The Dog Ate My Wallet
Remember that old Tom Hanks, Shelley Long movie, the Money Pit, about a house they fell in love with, but ended up pretty much destroying their lives as they tried to fix it up? Well, none of our dogs have destroyed our lives, but we always seem to have an “emergency dog”, or a “money pet”.
Moree was our emergency dog. Every few years something would happen and we’d rush off to the emergency vet. On some level, the fact that we’d been through so many of these situations and he’d come out just fine, is what made his death following surgery so shocking to us. We’d spent years certain he wasn’t going to make it through, and this time it was a fairly common surgery (to remove a bowel obstruction). He was fine the night after the surgery, and then, suddenly, he wasn’t fine.
But Moree’s not really the point. After we lost Moree, we adopted Junebug. She came from the shelter. Sure, she was a little more expensive to adopt because she was a puppy, but she came with a free laparoscopic spay, so really, inexpensive if you think about it. We had no idea she would turn into our “money pet”.
It started with the common puppy things. We got her during the chewing phase, and boy did she chew. We called her the Destroyer of All Bedding for a reason. We have since had to replace every single sheet set and blanket we had when we first got her. And now she’s put a few holes in the new blankets. She chewed on Somkey’s collar enough that we couldn’t trust the clasp to hold, so we had to buy him a new one.
And then came last year, with the swollen glands and the lymphoma scare. In January, there was the rush to the vet because she was shaking uncontrollably and not interested in treats. (A Beagle, not interested in treats- definitely something wrong.)
Now, we’ve got swelling back, that we thought was a ruptured saliva gland, but it’s not. It’s an infection, one that’s not responding to antibiotics. We go in for a consult with a specialist today. Just the initial visit will cost $150. Who knows what the tests, labs, imaging, etc will run.
To go along with this, she’s also not completely past chewing.
On Tuesday, we were having the home inspection for our adoption process. Because there would be lots of moving around, in and out of doors and the basement, we decided we’d put the dogs outside on the tie up so that we wouldn’t have to worry about them being underfoot or getting somewhere they weren’t supposed to.
We placed the tie up in a spot in the yard where they would have options of sun and shade. We put out a bowl of water. We’ve used the tie up before, normally when we’re doing yard work, and the dogs have really seemed to enjoy their time lying in the grass.
Apparently, though, the key to the dogs being happy on the tie up is that we have to be outside to. On Tuesday, we put them out, and then went inside and stayed there. They were not happy. It took about a half hour for them to calm down, but it wouldn’t have taken much less time if we’d closed them in the bedroom, so we didn’t worry about it much.
Well, about an hour after that, C happened to look over at the back door- and there was Junebug, standing there asking to be let in. She had chewed completely through her 1”, heavy nylon leash in under an hour simply to get back inside. (For the record, neither Larry nor Howie did any damage to their leashes, and were, in fact, enjoying lying in the grass.)
In the grand scheme of things, the less than $10 to replace her leash is nothing. And we didn’t necessarily have to replace it. We have extra leashes lying around (not the same length, but we have them). But it’s just one of those little things.
Now, Moree was worth every penny we spent trying to save him. Junebug is worth every cent we’re spending on her. We’re in good shape financially, so taking her to a specialist, while expensive, isn’t going to break the bank or even really disrupt our current plans. But that is because, after Moree, we know to plan for these emergencies. We set money aside every month specifically as a pet emergency fund, because after 12 years of having an emergency dog and a money pet, we know those expenses are going to come up.
Still, there’s a reason my personal finance blog is called The Dog Ate My Wallet.