waiting room
Arlo, the official dog of t.s.o.a., took ill this morning resulting in some furrowed brows and constant reassurance that everything was "OK". after sufficiently scaring ourselves into thinking the poor thing was on his death bed (thanks, Internet!), a trip to the vet was in order. a horribly cute 4 month old Bull Mastiff was in the waiting room with us and we talked to his owner (a woman) about the joys of pet ownership. she filled us in on the dog's lineage, which she had traced back 5 generations and made it clear that he had champion bloodlines, though she was decidedly unhaughty about it. a digression about how the old people in the neighborhood reacted to dogs took a bizarre turn when she decided to tell us that little Justice didn't like Asian people. wouldn't so much as look at them. sometimes "she might try to go up to some of the Oriental kids, but the adults never. [quieter] i don't know, maybe they have some sort of smell or something. [to the dog, in full puppy-talk] you're not prejudiced are you? 'cause that would be bad!" whoa. fortunately at that point, she was called in to discuss her dog's urinalysis.
two hairy beasts
so as not to dissuade any potential dog owners out there, we'll refrain from divulging the total $$$ of the visit. as it turns out, Arlo's got some arthritis in his back legs, which we already suspected. some blood work will tell us if there's any other noteworthy problems, but otherwise he should be fine - he got two medicines to help combat the arthritis and he couldn't have been happier to leave. on the way home, the wife and i discussed whether it would behoove us to get pet insurance. looks like we could get it for $40 a month or so. certainly something to consider.