Annapolis Valley pet owners lucky to have access to quality vet care
Looking back on the months prior to that New Year’s visit to the vet, I probably should have been more suspicious. Our nineyear-old mutt was thicker and much less mobile.
Zorro would stand stoically still when encountering the new puppy in the neighbourhood. It wasn’t generosity. He stopped climbing up the stairs. Something strange was affecting our middle-aged canine.
So, we made an appointment with our trusted veterinarian Suzanne Kennedy at the Glooscap Veterinary Clinic. After an examination, she suspected cancer and an X-ray confirmed her thinking.
On Jan. 7, Zorro, who weighed 22 pounds, had his spleen — with a total mass of four pounds — surgically removed. An analysis later at the vet school on Prince Edward Island indicated it wasn’t the highest level of concern, but it wasn’t benign.
Yet the boy was zonked for days. He’d lie on the couch all day and only stagger outside to pee. For a very food-motivated dog, Zorro suddenly lost interest in kibble and was barfing what he did eat.
We began to think he was a goner. Three friends who love his goofy personality started visiting to bring some extra love. Patting became a kind of prayer. We reached the point of talking about putting him down, then one of those weekend blizzards hit and we held off. Good thing Lazarus (a.k.a. Zorro) came back from the dead.
The next week he began eating special post-surgery dog food. Before long we were feeding the lad four times a day or twice as often as normal. He’s
still hungry all the time three months later.
We find his personality has changed a bit since his neardeath experience. There’s a little more aggressive response to what happens on the sidewalk, but I rejoice in his exuberance, in the fact Zorro’s life will continue due to the care he received.
One certainly appreciates our socialized medical system for humans when faced with vet bills. Not scraping up the cash is inconceivable if you can manage and when you’ve given a dog your heart.
Dr. Kennedy saved our other pooch from poisoning after she inadvertently got into some Warfarin as a pup. That time it was touch and go too, but two days in the clinic and vitamin K made the key difference.
Canada currently has a shortage of veterinarians and that has been boosted with many folks taking on new pets over the pandemic. During one of my trips to the Glooscap clinic, I learned from the cheerful staff that most vets locally aren’t taking on new patients. That’s a worry for anyone with their name in for a new puppy.
Several people have asked if having pet insurance would have been helpful with Zorro’s surgery. It’s hard to say, and $25 a month over a dog’s lifetime seems financially onerous too.
Dog owners like to profess that our mutts are a man’s best friend. Apparently, the term was coined by King Frederick of Prussia before 1800. He is quoted as saying, “The only, absolute and best friend that a man has, in this selfish world, the only one that will not betray or deny him, is his dog.”
I know for sure that walking our dogs was a positive kind of panacea during lockdown times. We’d head out, they’d sniff abundantly, and I’d find myself conversing with other pedestrians in a socially distanced fashion.
But most of all dogs offer unconditional love. Sure, sometimes batting those big brown eyes is a play for treats and they bark like maniacs when you come home, but mostly they offer their hearts to us humans. And that, I think, is a blessing.