It's going to cost HOW much?

I just got home from the vet, with an assortment of pills and instructions, a sick dog, and a much lighter wallet. Henry has been vomiting and diarrheaing off and on since Friday night. Today he has bloody diarrhea (sorry, no way to convey that less graphically,) so I rushed home from work and got him right to the vet.

After giving him a complete physical work up, putting him on I.V. fluid, drawing blood, and testing urine, the vet announced it was a total mystery. And then presented me with a bill that will cover the next three payments on her Mercedes. I should have collected money from the folks driving past the vet clinic. I provided them with great entertainment as I knelt behind Henry on the little front lawn, in the pissing rain (catch that pun?) trying to snag some pee in a dipper thingy they gave me.

If he is not better tomorrow, she wants me to bring him in to the clinic in the morning where he will go back on an I.V., have x-rays and who knows what other pricey tests.

Seriously though, the money is not an issue, at least not yet. We just want him to get well. But I've wondered at times what our limit would be to pay for a sick or injured pet. Would there even be one? I suppose there has to be, although I have no idea what it would be, and I am thankful it is not a decision I have ever had to face. I have a friend who sold her car and borrowed thousands of dollars from family and friends to pay vet bills after her beloved dog got hit by a car. Would I go that far? The dog survived, only to die of cancer a year later.

Here is the furry woebegone patient, who is lying beside me on an old sheet.


I hope you feel better soon buddy. We have lots of adventures ahead. And I never want to have to choose between you and the mortgage payment.

Reigning Cats and Dogs, Part 3: Squirt

I wrote recently about my encounter with a gang dude. But the truth is, we have a gang member living right here in our household. Well, sort of living here. He buggers off for days sometimes, and never calls us to say where he's gone. He is nicked and scarred from gangland brawls. We suspect he sells crack catnip out of the garage. His name is Squirt.

Squirt lived with my Beloved before we met. He was a free spirit, usually preferring the freedom of outdoors over the comfort of a warm couch. When B and Squirt moved in with me a few years ago, Squirt took off within a week. For two or three days we didn’t worry, but then we started searching the neighbourhood. After a week or so we put up “LOST CAT” posters. We got phone calls from many kind people, but none of the sightings turned out to be Squirt.

After two months we had pretty much given up hope of ever seeing Squirt again. I missed the little guy, but I was heart sick for B, who had loved Squirt since he was a kitten. I don’t know why, but I got the idea that if we took in a cat that really needed a home, some of the resulting good karma might help poor lost Squirt, and he would find a loving home too.

So I went to the SPCA and asked if they had any cats that were hard to adopt out. They had one all right. He was a pathetic, desperately unhappy tabby that had been abandoned by his owners. He was freaked out and had not touched food since arriving at the shelter several days earlier. He was covered in shit, having lost control from the trauma of being caged. He hissed, spat, and clawed at anyone who came close. I paid, thinking "hell, they should pay me," and took him home. After a little patience and TLC, he turned out to be a wonderful cat. And Henry's best friend.

Five days later the karma jackpot paid out. We got a phone call from a man called George whose neighbour had seen one of our posters. George lived in an apartment building on the edge of an oceanside park, a couple of kilometers and a busy four lane highway away from our former home. A cat lover, he put daily food out for a gang of feral cats living in the park. When his neighbour showed him our poster, George thought a cat that had joined his Vanier Park gang a few weeks earlier could be Squirt. It was.

We hauled his ass home, but he escaped twice more over the next few months, both times returning to his wild gang. Squirt quit that gang only when we moved to our current house 4 years ago. The Vanier Park gang is now 20 kilometres away. We had to get him deprogrammed, have his tatoos lasered off, and promise he could park his little Harley in the driveway, but he more or less stays around home now. And his rough gang days were not a total waste: He is now teaching little Snuffy how to guard our beer at parties.

But He Wuvs His Wittle Doggie

“Can I help you with that?” asks a man coming up behind me.
I turn gratefully from trying to reach a large dog bed on a high shelf. I am in Pet Cetera, catering to the comfort of the two furry stinkers we toil 9 to 5 to provide for. We have recently pulled up the nasty old carpet in our bedroom, to be replaced in due course with bamboo flooring. But before putting in the new floor we have to tile around the fireplace, pull out two 1980’s style cedar plank walls, drywall, and paint. So we are likely to be living with a bare plywood floor for a while. And the hairy Royal Ones cannot be expected to slumber on cold hard plywood.

Allowing these two 80 pound snorers to sleep with us on the bed is not an option, and shutting them out of the bedroom would just send them to the couches, which theoretically is also forbidden. The dogs don't get that theory. (Now if you ever visit, you will understand why our couches often have strange objects on them, preventing one from sitting, although we usually remember to clear them off when company comes. We allow most people on the couches.)



As the man pulls the doggie bed down from the shelf for me, he observes, “You must have a big dog.”

“Two big dogs actually. What kind do you have?” I ask, seeing a bag of dog kibble in his shopping cart. I have him pegged for a Pit Bull or Rotweiller kind of guy. He is dressed in biker boots, a do-rag, and he has a dragon tattoo on his neck.

“Jack Russell Terrier. Called Max, short for Maxine” he answers. “And she would be really pissed off at me if I made her sleep on a dog bed. She sleeps with me. I spoil her rotten.”

I can see that. His basket holds treats, pricey dog food, a Kong chew toy and a fluffy toy clown.

"Max is so smart" he continues, "She should be in movies. She does this adorable thing where she dances around in a circle then jumps right into my arms."

He carries the two dog beds to the cashier for me, continuing to tell me about Maxine's cuteness. This guy is gaga over his little dog. Men who love animals silly are endearing to me. And this guy is so nice, helping me carry my stuff. I mentally chastise myself for my first impression that the only pet he could have would be a spiky-collared pit bull or a boa constrictor. "Grandma was right," I am thinking, "don't judge a book by"....

SWEET MOTHER OF GOD! For the first time I notice the tattoo on his left forearm. The insignia of a local gang. A gang of very bad dudes. Dudes who have to prove they have snuffed someone before they can belong to this gang, according to one high profile ex-member-turned-snitch in a drug prosecution a while back.

"Do you want help out to your car with those?" he asks.

"Um, no thanks, I'm fine." I almost sprint out of there.

I imagine the scene when he gets home from Pet Cetera: "Hewoe my pwecious wittle Maxie, how was your day? Daddy brought some special presents for you, yes he did. Daddy wuvs his wittle Pwincess Maxie. Daddy's gotta go out again, gotta sell some cocaine to buy you that sparkly pink collar. And then Daddy might have to off a guy, but I'll be back soon, I pwomise, and then we'll go for walkies."

Reigning Cats and Dogs, Part 2: Oh Henry!

Henry joined our family zoo Labour Day Monday, 2005. The name of the day should have been a warning.

B and I had talked about getting a young companion for our big old bitch Tika. (No, I don’t mean bitch in the canine sense, I mean in it in the cranky, temperamental, eat-other-dogs-for-sport sense. Bless her heart.) It had to be a puppy, because puppies are the only dogs Tika does not try to mutilate. Actually she also likes male dogs with their equipment intact. She is a motherly, slutty, bitch. We love her.

So we were on the look out for a male puppy. Our other four animals are pound or SPCA rescues, and we endorse them for adopting family pets. However, we needed a very young puppy, a male, and it had to be a big breed to match Tika, who is an 85 pound Lab / Shepherd cross who likes to wrestle. We heard about a 10 week old yellow Lab puppy available, and the timing seemed right, because I would be off work for several more weeks recovering from surgery. So I convinced B that we should just check him out. As we left he said: “Are we sure we want another dog? Can we handle the extra work? What about the extra money?”

“Come on,” I said. “We’re just going to look at him, and check out what his parents are like. We don't have to take him” I assured him, as I loaded a towel-lined cardboard box into the back of our POS car.

“I don’t think I can hold a 10 week old Lab puppy and not take him home” replied B.

(I knew that about you Sweetie. I was counting on it.)

Henry was the only one left from his litter. Perhaps that should have been a warning, not that we would have paid any attention. He looked twice as big as I expected for a 10 week old puppy. That really should have been a warning. But as B predicted, Henry had us on first sight.

The first indication we got of his, um, intelligence, came a few days later, as he walked across the deck and right into the open hot tub without missing a step. And sank to the bottom. He is still no smarter, just bigger. Much taller than Tika. He looks more like a Great Dane or a small pony than a Lab, and nothing like his parents. Either some errant gene that lay dormant for generations exploded to life in Henry, or his Mama was sleeping around.

He is spectacularly stupid, and amazingly clumsy on his long skinny legs. He has chewed 9 shoes, 4 pairs of sunglasses, 3 pairs of reading glasses, a jewellery box, 12 pieces of Tupperware, 5 hair clips, a borrowed book, and a lot of mail. He has eaten plastic bags, flip flops, 6 entire avocadoes, a bag of apples, a shaker of fish food, most of the leaves off my Jade plant, many bananas, and all the pears that fell from our neighbour’s tree. He is an escape artist, and has been dragged back home by bemused neighbours several times. He jumps on our bed and drops on us with a mighty THWUMP in the middle of the night. He is a drooler and a gifted farter.

And we sure love him.

Reigning Cats and Dogs, Part 1: Henry & Oliver

Pets outnumber humans in our household 5 to 3. How that came to be still baffles me sometimes. Tika and Henry are the dogs, Squirt, Snuffy, and Oliver the cats.

Henry and Oliver have been best friends from the first day we brought Henry home as a puppy 13 months ago. It’s an unlikely match. They are from enemy species. Henry now weighs 85 pounds and is still growing. Oliver weighs 9 pounds, if he has had a big breakfast. Oliver is the smartest creature in the household, humans included. Henry is spectacularly stupid. (My Beloved, always the optimist, says Henry is gifted and just needs to mature a little. Nonsense. The only thing he is gifted at is farting. I mean Henry, not B. Although, when we have taco night…….well, never mind.)

In spite of their differences, they adore each other. Oliver gets Henry. In return, Henry smothers Oliver with drooling, doe-eyed devotion. They sleep together. Wrestle and play together. Take walks together daily, Henry on his leash, Oliver voluntarily running along side. Rain or shine. When their paths cross in the house or the yard, they stop whatever important dog or cat work they were pursuing to give each other a little lovin’ and affection. Oliver rubs up under Henry’s chin, Henry licks and nuzzles. Oliver comes out of these sessions soaked in drool.

If Henry and Oliver could go to the UN they would demonstrate profound lessons about acceptance, understanding, and triumph over prejudice. Humankind would learn to live in harmony. And drool, and fart.


Today's dream travel destination: UN headquarters, New York