Life's Little Trials
Poor little tyke. The day started off normally enough. He gave a hacking kind of cough early in the morning, enough to send Button scurrying, worrying off. She fears any kind of sound or movement out of the ordinary emanating from her smaller companion, and makes herself scarce at those times. So he coughed, as though he was trying to clear away an obstruction of some kind in his throat. It happens, and often; nothing out of the ordinary. He ate his morning meal, I observed him drinking water. He behaved as he normally does when we set out on our morning ravine walk, and all seemed well.
Throughout the course of the day that same cough repeated itself occasionally, but not that frequently that it might raise any alarm bells. He ate his dinner just as a good little dog should. Later, in the evening, just after nine, I went out to the backyard with him. We permit Button, our miniature poodle, our independent, sensible little dog to venture out on her own after dark. But not him, he's too aggressive, and if he thinks there's an animal in 'his' backyard, on 'his' territory, he reacts. Too much testosterone in a very small body, I expect. We go out with him when it's dark to ensure that the raccoon, if its at the compost, which it often is, will clamber over the fence and Riley won't challenge it.
This time, soon as I opened the sliding door, off he charged, down the stairs of the deck lickety-split. All that barking and charging about set off a really serious round of coughing and hacking. I watched his little body being wracked by the coughing. And when that stopped and I expected him to return to sanity, I froze instead with disbelief as a long shrieking ululation of pain emitted from his tiny throat. I'd never heard anything like it, could hardly believe that anything that loud come come from that little body. My husband rushed out of the house, wanting to know what had happened. Then, a repeat of the shriek and hearing it instilled an instant fear in us.
We bundled ourselves together, including Button, got into the car and drove directly downtown to the 24-hour emergency veterinarian hospital. Irving cursed the city bus leisurely blocking the road before we even got onto the highway. And where does all that traffic on the Queensway come from, for heaven's sake, at this time of night. An accident? No wonder there's a back-up of vehicles, don't people know how to drive defensively, intelligently? Summer's on the wane, people have forgotten, perhaps how to drive sensibly in the dark. Finally, we're there, exit the car and wait until the receptionist opens the door for us, after ascertaining the legitimacy of our arrival (we had telephoned beforehand; they insist on that).
We are entered on their computer system, we've been there before. Other previous nasty occurrences out of normal hours of operation. We're asked to pay the obligatory fee for the use of their emergency service up front: $106 in cash, as requested. Anything incurred in services or pharmaceuticals will be added to that, as we well know. And who cares? the feeling of helplessness in the face of the tiny dog's distress must be assuaged; we've got to know what's wrong, and we desperately want the veterinarian on duty to make him well again. But the duty vet is busy, and we wait. She's performing an emergency procedure on yet another hapless pet, whose owners have been given a private room to sit out their anguish, given the seriousness of the situation.
We're there more than an hour, and finally the vet is free to see him. An assistant veterinarian had earlier come along to see Riley in the waiting room to ascertain whether he could safely await examination and treatment. By then he was sitting quietly and apparently without distress, on my lap, and he was deemed to be in no immediate danger. The veterinarian, when she appears in the little examination room where we've been re-located, introduces herself and apologizes for the delay. She asks if June 14 is really Riley's birthday, as it is hers too. We recognize her as being the same vet who had expressed Riley's painfully swollen anal glands a year earlier. She listens to his heartbeat, smiles and says he has the beat of an athlete. His lungs, his eyes, his legs, his ears, and down into his mouth. He's an obliging little guy under these circumstances and allows himself to be prodded and pinched. And pinch him she does, under his throat, enough to bring forth a yelp of pain, she says, but he is stoic and no sound is emitted from that little throat now, no coughing, nothing appears amiss.
We talk about what it could conceivably be. A sore throat, perhaps, and that would explain his pain, particularly if the little beast is a complainer, and he is, often. He might have scratched the inside of his throat with something, a chewy, anything like that. We've already ruled out chewing wood, which many dogs do, and get splinters in their throats for their obsession. He isn't a destroyer of toys or furniture, so that's out. No point taking an X-ray she tells us, it would only divulge metal or wood. His condition, given his willingness to co-operate and his stoical performance, his lack of untoward symptoms at this point, doesn't warrant a hospital stay. We breathe an audible sigh of relief.
Keep an eye on him, she says. If the shrieking re-occurs and we're really worried about it, bring him back. Meanwhile, he's having no trouble breathing, there's no indication of any kind of obstruction. It's her considered opinion that in a day or two whatever scratched his throat or caused him to have a sore throat will have been resolved. We're feeling much more relaxed, and thank her effusively. We say our goodbyes, to her, to the receptionist, the assistant, and to the quite young couple who turned up with their family cat in a carrier, and their seven-month-old little boy in another. No sight of the two young men who arrived earlier in the evening with a tiny white rat, limp.
We return home drained, exhausted, but relieved, so very relieved.
posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, September 07, 2005
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