Roger is Awesome.

So, I adopted Roger when he was a year and a half. He had been in Vermont for 6mo, transferred up from a shelter in Florida. Other than a couple vaccination records I was able to hunt down, I knew pretty much nothing about his life up to that point. He was sort of a nervous fella, but we took to each other right away and the rest is history.

Recently, we've become mayor of our vet's office trying to figure out why Roger needs to pee 10x a night. Urine tests, blood tests, and this morning: x-rays. We still don't know why he's peeing so much. But we do know a little bit more about his life B.V. (before Vermont).

The vet brought me back to see the x-rays. That's a lot of kidney stones, I thought to myself. "Where did you get Roger?" he asked. "Humane Society of Chittenden County," I responded. "Uh huh. Well, it appears that he's been shot, at least twice, at some point in his past." And then I realized what the x-rays were showing. That constellation of glowing dots on the left hip x-ray was bird shot! And a BB lodged directly under his spine!

To say my jaw dropped would be the only accurate description for my reaction. I stood there staring back and forth from one x-ray to the other to Roger to Dr Eustis and back. Someone shot my dog? Some asshole SHOT a PUPPY?? TWICE?!?! Well I guess that explains why he used to be a nervous dog!!

He went on to explain that since they weren't causing Roger any problems, we would just leave them in there. If the BB had been to one side or the other, it might be what's causing his current problems, but right in the middle it's just lodged in muscle.

I don't really have a good way to sum this up, other than to say hug your dog.