Anything worth having is a lot of trouble

In the last four months, I spent $8771.26 on animal veterinary and behavioral treatments.

That included $2500 for Cash's overdose of vetprofen, $1000 for Mollie's vertigo, pain meds, hospice, and cremation, $500 for Kitterson's thyroid meds, blood work, and follow up visits, and a mere $250 for Stella's adoption, spaying, and check-up at our regular vet.

The most unsettling expense, however, was for Rufus. Rufus is a Lhasa Apso who lives about two blocks away from us. Back in July, when the HVAC guys were here, I went out to run an errand. Cash slipped out and jumped Rufus on the street. My HVAC tech Courtney deserves a medal for sprinting after Cash and pulling him off Rufus within seconds. Seriously, that man went above and beyond the call of duty in every sense.

Needless to say, Rufus' owners were distraught. Rufus had been attacked by another dog once before, and his owners felt like it just wasn't safe to walk their dog, which has to be so infuriating. The owners left several terse voicemails for me. I had to meet with animal control. There was a risk that Cash could be labeled as a dangerous dog and have to be muzzled in public forever. Tensions were high.

Rufus first went to Animal Eye Care. That's when I first learned about the veterinary shortage because the ER vet turned them away. I paid $1961 for a corneal laceration repair. When Rufus went for a follow-up two weeks later, they learned they would have to take his eye. That prompted another terse voicemail. "My dog is losing an eye while your dog is free."

I paid for the subsequent surgery and learned that they didn't take Rufus' eye but instead gave him a silicone implant. Doggo has a fake eye like Columbo! The vet heavily discounted that surgery, so it was only $399.42. He had his final surgical follow-up this week and seems to be doing well. Because the outside of his eyeball is still there, you won't even be able to tell that he's blind in that eye unless you sneak up on him.

Since this is not the first time Cash has acted super reactive to a dog in front of our house, I needed to pull out the big guns to see if we could correct the behavior. I hired a guy named "Mountain," a 12 year Marine veteran who worked with dogs in Afghanistan to clear main supply routes and marketplaces. This dude is legit. He also has about 25 dogs under his care currently. He is the perfect person to bring dogs who know how to act right and help teach Cash that not all dogs are here to kill his family.

In the meantime, we adopted Stella. Mountain admitted that when he first learned that I was getting Stella, he thought, "This lady is crazy. She already has one asshole dog, and now she's getting another one??" Once he met her, though, he was and is smitten with her.

The unique thing about Mountain is that we aren't going through a generic training program. Mountain is tailoring our sessions to Cash's needs. It's also $1800 for eight sessions. Honestly, that's cheaper than another corneal laceration repair, so I just did it. And since Cash is responding well, we will get some guidance for Stella as well.

It's been a costly summer for me. My credit card is pretty full. And I did my best to do right by all the animals, both in my home and neighborhood.

We did some work today with an e-collar for Cash and a long tie-out while Mountain paraded his Malinois dogs around my front yard, just looking all tempting and threatening. Cash did so well that we're not sure how to correct his behavior. That dog is a mystery sometimes.

The next plan is to get Cash accustomed to the e-collar for corrections, and then Mountain will bring a dozen dogs, park down the street and bring them down the road one by one to see what happens. He's also bringing assistants to help him so Cash won't recognize Mountain as "safe". It's a whole production. Depending on how that goes, we'll meet at Lowe's and see how Cash does running into random dogs in the aisles there. Believe me, I'm getting my money's worth out of all this.

I do feel awful about Rufus. I'm sure his owners feel frustrated too. But I'm hopeful that Cash can get the therapy he needs to be a well-socialized dog after years of neglect. And we might also get Stella to be slightly less of a doofus too.

Happy National Dog Day! It's been a wild ride, but still seems worth it

Mountain bringing one of his Malinois out to provoke Cash