The joys of pet ownership

Lately it seems I've been having trouble with my pets (actually one in particular-Oscar). Now, boxers are known for creating trouble, and Oscar's no exception. But recently it has been getting out of hand. The most recent incident was June 1 (the day I was stressed about my eye problem, which thankfully is resolved and I'm back to wearing contacts like usual).

While I was out picking up my glasses June 1, I accidentally left Oscar out of his crate. He does very well when kept confined to his crate if we're not home, but if he's left out, he turns into a monster, eating everything, spilling garbage, and creating as big a mess as possible just to tell us that he didn't approve of our absence. On this day, the garbage happened to contain a large amount of food stuff (crab shells, meat packages, leftovers, etc). Also on this day, there was a full package of beef jerky on the counter. When I returned, all food related items were missing and the garbage can tipped over.

In order to prevent problems, I made both dogs vomit, and got back most of the stuff they had ingested. I thought I was out of the woods, but it was not to be. 2 days later, Oscar started having problems keeping his meals down (classic sign for an intestinal obstruction). This lasted for 3 days until I decided to take my dog to my friend's clinic for x-rays and a contrast study. We performed the radiographs and all 3 of us veterinarians decided that there appeared to be an obstruction. We scheduled abdominal surgery for the following day.

So Oscar had abdominal surgery 5 days after getting in to the garbage. And we found absolutely NOTHING (this has happened before, there are a number of theories as to why we couldn't find the obstruction, but it was frustrating none-the-less). I was horrified that I put my dog through such a traumatic experience as an exploratory surgery only to find nothing was wrong (although in reviewing the case there is nothing I would have changed about diagnostics and deciding to go to surgery).

Post-op, Oscar was placed on a Fentanyl patch for pain control. Once he was back to his normal bouncy self, I removed the patch, and he developed a skin infection in the area where the patch was located (on the top of his head). So I spent 1 week trying to keep him quiet (an oxymoron in a boxer) to prevent him from ripping his stitches/staples out and also treating the infection on his head.

I thought he was back to normal, but for the last 5 days, he has now decided to have accidents in the house at least once a day. So now on the way to the lake house, I have to stop by my old clinic and do more work-up to make sure he hasn't developed another medical problem.

GRRRR!!!! Pets, can't live with them sometimes, can't live without them.