A few years ago, my co-worker Jerry told me how he had to shell out more than $600 for surgery to fix his dog's bad back. Paying pets’ medical
bills worth expense"Are you crazy?" I asked. "You could get him euthanized at the Humane Society for free."
"Well," he said, "the kids love him. I kind of like him, too."
At the time, I couldn't imagine $600 worth of bonding between man and beast. Then last week, I found myself writing the veterinarian a check for $625.53 for surgery to relieve our Shar-pei Bingo's chronic ear infections.
Suddenly I understood Jerry's attachment to his dog and was ashamed of what I'd told him. I didn't care if the surgery cost $600 or $6,000. I just wanted my dog's pain to stop.
We've raised Bingo since he was six weeks old, from a tiny pup to a muscular adult. His bark keeps intruders out of our yard and his sweet disposition chases despair from our lives.
I delayed the surgery for a long time -- not because of the cost, but because I worried that the operation would cause him more pain than the ear infections.
Shar-pei have narrow, L-shaped ear canals that trap moisture and breed trouble. It's difficult to get a Q-tip down there with the dog wriggling in protest.
Bingo the Shar-pei
The infections came one after another. Dogs tolerate pain far more stoically than their wimpy owners, but we could tell he was hurting by the way he'd constantly shake his head and rub his ear on the ground.
The surgery removes cartilage to open the canal so the ear can drain. The vet's assistant convinced me it was better to subject him to 10 days of surgical pain than to make him endure a lifetime of ear infections.
Bingo went down fighting. He tried to rip the arms off the doctor and his staff and had to be sedated before he could even be anesthetized. When I picked him up after the surgery, he was agitated and disoriented. He had a big plastic cone on his head to stop him from pawing the stitches. He shook his head angrily, spraying blood all over the place.
"He's going to have a permanent attitude over this, isn't he?" I asked the doctor.
He whined all the way home like never before. I was worried that I had made a big mistake in agreeing to the surgery.
But once in his familiar surroundings and back among family, he settled down. Within a few hours he was almost his old self -- albeit with a stupid cone on his head that limits his view to the small sliver of the world directly in front of him.
Bingo can't patrol the yard with his usual ferocity. He used to make passers-by step lively with his bellowing woofs. Now they stop to point at him and laugh. He's not going to sneak up on any cats with his cone bumping into every object he passes and dragging loudly on the ground.
FEEDING him has been a test of love. The two odors that nauseate me most are canned dog food and liver. I'd rather pick up Bingo's droppings in the yard with my bare hands than handle either.
But when Bingo came home from the vet, he couldn't eat from his bowl with that cone on his head. For two days, I fed him disgusting canned food piece by piece from my fingers. I finally devised a way to raise his bowl so he could get to it, but needed something special to entice him to give it a try. I fried him up some liver.
Today, Bingo gets his stitches and cone removed. He'll be delighted to once again be able to see the world behind him. I'm just happy that the life ahead of him is now pain-free.