COUNTING THE COST OF TONKA

OK, so Tonka is off to the vet for dental surgery tomorrow. That will mean three trips to the vet in less than two weeks.... The silly thing has broken his front canine in half vertically, probably by chewing on things he shouldn’t. Like rocks. And concrete. Or maybe it was a headbutt gone horribly wrong. Regardless, infection has set in and the whole left side of his poor little snout has swollen up so he’s now on anti-inflammatories and antibiotics.

So tomorrow, he is off to spend the day at the vet for surgery to remove the offending tooth before the infection sets into his whole jaw. I was kind of hoping that the darn thing would have gotten knocked out during one of Tonka and Manche’s many wrestle sessions. After dropping me off at pilates this morning, Anton returned home to find that they were playing tug-of-war with one of my g-strings out in the backyard. Tooth still stubbornly attached, however. No such luck. Tonka - in his first two weeks - has already been a massive disappointment to us through this expensive failure to live up to his namesake : the tough Tonka Truck.

COUNTING THE COST OF TONKA

PURCHASE FEE: $850
FREIGHT FEE: $615 (incl. Anton's fare to and from Sydney)
TANK OF PETROL TO GET TO AND FROM MUDGEE: $50
FIRST TRIP TO THE VET (VACCINATIONS): $85
SECOND TRIP TO THE VET (TOOTH INFECTION): $120
THIRD TRIP TO THE VET (DENTAL SURGERY): $485

SUBTOTAL FOR TWO WEEKS OF TONKA: $2205 (excl. food, toys, bedding and other accessories)

That dog is already in some serious arrears. Thankfully, we are allowing the little tacker to keep his tackle intact for stud purposes down the track. That boy is going to be doing some serious business, if you know what I mean...

He is gonna work harder than a hooker down at the Cross, with Mellipop as his overzealous pimp. A very high class hooker, because at $600 a pop for stud fees, our little goldmine should in theory work off his debts with relative ease once he reaches sexual maturity.

That is, unless Manche keeps biting his manhood. I think she is finding his genitalia an all-too-interesting novelty at the moment, which makes for quite a few squeamish moments for Anton, who no doubt shares his uniquely male pain in that bizarre tribal empathy that transcends the species barrier. Either that, or it's Comanche’s uniquely female way of retaliating for his constant humping behaviour.

So to update those of you keeping a keen and concerned eye on my recurring health problems, I didn’t actually make it to the clinic for those blood tests on Saturday thanks to our stupid Staffy with his broken tooth (and subsequent infection).

We did however, find time to get poor old Anton back to the optometrist. On a recent trip to Sydney, his mother nagged him into seeing an eye doctor, who diagnosed him with the early stages of glaucoma. Nothing too serious, it only causes blindness and can’t be reversed. It can however, be managed by using eye drops and may entail laser surgery down the track.

And I might still be dying, but won’t find out for sure until next week now. We’re a healthy bunch, let me tell you.