[Dailydrool] Miss Angela and the vet

[bjenk1 at cox.net]

Bill here, press agent/personal trainer to Miss Angela Basset, Droop and Drool Diva of Wichita and Sedgwick County

Today was checkup day for my employer.  We just made the appointment yesterday to foil the paparazzi  and, luckily, there was no press coverage of her visit to Dr. Cathy.   When Miss Angela pranced (OK, waddled) into the office, all the girls out front make a fuss over her as they usually do.  No problem to get Angie into the vet's office since she gets such a reception.  Then things turned ugly.  The vet tech came out and announced that the first step would be a public weighing!  Apparently Miss Angela was retaining water and felt fat.  She immediately went all flat basset, then rolled over onto her back when the tech approached her.  Luckily for the tech, the office is floored with a nice tile.  He just slid her over to the floor level scale and onto the scale.
Sure enough, she weighed.....well, for the sake of her privacy, we'll just say that she had gained two pounds since the last visit (on which she was told that she was becoming too rotund.)   Sensing her humiliation, we moved directly and with her full cooperation into the exam room.   She patiently and quietly endured Dr. Cathy using the equipment to look in her ears and listen to her heart.  She didn't flinch when her ocular pressure was taken, though she did express a bit of pique when the instrument failed to register pressure the first half dozen times it was applied to her eye.   She didn't even object when blood was taken, shots given and fecal sample extracted (don't ask.)

After her ordeal with the vet, I took her over to the Doggy Day Care next door where she spent the morning trying loudly to organize some amateur musical
performance.  This afternoon, she is enjoying a spa treatment.  I will pick her up at 5 to bring her home and introduce her to her new food regimen.  She will not be pleased.  Having food out for only twenty minutes morning and evening will be received badly.  The diet food will be received even more badly.
It will be a tough couple of days.  Miss Angela is a picky eater at best.  

Soon we will have to have a heart to heart talk about her future.  For opera singers, a somewhat robust physique is acceptable. Not so for serious actresses.  We'll have to look at some Kathy Bates roles.  Oh, and Kirstie Alley.
Miss Angela has met Kirstie.  Kirstie is a Wichita girl who still spends time here.  Her Wichita home is on our walk route (right by the Scientology center)
and one of her best friends lives across the street from us.  Both Kirstie and her friend (Kelly Coleman of the camping gear Colemans) spend the majority of the time in California.  When Kelly was last here, her house was "vandalized"  with all the trees being festooned with toilet paper.  It was the most thorough job of TPing that I have ever seen (and I was in on Kansas' first TP attack back in the fall of 1966).  When I asked Kelly who had decorated her trees, she said "Kirstie and the girls".  I don't know what it says about our neighborhood  that Kirstie Alley is the local vandal, but that's how it is.  Maybe I can find a DVD with Kirstie's FAT ACTRESS series on it.  That would be good for Angela.  

In addition to the change in diet and role models, Miss Angela is going to have to cope with a serious decrease in the number of treats she gets.  Or the nature of the treats.  She expects treats when she comes right into the house when I hold the screen door open.  She used to be prone to barking to be let in, then sitting and watching me when I opened the screen for her.  Just sitting. Hoping to reduce bugs entering in summer and loss of heat in winter, I began rewarding her when she came in immediately.  Now that will have to change.  Maybe I can break the "bones" up into three or four parts.  

As you can tell, this will be a tough period at our house.  I will try to keep the Drool posted on her progress.  I hope that she has better luck than Kirstie in getting the weight off and keeping it off.  The last time that I talked to Kirstie, she was looking pretty porky (not that I have room to talk, but she is up into my weight class now).  

Bill (enjoying a quiet, Diva-less afternoon)