- by the Punkyova

A couple of days ago, I went to the grocery store and left the dogs at home. Not a popular move, as you might expect; they like to point out all the good things I'm somehow failing to put in the shopping cart, but sometimes it happens. I also stopped at the vet to get another bag of dog food. I came home, and as the dog food was on top, I picked it up and took it in with me on the first trip. The welcoming committee was happy to see me, lots of wags and kisses, then they saw the bag. "What's that? Huh? What is it? Smells like..... Oh, boy! Is that for us?" "Never you mind. Leave that alone. I'll feed you when I finish unloading the car." I went back out, and since the layout of the garage was inconvenient, I decided that rather than carry the bags in one at a time (open the car door, remove bag, close car door, squeeze past car, open house door, place bag in house, repeat), I would take all the bags out of the car, then close the car door, then ferry them past the car to the house door, then move them all into the house. So I did that, but when I opened the door to the house, what should I see, but (you're way ahead of me here, aren't you?) Conan, head stuck into a hole in the bag up to his shoulders, gobbling away, while Sadie danced around behind him, "Let me have some! I want some! It's my turn! You had enough! I want some!" until she saw me standing there. She froze, staring into my face for a second, and changed her tone. "It was all his idea, honest! I didn't get any! I told him not to do it! Honest!" Conan had to be dragged out of the bag, snatching desperately at the last pellets all the way. So, I put away the dog food bag, made the command decision that Conan didn't need dinner, fed Sadie about half her usual dinner (because I didn't believe for a second that she didn't get any), and put away my groceries. Behind me, I could hear Conan lapping up water like he had never had any before. Sadie just sat next to her now empty food bowl, and silently concentrated on getting me to change my mind about her dinner. When I finished, I took a good look at Conan. He looked miserable. He stood there, as dejected a little dachshund as one would ever wish to see, and looked up at me. "I don't FEEL good." "I'm not surprised. You ate like a pig. Go sit on your mat." He waddled, slowly and ostensably painfully over to his mat. "I don't FEEL good." I ignored him. A few minutes later, I heard a strange, strangled sound. Conan was standing up, his tail and his chin pointed at the ceiling, a strange fixed grin on his face, and foam beginning to come our of the corners of his mouth. "Conan, lets go outside!" I picked him up and rushed him out to the grass. After several hacking, gagging noises, he coughed up one pellet. I stared at him. "All that for one pellet? That's it?" He repeated the performance several times, producing a total of six pellets. Head down, he stared at me truculently. "I don't FEEL good!" I considered him. When I had picked him up, his tummy was tight as a drum, and solid to the touch. The evidence was in, I had no choice. Resignedly, I headed for the phone. "C____ L____ Veterinary Center, this is Angela. How can I help you?" "Hi, Angela, this is Sadie and Conan's mom. Remember when I was in earlier today for the dog food and I said that with any luck I wouldn't be seeing you for a while?" Angela started laughing. "It's the kiss of death. Any time someone tells us that, they're back in less than 24 hours. Which one is it?" "It's Conan. He managed to get into the dogfood and stuffed himself, and now he doesn't feel good." A quick glace out the back door confirmed that Conan was standing where I had left him, looking askance at me. It was beginning to dawn on him that this was somehow my fault. Sadie settled into her glamour pose on the pillow, preening like the beauty queen she is. "I'm a good girl. I don't eat like a pig!" I snapped at her, "Only because Conan was in the way!" "What?" "Sorry, Angela. Should I bring him in?" Dr. Grant was consulted, and agreed that we should come in. This was complex. Sadie doesn't like riding in the crates at the best of times, and especially not now that she hadn't done anything wrong. "Dr. Grant said bring you in too, and he'd look at your incision while we're there. It's almost a week since your operation. Get in the crate!" She pointedly looked away. I didn't have time for this. I picked her up and shoved her into the crate, then buckled it into the car, ignoring her indignant objections. Conan was even more difficult. "I don't want to go in the crate! I don't FEEL good! I'm going to throw up again!" I had to resort to pushing him into his crate as well. He refused to lay down, bracing his legs and standing defiantly, if somewhat unstably. "I don't FEEL good!" We arrived at the vet, and rather than carry the crates in, I took them out of the crates and put leashes on them. We made it inside, to Angela's amusement. "Hi, Conan! How are you?" To me, "How much did he eat?" "I don't know. Let's get him on the scale and see how much he's gained." We convinced Conan to sit on the scale. 13.6 pounds. "Wow, that's 3 and a half pounds since the last time he was here! Which was, gee, almost a week ago!" Conan looked up at us, pitifully. "He needs to go on a diet," I said spitefully. He shuddered and turned away from me. Angela considered him. "He's in pretty bad shape." Lisa, the new clerk, looked confused. "He looks OK to me, why do you think he's in bad shape?" Angela pointed at the large ferret cage a few feet away. "Soba is his favorite playmate, and he isn't even looking at him." Soba popped up from behind his bedding. "Hey, Conan! Let's play tag! C'mon!" Conan glanced in his direction and then looked away. I looked around for Sadie. Somehow, I had lost hold of her leash and she was gone. "Where's Sadie? I'll tie her leash to a hook or something." "Oh, you don't need worry. We all fell in love with her when she was here for her surgery." In the distance, I heard a woman's voice. "Why, hello there, cuddlebug! You came back to visit me, didn't you? Sure you did! Let's get you a tummy rub!" Correctly deducing that Sadie didn't need my help, I turned back to Conan. He stood resignedly, pointed his snout at the floor and looked up at me with his eyes. The effect was abject misery. "I don't FEEL good." Dr. Grant considered the situation. "Well, he was in last week with a sore back, so let's take an x-ray. We can use a large plate and get his back and his tummy, and see where we stand on both counts." It turned out that the x-ray tech was busy rubbing Sadie's tummy, but she agreed to take a break and photograph Conan. Sadie looked disgusted at this evidence of human fickleness, and set off again. I could hear Angela out front. "Hi there sweetie! You want to help me answer the phone? Sure you do!" Sadie still didn't need me, so I concentrated on getting Conan to stand quietly in the x-ray machine. He looked away from me. Clearly, he couldn't decide why I was inflicting this discomfort on him. Pictures done, I picked him up and took him out to the waiting area, settling him into my lap. Sadie popped up over the counter. This was not acceptable. She came running, and made it into my lap with one smooth jump. This provoked some re-arrangement, but eventually they managed to settle in. Angela and Lisa were charmed. "It's just great they get along so well." "Oh, that's so cute, the way they cuddle up in your lap like that." I smiled tightly, not yelping as various claws dug into my legs. "I think they need their nails clipped, Angela." Both of them froze, staring up at me. Sadie gazed upwards, but Conan, more experienced, concentrated his mind-control powers on Angela. She consulted their charts. "No, they had them done recently. It can wait a while." Somewhat peeved, I said, "Maybe I should learn to do it myself, at home." After one shocked look at me, they both concentrated on Angela. (Sadie learns fast.) "No, it's easier to do it when they're asleep, and we don't charge." Both of these were true, so I subsided. Conan and Sadie went to sleep. Dr. Grant called us into the back again. Sadie collected the x-ray tech, and Conan stood on the examination table to get a good view of his insides. "The good news is, his back is in great shape. No disk problems, no arthritis. The bad news is, he's full." On the x-ray, Conan looked like a gumball machine, full of little round balls. "He's too full to throw anything up, as you saw earlier. The big question is, can he move stuff through? If he can't, we'll have to operate." "What?" "We'll try something else first; it's not cheap." "How much is it?" "Oh, at least $600." I gulped. "Let's try something else." Conan looked up at me. He licked my hand, weakly, and rested his chin on my arm, gazing into my face. "It's OK, I love you devotedly, even if you care more about money than about me." I sighed. "Well, if you think we should operate...." "Oh, no, not until we've tried something else. We think he's 12, right? So an operation isn't trivial. We'll start with a laxative. It's too bad he's that full. It would be best if he could eat it, but we can try squirting it down his throat." "What is this stuff?" "Basically, liver-flavored vaseline." Conan perked up, staring at him. "Oh, let's try feeding it to him. I have a feeling he'd eat a little." Dr. Grant squirted some into a bowl and put it in front of him. Conan put his nose into the bowl and started making pig-like noises as he snarfed it up. Dr. Grant stared at him. "I don't believe it!" I smiled. "He's a pig." "Well, he should eat as much as he can." Conan fixed his devoted gaze on his new hero. He glanced disdainfully at me. "You should listen to him. You could learn a lot from a man like this." "He doesn't need dinner, feed him half of his usual meals tomorrow, and return to normal the next day." Conan stared at him, horrified, then looked at me. "You aren't paying attention to this fraud, are you?" I managed to get both of them onto their leashes, and we headed out. Angela waved at us. "What a dog! You gotta love him!" We went out to the truck. I picked Sadie up and tried to get her into her crate. She twisted around to look at me. "Can't I ride up front?" "No. Get in the crate!" I locked the door behind her, and looked for Conan. He was staring fixedly across the parking lot at the clinic. "Conan! Come on! Time to go!" He glanced at me briefly, then resumed his vigil. There was liver in that building. By this time I was tired. "I'll give you a treat when we get home." He considered this briefly, then decided to accept my offer. As I was helping him into his crate, it dawned on me what I had just said. "Why am I offering treats to a dog who's just been to the vet for eating too much?" Conan settled himself into his crate, tucked his paws under himself and looked up at me contentedly. "Because you should be nice to me. I don't feel good."