Thursday, April 3, 2008

Castration Anxiety

I took Dudley (our dog) to the vet yesterday to get "fixed."  My son was in preschool but my daughter was with me for the drop-off. Both kids have gone with me to the vet with the Duds before to get his shots so it wasn't a new place for my daughter but she was accustomed to taking him in, going into The_dud
the examination room with him, and bringing him back home. She had a conniption fit when the vet tech took Dudley back into the bowels of the office and I informed her that we were leaving:



Daughter: What about Duddy?



Me: He's staying here. He has to spend the night here tonight after his operation.



Daughter: (lower lip making it's way out, face contorting and breath becoming heavy) Duddy want to come home with us. He need us! He need us!



Me: Sweetie, he's going to come home with us tomorrow. You can come with me to get him but he has to stay here after his surgery so they can make sure he is OK.



Daughter: (jumping now, each time feet getting further off of the ground) No! No! He want us Mommy! Duddy want us!



This continued for a little while and nothing I said seemed to console her.  Everyone in the office was staring at us with sympathetic eyes that expressed equal amounts of sympathy for my daughter, for her intense empathy for Dudley and me, for having to deal with my daughter. "Poor thing," they said with an overly dramatic frown. I laughed a nervous laughed, picked my daughter up and carried her out to the car, kicking and screaming. It was one of those rare moments where I was completely at a loss for what to do because I did sympathize with her. A part of me wanted to just hold her and comfort her until she understood that Dudley was not being abandoned. The other part of me, the one that was being kicked and scratched and yelled at, wanted to haul her back into the vet's office and inject her with a non-lethal dose of animal tranquilizer so I could put her in her car seat.



She was like a wild animal. Every time I pushed her bottom into the car seat far enough to get the strap almost buckled, she would arch her back and come out of the seat. After about four times and some serious not-detectable-to-my-daughter's-delicate-ears profanities, I got her in. She cried the entire way home and spent the last twenty-four hours asking about Dudley:



Where's Duddy Mommy? He needs us. He wants his Mommy.



Does Duddy miss me?



(Every time we got in the car) Are we going to get Duddy?



Suffice it to say I was relieved when I picked the Dud up this morning. He seems relatively unaffected by his sudden lack of testicles and happy to be home.



7 comments:

  1. Poor T! LOL! Thank goodness for your sanity he's back home now huh?

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  2. Dempsey had to make his way to the vet this morning as well. Two weeks ago, he had one of his canine teeth removed, and today is having the other side done. I think I am worse than the kids though. . . I miss him when he's not there! (but he'll be coming home tomorrow.)

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  3. You need to perfect your "lean against child with right shoulder while pushing child's bottom down with right hand" carseat maneuver. It's tricky, but an important qualifier at the Parent Olympics.

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  4. Man-O-Man, and to think, the last time I spent a weekend at your house, you kept trying to get ME to go to the Doctor's Office!!!!

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  5. Sounds like Emma today, although we didn't have to go to the vet. Her problem was having to leave ToysRUs. I had to do some creative maneuvers to get her in the carseat as well.

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  6. Duddy may act like he doesn't mind, but the next vet visit, he may be the one kicking and screaming and not wanting to go to the exam room.

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  7. Hhhhm. Another good reason to say no to the dog. New pics are up of us on Facebook too, just in case you want to see that we're normal. Sorta. :)

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