Honey We're Killing The Kids

Yesterday I took Sadie and Max to the vet for their comprehensive exam. We go through this every six months so they can get any necessary booster shots as well as routine screening to ensure their continued good health. I drop them off in the morning and pick them up in the afternoon. I’m not sure who its more traumatic for, them or me.

Max was a superstar champ through it all. He takes it in stride and doesn't mind one bit as long as I'm there to comfort him through it all. On the other hand, I just can’t express how much Sadie hates going to the vets. She knew where we were going as we pulled up the hill towards the office and the whimpering started. By the time I parked the car she was thrashing around like a wild banshee jumping from the front seat to the back seat while encouraging a very calm Max to join her. I put their leash on them and as soon as we got out of the car she attempted to gnaw through it to make her great escape for freedom, all the while yelling at Max and nipping at him to encourage him to join her in the uprising. Max decided he wanted no part of her crazyass and put his paws up on my legs as if to say "hold me"

We enter the vets and our friendly vet nurse asks me to put each of them on the scale. Max, the typical boy doesn’t mind, he hops up there and sits down and waits for me to tell him to jump down. Sadie…well, Sadie is truly my daughter. She hates the scale…and with good reason. You see, Sadie is overweight just like me. Now I know what you might be thinking. I over eat and in turn I over feed my dogs. This simply isn’t the case. I reward them with love, praise and the occasional treat. My thin and fit husband, aka sucker number 1, gives them a treat every time he walks by and they look up at him with cute puppy dog eyes. We won’t even get into my sister, aka sucker number 3, who is incapable of walking through the door with empty hands. No she doesn’t just bring them a treat; she brings jumbo Sams Club sized containers of treats.

I ask the woman at the check in counter for the earliest possible pick up time and she says 3:15 and as if on cue and as if she understood, Sadie began to alternate between hyperventilation whimpering to room penetrating YIPE/WHIMPER/SCREAM at the thought of being locked up in jail for so long. I can't even adequately describe this display of protest and fear, next time I'll bring the video camera and capture it for the world to see. The woman looks at their charts and slyly said “they aren’t having blood work, do you want me to see if they can just let you wait?” Excellent idea.

From the weigh station I was assigned an exam room. It has a small bench seat with room for two adults to sit comfortably, a table that folds against the wall and a computer station, supply station and sink. I sit down and Sadie jumps up next to me and sits down, burrows her head under my arm so that my arm is wrapped around her and holding her. Max believes his place is on my lap. Yes, I have a 50 pound, correction, 49.8 pound lap dog. He maneuvers and with a leap of faith, springs from the floor and into my lap and I catch him. Jealously Queen Sadie decides that she should be on my lap too, all 62.8 pounds of her, while she continues to whimper and cry. For a brief moment I find myself staring off into space asking myself why I’m not shopping right now and letting them deal with these two? I could be sipping Starbucks right now but instead I’m stuck in this fur filled little room with 112 pounds of dog on my lap. Oh yes, because I love them, that’s why.

The nurse and the vet entered the room and Max took his protective stance between me and them and barked. Where was Sadie in all of this? She dove behind my back to hide. I kid you not, she was hiding behind me. I stood up to shake hands with the doctor Sadie attempted to dive down behind me and her paw caught in the pocket of my elastic waist pants and as she jumped down from the bench, she took the side of my pants with her…yes, both the vet nurse and the vet caught a quick flash of my underwear and leg. I wanted to dive under the bench but Sadie jumped from the bench and to the wall where their leash was hanging and with her teeth she attempted to remove it from the wall by thrashing all around, when it fell she dropped it by me feet and said “lets get the hell out of here, before they stick something up my ass! ”

I apologized and said that I’m glad I was able to wait and spare them a whole day of Sadie because I’d hate to think we were responsible for the excessive alcohol consumption that would surly occur after spending the day listening to THAT all day.

The good news is, they both have strong hearts and lungs and they tested negative for glaucoma. The bad news…well you can guess the bad news already. They are overweight. We knew this from the last visit but they have moved from just a little bit over weight to seriously overweight.

Vet: I can’t really feel their organs too well, they need to lose some weight and….

Before he can go any further I blurt out…

“It’s my skinny husbands fault! He’s the one who over feeds them, not me!”

:::: Insert obligatory eye roll here ::::

Its bad enough I have to get the overweight lecture when I go to the doctor but to have to get it at the vets too…

The vet gave me some pointers for decreasing their food intake by 10% and suggested long walks to make up for the over feeding that Ken and my sister do that I can’t control.

Last night we decreased their food as instructed and when Ken had his bedtime snack of peanut butter on toast, much to their shock and amazement, he did NOT share a single bite with them. I was left to clean up the puddles of drool on the floor but we stood fast in our determination to help them achieve a healthy weight. I understand their battle and their love of food. The one thing I’ve argued with Ken over is that he feeds them too many snacks. I never wanted them to have a weight problem but now that they do, we are going to battle it head on.

This morning I’m a little late posting because we walked 2.5 miles in 45 minutes. In the spring we could walk three miles in under 45 minutes. Of course our time varies greatly depending on how many potty break/sniff breaks we take along the way but we’ll get there.