Nothing is Free, Certainly Not a Dog

by Brooke McLaughlin Mitchell

How is it that “free” dogs always seem to cost the most?

A few weeks ago, I was talking to one of my neighbors about his dog. Heaven forbid that I have any idea about the human’s name, but his old beagle’s name is Daisy. We have passed on the opposite sides of the street for years, smiling and nodding, but I finally spoke to him because of Daisy. Although we do not currently have one, we are a beagle family; I grew up with beagles, and my husband’s beloved beagle, Flash, died a couple of summers ago after a long and happy fourteen years of life. In fact, Flash’s presence in my husband’s life was one of the first indicators to me that me and my Mr. were meant to be. But I digress. Back to the point. Back to Daisy.

I have seen this elderly gentleman with his beagle for years, and I asked how old she was–her gray muzzle certainly matches her person’s gray hair! As it turns out, Daisy is the second beagle that he has had in the last decade. She was the result of a pleading phone call from his grandchildren that a dog had been hit and needed help. “Pop Pop” rescued the dog and took her to the vet, and the children’s father promised that he would come back to retrieve the dog when it was well enough to travel. Well, we all know the rest of this story. A week and $2000 later, Daisy had a permanent home with “Pop Pop.” And it’s hard to imagine that elderly couple without her.

My free dog story is not that expensive–at least not yet.

On Memorial Day in 2010, I saw a dog running down our street and in and out of neighbors’ yards. If you knew my street, you would understand that this is a very, very bad thing. At first, I thought that he belonged down the block to people whose dog is their child; my husband and I went on a rescue mission. Figuring out that this dog was not the beloved Greta took about a minute, but we forged ahead to get him to safety in spite of the fact that we were now going to have deal with a dog. He was a skittish thing, and having now lived with him, I cannot believe that we ever caught him in the first place. We brought him in, quickly learned that he did not like cats, and started trying to find him a home.

He was the poster dog for difficult to place: scared of men, anxious, unfriendly to cats, and, maybe worse of all, a runner. We think that he was about six months old at the time; he was intact, and he had places to go if given the chance. We finally found a home for him, but his relocation would have to wait for a few months. We were so happy to have a good place for that crazy dog that we said “fine.” While we waited, we split the cost of his neutering with his new owner and got his shots.

Lesson: if the dog doesn’t leave with the new owner, you’re still the owner. Because of unforeseen circumstances, Elvis’ new home fell through, and we were back to trying to find a home for him.

We became the neighborhood joke. I guess I cannot blame our neighbors; I probably would have rolled my eyes and laughed too at people who insisted on referring to what was clearly their dog as “the foster dog.” Talk about delusional. And, I have to admit, that the only effort being made to place him was talking about how we needed to make an effort to find him a home.

A year and a half later, we finally realized that we had a dog. A good dog. For keeps. He is obsessively attached to me, he and the Mr. are tight buddies, and his nervousness has resulted in a pretty great watch dog.

For a long time, he really did seem like a “free” dog; beyond the normal care, he seemed healthy and non-destructive (aside from a penchant for eating scrap paper).

But then, the seizures began. The first one was terrifying. I had no idea what was happening, and I thought that he was dying. I called the vet in a panic, and he said not to worry; dogs can have a random seizure and never have another–don’t start to worry until a third one occurs or the seizures last three to five minutes (or something like that). At first, it did seem to be a fluke. Then, months later, another happened. Then again, more months later, another one. We were now up to the three, but they were still short and so infrequent that we didn’t worry too much.

But then, the seizures started to occur every few weeks, and they got longer. Finally, the vet said to bring him in, and we did.

Lesson: nothing is free, certainly not a dog.

The good news is, he has responded well to treatment; he’s only had one seizure in six months. Luckily, the treatment is easy and (comparatively) cheap. Unfortunately, this is not true of the blood tests that are required to make sure that the drug-levels in his blood are as they should be.

By now, you have probably guessed that Elvis and I went to the vet this morning. And the bill was almost double what it was six months ago. Given that he will be on this medicine for the rest of his hopefully long life, this is not a good trend.

I guess that it’s a good thing that he was free.