tater tot the toothless wonder

A while ago Tater Tot and Smokey the Bandit (the raccoon that comes and steals cat food from us every night) got into an epic battle which surely would have ended with Tater Tot in a pool of blood and Smokey sneaking off into the night with cat food in his hands had my dad not broken it up. Tater Tot is all bark and no bite. He talks the talk, but can't walk the walk, and I don't know if any of you have ever seen an angry raccoon, but they friggin' run the walk. That's how intense they are.

Needless to say, I urged my parents to take Tater to the Vet to get rabies shots but since Tater acted fine post-battle they sort of forgot about it. Today I decided I should take him just to get checked out and get an update on all of his vaccinations. Not to mention, yesterday I noticed that one of his teeth was missing and I had a flashback to a few months back when yanked a cat food can from his mouth and thought, "OH NO, I pulled out one of his teeth!" I didn't do a thorough inspection or anything, but I figured it would be worth bringing up to the veterinarian if I was going to be in there anyway.

One hour, 3 walks around the parking lot, and lots of whining at the female pomeranian in heat sitting in the waiting room (hence the walks outside), I was informed by the veterinarian that Tater Tot's gums are severely infected. I don't know how this could happen. He gets professionally groomed ALL the time and they always brush his teeth. Supposedly. I know it isn't their fault, but I am very disappointed that they never brought it up to me that his teeth are in such bad shape. Do you ever inspect your dog's pearly whites? Because I don't!

Well, after I stopped crying hysterically and found a hankerchief in my purse to semi-compose myself, the vet let me know that for sure his front teeth need to be extracted, possibly more, and the infected pieces of gums need to be removed. It's horrible, I know, but the first thought that flashed through my head was How much is this going to cost?

The first thing I asked, though, was "Well how is he going to eat?" I imagined Tater, toothless, drooling as he tried to nom on some leftover tamale casserole. And the waterworks started again. The vet tried to calm me down, and let me know that dogs don't really need their front teeth at all, and a lot of dogs lose their teeth and they eat just fine. So why even get the surgery, then? Well, turns out that if the infection isn't removed then it can spread into the bloodstream and then into the heart and then HE CAN DIE. Clearly, I really had no options in this. The vet told me she needed to go work out an estimate for the surgery, which of course meant it was going to cost a lot.

In total, it's going to be around $550 (give or take $50 depending on how many teeth they end up removing). So, faithful bloggers, I'm putting up a "Tater Tot the Toothless Wonder" donation button for the next three weeks. Ya, donation buttons can be lame, but y'know what? I'm moving to China and don't really have an disposable income at the moment, so desperate times call for desperate measures. No pressure.