we don't have it in us

We just don't have it in us to be heartless. Not that we were planning on being heartless, but we can't even come close.

We have pets. We have 2 cats and 1 dog. We've had them since before we had kids... and before we had the kids, the pets *were* our kids. They were paid a lot of attention and given lots of love. Not that we don't love them now, but we are distracted, and the actual kids take so much of our attention that we don't have a lot extra to give. We are ready to be a pet free household. We love the pets. We will be sad when it is their time to go, but we do not plan to replace them right away.

So, the deal we made, my husband and I, was that we would not take extraordinary measures to save a pet. If we were to get bad news, we would do what was needed so that the pet didn't suffer, but we wouldn't go through extensive procedures and treatments. And we wouldn't be shelling out big $$ for lots of tests and things, either. We were going to take a 'whatever happens, happens' kindof approach.

So, today I have Marty, the dog, at the vet. He needs his annual shots and checkup. We are going on vacation in June and need to board him. The vet tells me that Marty needs his teeth cleaned, which I knew. We have not done that in a while. His teeth are so bad at this point that she says to not clean them would pretty much ensure a bad infection that could kill him. BUT - - she discovered this visit that Marty has a heart murmer. This has never been detected in him before, and the vet told me that sometimes they appear as dogs age due to deterioration of the heart valves, or other age related issues in the heart muscle. So, now, before they can clean his teeth we need to have a full work up on his heart. They can't put him under the necessary anesthetic without knowing what they are dealing with as far as his heart goes. She warned me that undue stress on the poor dog could cause him to collapse. As I said, we are going on vacation and Marty has reservations at the local pet hotel. Now, the vet asks me to be sure what the policies are there about how often they check on your pet, what exercise do they get, etc. Because now that Marty is old (13), and now that they know he has this heart condition, the pet hotel will need to be prepared to handle it if something were to come up.

We love our little Marty. We are concerned for him. We know his personality well enough to know that the mere act of placing him in the pet hotel will cause him lots of stress. The pet hotel is just that, a hotel. They are not equipped to handle an emergency should one arise.

So, my husband and I have talked it over. We will pay the extra money to have him boarded at the vet while we are on vacation. If anything should happen, they are 150% equipped to handle it. While he is there, we will pay to have the exams on his heart done so that we know what we are dealing with. And then once they know, they can go ahead and clean his teeth. This will cost us close to $1000, an amount we swore we would never spend in one lump sum on any of the pets ever again.

But it turns out we are not heartless. We don't have it in us to just let Marty's teeth rot into infection because we wouldn't have his heart tested. We don't have it in us to just let a heart condition that may be manageable go undiagnosed. We can't just leave him somewhere that wouldn't be able to handle a possible emergency on the premises if need be. Once we have all the info, we can make decisions from there... but we just don't have it in us to *not* do what we can. Marty's been a good dog, and we owe him at least that much.