Veterinarians and Hair cuts

I took Teddy this morning to go to the vet to have his horrible teeth seen to and get a check up because I think he's got something wrong with his stomach and his ears - which may be a big reason why he bites - he's just so damn uncomfortable. I'd never been to this vet before but I'd corresponded with him several times because of my Charlie loves Halifax website and he sounded very nice and sincere and I'd been wanting to check him out for awhile and I thought this would be the perfect time to change vets. I ended up being horribly late because the office was way further down a strip of road than I thought it would be and there was also construcion going on - and because I was late he wouldn't see me today - I had to reschedule instead and I'm SO glad he wouldn't see me, because when I walked in the door the waiting room was filled with bags of Medi-cal and Eukanuba food. GROSS! I walked around for a minute to check out what else was on the walls and there was no mention of any kind of rescue organizations that were available locally or any kind of dog friendly even that was going on locally. I was SO disappointed.

It got me to thinking - where do a lot of responsible dog owners spend time in? Veterinarian's waiting rooms! Even if local vets aren't willing to volunteer their time or money to local rescue organizations I think at the VERY LEAST it behooves them to spare a little bit of their waiting rooms to educating the public about responsible pet ownership. What do most people do when they're waiting to take their pets in to see a vet? They WALK AROUND THE WAITING ROOM LOOKING FOR STUFF TO READ! It's the perfect captive audience to get the word out about responsible pet ownership.

So anyway, needles to say - I was really disappointed about that vet - that he was willing to sell such awful food to his customers - the same food that caused the painful state that I was taking Teddy to see him about (!!!) and the abject absence of any literature about local rescue in his waiting room. His receptionist had a negative vibe too - so I'm glad I saved giving him a ton of money. I have an appointment instead next Thursday afternoon with Jennifer Bishop over at Full Circle Veterinary Alternatives - I know I'll still have to find someone else to do his teeth - I'll probably take him to Dr. Julie Weste for that - but at least I know that in every other way I'll be getting him completely healthy - with a nutritional apprach I can 100% believe in.

Oh yeah - when we got home I decided to cut the hair on his head and around his eyes - I had been hoping that when we were at the vet I could get help cutting away the humungous glops of goop around his eyes - but since that all went to shit I decided I couldn't wait any longer and dove in to do it myself. I got all the stuff prepared on the kitchen table, put a pair of gloves on (so that he wouldn't do TOO much damage to me) and went to get him - he had been watching me get ready and he knew what was coming! He growled really loud and started running. So we spent the next 15 minutes working so that he'd crawl in my lap and I could pick him and put him on the table - which he eventually did. He really is a good dog who just wants unconditional love, and if you don't mind him biting you straight through to the bone quite often - then there's no problems! haha! Needless to say I don't think that Teddy is going to be visiting any nursing homes in the future.

Here's a picture that I took today at Conrad's where you can actually see his eyes!


Teddy's tongue tends to stick out of his mouth a little bit too - isn't that the cutest thing you've ever seen?