Impotent and Furious

First off, my apologies to my Facebook peeps who've already heard this. I need to rant. The top of my head is about to blow clean off.

I got home from work last night, and noticed that the Small Dog (Zippy) had some brownish spots on his back legs. I thought it looked unusual, so got down on the floor to take a closer look under the chassis. What I found was some dried goo on the outside of his pecker - looks like maybe dried blood. Poor wee guy! I loaded up my bathtub with warm water and Epsom salts, and filled it up to about chest level on him. I put him in, and basically soaked it off of there. He didn't seem to mind that part very much, though when I started to rinse him with clean water he started bucking around the tub like a bronco.

He's still my little wild thing, even at 17.

At any rate, he's had a small handful of accidents lately (though nothing major), but I've mostly chalked that up to cognitive dysfunction. He does seem to go out, forget why he's there, then come in and pee on the carpet. Sigh. Then about two weeks ago he had that bizarre running through the house at midnight episode, which again I wrote off to cognitive dysfunction. But this... this is an obvious enough indicator to make me think he needs a urinalysis done.

So this morning I managed to catch a urine sample, and tossed it in the fridge. On my way to drop off the urine I called the vet's office to give them a heads up that I was coming. My regular vet (who rocks, by the way) is out this week. The receptionist told me they wouldn't take a sample without seeing the dog since it's been a while since she's seen him (uh... it was late November/early December). Oh, but they don't have anything today... the earliest they have is tomorrow at 11:30 am.

Now that I KNOW he's having troubles the waiting to help him thing INFURIATES me. Not just a little bit, either. I don't understand why they wouldn't just take the sample, and go on and give me something to help him (if it was a clear course of action), and THEN let me bring him in tomorrow. Maybe I'm being unreasonable. But it's Zippy. He's tiny. He's feisty.

Thinking that one of my dogs is in pain makes me a crazy person.

What I feel at the moment is furious at being impotent. I'm almost tempted to drive home, get my dog, and go drop him off in their laps. I want to call them back up and scream at them. I want to go over there and yell at someone.

I won't do any of that because I am a nice person. However, I plan to satisfy the urge by picturing it over and over in my head all day.

I think the Zip-man will be OK... it's twenty four hours from now. My fury comes partially from the fact that I get the impression that the receptionist thinks I couldn't possibly have a clue. What I'm hoping is that by the time I go over there tomorrow I'll be able to have an intelligent adult conversation with the vet. She doesn't know me from Adam. I'll be nice, but firm. That's the plan anyway.

I have pee in my car, in case you were wondering.