Doggy "surgery"

In a little while I'm going to take the dog to the vet to have her teeth cleaned. For those of you not familiar with the process, this is not a simple half-hour checkup with the dentist. It's an all-day thing, and expensive, due to the fact that they put the dog under general anesthesia while they're doing it.

Her tartar has actually gotten much better since we got her--at first, her mouth looked like one of those "before" photos, and now she doesn't have that much tartar--but it's still not great, and tartar can cause diseases, so we're going to have them cleaned and then continue with the hard food, the chew toys, the dental treats, and the tooth-brushing to make sure that the teeth cleaning does not become a regular thing.

We would have had them cleaned earlier, but she was only just spayed in January and the vet recommended waiting a few months before putting her under anesthesia again.

The fact that she was spayed without a problem makes me feel better--but I still worry about her. It's funny--I hardly worried about my OWN surgery, because a) I was convinced, for whatever reason, that it would be fine, and b) I figured that if I died on the table, I'd never know about it, so no harm done TO ME (yes I recognize that my husband and loved ones would not feel this way about me dying but I absolutely believe that it is much easier to die, especially in a painless way like just not waking up from surgery, than to survive the death of someone you care about).

And it's not like I think Montana's going to die. She's young, she's healthy, she's been under anesthesia before, tons of dogs do this every day and they all come through it fine, I KNOW ALL THIS. But I just worry. Possibly more about her than about people. I just suspect that the testing before anesthesia isn't quite as thorough with dogs as it is with people.

She's just such an amazing dog. She not only fetches now, but she has also learned to swim! And the way we got her to swim was by throwing her tennis ball into a pond. A week ago she wouldn't even LOOK at a tennis ball, and now it's enough to get her to brave swimming into the middle of a pond! AND she has recently started doing this thing when we leave the dog park where she looks at me walking toward the gate with her leash and deliberately sprints off in the other direction. This is in direct contrast to before, when she would stick to our sides like glue as if she were afraid that we would leave without her.

Clearly, something has changed over the last week. She has become more comfortable and she KNOWS we aren't going to leave her behind, anywhere. Which is FABULOUS to see. And I love watching her personality come out more and more as she gets increasingly comfortable with us.

I know she'll be fine and that getting rid of excessive tartar buildup is really important to her long-term health, which is why we're doing this. But still. I'll be glad when the day is over and the vet calls to say that she's awake and fine and ready to be picked up. With nice shiny white teeth. I just want it to be over.

My poor doggy.