COMMENTARY
MILT THOMAS
Life has not been easy in the Thomas household the past few weeks. Aside from book and story deadlines taking up my daily routine, my wife called one day to say she had been in an accident. Nothing serious, no one hurt, except for her prized 22-year old mint condition Lexus with 48,000 miles on it. Now it has a concave fender, punctured tire and smashed headlight. Imagine the pain, taking care of a car for that many years, only to have it disfigured in a fender bender on U.S. 1.
Then Willie, our 17-year old, 105-pound yellow lab mix rescue broke his leg falling out of our SUV at the vet’s office. He is confined to sedatives for the next six weeks and can only move when his alimentary canal needs to move. Outside hopefully.
The youngest of our four rescue dogs, Ebby, an ADHD three year old black lab, has inexplicably added 17 pounds to his 70 pound frame and is has had a problem keeping food down. Well, apparently he can keep SOME food down. He used to be quite agile, jumping over coffee tables when playing with the other dogs. Now he walks around coffee tables. We are still feeding him the same as always, but apparently he is eating out a lot. There are plenty of run-of-the-mill yard species available to round out his menu, but maybe too round.
We have spent $1000 so far trying to determine the reason Ebby can’t keep food down yet gained 17 pounds. He even had a barium enema and apparently liked it, but that’s another story.
So I shared this tale of dog woe with a friend and he emailed this response to me:
“The perils of country living. We certainly empathize After a neighbor’s pet duck wandered onto our farm, Buttons dispatched the fowl, and then was kicked in the face by one of the horses, requiring reconstructive surgery, and a wired jaw.Was almost as bad when chasing a car on our country road and was ensconced in the rear wheel well. She lived to be over 15 years.We decided to downsize to two dogs, three horses, three cats and the foxes eliminated the chickens.The two sheep had grazed on some toxic plants and passed.”
Just goes to show you, no matter how bad your problems are, someone always has worse ones. I’m looking into adopting rescued guinea pigs and goldfish this afternoon.
Indian River Guardian 
Many years ago had a Siberian husky with a penchant for being “nosy”. On one occasion he was bit on the nose by an unknown kind of snake (Montour Falls, NY area). Fortunately, he lived with only a small amount of discomfort. He chased a squirrel in a yard in Vero–caught it, and it bit him on his nose. He let it go. At a location in Rockledge, before they filled in the canal, he managed to get too close to a good-sized crab. This time his paw was the body part to suffer. None of this comes close to what other people’s pets have experienced. I feel for anyone who thinks pets are less effort, expense, or missed than children.