Fun with Kaiser

I love my dog, I really do, but he is awesome at causing me problems: emotionally, mentally, socially, and financially.

For the first month or two we had him we basically had no lives. We rarely looked up from the floor, and we spent more time outside (in the freezing weather in December) trying to get him to pee outside instead of all over our floors. He also has an extraordinarily sensitive stomach, and was plagued with diarrhea. I literally spent almost $1,000 in vet bills over the course of the first month trying to clear this problem up, only to take matters into our own hands and change his dog food. Voila! That would have been great advice from the vet instead of the medications we pumped him full of. 


All of the conversations we had over the first two months of his life with us can be neatly summed up in this colorful pie chart:

I think if you click the picture it will link to a larger version. I don't know though, cause I just am not that talented with HTML.


Here are other fun and expensive experiences we've had with Kaiser:

Drugged after invasive surgery

• He developed a kidney infection around five months old and started pissing all over the house again, literally every 10 minutes. Back on meds he went.
• He developed Cherry Eye in his right eye, which magically went away. Then it popped up into his left eye, where it remains to this day, screaming, "THIS IS GONNA COST YOU LOTS OF MONEY TO FIX!"
• One of his testicles did not drop, which meant he had to have invasive surgery, similar to what a female dog goes through when she is spayed. They told me it could be right below the surface or it could be as far back as his kidneys. The FIRST vet we went to (the one that charged me $1,000 over a month instead of telling me to switch his food....) gave me a $900 max quote - and she charged by the MINUTE. We ended up taking him to another vet and thankfully that lil nut wasn't as deep as they thought, but it still cost over $500.
• One day while he was at dog daycare (don't judge! we both work 8-5!) he stood over an old Akita and got his leg bitten. It swelled up to the size of a softball and he was on antibiotics for almost two weeks.
• Two visits to dog daycare later he was playing with a group of dogs and another dog BIT OFF A PIECE OF HIS EAR. He had it pressure bandaged for a week, and when we tried to remove it, it appeared as though the bottom half of his ear had liquefied. It was around this time he started coughing and throwing up as well, and we realized he had ALSO brought home a mild case of kennel cough. Back to the vet he went to the tune of over $200 - and he came home with flea and tick preventative, because he had picked up some fleas while he was at daycare too.

That was two weeks ago. Want to know what's new this week??? THIS:

Oh Kaiser. My mother graciously agreed to take him to the vet yesterday while I was at school. They're not sure what the growth is but they put him back on medication (surprise!) and want us to soak his foot every day in Epsom salt for a total of 10 minutes. They also recommended that he have surgery as soon as possible for the Cherry Eye, at which time they can remove this growth and also a mobile lump I found on his shoulder blade last week. BTW - there are two options for correcting Cherry Eye, one of which involves just hacking the gland out and then having to put eye drops in his eye for the rest of his life. I'm sure he'd fucking LOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE that. For those of you who have never attempted to force a 115lb exuberant puppy with a brain the size of a walnut to do something he doesn't want to do, imagine trying to do needlepoint while riding a bucking bronco. The tune of this upcoming multiple surgery is anywhere from $600 - $900. 


PERFECT! Right before Christmas and when I'm working reduced hours so that I can go to school. Perfect, Kaiser. My little master of timing. Did I mention Kaiser isn't even a year old yet? Yeah. We've got SO MUCH FUN in store for us in the short amount of time he has left, since Danes only live an average of 8-10 years.


So now that I've done tons of hating on him, a few cute pictures of times that make it totally worth it:

GIVE ME KISSES!

The best Dane cuddle you can get without being crushed

He looks like the deer you see on the side of the road...

And then he flew away

Back when it was still possible to lift him

Hard to believe he was ever this small