Blondie strolled in and looked over my shoulder as I pecked out the title of my story on the keyboard. “Are you sure you want to call it that?”

“Yes.”

“I mean, it wasn’t even the whole day: just a couple of hours.”

“It’s my story, and I like the title. I think it’s catchy. I think my readers will like it too. So, how about you go chew a hoofie or something.”

“Hmph!” Blondie wheeled around and sauntered out the door, headed for the picture-box watching room and the basket of toys and chewies.

Actually, she does have a point: my ordeal did not last all day, and it ended well. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Now, where to start?

It was an average Friday…

Actually most days are pretty average for us. It’s hard to tell one from another. Except for weekends. On weekends NiceLady spends most of the days home with us. We like that. Most days she goes away almost all day. On Saturday we go for a truck ride. We like truck rides. And on Sunday both peoples go away for a while, we don’t like that. But they both come back too, and we all get cookies when they both leave us, so it works out.

It was just another average day until after lunch. HairyFace was taking things out and putting them in the truck. Not the trash can and recycling bins, other things: smaller things. But if he’s going somewhere there is a chance we’ll get to go too.

After a while he took my harness down from it’s hook so I got all excited and started dancing all over the place and cheering, “Arrr, rar, rawr, rar, rar, raouooo”. But instead of holding my harness down where I could step into it so he could buckle it up … he took it OUTSIDE! So Blondie, Tinker, and I ran outside to dance around and sing our pleasure.

Hairy said, “Make sure you pee while you’re out there. You won’t get another chance for a while.”

Blondie and Tinker got tired of singing and went to see what Hairy was doing. He let them in, gave them good-bye cookies and came out to me. I did not go back in because I … WANT … TO … GO … FOR … A … RIDE!

And it worked too, because Hairy got me into my harness, took me to the truck, and we went for a ride.

But, we didn’t go to dumpster city. Nor did we go to the drive-through cookie place. Nor did we go to Tractor Supply. We went … to the veterinarian! Not as good as the other places, but it’s okay. I like those people, and they like me.

I stood up, looked over the tall counter thing and said “hello” to Lavonda. She laughed and said, “Hello, sweetie, I just LOVE you!”

We went into a little room and we waited.

Then the terrible, horrible, no-good, rotten part started. All visits to Dr. Sandra involve someone poking something down my ears and pulling my lips up to look at my teeth. I don’t like those, but don’t make a fuss about it. Sometimes they jab me with sharp things. That stings, but I don’t make a fuss because Dr. Sandra and Angela give me lots of treats. But today they used a buzzy, fur cutter to cut off patches of my fur. MY FUR! I was leaving plenty of that on their floor already, why did they need to take more? Then they poked my naked spots with sharp things and squeezed the little bumps under the skin there so goop gooshed out.

They put fizzy stuff on them that stung for a bit. But I was being a really good boy.

Then, Dr. Sandra pulled my eye open real wide and was looking in there. My eye has been bothering me. Yesterday Hairy told Lady that my eye was all red and he was going to take me to see Dr. Sandra. To make this violation even worse, she took a long stick thing with a tuft on the end and started POKING around under my eye lid! AHHHHH!

I started squirming a bit. That hurt! And it’s scary! That’s my eye you’re messing with!

They stopped for a bit and Angela went to get something. When she came back, Dr. Sandra squeezed some goop into my eye that made it hard to see.

The doctor and Hairy talked for a while and Angela and the doctor gave me more treats for being a good patient. I didn’t understand much of what they were talking about, but Hairy was concerned. I did hear, “…come back Monday…” Hmmm … I’m not really in favor of that right now.

Hairy and I went back to the big room where Lavonda is and we waited some more.

While we waited, a pair of ladies came it and said, “Oh, what a handsome boy you are.” They said this to me, not Hairy. No one says that to Hairy, but Peoples say that to me a lot. So naturally I trotted over to say “hello”. They petted me and scratched my ears and I talked to them, and they laughed with delight, “Listen to him TALK to us! He’s so talented!” I liked those ladies, even if they were there to pick up a cat.

Then Lavonda called us over so she could give Hairy my medicine (the eye goop) and he could pay the bill. Hairy said, “Come over here Chief.” and I trotted over to sit next to him. The ladies laughed, “Chief – oh that’s so cute.” When he was done, Hairy said, “Let’s go.” and I trotted over to the door and put my nose in the corner of it: I was ready to go! The ladies laughed again and said, ‘He minds you so well!” You can tell they are accustomed to cats, not dogs.

We got in the truck and headed toward home. Hairy missed his turn and went on toward town. I was about to tell him that he missed the corner, but he said, “I know. We have one more stop to make.”

Now what? Guess where we went … the drive-through COOKIE store! I LOVE the drive-through cookie store.

Hairy pulled up to the window and the drawer slid out so Hairy could put his slips of paper in it. The lady inside was already smiling, and Hairy took several little dog cookies out of the drawer. “I knew you’d want those.” She said. So Hairy fed me the cookies while the lady inside did stuff.

Another lady came over, looked out the window and exclaimed, “Oh, he’s back!” and dropped MORE cookies in the drawer, which Hairy retrieved when he took out his slips of paper. I have no idea what is with the slips of paper, but I like the COOKIES. Hairy fed the second batch to me on the way home.

When we got home, Blondie and Tinker gave me a thorough sniffing to see what had been done to me.

Then I settled in to rest for a while.

I guess my day wasn’t really all THAT terrible, after all.

ADDENDUM

“HairyFace” here. Little did Cochise know, but this day would seem a cake walk compared to his next visit. What he failed to grasp is that this vet appointment was to investigate a bloody eye and three small lumps along his sides. The blood in his right eye was coming from a small growth on his 3rd eyelid. Doctor Sandra gave us some steroidal ointment to use over the weekend to see if that would help. It did not, so the following Monday Chief went back to have it surgically removed.

The three lumps were cysts. Two were normal and produced off-white paste when lanced and squeezed out. They are fine. The third produced coal-black gunk that baffled everyone. When Dr. O’Connor squeezed it and that came out, Angela (vet tech) said, “Oh: that’s … (I’m thinking “gross” but she said) interesting!”

Dr. O laughed, “You would say that!” Apparently Angela has an inquisitive mind and enjoys a puzzle. She said she’d put it under the microscope later and see if she could identify it.

On Monday Cochise went in for surgery where Doctor O’Connor removed the mass in Cochise’s eye, all of the mystery cyst, and another mass they found on his gum while cleaning his teeth. All three were sent off for biopsy to see if any malignancy is present.

The staff at Cedarwood Veterinary Hospital were very good to him. They always are. Since he will now be less eager to go visit them again, I will take him in a couple of times after he’s recovered just to visit so as to dilute the “bad experience” with some positive memories. Cochise and Blondie have always been happy to go to their vet appointments, I don’t want to loose that for them.

Cochise is home now and convalescing (which means “milking this experience for all it’s worth”). Because of the incision in his mouth, he’s on a soft food diet for a few days, so we’re feeding him the chicken/rice/cheese stuff we invented to tempt Tinker to eat again. Cochise thinks that’s pretty special. I need to irrigate his mouth with saline a couple of times a day to keep the incision clean. He hates that.

Rather than putting on a cone (e-collar) we put him in a tee shirt that covers the incision on his shoulder. That will keep him from licking at it and will help keep it clean.

They sent some antibiotics and some Tramadol with him for the pain. That works well. They sent enough for 3 days, so he should be recovering well by then.