This week has gone to the dogs

Gloria and I have two dogs, Ella and Marley.

On Wednesday, Ella tore her ACL and was in much pain. Thankfully, Gloria had a snow day and was able to get Ella to the vet. We learned how much it was going to cost to "fix" Ella, but we just grinned and beared it and we were happy to be in a position to help her.

Today, I came home early and found Ella's EMPTY bottle of pain medication. Immediately I figured the culprit to be Marley. Marley can open anything with a lid- the butter container, tupperware, mixed nut containers, etc. Hell, he can even delicately unwrap individual pieces of candy. I found the empty bottle of meds near Marley's spot so I assumed he had eaten all of it. I rushed him to the vet and they got to work on him right away. I was told his care and treatment would be expen$ive. Okay, well we cancel the May trip to Texas. Fine, let's get him taken care of.

I get home and Gloria tells me that Ella is acting funny. Drowsy, weird breathing, "different". Now we start thinking that maybe Ella ate the pills. The thing about Ella and Marley is that Marley is the thief, but Ella is the bully. And even though she's been limping around here, she still runs the show. So it's very possible that after Marley opened the container, Ella took the pills from him. So now we rush her to the vet.

Since there is no test or obvious symptoms, both dogs must now be treated. The vet tells us that by the time a dog shows a symptom, it is too late. So even though both dogs seemed normal, except for Ella who was acting a little different, if we would have kept them at home we wouldn't have really noticed anything until they keeled over and died.

So now they're at the emergency vet, and if they live through Sunday, they will have made it through the toughest part and we can bring them home. But we weren't promised anything. It's possible that one or both are so toxic that even with all of the treatments they're receiving, they can still die.

After all is said and done, all of this will cost (including Ella's ACL sugery) us about 7 months worth of mortgage payments.

Anyone looking for roommates?

I love our dogs and my joking about how much this is going to cost us may sound cruel, but the reality of the financial cost of this is nearly overwhelming; this is going to put a huge dent in the ol checkbook.

However, Gloria and I love our dogs too much to not give them a fighting chance. Some people out there won't understand going into debt for a pet, that's fine, you don't have to, it's more important to me to know that I've tried to keep my humanity in tact.

I hope to have good news on Sunday.