Smuggling of goods

So, you know how you adopt a dog and they won't let you take them until they've been fixed? It's harder to do that when the little felon's balls never descended in the first place.

Yep, our dog's got balls.

You just can't see them.

Cause they're all up in his belly still.

Hiding.

Basically, the "must be neutered" rule only applies when you can see them. Otherwise the inspection process consists of someone looking between their legs and saying "looks good" and then they get processed out.

We now have a dog who must be put through a fairly invasive surgery to first find both and then remove both testicles. His lower abdomen will be torn up pretty well, and we're looking at a good solid 2 weeks of recovery including pain killer, possible sedatives, and (I assume) antibiotics to prevent infection.

One key thing you can't do with an unfixed dog- boarding. We have a trip coming up in a month and had planned on boarding him so he could have fun and be social while we were gone. This is in theory better for him then the stay at home method we used for the last dog who was completely anti-social. So, instead of taking some time and getting the surgery done when we get back and having plenty of time to factor in unforeseen complications, we have to rush and get it done this week.

My time just got even more assumed by things outside myself, and my wallet is now shivering in fear of the damage about to be done to it. Hopefully the upside will be that after this surgery there will hopefully be less Sexual Harassment (see earlier entry) and maybe less marking in new places. A decline in both of these activities would be a much welcomed change.

After the E-Collar (the cone of shame) stress, the additional fees of a dog sitter to come and check on him for a few days and let him out, the monumental fees of a fairly major surgery for the runt, 2 weeks of restricted movement and probably no trips to the park making him totally looney tunes, trying to get a not very food motivated dog to take pills a few times a day, the changing his crate back to the larger one which took up most of the free space in the living room, and just general mayhem post surgery, I have the possibility of things getting slightly better to look forward to.

Awesome.

All this because I noticed something strange on his belly and found reports online of testicles not being fully removed during neuter procedures. I'm glad we took him in, and really like the new vet, but good gods! So far, the penalty for smuggling seems to be harshest yet.