October 26, 2026 - Funny Cooper Story

 This really isn't funny but . . it kinda was. Cooper does NOT like other animals. If there's a dog, a horse, a cat, even a butterfly on TV, he starts barking and jumping at the TV. I've really worked with him, including behavior classes, and he's come a long way on some things but not liking other animals is not an area in which he's improved much.

He had his annual vet visit today. We always get the first appointment of the morning, hoping we can get in and out before it gets crowded. One lady came in with a cat in a carrier. Apparently that was an emergency because the techs immediately took the cat back and the lady sat near us in the waiting area. The techs were talking about an aggressive dog was coming in and they wanted to put him in Room "A". Then, someone came in with a BIG dog. Apparently he was the aggressive dog. There was a man and woman and the man had a tight hold on his leash. Cooper saw him and barked one of his BIG dog barks and scared that poor dog. He tried to get as far from Cooper as he could. 

The funny part: The couple took that dog over to another part of the waiting area. It's kinda partitioned off from where we were sitting. Cooper was continuing to bark because he knew that dog was over there. The lady with the big dog said to her dog "And we thought YOU were bad!" 

The lady who had brought the cat in said "I have NEVER heard such a loud bark from such a small dog." Yes, Cooper can be quite loud when he wants to be. Oscar isn't nearly as loud as Cooper is.

This part wasn't so funny!

$857!! It does include Interceptor Plus and Credelio for both Oscar and Cooper for a year. When Oscar had his annual visit a couple of months ago, they were out of the Interceptor Plus and I told them I still had some at home and would get them when I came back with Cooper, Even taking off the pills for Oscar, Cooper's visit, including the meds, would have been $550. I'm not blaming the vet . . those meds are outrageously expensive. It makes me sad to know that there are many pet owners who are having to do without these meds because of the cost.

I checked Chewy's price and with the discount for auto ship, the price is about the same as the vet's charges with the discount they offer.

And then the least funny part of all . . we brought Cooper home, then took both cars to Discount Tire for their semi-annual checkup. A couple of weeks ago, my car started making a rattling sound - not all the time but enough that I knew it needed to be looked at. I was thinking something was loose . . no big deal. Wrong! I have no idea what I'm talking about here but I think what they said is that all the carrier bearings need to be replaced. The driveshaft is not exactly in the position where it's supposed to be and, lucky us, this is one of the years that the driveshaft has to be replaced when this happens. Of course, getting a driveshaft for a 19 year old car may take "a while".  The car is in the shop now and hopefully we will find out more tomorrow (Tuesday). 

I understand most people would say "Buy a new car! Don't spend that much on a 19 year old car." That is not the way Vince thinks. I'm fine with it. I drive that car once a week - sometimes to Nevada, MO to meet Debbie and sometimes, she comes here. The most miles we ever put on that car is about 260 miles per month and it only has 130K miles on it. 

The mechanic is going to go over everything and make sure there's nothing else he sees that might go wrong in the near future. This will be a large repair bill and if there's something else that looks like it's about to go out, we'll have to re-think that not buying a new car decision.

The mechanic seems to think that the folks who changed the struts didn't use the right tool and one of the carrier bearing assemblies is completely gone and that's what started this. He said it happens often. There's a certain tool that has to be used and if the shop doesn't have that tool, they use something else and it almost always causes a failure in the same part that has failed on my car. 

We'll know more tomorrow but for now, I'm really sad about my car.

And to further make you shake your head and wonder what he's thinking . . Vince's car is 25 years old and it seems the transmission is going out in it so once my car is all back to safe driving, he's going to put his in the shop. That's the way it is around here!!