An Expensive Dog

In January of 2005, we acquired a black lab puppy from a neighbor. We needed a dog because our huge golden retriever, Rocky, died over the holidays. We were visiting JoAnn's mother in Mesa, Arizona for Christmas, when we received word from our neighbor, Ray Butler, who was feeding the dogs, that Rocky was nearing the end of his life. He had been in poor health for a couple of months, but we didn't think he would go so fast. Since Dustin was the one he had most bonded with, we put him on a plane so he could take care of Rocky at the end. Rocky did die shortly thereafter, and Dustin and a friend buried him in the pasture. Rocky was a huge dog and that is probably what did him in at a relatively young age, he was only 6 or 7 years old.

This is a photo of Rocky who is bigger than JoAnn. He certainly weighed more. The nurses at the vet were always amazed when we brought him in. My favorite Rocky story happened before he was neutered and gained so much weight. He kept running off to the neighbors who had a female dog in heat. So I put a rope through his collar and tied him to a post which was inside a small fenced area just off the garage. When I went to check on him, all that was left was the collar tied to the rope. Sure enough, I found him over at the neighbors flirting with their female dog.


So anyway, back to the black lab puppy we named Boomer. This is a photo of Boomer with Sadie shortly after we got him. He is now about twice Sadie's size. I think he got the name "Boomer" because when we were in Arizona, Ida was having trouble with the plumbing in one of the bathrooms. She hired an acquaintance named Boomer to fix the problem. He was a weird and funny guy and I think the name "Boomer" just kind of stuck in Dustin's head and that is what he named him.

We got Boomer for free. His owner had about 10 puppies he had to get rid of and he wanted to do it fast. Boomer was very young when we got him, just barely weaned. JoAnn thought about giving him back, he cried so much. Even though his initial cost was cheap, he has been a very expensive dog. The first time we took him for a ride in the car, he jumped out when we were going about 30 mph. He was OK but it resulted in his first trip to the vet. He has a problem with allergies which manifests itself in ear infections. When his ears get infected, he scratches them. When he scratches them they bleed. Then he shakes his head violently and blood gets sprayed everywhere. Before we got this figured out, he had done so much damage to the ear, the vet tried at least twice to bandage the ear to his head so he couldn't flail it around. The bandage never lasted more than about 8 hours. Eventually, the vet had to put a piece of cardboard on it and stitch the ear to the cardboard.

To resolve the problem, we found a non-allergenic dog food (expensive) that we hoped would put an end to his ear problems. After about a week, we found him on the floor one morning, unable to move. According to the vet, he was severely dehydrated. He spent the night with the vet before he could move again. Now, we use a commercial ear wash weekly and a couple times a month, I use a product most often reserved for human females with yeast infections and inject it in his ears. It really works.

A couple of weeks ago, you read about his cold water tail. Shortly after he had recovered from that, JoAnn came home to find him limping badly, not putting any weight on his right front paw. A day later, since he was no better I made an appointment with the vet for the next day, a Friday. PJ had stayed the night so we took Boomer to the "doggy doctor" where they did an x-ray. As we sat in the exam room, I heard the lab technician exclaim "that explains a lot!"


This is a photo of Boomer after his emergency surgery to remove a two-inch piece of wire from his foot. It wasn't sticking out where they could pull it out with plyers, it was completely embedded; they had to dig it out.


This is the wire the vet took out of his paw. If only we had surveillance cameras in the yard to see what he did to get that wire embedded so deeply in his paw. He has been an expensive dog!