Speaking about unfortunate, I took McCthulhu to the vet earlier today. He/she/it seems to have some bizarre form of leprosy causing it to lose tentacles when it sneezes. It also picked up a raspy cough. Or maybe it was a bark? Anyway, I decided it needed to go to the vet. It didn’t go well. Advice for anyone else who adopts or gets claimed by one of the creatures from the UT: make sure you don’t go to a high strung vet.
OK. So we get to the vet. Nothing untoward so far. McCthulhu was in it’s carrier like any other pet in the waiting room. I get a few strange looks by the other owners due to the razor ribbon I had wrapped around the carrier, but so far so good. So, they take us back to the examining room and from there things begin to head north.
First, the tech that they sent to take McCthulhu’s temperature and vitals didn’t know a thing about UT creatures. She tried to put the thermometer in the wrong orifice and McCthulhu ate it. Well, the tech started screaming that McCthulu tried to bite off her finger. I was there and it was a gross exaggeration of what actually happened. I tried to calm her down and assured her that McCthulhu would NOT have tried to bite off her finger; it would have gone for the whole hand instead. That didn’t seem to placate her much, and she went to go get the vet.
Well, the vet comes in and he’s already shouting that vicious animals need to be muzzled. I asked him how am I supposed to attach one? He starts getting even more excitable and starts saying “I just can’t treat it!” over and over again. Well, by this time I’m getting kind of ticked off myself and tell him he needs to follow his hippocratic oath for vets and treat McCthulhu. He gets all snarky and tells me there is no hippocratic oath for vets.
So I take a different tack. I tell thim that if he refuses to treat McCthulhu, I would register an official complaint with the People for the Ethical Treatment of Dark and Unholy Creatures. The vet asked me what kind of freak organization was that? And I just stared at him and told him that he really, REALLY didn’t want to find out.
So the finally vet calms down a bit and he agrees to prescribe McCthulhu some antibioltics. He told me he has no idea what dosage McCthulhu would need, so he just wrote me a scrip for 20 refills. He also offered me $200 cash if I promised to never, ever bring McCthulhu in again. I thought that was reasonable, so I took his money and left with McCthulhu.
Good news is I did get the scrip filled and McCthulu took the whole bottle, including the plastic(maybe he needs more roughage in his diet?). And it seems to be working as it’s only sneezed off one tentacle today and seems to be more perky. It also snarls at me with more ferocity and vigor when I post the Paul threads. So things are looking up.
Bad news is I lost my vet, and the $200 might pay for the antibiotic refills if I have to buy a bottle a day.
Gotta go for now. McCthulhu has one of the neighbors treed.
As someone who has been keeping exotic pets for several years, I’d say you’ve done pretty well. You could try a reptile specialist - most major cities have at least one - if the antibiotics don’t help.
Or just mix up some tea-tree oil solution in a sprayer and spritz it generously, from a safe distance. If nothing else, McChtlulu will smell pleasantly clean.
Kinda reminds me of the day, (on the Undead Thread), that I let my dragon out for some exercise.
He was pretty calm and even-tempered after he ate the grizzly.
Laws, oral contracts, common courtesies, and childhood rules regarding 'keepsies' don't apply within 1,300' of a Dark and Unholy Creature.
For those of us keeping score at home, how many tentacles are left? The situation sounds dire.