OK, so maybe Iona’s last grooming visit didn’t actually cost a million dollars, but it certainly feels like it. Michael dropped her off on Saturday while I was in Virginia, and had no idea what he was in for. This was meant to be a happy little puppy spa day…where you drop her off dirty and pick up a clean, sculpted and good smelling corgi. Yeah, not so much.

Turns out Princess Iona was just a ball of raging infections. Biggest issue is the bladder infection that requires four weeks of antibiotics. Apparently this is relatively common in female dogs and especially ones that are low to the ground and may not ‘dry off’ as easily. Add her age and bad hips and you kind of get the idea that she isn’t shaking her privates on a regular basis. This could also be caused by her daily intake of Rimadyl, but even the vet said we shouldn’t take her off the miracle arthritis meds. This just means watching her kidneys through blood tests (and finger endangerment) every three months.

She also has an ear infection which the vet says was most likely caused by the North Carolina humidity and her inabiilty to fight off two simultaneous infections. Oh yeah, and the fact that she has giant bat ears. Finally, and most costly, is the abscessed upper tooth. She cracked it a couple years ago in what we suspect was a mad case of chewy dominance, so we always knew it would need work someday. It’s at least encouraging that $900 of dental repair could maybe, perhaps, possibly cure her foul dog breath. She should wake up smelling like a mojito for this.

She’s scheduled on the 8th for surgery and all the follow up blood work and urinalysis. Feel free to send her flowers, although she’d probably prefer some nice hard rawhide or other indestructible materials to chew on. She still has a few teeth that are wrongly straight and uncracked.

Yeah…drop your dog off for grooming and end up with $1500 worth of meds and surgery. Michael is now headed to his part-time (pay for puppy) job, while I continue to convince her that she needs to live until 2018 in order to pay off her debts to us.