Poor Book

I had to take our sweet old D-A-W-G in for surgery yesterday, and it was an all-around terrifying and humiliating experience for him. We found out a year or two after we adopted him, through x-rays taken after he got hit by a car, that he had several pellets or buckshot floating around inside him, evidence that at one time or another in his previous life he must have been shot. This sweet boy did not deserve that--no animal does. One of the pellets had been working its way toward the surface on his leg for a while now and after watching the spot get progressively more oozy and gross, I finally took him to the vet to have it worked on.

He is so scared of going to the vet and I always think he thinks I'm abandoning him and that I don't want him, so I put it off as long as possible. I had told the vet when I made the appointment that I didn't want to drop him off and go, that I wanted to stay with him until he was put out to avoid those abandonment issues he struggles with. We arrived at 7 a.m. as instructed, and the guy acted like he wanted me to drop him and leave. He said I could stay but that he wasn't planning to do the surgery until around 9. Why did he have us there two hours before then? Frustrating. So we sat (thank goodness for my new iphone and all the apps I've downloaded: Boggle, Jeopardy!, Scrabble) and three hours later, the guy came out and gave Booker a shot to relax him. A half hour after that he took Book back to the OR and brushed me off, so Booker did end up having to watch me leave him, even drive away in my car. I know it's maybe being a little too sensitive, but he's just a sweet dog and so devoted to me that I hate to do anything to let him down or make him sad.

I picked him up around 4:30. The vet cut out the irritated/inflamed area in his leg but no pellet was found. It had either already worked its way out or there is something else wrong with him that is totally unrelated. The vet is having some tests done so we will see. Booker was terrified of the Elizabethan collar, and even though it's supposed to stay on until the stitches come out in 10-14 days, we lasted only a couple of hours with this pathetic sight and took it off. He is noticeably back to his old self mostly this morning, and we are keeping an eye on him so he doesn't lick or chew at the incision. I think he's forgiven me for putting him through all that. Especially since I've been wrapping his pain pills in honeybaked ham.