Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Our $1000 Dog

We have a Puggle. Have you ever heard of a Puggle? It sounds like some kind of strange creature from another planet. But really, it's just a dog. A cross between a Pug and a Beagle.

Puggles are part of the growing trend of "designer dogs". Like the Labradoodle. Puggles can be quite expensive, from $600 to $1000. But we got ours for free. That's right. FREE!!!

And then we learned the hard way . . . There's no such thing as a "free" dog.

This lonely little puppy was abandoned to roam the wilds of rural southeast Missouri, where my sister lives. As the dog was spending way to much time at my sister's house, (and eating her chickens), she called me to see if we might want to drive up and adopt him.

To make a long story short, we did.


We took him to the vet for the routine shots and to be neutered. His little boy parts looked a little funny to us, but we didn't think anything about it. Until our vet said "I've read about animals like this, but I've never actually seen one in all my years of practice."

You don't want to hear that from your vet, or any other Dr. for that matter.

The next words out of his mouth were, "You need to take him to a specialist."

I didn't even know they made such a thing as a veterinarian specialist. I thought the vet was the specialist. Shows what I know.

What followed then was a series of trips out to a Vet School in Oklahoma, surgery, and a lot of money.

And when it was all over, I thought The Big Question could finally be answered, so I asked one of the surgeon-specialists, "Would you consider this a male or a female dog?"

He hesitated, then breathed out, "I don't know."

Seeing the look on my husbands face, he hastily added, "But I would call it a male dog."

That's good, because his name is Buster.

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