Tigger's To-Do List!

Today was a monumental day since our adoption of Tigger just a little over a month ago. He got shots! At the vet! I know this seems like nothing particularly remarkable, but this was the THIRD time we went to the vet. The first two resulted in absolutely nothing getting accomplished except to stress the hell out of both of us. 

Our first vet attempt. It did not go well.

Looking back on that picture I can see that Tigger did not share my excitement for his first vet visit with his new family. I was so happy to get him to the vet that day! I rushed home from work and got him right in the car, talking the whole way about how healthy he'd be, how we'd get his nails trimmed, how after he got his shots I could schedule him a grooming session... oh, how young and naive I was back in late December.

Naturally, I did a lot of things wrong with that first visit. I made his first appointment for after work, to start, which meant I didn't allow myself time to take him on a nice walk or even just chill with him a bit before we went. I rushed him over and was probably a bit frantic, as I often am after walking out of work with a million things on my mind. How could I expect him to be relaxed about the whole thing when I wasn't?

More importantly, I didn't read his medical records very closely, or maybe I did and it just didn't register. He was NOT a pleasant patient for the vets at ACCT. But, c'mon, who would be? He'd just been dumped at the pound! Of COURSE he was testy. And I guess I didn't know just what a dog who is terrified of the vet looks like. My dog growing up, Leo, didn't like getting poked and prodded any more than anyone else does, but he put up with it. I thought Tigger would, too. 

He did not. Once we got to the vet, he was pacing around the waiting room and eventually barking a bit. I could tell he was anxious, so when the vet tech came out, I told her as much. He was just in the shelter three months ago, he's seeming tense, blah blah blah. I had been fixing myself a coffee when she came out and while I tried to figure out if I should abandon my nearly brewed cup or if she would wait for me for 30 seconds, she said, I'll just take him, and they were gone. 

I shouldn't have let her do that. For better or worse, Tigger is very attached to me and I'm not sure if my presence does calm him down MUCH, but I'm relatively certain that a stranger coming out of a strange room and taking him away from me without so much as how-do-you-do did not bode well with him.

Kisses!

My furriest BFF (except when Tom doesn't shave)

Nervous, but happy that Tigger was in the caring hands of the professionals I went to wait in the exam room. After waiting for a minute or less, I decided to run back out to the waiting room and add some creamer to my coffee. I heard some shuffling back in the exam room and again nearly abandoned said coffee, but grabbed it and ran back to find Tigger and the tech, neither looking terribly happy. 

"That was quick!" I said, cautiously optimistic. 

"We couldn't do anything."

Excuse me? What do you mean, you couldn't do anything? She said he wouldn't let them examine him or anything. Since I wasn't invited back there, I didn't see how it went down, so I couldn't really understand why this 140 pound or so woman wasn't able to examine this <14 pound dog. And surely there were more techs back there to help! She said she'd get the vet to come in and see what they could do. 

Well, in the end nothing got done. Tigger was SO stressed by these people handling him that he was lashing out hardcore. He wasn't so much trying to bite them as WARNING them that he had teeth that he was not afraid to use if they got too close to him. It was scary and sad to see. I still feel a little sick thinking about it. No one wants to see their pup that scared. 

Th vicious Tigger and his moose

The vet was a nice guy, if a little standoffish. The techs were... well, I don't want to say they weren't good. They just seemed a bit exasperated with Tigger. And I get it. He was being an ass. And it was towards closing for them. And I KNOW they deal with a lot in their job for not nearly enough pay. But I was also very stressed and very upset to see not just my new dog NOT be able to be treated, but to realize what an uphill battle we might have in order to get him medical attention in the future. And I told them from the start that he seemed very anxious and that this was his first vet visit since being in a shelter. And they had his medical records to see how his LAST visit went. Now, I get that he's a difficult patient. But that day I really needed them to BE a little patient with BOTH of us. 

They asked me to try and get the muzzle on him that they were not able to, but I couldn't. He was too wound up at that point and I'd never muzzled a dog before. After I couldn't get the muzzle on, the vet tried once more, but Tigger was snarling at the muzzle as soon as it came close to him. The vet, probably wisely, said it would be best to call it a day. He didn't want to scare him so bad that maybe next time he wouldn't even willingly enter the building. And I agreed, begrudgingly. I just wanted him to get his rabies shot. 

What did I do?

As soon as I got home (and calmed down a bit) I cancelled the rescheduled appointment I had made at that vet and called a new vet, Creature Comforts, for an appointment. Maybe I just didn't get the best techs or vet at the other place. Maybe I did and I caught them at a bad time. I don't know. But I wasn't thrilled with the way they handled the situation and felt it would just be best to try somewhere else. I had originally wanted to schedule at Creature Comforts anyway, they just book up faster being a smaller clinic, but clearly rushing wasn't in the cards anyway. 

So two weeks or so later we tried again. In the meantime, we stopped by Creature Comforts several times for some happy visits! We let Tigger smell around, the techs came out and gave him treats, we made him familiar in a good way with the clinic. He seemed to like it! We made our new appointment for first thing Saturday morning, so we could be with him all the night before and then take him on a nice walk before his appointment. The techs said if we weren't comfortable getting the muzzle on him that they could do it. Everything was set up for success this time around!

Let's not get ahead of ourselves...

Except that none of it mattered. Well, maybe it did, but not in anyway I could see. We went straight back to the little room and waited. Tigger got anxious again. The tech came in tried to examine him and he flipped out. The vet came in and tried to help and he flipped out. They tried to get a muzzle on him and he freaked out. They tried just to get one of those silly cones on him so they could at least give him his shots and... surprise! He STILL flipped out. Just as at the last appointment, we had to call it a day before we got him any more wound up than he already was. 

This time, they gave us some chill pills for him to take before his next visit. They told us we'd probably have to muzzle him ourselves, maybe before we left the house so he wouldn't make the associations he was starting to have with the vet. We took him home, gave him one of the pills to see how he reacted to it and he slept all afternoon while we worried. 

Two more weeks passed as we eased him into his muzzle. Two days before his appointment, we were faced with a dilemma. The great blizzard of '16 was a-comin'. The vet didn't know yet if they'd be closed on that Saturday of our appointment. The LAST thing I wanted was to push this appointment off further, but the following Saturday (today) only had two appointments left and I also didn't want to risk pushing it back even further than that. Disheartened, I rescheduled. As it turns out, that was the right decision as our little corner of the world was effectively shut down for the majority of the weekend.

Our blizzard-ed weekend was wonderful, but we STILL had to get him to the vet. So more work on the muzzle, more fretting, more research on how to make a dog like the vet... and then it was today.

Because we had to give him his chill pills two hours before his visit, we were up at 6am (which is still an hour later than we typically get up these days) with a spoonful of peanut butter for him, hiding that magic medicine. Two drowsy hours later and we got his muzzle on him. He DID not like it. Sorry I don't have pictures, but I was feeling really guilty about the whole thing. Holding him like a baby to avoid him pawing the muzzle off, we hopped into the car and got to the vet only two minutes late. 

Without going into too many details, since I've bored you with enough of those already, I can say we had a successful vet visit! Tigger did not like his muzzle. He did not like his shots. I'm SURE he did not like getting microchipped. But he did it. We ALL did it! And the receptionist and tech and vet were all really nice and encouraging. They welcomed us to stop by anytime for friendly visits and freeze dried liver treats for Tigger so that hopefully, with time, these visits won't be so stressful. Fully vaccinated and still totally drugged up, we left for home victorious.

Tigger sitting for his victory egg!

Paw, please!

Victory egg time!

Tigger is now sleeping more or less peacefully beside me as I write this. I know today will probably not be his favorite day to look back on, but he doesn't need a rabies shot for three years and he doesn't need to get microchipped again ever, so hopefully the worst is behind us. And yes, I did just knock on wood after I typed that. Because I do superstitious things like that. 

Now that the first big To-Do on Tigger's To-Do List is crossed off, we can think towards the future and the next things we want to do for him and with him as we further integrate him into our family. The two biggest things? Training class and a fence. 

The training classes we are looking at are at Woofs of Wisdom. The trainer, Nicole McBride, comes highly recommended through Home At Last, the rescue we volunteer with and where we adopted Tigger through. If she's their go-to trainer, I'm sold. And besides, she donates her time to them and that's reason enough to support her business! All the better if she's an excellent trainer. I'm hoping to get in her March class and maybe do a private session before then. I'll talk more about our training struggles in a different post. 

The fence we just really want so we can enjoy outdoor time with Tigger. I like walking him, even at 5 in the morning, so it's not about avoiding that. It's more about in the spring and summer when we want to garden or sit by the awesome fire pit our friend Brian got us or have a bbq with friends that we can let Tigger chill with us OFF the leash. Or just to run around and play with him outside! We've got some other big house projects we're looking into, so depending on how those shape up, we may just rig up some chain link to what's already there from our three surrounding neighbors, but we shall see. 

Some other to-dos include getting some grooming supplies. It has been made abundantly clear that we might as well do everything we can to avoid taking him to a groomer. I can't imagine that he would be that much more comfortable with a groomer than he is at the vet, so I'm just going to try my hand at dog grooming. With regular brushing he shouldn't really need a hair cut, at least not more than us just trimming back some particularly long areas. And the vet suggested not even getting a nail trimmer, but instead a coarse file. I'm not the best at manicures, but I'll sure try to learn! 

There is a LOT of fur to attend to

So that's all for now! Tigger's healthy, we're happy and now I can stop stressing about the dreaded vet visit. I look forward to him, hopefully, getting more comfortable with time, but if he doesn't... we'll deal with it. If him hating the vet is the worst thing we have to deal with, I'll consider ourselves quite lucky!

Do you have any items on your pet's to-do list? What are the funniest things you have or have done with your pet because of their quirks? Share your funny stories with us so the next time our own pet's get under our skin (like going in the trash for the millio