Ralphie doesn’t allow me to trim his nails so I take him to the vet about once a year for a sedated trim. The last time we went (a little over a year ago), he wouldn’t let me put a muzzle on him, so I ended up having to hire a dog trainer to teach me how to get him to wear a muzzle. That went well, but he will always remove it after a period of time, so I have more work to do.
Yesterday, he had another sedated trim scheduled, as well as a checkup, and vaccinations. I didn’t have any problems getting the muzzle on him, but when the vet and vet tech came into the room, he knew what was up so he ripped it off. I was expecting this and tried to hold it in place, but he won that battle, multiple times. Did I mention that he weighs 85 pounds? He’s a big boy and can do whatever he wants. After a couple of rounds of this, we did the same thing as last time–I started walking through a door with him, they closed it on him midway through, and gave him the shot while he was stuck.
Thanks to his adrenaline, it took him about 30 minutes to fall asleep. For safety reasons, I remuzzled him and the vet did an exam and gave him his shots. Then a tech came in to do his nails and started with the back. Ralphie kept pulling his foot away, so he got another tech to help and was going to do the front when Ralphie stood up because he wasn’t having any of that. They left the room in order to give him a chance to fall back asleep. Once he did, I grabbed the nail clippers and did them myself. I felt like their presence was causing him to wake up. In either case, mission accomplished.
He received yet another shot (I think that was number 4) to reverse the sedative and woke up pretty quickly, so we went home where he proceeded to sleep until this morning (only getting up to eat supper and have a 10:00 snack). He still seems pretty sleepy today. I’m sure he’s sore as well, from all the shots. Poor dog. I don’t know why he’s like this, but it definitely makes going to the vets unpleasant for everyone involved.