Vet & Care

It started with the sound of his nails slipping on the kitchen floor at five in the morning. Most of what helped was furniture and floors, not anything I bought for a dog.

Two hours of reading forums took me from mildly concerned to genuinely frightened, and none of it was information. Here is what I do with that time now.

I have stood at that counter with a card in my hand and no plan. Here is the boring system I put in place afterwards, and what I ask before I say yes to anything.

Round one lasted about four seconds and ended with me bleeding slightly and Mabel under the bed. What finally worked was calling the clinic back and admitting it.

Rowan came up short on a walk and I decided, with no qualifications whatsoever, that it was a strain. Two weeks later I found out what I had actually done.

I picked our first clinic because it was close to the grocery store. Here is how I went about it the second time, and what I ask now before I hand over a leash.