), and a shot in her rear flank (rabies). Yeah, she's gonna enjoy going back there again. But she got to see her trainer, one of her most favoritest people in the world, and pick out a treat at the store. Spoiled much?

Sigh... the things I do for my pets. And then the cat just yells at me 'cause I don't feed her enough (you're on a diet, fatso) and the dog complains that I'm not giving her my undivided attention at all times. Brats. :)

1 comment:

Liz and Kurt said...

You're so much better than me, it seems like you actually give your pets some attention. I know people say you shouldn't get two dogs just so they'll play together, they still need owner-time, but while Kurt is away, it's sure nice that they get exercise chasing each other because I just don't have the energy. And your title is quite appropriate, if I knew what a killing vets made I might have chosen a different profession... I guess it's worth it though, it's nice having happy health pups running around. Good luck with the diet!