Boscoe: Another day, another vet appointment

getting old sucks.

i am not old!

right. you'll be 12 on the fourth of july.

that is not old! i'm not even a teen-ager yet!

whatever.

when we were in paris--and how i love saying that--boscoe developed a sore on his elbow. dr. heather took a look when he was there for his chiropractic, but it wasn't bad at that point. over the weeks, it got worse. we took him in at the end of april and dr. c (who is mostly a cat doctor) prescribed an ointment and antibiotics.

it got a little better. and then it got a little worse. and then it got a lot worse. he was licking it all the time. the colors were rather bruise-like--pinks and purples. it sort of bulged. you probably want no more details, but there really aren't any--it wasn't oozing anything, or ...

shut up! shut up!

ok, ok, take your paws off your ears. i'm done describing it.

anyway, doug brought him in again yesterday to see dr. J, our kent hrbek-look-alike vet.

more antibiotics, more balm. also: dr. j wants us to order some kind of elbow-pad-contraption for him. it's two elbow pads that cover each elbow, protecting them, and then they're somehow linked together and fastened over the top of his body (so he can't slide them off, i assume) with straps and velcro. it looks quite complicated. we have to take all kinds of measurements and then email them off and pay something like $100.

(here is a picture from google of a stunt dog, wearing one.)

doug sent a pretty vivid email after the vet visit. (he always seems to have more adventures there than i do.) here it is:

callus dermatitis has returneth. he's back on ointment and an antibiotic, though now i think they forgot to give the antibiotic to me. jennrich appaers to have stock in some company that makes elbow pads for dogs because he wants us to order one for boscoe. requires some measuring. it's at dogleggs.com

he said he could do surgery if it didn't clear up but would rather not. he didn't say anything about it being life threateneing. we're supposed to try to keep him off of hard surfaces. oh, an epsom salt soaking 10 minutes a day. good luck on that one.

poor boscoe. shaking again. we walked into the waiting room and there to greet him was an overly excited Vietnamese Mountain Dog, or whatever it's called. Massive. As I waited a huge couple waddled in with a Doberman. The man had a corn-cob-sized, um, speciman wrapped in a baggie in his hand. It instantly filled the room with a most pleasing aroma.

The owners of the Doberman were very anxious. They had to bring the dog in to the emergency vet for some unknown reason. The man, who had those beefy popeye forearms and big heavy workman boots, kept cooing in its ear trying to soothe its nerves.

long weekend coming up--we have five days off for the Fourth. we'll spend most of our time taking Boscoe elbow measurements, i think. oh yeah--and preparing for his birthday!