Pookie, Buddy (who should henceforth be referred to as “Wild Child”)and I did NOT have fun taking our dog to the vet to get the hook removed from his mouth.  First, we got lost.  We didn’t just get a little turned around, mind you; we actually ended up in an entirely different city than the one that we were aiming for in the opposite direction.  Really.  I’m not pointing any fingers, mind you, but SOMEONE wrote “West” on my directions when I should have turned “East”.  All of the rest of the times I got lost on this trip were entirely my own fault, though.

After we finally found our way to the vet with the help of my dear sis-in-law, Kaylaugh (who graciously volunteered to come along with us and brought her well-behaved service dog in training, Saya), we had a lot of fun trying to talk our less than well-behaved dog, Remington, into actually going into his designated cage at the clinic.  The lovely ladies who work there now refer to him (lovingly and with great affection, no doubt) as “Cujo”.  Have I ever mentioned that Remington, although ready to lay down his life for any member of our family at any moment, doesn’t take well to strangers?  As a matter of fact, not only have we never been able to help him overcome his aversion to strangers, but he is still firmly convinced that his people must be protected from them at all costs.  Veterinary clinic employees of all stripes are now firmly at the top of his list of strangers that his people MUST be protected from.  Trust me.

To make a fun day even more fun, I was having blood-sugar problems.  Great day for a long drive in the heat, huh?  

Want to know something else fun about our trip?  Remington removed the hook from his mouth himself.  Really.  He did something that our new vet tells us she has never seen a dog do in her years of practice.  EVER.  Our Remington is a toughie all right.  It’s a good thing that he didn’t need stitches.  I’m not quite sure how he would have managed those on his own, but manage them he would have, because he does NOT trust veterinarians, or their employees.  It was pretty funny to see all of those afraid-of-our-little dog folks ask our 13yo daughter to fetch him for us and seeing him sitting politely at Eaglewood’s knee looking adoringly up at him while being petted and watching us listen to tales of his misbehavior while looking perfectly innocent and angelic, though.  I’m pretty sure they wanted to strangle him (politely and lovingly, of course!).

Seriously!  While my eldest son was trying to mow our back yard a couple of weeks ago, the blade hit something and bounced up THROUGH the deck of the lawnmower!  In case you have never seen that sort of thing happen before, and actually WANT to, it looks like this:

Do NOT try this at home…