Aisha had her final puppy appointment yesterday morning at 9am. Knowing that she is pathetically unskilled in controlling her bodily functions, I did not feed her or give her water prior to the appointment. I was hoping to avoid any humiliating accidents, like the time she peed on the clipboard at the vet’s office.
Aisha made it safely through our time in the waiting room, and even managed to get weighed on the little vet scale without incident. However, moments before entering the examination room, I foresaw impending doom. “Ummm, I think she’s about to poop,” I told the unsuspecting technician, and then moments later, Aisha did. It was no ordinary poop however; this was the poop of one who has not pooped in YEARS. I was mortified.
The technician, to her credit, merely smiled and reassured me that this sort of thing happens frequently. She then cleaned up the mess, and cheerfully told me that “we’ll just use some of this for the fecal sample!” Talk about making lemonade from life’s lemons. My embarrassment faded, and Aisha and I waited peacefully in the exam room for the vet to appear.
That is, until Aisha peed an enormous lake on the floor. I immediately balled up an entire roll of paper towels and mopped up the mess, hoping to hide all evidence of my poor training skills from the doctor. I was successful, aside from the fact that Aisha tracked remnants of the puddle all over the linoleum floor.
After the examination, which went relatively well, I took Aisha up to the front counter to pay the vet bill. We waited and waited for her chart to be brought out, and then Aisha got tired of waiting, squatted, and peed another lake. My humiliation was absolute, and I stammered to the four people working behind the desk, “Uh, she’s peeing. Uh, she just peed.”
Nobody acknowledged this announcement, so I went back into the exam room, gathered another rainforest’s worth of paper towels, and sopped up this new disaster. What baffles me is how such a small dog can retain so much fluid, and how she can find the most inopportune times to expel said fluids. She had been out twice since she had last consumed any water, and still, there was probably close to sixteen ounces of urine dropped on the floor of the vet’s office. I imagine that she is actually hollow on the inside, and that her full 15.7 pounds is merely fur, teeth, and bodily waste just waiting to ruin my life.
A technician finally noticed me mopping the floor, and told me not to worry, that he would be happy to take care of the mess. Fully flushed with embarrassment, I dragged Aisha out of the vet’s office and into the elevator to go back to the parking lot. However, the moment the doors began to shut, she became alarmed and bolted out of the elevator. It took three times of the elevator doors smashing into her sides for her to learn to sit still and let them close unobstructed. I then forgot to push the “Ground” button, and after three minutes of waiting for the elevator to travel one floor, I realized my error.
I think, for the sake of my dignity, I’m going to change vets.