Omega the Drama Queen

I just got back from the vet after taking Omega in for, according to the bill,  “Anal Express.”  Is that like the Orient Express?  

Wow!!  I don’t know about you but I DO NOT want to ride on that train.

The vet takes her in another room for procedures, and now she isn’t scootin’ anymore. 

OK!  TMI

Omega also has something wrong with her toenails so in addition to a ride on the Anal Express, she had to have one of her nails cauterized because it was broken and bleeding.  She came home with this adorable pink bandage on her foot. 

Our vet thinks she has some kind of fungus, (black Labs are prone to toenail fungus) but we can’t seem to get it to go away, so he thinks we should take her to an animal dermatologist.   That shouldn’t cost too much?!  What else can we do – amputate her toes?   Part of the treatment we have tried was soaking all four feet, 5 minutes twice a day in an antifungal soap. 

At the beginning I thought I could do one foot at a time, putting each foot in a cup filled with the soap mixture.  It did cross my mind to fill four cups and have her stand there like a good girl with her feet immersed in soapy stuff.  Oh boy, am I glad I had some forethought.  As it was, we were in the kitchen and she immediately tipped over the cup and ran around the house, down the stairs to the doggie bedroom in the basement, out the doggie door out into the back yard.  Really, she is such a drama queen.  After I cleaned the spilled soap, I coaxed her with sweet murmurs, back into their “bedroom” where I tried using four little zip-lock baggies.  That may have worked if she would have stayed upright, but crying and whining, she surrendered by rolling over on her back, “exposing her soft tummy” so I could just kill her and put her out of her misery.   

Finally, with tow straps I rigged a harness hanging from the ceiling in their bedroom in the basement.  It was just far enough off the floor to keep her on her feet in a standing position.

Twice a day, at mealtime, for one week I would drag me and Omega to her harness, strap her in and fill four zip-lock baggies with the anti-fungal soap and zip her feet in.  So now instead of rolling over, she would stand there whimpering, crying and whining.  I did the whole Cesar Milan thing: petting her, giving her lots of positive reinforcement, but she’d still run like crazy at mealtime. 

As if the soap treatment wasn’t enough, we had to treat each nail with fungicide: more surrendering, crying etc.   Somehow she can sense when we are going to inflict her with some nefarious treatment.  And still, her nails are falling apart.

Poor Omega, she has had so much doggie trauma in her life.  She hides under a workbench at mealtime.  Mealtime should be a completely enjoyable experience, don’t you think?  Omega even gets a pill laced in peanut butter at mealtime, but she still hides under the workbench.  Part of that is her personality, like I said, she is a drama queen. 

Already Omega hides every time we go downstairs. 

We have spent so much money on our dogs we can’t afford to let them die.   The veterinarian staff from before we moved called Alpha, Omega and Marzipan – The Million Dollar Labs.