[Dailydrool] Drool for Flash, please

[Veronica Woodruff]

I really hate to ask for drool when there is already no shortage of hurting animals.  However our Flash, almost 10, seems to be in a bad way.  Since Sunday he has occasionally yelped and is obviously in some pain.  Thank God he is still eating like a trencherman but last evening, after his dinner, he went into the guest bathroom, lay down on the cool tile and simply trembled.  He refused to go out for a late night walk, refusing to be tempted with a slice of roast ( ! ).

This morning all seems fairly well with him but he is, obviously, still in pain (giving the very occasional short, sharp cry) and is now on his bed in the living room.  I'm hoping he will eat his breakfast.  We're hoping we can get him in to the vet for a six o'clock appointment (if not, we're changing vets).  We are praying it is nothing more serious than a dental problem.

Flash is the most difficult, horrible dog I have ever had (and I think I've had 15 or so Bassets over the decades).  He came to us with moderate food aggression (which we say is much improved but really means that we've learned to remember to keep anything resembling food out of his way).  He has a mania for water drinking (the vet couldn't find a cause for it, in other words).  He has eaten (beside all the stuff I've forgot about) the fringe off the carpets, one third of the dirt out of a huge potted palm, gum from a visitor's purse, so much foam from his own bed that we couldn't figure out how his stomach could have held it all.  He is not allowed on the furniture because it turns him into a snappity, snarly fiend.  And of course he is addicted to the cats' litterbox like a kid to a cookie jar.  He is, because of the water 'thing,' an uncontrollable peeing machine.  

So yes, he's a truly awful, awful dog.  But you don't stop loving your kid because he or she is a juvenile delinquent, do you?  I can stand there and yell my fool head off at him or weep in frustration and all I have to do is look into his eyes and I melt.  This dog drives me crazy.  He is wonderful with all other dogs, all cats, all people.  He lets his sister, Wilma, do anything to him and would protect her, if need be, with the heart of a lion.

If there is any drool to spare, or prayers to be offered, they would not be amiss; we would be very grateful.


Paul Deveau and Veronica Woodruff


(Stillwater Lake, Nova Scotia) 

    

"At first dreams seem impossible, then improbable, then inevitable."  Christopher Reeve
 		 	   		  
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