Look What Came in the Mail Today!

Are they kidding? It's time to go back to visit my 'friends' at the animal hospital? No way - I'm not going. They wasted their money sending this little friendly reminder because when Mom showed it to me I shook my head 'no' and put on my pouty face.

Look, it even has my name on it with a note of the exact nature of my visit. I think I'm busy on May 4th anyway. Yeah, I think I have to wash my hair that day or something like that. I may even be out of town. I am a super busy pug who does not have time to visit the crazy people at the animal hospital. I really don't need an exam/semi-annual consultation. What do they need to consult me about? I feel fine. Please, save it for the dumb dogs of the world because this pug is way too smart to be fooled by you.

This is the inside of what I like to call the 'invitation'. Looks kind of slick doesn't? Don't be fooled by the wording - "You want you dog to grow strong and be healthy. We want that too." No you don't! You just want to torture me, poke and prod me with strange instruments, and then stick needles in my delicate little arms to suck the blood out of me. Nope, not happening this time. You have fooled me one too many times and now I am putting my paws down.

The real issue is that the first animal hospital I went to when I was a baby was not a good one. They took my manhood away, but I am over that by now. The problem I had with them is that they did not treat me like Stubby. They would just call me dog. The doctors did not have good bedside manners and once when I got a shot and then almost passed out on the way home, they seemed bothered by the fact that Mom was hysterical and wanted to bring me back there. Hello! I almost died people! I had a reaction to the cocktail of medicines they gave me and Mom was ready to kill herself for letting them almost kill me. I was just a little guy when this happened, about 1 year old. Needless to say, we left that animal hospital and started to going to another one where I fell in love with my doctor.

Dr. Lisa was the best vet ever. She took such good care of me and always called me by my name. She would scratch me behind the ears and talk to me, yes me, before examining me. She had such a calming nature about her that made me feel very warm and fuzzy inside. She was the first vet to clean my teeth and she called Mom as soon as I woke up from the sleepy medicine to inform Mom that I had not died during the procedure. I loved Dr. Lisa so much, but she moved away. And I cried.

I continued going to the same animal hospital and soon was taken care of by Dr. Lovell. He was very nice to me, but he was no Dr. Lisa. He also cleaned my teeth, but I had some complications when I woke up from the sleepy medicine. Dr. Lovell eventually left the practice and so did I, which is how I ended up with Dr. Barten at my current animal hospital.

When I first saw Dr. Barten he told me I was fat. Me, fat? No really, I told him. It's just winter weight. He wasn't buying it and ever since then, I have not liked him. I only saw him a couple of times before I started seeing one of his new colleagues Dr. Cheung. She is nice and she didn't tell me that I was fat, but she did tell Mom that I needed to lose weight. She even gave Mom some diet medicine to give to me. I guess she is okay, but I need to find a really great doctor like Dr. Lisa.

So here I am, dreading a trip to see Dr. Cheung. I still have my winter weight, but hey, it's only April and the snow just melted a couple of weeks ago. I know that I have to go because Mom says I need a checkup and of course I need to have a fecal exam. The bag for my fecal came with my invitation. I can hardly wait to fill it up.