Ranger Update

Ranger had her little adventure at the Vet today.

She hates it. Scares her to death. She shakes all over as soon as we walk in and its one of the few times she'll climb onto my lap. Ranger is an affectionate dog; but she dislikes being cuddled. Here she wants to be held.

We tried to get a urine sample, which meant that me, Ranger and a lab assistant walked around the block. Every time Ranger squatted to piss the tech stuck a pan under her, uh, you know, and of course, Ranger froze. Imagine going to the doctor and the lab assistant walking into the bathroom to assist you with your urine sample and how difficult that would be...okay, for some of you, maybe that's not an apt analogy. At any rate, it didn't work, which means I have to follow her around the neighborhood with a damn bedpan trying to collect.

However, since I hadn't given her a pill since yesterday morning she stopped her incontinence and going on that info the Vet changed her meds. I guess my 4-H training paid off.

The Vet sent Ranger home with more than one med though...Ranger has outsmarted us at every turn on taking pills. We've tried the pill in the cheese trick, the pill in the hot dog trick - Ranger just eats the goodies and spits the pill out. I ground up her pill and rolled it into some peanut butter -- She spit the peanut butter out as well as anyone can spit peanut butter out. So we take to shoving the pill down her throat, but even then it turned out the LTR was inserting the pill in the back of her throat, she simulated swallowing (no, I don't know how she learned that trick) and then went upstairs, away from the LTR, and spit the pill out.

Tonight she shocked me by EATING one of her pills...she sniffed it out of my hand, opened her mouth and ATE it.

Maybe you can teach an old dog new tricks. There's hope for me yet. And hopefully Ranger will become a little more like her old self...energetic, happy, perky.