It is awful leaving animals at the vet. It stresses my dogs out immensely just visiting for routine innoculations, since they were speyed and spent the day there.
Xena had to go in for skin biopsies recently, for allergy tests, and managed to pull out two of her sets of stitches before they were due to be removed, despit the use of an Elizabethan collar every night and every time I went out - obviously she managed it when we were supposed to be keeping an eye on her (I reckon Friday night while we were playing D&D), but fortunately the wounds were so small that they had healed over already. Just had the last lot out today (no extra charge, thankfully!)
Now I'm going to make a heartless comment about whether there
is actually any point in the case of rats and tumours. They're prone to them, she'll most likely get another one, they don't live very long anyway - is it really better to put them through an operation in an attempt to extend an already too-short lifespan? Are veterinary advances
really about the animals, or about the owners?
I'm really surprised at myself for even being able to make such a suggestion; anyone who knows me knows that where animals are concerned, I am the biggest softie in the world. I cannot stand to see an animal in pain - I really had to bite my tongue every time we visited
mimeticgel's parents over the last year, with the awful degenerating suffering of their old Border Collie. I would have put her to sleep a long time before they managed to summon the courage to do it - and it does take an awful lot of courage and it is the worst thing in the world to go through at the time.
Sometimes I wonder why we have animals in our families, and yet look at me setting myself up yet again with three more future heartbreaks, probably in less than ten years. For two of them, at least. Buffy will no doubt go on for ever. Then there's the horses as well; Prince is no spring chicken and although he
could live until he's 40, the odds are against it.
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