The Pilgrimage

I was letting Brandy and Foster outside yesterday when Foster suddenly yelped. I yelled my loud customary HEY! and turned to see what’s up. After assessing the situation, I thought Brandy tripped him or stepped on him or something at first. Yes, Foster would totally yelp if stepped on, being the official drama queen in my household. He’s the only dog I know who yelps and cries and asks for comfort-rubs after being bitten by a bug.

A few minutes later, he yelped again and kept on crying for a few seconds with his left front paw lifted. Upon inspection, I found out he broke a nail. It looked like it split at the top. Here we go again, I thought. It was about time Foster and I made our semiannual pilgrimage to the emergency vet clinic, where everybody knows our names and serves us beer and chips while we wait.

Our last visit to the clinic involved a puncture wound on his side, which was made by none other than Foster himself with his own teeth. He obviously was chasing a bug with his mouth, which landed on his side. He cried bloody murder. He cursed and swore. He was beside himself yelping his brains out - Why me? Pourquoi? Pourquoi? Oh the things he had to go through! So on we went to the emergency clinic where they stitched him up, bandaged up his body and sent us home with a large cone because we knew he’s the master of getting to the stitches and taking them out. Nevertheless, the next morning, I was back at the clinic again with Foster, getting him stapled because he still managed to take half the stitches out. Of course. Then they bandaged him up some more to make his midsection look twice as big, put a gigantic cone on him and sent us home where I put a t-shirt on him as well, fastened with a rubber band. Needless to say, both Foster and I had a very long couple of weeks until the stitches and the staples could come out.

So this time around, I have to say I felt a little relieved that it’s just some broken nail, not that I’m happy or anything about having to go to an emergency clinic for a broken fucking nail. Not only there was not a drop of blood, but he was back to his usual pain-in-the-ass self, running around annoying Brandy in no time. When we got to the clinic, they informed us that the wait was about 2 hours, and since it didn’t look anything serious, I might as well take him home and see if he’s bothered by it and be back if that’s the case. So we unceremoniously cut our pilgrimage short and came back home with no bandage or cone to show for. Naturally I’m a little worried if this trip won’t be counted as official by the semiannual-Foster-emergency gods.