How a simple visit to the vet can turn into a lot of money spent

Today I had to bring Nova to the vet. No problems, just that we needed more Advantix and she has been on the cusp of increasing her dose. So we had to weigh her to make sure she had added the two pounds needed to flip her into the higher dose.

Last week, I was so excited to stumble upon the perfect car harness for her at a drastically reduced rate of just $10. I've been looking at this harness at $35 and thinking that I'll just stick with the kennel that takes up the whole back of my car instead of spending $35. She's safe in the kennel and it is an inconvenience, but not worth $35 to fix. But $10? That will work.

Nova is very nervous in the car, but I figured that the short trip to the vet (with no nasty experiences there either) would be the perfect first trip in the harness.

Nova is also very nervous about any new harnesses. She is finally used to the EasyWalk harness and we tried her in the car harness a couple of times. She is not freaked out, but she is nervous.

So, I loaded her into the car to take her to the vet for a weigh in. She's nervous, but OK. She decides to jump off the seat and lay on the floor. Maybe I have hooked her in wrong? but the harness seems to slide up and down the shoulder belt. If I put it on the lap belt, it is too short for her to sit up. It's a size large, so I figured that it was meant to be on the shoulder harness.

When we get to the vet's, she is very nervous and slips out of the harness before I can get her on the EasyWalk. Luckily, she had her collar on, so I strapped her up and headed into the vet. that's when I noticed her dew claw sticking out of her leg in an unnatural way. She didn't seem at all bothered by it.

So, when we went in, I asked the receptionist who looked at it and said she should be seen. (caching!) We waited a few minutes and then were called into an examining room. The tech didn't even look at it. They took her into a back room and started work.

The doctor came out and explained to me that she had broken it high enough to expose some of the pulp but not to cut the quick. So he had cut the end off and wrapped her foot up. Then he put a plastic cover over it to protect the foot. He gave her pain meds and said she should be better in a couple of days.

The poor thing. Her doggie friends will certainly be laughing at her new footwear.