Poor Morrie...

So there are lots of things that I could write about my Christmas trip, but most of them are boring. We got lots of wonderful gifts and ate a ton of food. There was even some drama amongst family members. But the most significant thing that happened involved a trip to the emergency vet.

On Saturday the 23rd, we were finishing our celebration with the Erdahls. Maggie and Morrie were happily playing with their three new grunting toys. Morrie is obsessed with any toy that grunts and acts like he is killing it. It's hilarious. Nothing out of the ordinary was happening, when suddenly, Morrie started acting funny. At first we just thought that he had bit his tongue in his exuberance over the hedgehog he had been "killing". On closer inspection, he had actually broken loose one of his front teeth and it was bleeding and obviously causing him a great deal of pain.

We called around and finally found an emergency vet in the Columbus area. After inspection, the vet informed us that yes, the tooth would need to be extracted, but they didn't do extractions. She also informed us that there were several other teeth in his mouth that she was concerned about. We already knew that Morrie had bad teeth and gums and would probably need some teeth pulled, but we couldn't believe that she wouldn't even pull the one causing him pain. (For a brief history on Morrie's health, he had 13 teeth pulled two years ago. We've been battling his mouth ever since we rescued him.)

The vet left us with a very expensive bill, some pain medication, and an antibiotic. We knew we would have to wait until Tuesday to even get ahold of our normal vet because of the holiday. When we did call Tuesday morning, our vet said they had nothing open for over a week. We were a little suprised, because Morrie was still in pain and had irritated the tooth enough that it was practically falling out of his face at this point, and our vet refused to just squeeze him in. RI-DIC-U-LOUS.

After calling not one, not two, but SIX vets in the Dayton area, we finally got him in yesterday for the extraction. The new vet was incredibly kind and took the time to talk with us about everything and they took very good care of our "furry kid". They even called us to let us know when his surgery was over and to tell us he was fine.

All said and done, 10 teeth got pulled, and we were left with a $420 bill, and a dog with no top teeth, but one that now seems a lot happier. He's still recovering, but even after one day he is already spunkier. Poor dog only has his canines on the top now though. He kinda looks like a vampire. When his mouth is feeling better I'll post a picture of Gums McGee....