Animal Doctor

Anya and I took Laika to the vet today for her yearly checkup. Well, I say yearly, but when I called, the receptionist reminded me that we didn't take Laika last year. I'm a bad doggie mama. I could have sworn I brought her in, but that's okay. I can just blame my lapse on the kid.

What I also can blame on the kid (whether or not I can, I'm going to anyway) is that our poor puppy gained 25 - yes - 25 pounds in 2 years. Pre-Anya, we had a dog walker and Laika got to run at the park every weekday for hours on end. So she was quite svelt and I recall being concerned she didn't weight enough. Post-Anya, we can no longer afford a walker since I'm at home, and she gets to run a measly 20 minutes a day (with long bonus trips on the weekends). And it doesn't help that Anya sneaks her food to Laika and also likes to dole out extra portions of dog food (and cat food for Laika) when she goes upstairs. So the vet's orders were to hide the pet food from Anya and also drop her usual intake by 1/4.

What is that saying? Something like, "when you have a baby, the kid becomes the dog, the dog becomes the cat, the cat becomes the houseplant, and the houseplant dies." It's true!

Minor scolding aside, it was a fun visit. Anya was incredibly interested with all the goings on and asked a ton of questions of the vet tech and the vet.

"Is Laika gonna get a flu shot?"

"What's her temperature?" Asked after the tech took a rectal temperature. Afterwards, Anya kept lifting up Laika's tail and looking at her butt with confusion.

And Anya screamed and hid behind my legs when the vet brought out some dewormer for Laika to take orally. It was in a large syringe (minus the needle) and Anya thought it was a huge shot for her. "No thank you!!!!" And quickly got over it when she realized it wasn't meant for her.

And she talked about the paintings on the wall and pictures of animals with me and the vet.

It was just neat to see her so engaged and interested in the whole process. And we bring in the cats for their yearly (yes, actual yearly -- I somehow didn't forget them last year) so we get to do it all over again on Saturday. Fun.