Champion of My HeartA dog blog, where everything is a work in progress, by Roxanne Hawn

Remember, my quest to get written prescriptions with plenty of refills so that getting Lilly her medications wasn’t such a hassle? Remember how it took two visits to get the prescriptions because of another emergency at the hospital? Well, imagine my frustration to find that the prescription was wrong — all wrong — when we finally needed refills.

Silly me for assuming it’d be right. Silly me for not looking more closely at it this whole time it sat in my drawer waiting to be needed. Silly, silly me.

I dropped it off at Walgreens, with plans to pick it up a couple days later while racing across town on errands. The staff at the pharmacy realized that the prescription called for .75 mg of xanax (alprazolam). The med isn’t available at that dose.

So, I think, Oh … Lilly has been on 1.0 mg. They say they’ll call the vet hospital and get it all straightened out. Fine.

Fine.

BUT, when I got back to pick it up, instead of getting 120 pills, which should last us 2 months, I get 12. Yes. 12.

I don’t realize the problem until I get home because I flew through the pharmacy drive-thru and ran home.

So, I call the pharmacist when I get home and ask (nicer than this), “What the @#$@#?”

We talk through it, and it turns out that Lilly had been taking .50 mg, not 1.0 mg. My mistake there, but the vet hospital did NOT correct it. And, they indeed had written down 12 pills, not 120.

Beyond OY!

So, when we took Ginko back for his post-op appointment, I asked our veterinarian to rewrite the prescription, and I specifically wrote out a note that said, we need 120 pills (with refills) at the dosage of .50 mg.

I took the new prescription back to the pharmacy and days later picked up the bottle … only to find that I indeed had 120 pills, but they were 1.0 mg, not .50 mg.

At this point, I figure, @#$@# it!!!!

I’ll just cut the pills in half, which means I just got 4 months of Lilly meds instead of 2. Right?

Well, maybe.

You see, and I know people who have learned this lesson the hard way, a half of a whole isn’t necessarily the .5 you need.

After a few days of missing this med because of the mix-up and a few days of 1/2 pills, Lilly’s behavior showed it:

• She was hiding.
• She was upset.
• She was flipping out over simple things.

I literally could NOT bring myself to go through another BIG hassle over the prescription. I honestly considered just NOT giving her the medicine anymore because it’s become such a @#$@ mess.

BUT, over time, Lilly seems to have adjusted to 1/2 pills sort of being about the right dose she needs. It isn’t perfect, but we can make it work.

Maybe this is a welcome boon to my budget since 120 1.0 mg pills is about the same cost as 120 .50 mg pills, but they last longer.

I’m trying to think that, at least, because getting these behavior medications Lilly needs has been nothing but a tour of customer service failings since day one.

Dear Sam: This is sort of a Weekly Dog Training Update, so please stay tuned … because Lilly is learning to ride in Tom’s truck while wearing the newer, neoprene-lined Ruff Rider Roadie doggy seatbelt harness thing. She even went on her first real outing this week and had a ball.

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Last week, during one of our regular walks, Lilly and I got chased down by a couple of spaniels with whom we’ve had trouble (off and on) for years. Considering that Lilly is suddenly hiding again inside the house (behind the toilet, in the basement, etc.), I suspect the scare is having lasting effects.

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I know. I know. The headline ONLY works if I’m actually updating you every week on our dog training progress. But, I’ve already reported this week on a couple breakthroughs with the scary kitchen window and the thing about NOT coming inside only in the summer, only at night. So, today … just a quick note about Lilly’s first trip to the Farmer’s Market this summer.

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We like to use all kinds of euphemisms to describe our fearful dogs. Shy, reactive, aggressive are common ones, but what exactly does fear look like when it isn’t necessarily obvious that it’s fear?

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Let’s continue our discussion about fearful dogs from a broader perspective. It’ll be VERY clear next week why I’m revisiting some of these key points. I promise, but for now, let’s talk mistakes.

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Sing it with me, kids. I’m a woobie. He’s a woobie. She’s a woobie. Wouldn’t you like to be a woobie too? (Look at me dating myself again, with an obscure 1970s Dr. Pepper reference.)

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Justine van der Leun’s new book Marcus of Umbria: What an Italian Dog Taught an American Girl about Love essentially ends with Justine and Marcus getting on a plane in Italy to return to a non-existent home stateside. As I mentioned in yesterday’s book review, while I liked the book a lot, what intrigued me more was what happened next. So, Justine and I spent a good hour or more on the phone Monday, talking about Marcus and how she learned to live in a modern, urban world.

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One of my dog magazine editors challenged me to teach Lilly to vacuum, after seeing Lilly CLEAN UP her toys. That would be a major dog trick and feat, for a couple reasons. A) Lilly is afraid of the vacuum. B) It’s really heavy. So, instead, I decided to teach her to dust mop the tile floors.

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Last Sunday, Lilly did the Tour du Grandmas, vising first my mom who now lives in an assisted living facility and then Tom’s mom who is home after more than two months away. I ran out the door without my camera. So, sadly, I have no photos or video to show.

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