More Pitiful By the Day

Rita the Pitiful Puppy has not had a good week. First, she ate holes into her back. Then I insisted on clipping the fur over those holes and cleaning them, a process she was not happy about. To say nothing of the dreaded Elizabethan collar she's been stuck in since Wednesday. Then those holes got infected, so she had to go to the vet yesterday. Where we discovered that she's very resistant to the quick and easy sedative the vet gave her that was supposed to make her sleep quietly for 10 minutes so the vet could clip and clean her wounds without causing too much pain. Rita went to sleep, all right, but she fought even in her sleep, so that the combined efforts of the vet tech holding her head and me basically sprawled on top of the rest of her barely kept her from flinging herself off the table.

She's a scrappy little thing.

Then she was given something for the pain that made her disinclined to walk, so I had to carry her to and from the car. And THEN, the final indignity: she has to wear clothes when she goes outside. Like some kind of spoiled little purse dog.

This is Stoic Acceptance. It was preceded by Get This Thing OFF OF ME squirming.

Perhaps she objects on sartorial grounds, as the only old t-shirt I could find was one of A.'s, which is way too big and has to be tied in a very 80's little knot at her waist. But the reason for the t-shirt is that flies are outside. Flies lay eggs in wounds. Eggs turn into maggots.

Hmmmm. Humiliating 80's t-shirt or . . . maggots. If Rita could understand the choices, I feel sure even she would go with the t-shirt.

But she doesn't have to like it.