Just Stick It Up Him

When I was five Thunder entered my life. He was our black Standard Poodle. Thunder was the sweetest, smartest dog and the closest thing I got to a little brother. He lived until I was a sophomore in college, just died in his sleep.

Thunder developed a heart condition when I was in high school. Later, when I was working at an animal hospital I discovered he probably had heart worms. Anyway, we always knew where he was because his breathing became very labored, he sounded like an Orge rattling around the house. My mom brought home a prescription to help his breathing and sat it on the counter with a note, "Give Thunder his medicine." My sister ,Rechelle, and I read the bottle, "Give one pill twice a day." Okay, so how do you give a dog his medicine????? This was obviously too much for two teenage girls. My sister called our vet and asked how to administer the pills and the answer she was given was, "Just stick it up him". So I took the first round. Luckily we had a pair of yellow rubber gloves under the kitchen sink, it's very important to have the proper attire when you are about to stick it to a dog. Rechelle patted Thunder on the head while I held up his stump of a tail and nervously tried to get the tiny pill into his pulsating sphincter. I think I pushed it in about an inch and decided that should do. I have never seen a dog tuck tail and run to a door so fast in my life.

We tortured him a couple more times before one of us decided it just couldn't be right to be shoving pills up our dog's rear. Another call to the vet confirmed our stupidity and we laughed so hard we were crying. Poor Thunder, he put up with a lot.