Wrestling a Corgi

Last week, it was time for our boy Corgi's annual check up and vaccination routine. It seems like medical care for our pets rivals medical care for us! So much that pet insurance is looking more and more attractive. Besides the advances in medical care, there are new vaccinations each year that you can choose for your pet. The latest one is a pet flu vaccine. I usually get the flu shot but I'm not so concerned, or have even heard of dogs getting the flu. Although they are reporting more cases of the flu in dogs, I'm still not on the bandwagon for this one! Anyway, back to Sunny, our boy Corgi. During his wellness exam, the vet uses a probe to look into the dog's ears. I'll have to admit that Sunny is the worst of all our dogs in behaving at the vet. And once he saw the ear probe, he was not a happy boy. After a bit of twisting and turning, the vet was able to scope his ears and it was determined that he had an ear infection (although I hadn't noticed him acting any differently but the inside of his ears were red). The prescription was an ear flush, an ointment and a dose of antibiotics. We could have opted for a treatment by the vet for $75.00 or we could do it ourselves at home for $40.00. Since I always wanted to be a vet and our funds are limited, I opted for the at home experience! After all, how hard could it be? So home I went with the bottle of ear rinse and tube of ointment. We previously had to administer eye drops to our girl corgi, Carrie and that turned out okay so I was up for the challenge. I thought maybe I could lull him into a sleep and sneak up with the ear rinse but he seemed to know what I was up to. This was definitely going to be a two person job! Finally, the moment had arrived. Don was home so we got our supplies and were ready to tackle the job. Unfortunately, Sunny was not wanting any part of our "doggie" hospital playtime! I thought I'd do best trying to hold him while Don administered the products. After a few go arounds, much barking and fur flying, the task was finally complete! Today we went for treatment number two and I decided it would work better upstairs on the bed where I can perhaps get a better hold on him and his sister, Carrie wouldn't see him and get all excited. For the most part it worked much better than the kitchen table and I felt like a calf-roper trying to hold him still.

Only two more treatments left! Oh, and to top it all off, our other dog, Sasha went in on Saturday for her check up and had the same thing! However, she's a much better patient-even though she weighs 40 lbs more!