Glandular Problems

“Look how they massacred my boy.”

- Don Corleone

The Godfather

            The receptionist at the veterinarian office said to call around one o’clock for an update on Vito. By then, he would be neutered and in recovery.

            At 11 a.m., my cell phone rang. Caller ID flashed the vet’s office. Why were they calling? I was supposed to call them in two hours for an update. My mind jumped right to the worst scenario: Vito had died on the operating table.

            I answered sotto voce, because I was already in mourning.

It was the veterinarian himself! I gasped back my tears. The Big Gun was going to deliver the bad news. I saved him the effort.

            “Vito’s dead.”  I declared and grabbed my chest to hold together my broken heart.

            “What?” he asked. “Oh, no. He did fine. But we did find something on him.”

            My mind went straight to tumors -- I was certain Vito was loaded with them.

            “How many malignancies?” I asked bravely. “Give it to me straight, Doc.”

            I took his silence to mean that it was worse than even I could imagine.

            “We didn’t find tumors, Mrs. Pedersen,” he finally spoke.” Nothing like that. We found fleas.”
            “Fleas!” I shouted. Tumors I could understand, but fleas? “We give him baths. I never saw any fleas.”

            “His fur is so thick,” said the vet, “You wouldn’t have been able to see them.” He said he had given Vito a flea treatment, and that I would have to buy medicine and squirt it in his fur every month to keep him bug-free.

            “There was something else …” he said. What more could there be than fleas? “We expressed his anal glands,” he continued.

            “You what?” My ears heard what he said, but my mind would not grasp the amount of dirty, disgusting things wrong with Vito’s body.

            “He had fecal material in there,” said the vet. “In a couple of hours he’ll be good to go. Around four o’clock, you can come and get him.”

            “I don’t want him anymore,” I said, but the vet had already hung up.

            When I got there, Vito wasn’t quite ready to leave. In the meantime, the technician went over all the at-home post-surgical instructions. Then she presented the bill, which was $401.

            When I grasped the counter to keep from fainting, she saw it was necessary for her to explain the bloated bill. The flea bath and the anal sac service alone was more than $150. Oh, and she had forgotten to add something. She wanted me to buy a plastic cone that was to go around Vito’s neck as a barrier to prevent him from licking his wound. I must have looked like I wanted to bite her because she offered another solution.

            “Or you could put a pair of boxer shorts on him,” she said.

            “What do I do with his tail?”

             “Pull it through the fly.”

            It was a weird idea, but it was free, so I told her I’d try it.

            As I waited for them to bring me Vito, I sat next to a lumber jack-sort of gentleman.

            “You want to save some money next time?” he asked.

            What good luck! I had actually positioned myself next to a person who had unlocked the secret on how to pay less in the animal-hospital money pit.

             “Learn how to squeeze the anal glands yourself,” he said. “That’s what I do.” He then acted out the way he performed the procedure. “Insert your finger into your dog’s  ... The glands are located at 4 o’clock and 8 o’clock … When you feel the blockage …”

            Before he finished, the receptionist called my name. Vito was ready to go home. I excused myself and almost got away before the unthinkable happened. The anal gland-squeezer grabbed my hand and gave it a hearty shake.

            “Good luck,” he said.

            I stared at my hand as if the man hadn’t washed his own since he last expressed his dog’s anus. Immediately, I began to itch and I swear I saw a flea on me.

            Vito came out from the back, and he looked great: no fleas, clean glands, and ready to begin anew.

             As for me, I left freaked-out, buggy, and broke. And the day was far from over. I still had to get Vito into a pair of boxer shorts.