Riley, Button and me...exploring life

We're looking ahead to whether or not we want to remain with our long-time health care providers for our two puppies, Jack and Jill. In the 23 years since we first used their services the clinic and its owners have prospered mightily. That prosperity can be seen in the broader roster of veterinarians associated with the animal hospital, and the new building they erected after buying up the lots with houses on them on either side of the old structure, standing on the corner of two local main streets.

The major shareholder-veterinarian whom we've known for many years informed us years ago that one of the lot-owners was holding out for a really whopping sum, knowing how badly the land was wanted for a hugely enlarged, modern facility and adequate client parking space. The real estate tussle went back and forth for years before it was finalized, the result being the grand structure now in place.

Services were expanded, and now include a large area dedicated to commercial products for pet care; everything from food, dry and wet, vitamin concoctions and fish oils to grooming supplies, clothing, harnesses, leashes, toys and any other associated products certain to draw the attention of their large client-base. Prices, needless to say, are fairly stiff. But they don't carry the premium-quality Canadian-ingredients-sourced product made in Alberta that we prefer for our little dogs.

While waiting in the large and gracious waiting room for one's appointment, a steady stream of customers for the food products goes in and out. The 'associate' hired to operate the store comes around to the waiting room next door to it from time to time, to place a water bowl out for waiting dogs, and to ask their owners if anyone is interested in a hot cup of coffee. Service orientation is obviously heightened.

But the cost is immense in veterinarian fees for everything from basic health checks to needed inoculations and the dispensing of things like Heartworm pills in season. No appointment for a check-up is complete without the veterinarian in attendance urging additional services like blood tests because 'you never know'.

We placed our trust in the senior veterinarian whom we always asked to see when making an appointment, but on occasion were serviced by other associate-veterinarians of which there must be eight or ten on staff, along with numerous veterinarian technicians, not to mention front-desk staff.

The last time we were there was a week after we'd taken Riley after-hours to one of the two emergency veterinarian clinics in town open 24 hours a day, because we were very concerned that he was feeling unwell. We had been treating him for diarrhoea, a common enough affliction for him when he was younger because he had a delicate stomach, and we used the conventional treatment of boiled rice-and-beef augmented by packets of gut-inciting bacteria obtained over the counter from the vet's. The examining veterinarian hazarded a few guesses, but said tests were required, and she dispensed a drug that she said would help his diarrhoea.

Those tests, bloodwork and X-rays, were done at our usual clinic. The bill for both places ran up to $1000 altogether. But that was nothing compared to the cost of emergency treatment when we drove him that same day to another emergency hospital, this one equipped with all the latest equipment one might see in any human-care hospital.

He was there for three days; (one each bookending his surgery), his condition deteriorating, and diagnostic tests determining finally that his gall bladder was the source of his illness, surgery urgently required. It was all too sudden, his collapse and our fears for him, and we authorized that surgery, since the surgeon urged it was the only hope for survival open to us.

The resulting surgery was declared by the surgeon to have been a complete success. The only thorn in that ointment to our fears was that he was placed immediately thereafter on life support. And though everything was being done to prolong his life, he never regained consciousness.

Even at that juncture, even though he was hanging on by a slender thread, the attending veterinarians tried to have us continue 'treatment', arguing there might yet be a chance he could survive. As we looked at our little dog hooked up to intravenous and breathing apparatus, while monitoring diagnostic machinery was describing his swift decline, the veterinarian with us deciphering the messages for us; we had no option left to us but to euthanize Riley, at fourteen and a half years.

And we were left wracked with pain at the thought that our hoped-for intervention only served to prolong his agony. The cost for us to achieve that mode of thought came to $6500. Just as well we had sold an unneeded vehicle a month previously.

Just the very same horribly difficult decision we'd had to make two and a half years earlier when Button at age 19 and four months suffered her catastrophic stroke.

So, do we have an awful lot of trust in services offered to pet owners for their beloved companion animals, given our experience? Not an lot, and that's an understatement.

So we decided to make an appointment for next week at the rural veterinarian service that had given Jack and Jill their initial puppy inoculations, to have the third and concluding one done. And we'll see how that goes, evaluating that experience after the fact.

Jack and Jill, learning to explore....