Distemper

Over the next two months, my daughter is having a baby, my son is graduating college and getting married (and hopefully, a job), and the Nordic Warrior Queen and I are moving to Phoenix. All of this implies a great deal of travel, visits by family, moving trucks, and general mayhem.

As such, my wife was planning ahead (as usual) and decided she’d better get her cute little circus dog current on vaccinations, knowing that the mutt would at some point be sent to the kennel: you see, the darling thing has a habit of pissing at everyone’s feet. I guess this is just her way of showing she’s happy to see you.

Diane called that thieving veterinarian up the street and was quoted $82 for the kennel vaccination. Just one shot: eighty-two hard-earned bucks. I don’t think so.

The good news was that, in addition to my wife’s endearing yet somewhat compulsive tendency to anticipate and attempt to control the smallest minutiae of daily life, she is also a wicked bargain hunter: she found the same vaccination at the rancher’s supply store for just $13. What a deal.

Of course, that meant we had to stick a needle in her little dog’s neck.

I don’t know why, but she wanted to get this odious chore out of the way immediately, even though the dog wouldn’t be boarded for at least a month, and in spite of the fact that we were traveling to San Diego in the morning to visit our daughter. In my wife’s defense, I didn’t give it much thought either.

We mixed up the concoction, filled the syringe, and jabbed that sucker in.

Naturally, the dog had a reaction.

Within fifteen minutes, she was yarking up her kibbles and bits all over the rug, and soon afterwards keeled over in a state of general malaise.

We thought we’d killed her.

I Googled “distemper shot symptoms” and found that this sort of thing is fairly common, and generally passes within twenty-four hours.    

The diarrhea started later that night. By morning, she’d crapped so much that her little doggy va-jay-jay was all swollen from pushing. It looked like a plum pit.

I Googled “swollen vagina” and all I can tell you is that I should have enabled Safe Search beforehand. Yuck.

There had been talk of bringing that whining little shit with us in the Big Red Car to San Diego, but the thought of six hours in the car with a nauseated and diarrhea-spewing dog was not something we wished to contemplate.

And even though she was now successfully vaccinated, it was too late to board her. So we left her with my son. Sorry about that Jake. As we pulled away from home, I heard her mumbling something about her barfing, shitting, cunt-licking dog. I’m not sure – I wasn’t really listening by that point.

We’ll miss you, Annabelle. See you in a week.