Sam Says Goodbye to "The Boys"

And gets his puppy hernia fixed, too.


Did you know that dogs can be born with hernias? I didn't either. It wasn't giving him trouble, so with the vet's recommendation, we waited until his neutering to have it taken care of. Sort of a two-for-one deal.


There's not enormous drama involved with this for us. We don't intend to breed Sam (Can you imagine me taking on one more completely life-hijacking task? Really?), so we did the responsible thing and had him neutered on Tuesday. There was a lot of going back and forth on what age to have it done. Some people say as soon as four months, some people say it should wait until one year. We decided to split the difference at 7 1/2 months. Since I never act stressed at the vet's office, and my vet's office has a great team, Sam was totally relaxed when he was led off by a veterinary tech, and wagged his tail at one and all. Even through the closed door, I could hear them fussing over him and telling him what a good, handsome boy he was. That made me feel good.


It was very gratifying to have one of the vets comment on how stable a dog I have on Tuesday morning when I dropped him off. You have to figure that veterinarians see the full range of dog owners, from the crazy pet hoarders who love their dogs too much and never set any boundaries for them because they think it's mean, to the ones who plainly do not care and either abuse or neglect their dogs to dangerous levels. That compliment made my day, because it means I'm doing my job.


Anyway, I found out my little puppy now weighs in at seventy pounds! Wow, that happened fast, huh? And I found out that though he cried really loudly when they put in the i.v. needles, he didn't nip at anyone or show any signs of aggression. Another good sign. He came out of the sedation well, and they let me know I could come and get him early.


So now, it's Sam's first experience with both pain that doesn't go away in a minute or two, and "The Cone of Shame."

Not surprisingly, Sam hates The Cone of Shame. Whined about it for several hours straight, although he also could have been disoriented by the last of the anesthetic working its way out of his system. That night, he was up and down, bashing the cone into the walls so much that I had to get out of bed and go lie down on the couch to be with him and allow Mr. ShellHawk to get some sleep. Around two a.m., Sam crawled up onto the couch with me (something he never, ever does, because he knows he's not allowed on the furniture without an invitation), and went to sleep. I think he was not only needing his "pack leader's" reassurance and closeness, but was hoping I could make it all better and incidentally take The Cone off. It was a very special moment. I threw an arm over him and managed to go to sleep for a little bit.

He seems better today. Now, all I have to do is keep him from playing with the other dogs. *sigh*