Cleodhna was concerned about Taji’s energy levels the other day, so we booked him into the vet. Nothing amazingly worrying, but he doesn’t like to be out walking too long (he sits down and refuses to budge), and he gets a bit out of breath after going up our measly two flights of stairs.
We took him in yesterday, and two things became apparent. First of all, Taji has put on a remarkable amount of weight in a short space of time: he’s now 34kg, and he was 28kg when he was last at the vet’s just a few months ago. And secondly, he’s an enormous wuss.
We had some inkling of this when he was last at the vet’s to get his anal glands de-squirted. (Some dogs can get their innards gummed up; if it’s not treated, they start to act increasingly uncomfortable, until the whole thing finally cures itself in a messy and unspeakably smelly mess. After this happened to Habibi, we’ve got more pre-emptive about the whole thing.) This is something the vets are used to doing; put on a glove, stick your finger up the dog’s arse, poke around for a second or two, and you’re done. Most of the time it’s over so soon that the dog hasn’t managed to work itself into any sort of fuss.
Not with Taji. As soon as the vet went anywhere near him he was bucking and yipping.
But that could have been a one-off - after all, of all the interactions with a human being a dog can reasonably expect to have, them suddenly sticking their finger up your arse isn’t one you’d expect. Maybe it was the nature of the exercise rather than some innate nervous Nelly tendencies.
No such luck. We ended up needing a muzzle (mostly to stop him licking the vet’s face) and three people to hold him still. And what was the nature of this dastardly, unfair, painful and humiliating procedure? A simple blood sample from his front leg.
On the car on the way back, Cleodhna started calling him names. Things like “lard-ass”, “fat boy” because he was overweight; “pansy” and “petunia” because he was such a scaredy wuss-bag. Somehow the two trends merged into a hideous conglomeration.
Taji Totoro Nightshade. Now known, and possibly for the rest of his life, as “Fat Petunia”.
(What’s up with the weight gain? We don’t know. The vets did a blood test which was inconclusive, and there’ll be more tests to come, possibly involving a referral to the Vet School. Happily we are on the right end of the three-point scale as far as our vet is concerned, being Not insured / Insured / Insured with PetPlan. Given that a large tax bill from France arrived this week, not having to worry about paying for, or rationing, Taji’s health care is a Very Good Thing. If you have animals and they’re not insured with PetPlan, switch.)
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