If you read my main blog, you might have read about my unfortunate New Year’s Day.  I won’t get into what I wrote on that post because it involves descriptions of body functions that not everyone wants to read about.  What we did end up doing yesterday was taking our dog, Zane, to the vet.

On New Year’s Eve, Bill cooked beef strips for us.  They turned out great.  Zane likes beef, but he can’t eat much of it because sometimes it upsets his stomach.  Most of the time, he can have a little piece and be just fine.  We have to be careful, though, because if he gets more than he can handle, it can lead to him having a vomiting episode.  He usually throws up once and that’s it.  This time, it was a little more serious.

Without getting too much into specifics, Zane ended up getting a touch of gastritis yesterday.  He seemed really uncomfortable and was pacing around restlessly.  He had an appetite, but couldn’t hold down any food.  He wanted to eat grass and was even pawing at the door to go outside.

Though I was pretty sure it wasn’t an emergency, I couldn’t stand to see Zane in so much discomfort.  I looked up our vet online to see who the local vet on call was for this weekend.  It turned out the vet who was open yesterday was in Gaertringen.  Bill called them and got someone on the phone who spoke no English.  He finally asked her if he could bring Zane in and got an affirmative answer.  I stayed home with our other dog, Arran, who was not too happy about being left out of a road trip.

Bill was gone for awhile and I started to worry a bit, but it turned out the vet was rather far away and it took 30 minutes just to get there.  Then, once he got there, Bill had to wait for three others ahead of him.  Apparently, the vet looked like Richard Gere.  Now I wish I could have gone with Bill so I could have seen for myself.

While Bill was waiting, he struck up a conversation with a German woman who spoke flawless English.  It turns out she’s living in the United States, getting a master’s degree in New York state.  She has an American boyfriend and had come to Germany for the holidays.  Her mother’s cat needed an ultrasound.

Anyway, after a thorough checkup, the vet gave Zane a couple of shots.  One was to quiet his rumbling guts and make him more comfortable and the other was to stop the vomiting and nausea.  He fixed Zane right up.  Bill paid about 60 euros for the visit and that was that.  Zane seems to be pretty much back to normal this morning after he slept off the antiemetic drug.  By last night, he was begging for chicken and rice.

One thing I like about living in Germany is that vet care is relatively inexpensive here.  Emergency care is especially reasonable, especially when compared to what we pay in the States.  Zane has a special knack for getting into trouble, especially on weekends on holidays.  I feel pretty sure that had we needed the emergency vet yesterday in the USA, the bill would have been several times what Bill paid.  I appreciate that in Germany, one can often get urgent medical help without resorting to using high priced emergency facilities.

The boys were both ready for dinner last night.  Zane is the tricolored one on the left.

I felt a lot better once Zane was back to his usual sunny self.  From now on, we’re going to be more careful about what he eats.

I’m kind of glad the holidays are over.  I’m ready for things to get back to normal.  I’m in the midst of preparing for our trip to Scotland and trying to decide what we want to do after our Hebridean Islands Cruise in March.  I can’t wait to blog about it.

Hopefully today or tomorrow, we’ll get out and try a new restaurant.