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The Great Veterinary Debacle of 2005

Lauren

I took the cats to the vet this week and spent an extraordinary amount of money getting the kitties fixed up.

Doug wants to go again,

Doug Loves the Vet

while Pablo is planning his escape.

Plotting

Long story short, Pablo curled up like a pill bug and refused to let the vet look at him, while Doug turned into a whirling dervish and knocked over anything in the room that wasn’t bolted down. I don’t think the vet office will want to see us again for a very long time (until they cash my check).

19 thoughts on The Great Veterinary Debacle of 2005

  1. Ugh, I know from embarrasment at the vet. My dog, Junebug, FREAKS at the vet, and the first time I brought her in to the newish vet, for a back problem, she needed to be muzzled. My sweet 25-pound puppy!

    Then, when I brought her back this year for a nasty ear infection, I mentioned that we might need a muzzle and the vet said, “Oh, yes, she has a history.” She didn’t actually bite anyone last time, mind you. Of course, even though she didn’t need a muzzle this time, they couldn’t get her weight because she had to be sat on by the vet tech.

    Then I got to ask the male vet in front of the male vet tech for tranquilizers for her, and to disclose that the reason I wanted them was so that I could have overnight guests, since Junebug has ruined more than one romantic evening.

    Finally, a lecture about letting her go into the lake in the park, which is how she got the ear infection in the first place.

  2. Hunh. My cats are always so terrified that they behave. They hiss and moan, but stand relatively still for the doctor (who is, admittedly, quite good with animals). I’ve only ever had one that put up enough of a fuss to need a vet tech to hold her down (unfortunately, that cat is probably dead at the claws of local coyotes).

  3. Ooh, man, cats could be the reason THIS vet tech prefers large animal medicine over small animals, despite the fact that I do indeed love my cats.
    Long ago, I had a large, fat, orange tom that refused to stop purring for his heart rate. The tech tried and tried to get him to stop, even going great lengths to get his temperature at the same time… and even for the thermometer being stuck in a place of extreme discomfort, he continued his happy song.
    Oh, those males.

  4. It took three of us to uncurl Pablo and ten minutes for him to stop foaming spittle, and Doug had to be wrapped in a towel like a kitty burrito four times until he finally gave in to the pills. If Pablo had claws he would have taken off the vet’s face. Doug, however, got the vet tech bad. Real bad. I was tempted to tip them for the trouble after it was all over, but holy shit, the bill.

  5. Lauren –

    1) Open a can of tuna.
    2) Put it outside the house.
    3) Open the door.
    4) Close the door after cats run out to eat tuna.
    5) Don’t open the door again.

    Presto, big vet bill problem solved!

  7. Lauren Says:

    Robert, that’s ridiculous. I would never own a can of tuna.

    How dare you. Albacore is a gift from the gods.

  9. Peter : “Lois, trust me. We’ll get a lovable kitty cat and everybody will feel a lot better.”

    (Cut to kitchen. Grey kitten growls. It is up on top of the refrigerator. The family surrounds it on the floor)

    Peter : (quietly) “Here kitty kitty kitty. Come on down. Nice and easy. That’s a good kitty.”

    (A firecracker falls to the ground and explodes.)

    Peter : “What the hell was that?”
    —————-
    Peter : “Hey, how come you’re still setting a place for Brian?”

    Lois : “Because when he comes home I want him to know he never left our thoughts. I know you’re thinking about him too, Peter.”

    Peter : “Look, Lois, he broke his promise to me. Besides, we have a new pet. And we love our fluffy kitty!”

    (Peter Walks out. His back is bloody and scratched up.)
    ————————–
    Lois : “Peter, why don’t you just admit you miss Brian?”

    Peter : “Ohh you’re right, Lois. Who’m I kidding? This family needs Brian. I need him.”

    (The kitten jumps on to Peter’s head, pulling up his eyelids and growling)

    Peter : “God, I hate this freakin’ cat.”

  11. My dear but slightly psycho kitty, last time at the vet, set up such a fuss when his rear was being looked at (he has a history of anal gland impaction) that the vet had to call in the nurse; after making an attempt to hold Edmund, the nurse had to get The Gauntlets. Before the nurse came in, Edmund bit me and drew blood, and then bit me again while scruffed on both sides of the neck. After his rear was squeezed, during which procedure I can only assume he was plotting, he went for the nurse again after the nurse said Edmund hadn’t been so bad after all. Since Edmund is the cat who put me in the hospital once with a nasty infection, the bite meant a doctor’s visit and ten days’ Augmentin, all without insurance, on top of two cats’ worth of blood work, and all this (vet, doctor, pharmacy) done with two small (and at this point, restless) children along. We love our cats, we do.
    A cat of whom I knew, a petit creature the size of a large kitten, put deep, six-inch furrows down the vet’s arm on being examined; one of her kittens required a kitty muzzle and once flipped the muzzle over her face and did an excellent exhibition of kitty blind gymnastics before freeing herself.

  12. My dog LOVES going to the vet. I don’t understand it. She enjoyes getting her temperature taken, getting pricked with needles, etc. Seems like Cairo is going to the vet at least once a month for something! Thank Jebus we have pet insurance!

  13. Wow, Robert, you really are against absolutely everything good and decent, including cats. Haven’t you happened to stumble on the side of right by accident ever or do you just determine what’s good and right and decide that you believe the opposite?

  15. My cat Ming was really good at the vet – just sat very still and let them give her the shots but once it was over she climbed into my neck/arms like she was saying “oh mom that hurt but wasn’t I brave please hug me.” It almost made me cry.

    My dog freaked out – peed on the floor, exam table, clamped her butt down so they couldn’t get a sample and also bit me. The vet was exasperated but hey – she’s a rescue dog who was abused – the second trip for a shot she did much better.

  16. My cat Koala, who died a few years ago from cancer, hated going to the vet. He was born with auto-immune deficiency. That’s not cat AIDS. It’s a different disorder. He had to get injections into his hip muscle, which hurt like hell. I’m familiar with The Gauntlets. That’s the only way the vet could give that cat his shot, and he needed for a couple of years every two weeks. Oh, the vet bill…

    Every time he had to go to the vet I baked him fresh haddock, which I would have for supper. He loved his haddock. I ate a lot of haddock back then. 😉

    When The Count and I moved to Massachusetts, we drove with the cats in the car. Koala yeowled the whole way up, thinking he was going to the vet. That was 10 hours of “meow meow meow meow MEOW!!” That poor cat was beside himself. He did eventually calm down. That was the most neurotic cat I’ve ever seen.

  17. Reminds me of a Siamese my family had once – we had him isolated in my room until he’d had his blood tests, and he yowled, every few minutes, all night. I don’t think I got five minutes of sleep that night.
    We just lost a cat (hyperthyroid complicated by kidney disease), at fourteen years old. Our others are fourteen and twelve, with no significant health problems at the moment, thank goodness.

  18. I remember fainting once when I took my cat to the vet for shots…he yowled pitifully and I felt really bad for him. Ya think that vet wanted ME back in his office? I almost busted my head open on his floor.

    The cat survived. So did I.

  19. Countess, I thought I was the only one who did stuff like that! When my cat Ginger gave birth, I grilled her a piece of chicken. She just looked so sore! She had the same for dinner when she came home from the vet hospital six weeks and many, many dollars later having gotten an infection during the previously mentioned birth and ending up with an emergency hysterectomy. Poor little girl. It was funny though, the doctor told me I had to make her stop nursing, try telling a mommy cat she can’t nurse her kittens! Man, she was pissed at me.

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