Whirlwind, Part Six

(Continued from Whirlwind, Part Five)



“There’s something oozing from his…wiener.”

We were supposed to go to Loose Park and throw a Frisbee around and lay on blankets and read and pretty much just enjoy a beautiful day. But when I arrived at her house to pick her up, she was concerned about her dog, Buddy.

“He’s been licking himself…down there…a lot the last couple of days and now there’s something oozing from it. Should I take him to the vet? I don’t know if I should leave him here the rest of the day…”

“Maybe you should call the vet and explain what’s going on and see what she says. If she thinks you should bring him in, then you probably should.”

“I feel bad about ruining our day but I don’t want him to get worse. What should I call it when I talk to the vet? ‘Uh, yes Doctor, there’s a milky discharge coming out of my dog’s wiener…’”

“Well, you could just call it a penis,” I said, as we both giggled immaturely.

“Ohhh…I don’t know…”

“Just give her a call and we’ll get it figured out.”

“Oh, okay.”

She called the vet, settling on “wiener” as her chosen descriptor, while she tried not to giggle. She explained the situation and the vet told her that she could fit Buddy in within a couple of hours. She thanked the vet and hung up.

Stacie apologized again for the our plans blowing up. I told her I understood and offered to tag along with her to the vet, in case she needed any support or assistance. She gratefully accepted and we hung out until it was time to go.

We arrived at the vet’s office and, with some effort, managed to keep Buddy from discovering the office cat until it was time to go to the examination room. Once there, Stacie tried to comfort and reassure Buddy that everything would be fine while I tried to comfort and reassure Stacie that everything would be fine. She forewarned me about the feathered, she-mullet that the vet would be wearing and we both managed to suppress our giggles when she entered the room. Barely.

The vet looked Buddy over and gave us a couple of possible diagnoses. But she said she would need a urine sample to run tests on to know for sure. She said we could take him home and get a sample there or we could take him outside and try to get one while we were still at the office. We decided that we wanted to get things under way as quickly as possible and opted for the more immediate option. The vet handed us a Petri dish and we went outside.

“Do you want the leash or the Petri dish?”

“He’s your dog. I’ll let you deal with the urine collection. I’ll take the easy job.”

“Easy” is a relative term, especially in this case. Buddy isn’t Marmaduke, but he isn’t Toto, either. I’d guess he weighs around 75 pounds. Combine that with the fact that he is young and strong and that there are about 25 trees outside the vet’s office to sniff and investigate and I had my hands full keeping him under some semblance of control.

But at least I wasn’t Stacie. While Buddy drug me from tree to tree, sniffing and pausing and lifting his leg every chance he got, Stacie was following along, Petri dish in hand, squatting down to collect what she could from Buddy. But, just as she would get into position, Buddy would look up, find a new tree to explore and take off, leaving her with little but sprinkles in the dish and on her arm. I couldn’t stop laughing and neither could she.

After investigating about 10 trees, we had what we hoped was an adequate amount for a sample. She turned in the sample and washed her hands while I realized that this wasn’t such a bad alternative to missing out on our plans after all.



(To Be Continued...)