Tag: veterinarian

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He’s Home, all Healthy

Boo Radley sporting his Parti spotting shades of gray, more evident following a grooming.

Boo Radley gave us a scare this week. Our sevenish-year-old Parti Schnoodle who came into our lives as an abandoned, starving, severely matted rescue whose tangles were so horrible they nicknamed him Einstein, had a lump pop up over his left hip.

We went straight to the verge of panic, stopping short of it when the vet had a quick opening.

I dropped him off Thursday morning for some tests and left a skeptical, trembling Boo with the look of betrayal in his eyes in the caring hands of our veterinary clinic’s staff, who always greet us by name.

The call came during a state Zoom call when some of our students were presenting their projects on poverty to leaders across the state.

I shut off my camera and muted my microphone and took the call.

“Boo Radley is going to be fine,” the office assured me. “He has a lipoma, a benign tumor of fatty tissue.”

They’d performed a fine needle aspiration and examined the cells to be sure that they were not cancerous.

I picked him up after work, and as I was waiting for him to be brought up front, one of the veterinary technicians whispered, “I just want you to know how sweet your dog is. I was back there earlier, and I caught him looking at me with his big eyes, pleading with me to love on him. I opened his kennel and took him out and he showered me with kisses. He is one sweet boy!” This vet tech was a man, and Boo has always taken to men much more quickly than women. On the Schnoodle Facebook page, this seems to be a Schnoodle trait to prefer men.

He’d already forgiven me for leaving him by the time they handed him back to me. He caught a glimpse of the dog before him leaving, meandering with his family back to their car, and barked cuss words at them like a little banshee.

“This is ‘the other side’ of Boo Radley,” I pointed out. “Sweet boy can’t mind his own business. He has strong opinions and forces them on others.”

They chuckled and handed me the bill. I did not chuckle, and paid it.

As we neared the Johnson Funny Farm, I cracked the window so Boo could do his favorite thing – – sniff all the smells of the fauna and flora of the realm that is now his permanent place in the world – not a place of abandonment, but a place of love and belonging. The place where he will live out his full life, grow old, and cross the Rainbow Bridge someday. Just not today, thankfully.

#lovestoride #frontseatdog

I assured him when he got up this morning that he did not have to go back to the vet today. He went outside, did his business, and came in and had his blue jean time where he plays tug of war with the legs of my husband’s jeans for a moment, then had his treat. As I write at this very moment, Boo is snuggled by my right shoulder as he is each morning, snoozing in the comfort of the life he knows.

And my heart, too, is at peace.

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Ollie’s Day Out

We’ve recently switched veterinarians to lessen the stress and half-day production of traveling over to the next county and waiting and waiting and waiting our turn. Where we live in rural Georgia, there isn’t much of anything. Our county has a public school, a private school, maybe a dozen churches, a small private airport, 10 or 15 restaurants, a couple of medical facilities, a courthouse, some small businesses along the square and some larger ones farther out, a regional library and a town library, a coffee shop and bookstore, several little free libraries, a small grocery store, a couple of hardware stores, and a handful of convenience stores with gas stations. Oh yeah – – and about a half dozen Dollar Generals. Five small town limits are nestled within the county, and we are spread out in larger land tracts with rolling hills, meadows, dirt roads, and crooked wooden fences.

We drive out of our county to buy clothes, shoes, office supplies, and groceries. And we love Amazon, even for aspirin and shampoo.

That’s why we switched veterinarians. It wasn’t because we suddenly didn’t like the former vet or had some kind of falling out with the other practice. It was because this office has a hometown staff and we see them out together in the county eating at our local barbecue restaurant for lunch sometimes. We wanted to lessen our drive and not have to take a half day off work just to get a heartworm injection.

Also, about six years ago, Dr. Kelly allowed me to bring an adventure book club who’d just finished reading Finding Gobi to his office to go behind the scenes and see what veterinarians do. His office started as a house, then became a restaurant, and now welcomes pets for their healthcare.

Which was Ollie’s outing yesterday. He needed his 6-month heartworm test and ProHeart injection. We walked in to the office and were greeted by Hunter the minute we entered the room: Hey, Ollie, we have you all checked in, buddy!

We walked past the fireplace and the burning candle and took a seat in the room where the large mixed breed dog was not wallowing on his back all over the floor, kicking his feet up in pure joy like he didn’t know what was coming.

And we waited a few minutes, listening to the thunder and rain, looking out the windows, and breathing. Where else could there possibly be a more relaxing veterinary office?

Ollie
Ollie gets momsick
when they take him back for shots 
(like a preschooler)

He started to go
all tail-waggy, excited
then turned in his tracks

We love our new vet
right in our own small hometown
We love low windows!