Our Third Child, Doctors and Vacation

A few weeks ago as my family and I prepared to get away for a few days, Susan and I experienced something we had never experienced before. We had to take our third child (a.k.a. Tucker the Dog) to the Doctor's before we could leave town.

Now we've had to take our kids to the Doctors before, during and after vacations, but never the dog. The events leading up to this particular need was both an ear infection and a rash problem that made the dog do circles because of the irritation. The night before we were to leave, Susan and I found ourselves debating what we should do for the poor creature. Should we just take him to the kennel or should we take him to the vet and get him treatment? As good parents (dog owners) we decided we had to take the dog to the vet.

The day we were to leave was crazy to begin with, but we figured out a way to fit in a Vet appointment. As we made the visit, I quickly came to learn that it was going to be more complicated than I first anticipated. It began with the normal weigh in and check up. We then moved to the ears. After a wonderful lesson on how to clean the ears (the infected one was gross) we got the drops we would use. That wasn't too bad... but it got worse.

After the ears we learned about the "rash". The Vet went into a lengthy discussion on how our dog is struggling with acne in his groin area which is causing the problems. Lucky for me, all it would take to clear it up was a needle, 30 pills and a special shampoo. Guess who gets to wash the dog with the special shampoo!!!

As we left that day, I took the dog out to the car to wait for Susan as she paid. All I remember asking was "Did the bill have a two in front of it?" Thankfully the answer was no, but we didn't miss the two by much. I've never really thought about my dog as anything more than a dog, but he came a little bit closer to the "child" status as now all of my kids at some point have caused Susan and I to pay a visit to the doctors while either prepping for or on vacation.

I guess we couldn't call ourselves real parents unless we've had a vacation impacted by a sick child and now we are offically experts as all three of our kids have made vacation interesting!