Today was the annual vet visit for Patches.
We didn’t have to put her in her carrier – she decided to sleep there (she may not decide this any time again soon). As soon as my wife closed the carrier door, however, Patches knew that something was wrong. When the carrier went out the car, she knew that she was going for a ride, and she hates going for a ride. She immediately started a howling that sounded like “A-OO!” every ten seconds or so. Repeated assurances that she wasn’t going to be abandoned, that Mom and Dad were right in the car with her, were of no avail.
Arriving at the vet’s (which is fairly close, so we didn’t have to listen to "A-OO! more than about ten minutes), Patches quieted down when the car stopped moving. She didn’t even meow when the dog came and sniffed at her through the front of the carrier (too miserable to swat it, no doubt).
Then came the actual exam. She gained another pound last year, probably because she’s now an indoor-only cat, so we’ll have to cut down on her food (she’ll love us for that:rolleyes: ). She has a broken tooth, which will have to be extracted at a later date. The vet spent a lot of time kneading her and spinning her around on the examining table (so that’s why they’re made of polished stainless); she spent the time that she wasn’t being kneaded and spun around cowering up against my wife.
Then she got taken out of the room for blood and stool samples. The vet poked his head back in: “Do you want me to clip her claws?” “Sure,” I replied, “why not?” Well, I found out why not; the ones on the front paws, at least, were cut short and blunt, and now the poor kitty can’t climb up on the bed (although she jumps into the tub to use her litter box all right. Hmmm…).
All over, and the carrier was produced (Patches immediately fled back inside). Home again, and another ten minutes of “A-OO!”. Let her out in the house, and she ran right to her food dish and stuffed herself (the poor thing hadn’t had any food in nearly an hour! Oh, the humanity!). She’s now laying, indignantly (you can sleep indignantly, right?), in the spare bedroom, in the hopes that she’ll be spared another visit to the vet for another year (barring the tooth extraction, she probably will be).
(N.B.: Actually, however much animals and their owners dislike veterinary visits, the veterinarians and their assistants deserve nothing but praise. Patches is a gentle and submissive cat, but not all animals are, nor are all medical problems as emotionally and physically trivial as her broken tooth. Veterinarian/veterinary assistant is a job that I doubt most of us want or could handle.)
