HE’S AN “IT” NOW!

Sandy got his little nuts neutered yesterday!  Yeah!  Yippee!  I’m so looking forward to him NOT peeing on everything - and already things seem to be looking up!  The surgery went well and Sandy is one happy little guy today, the day after.  We’ve been out in the yard and he only peed on about half as many trees!  AND his once gigantic weenie seems to be returning to normal proportions!

As par for the course, things did not start off smoothly.  His appointment was supposed to be Thursday, the 8th, but that was not to be!  Monument Road Animal Hospital, Dr. Michael Shumer, is the vet that helped Sandy through his miserable bout with heartworms - remember?  The whole thing cost me around $2000!  MRAH has been my vet of choice ever since I moved into my house way back in 1988.  I have taken probably 5 or 6 of my cats and 6 or 7 of my dogs there and had been very happy, even though there had been several different vets in charge.  

Notice I said ’had been happy’?  When I took Sandy over at 8am Thursday, I was given an estimate for the days’ services.  Those people had the unmitigated gall to utter $361.90 to me!  I had an absolute cow!  You have got to be freakin’ kidding me!  What the hell were they going to do - replace them with solid gold ones or what?!  The clerk attempted to break the charges down for me - the actual surgery was around $220, then several “biohazard” charges and about $120 for that stupid thing they put around dogs’ heads to keep them from bothering the area.  

I tell you, people, I lost my mind!  Shoot, I’ll cut the damn things myself!  How the hell can they make such a big deal out of the “importance of spaying or neutering our pets” and then charge these ridiculous prices?  Why make such an effort to promote adopting from shelters to prevent cities from being overrun with strays?  How can a vet profess to have such concern for our pets’ health and then not want to be reasonable in their costs for care?  Seems awfully hypocritical!  

Now, don’t get me wrong - I am not so naïve as to think vets don’t need to make a living.  I mean, after all, they have put in the hours, costs, and study efforts to become an animal doctor and deserve proper compensation.  Yes, but reasonable realistic costs!  It would seem they would do a market analysis to see where they stand in terms of other vets in the area and the various charges.  I did!  I found prices ranging from $133 to $175 regarding the cost for neutering a dog in my dog’s weight and age bracket.  None were close to the $360 my vet proposed!

I called several animal hospitals in my area - got them straight out of the phone book.  I chatted with each one briefly and I decided on one called Ft. Caroline Animal Hospital, an additional 5 or 6 extra miles away.  Just so happened that this one was the one with the $133 neutering charge.  Sandy’s new appointment was the next day, Friday, yesterday.  They gave me their fax number and I had MRAH fax Sandy’s records over.  I’m sure they were none too pleased, but oh well.  (I wonder if they will follow up and try to contact me - we’ll see)

So, I took Sandy in at about 8:30am - naturally, despite shaking like a leaf in a tornado, he immediately took a sh** on their reception area floor.  (I wonder if that’s in protest or to purposely embarrass me & teach me a lesson! He did the same thing when I took him to be groomed!)  I fell in love with the support staff right away.  

I checked in around 1:30pm and all was well.  The doctor, Dr. Charles Athey, a wonderful man with over 20 years experience, called me around 3pm to give me his evaluation.  He spent a good 30 minutes explaining all sorts of things and answering all my questions!  Normally I complain when I have to talk a long time on my prepaid cell phone, but this time I didn’t.

Dr. Athey informed me that Sandy was still inundated with fleas.  I was kinda ticked off about that seeing as how the week before I had just wasted $45 to have all of his beautiful coat cut off and thoroughly groomed at Petsmart.  AND I spent about $25 on some anti-flea products there!  Dr. Athey gave me a long thorough explanation of today’s flea treatments.  He convinced me that, contrary to the high cost, Advantage (and Frontline) are the only products available that are both extremely effective at killing the fleas and the eggs, but they also are not dangerous to our pets.  The stuff you get over-the-counter is detrimental to your pets and really, to you too.  MRAH quoted me $80 for a 4 months’ supply for EACH of my 3 pets!  $240!  Online it costs about $55 for 4 months + shipping and handling, but there is a growing epidemic of fraudulent product.  Very “iffy”

Ft. Caroline charges $65.90 for 7 months!  And guess what, that will actually cover ALL THREE of my pets, but for 4 months!  The doctor and staff showed me how to use syringes marked with the appropriate dosages to split the product up.  Since it is not harmful to the animals, it can be used on my cat too, although the amount necessary to cover her is less because she’s only about 12or 13 pounds compared to Sandy at 32 pounds and Baby at around 45 pounds.  

Tell me I’m not newly in love with my new vet!  They just called to check up on him and I couldn’t be more thrilled with it all!  Sandy is now virtually hairless (not really, but his long beautiful locks are gone - for the time being ) but he’s also “ball-less” and we’re all a very happy, flea-less, barren,  “spayed and neutered” little family!  Oh, and his used-to-be gigantic weenie is no longer dragging the dern floor!