Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me fifty times, well, I guess I have to accept all of the shame. But I’ve had it now. I am never getting in that car again! Can you believe it took me all the way out to College Station to go to the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine? Do I look like the kind of capybara who wants to go to a college of veterinary medicine? No, I do NOT.

In case you didn’t guess it already, it is my teeth again. Last time the vet had a very negative prognosis about my teeth so I guess we all knew that I would have to go back. My teeth were starting to hurt me and I had a little foam in my mouth so Melly and Rick decided it was time to take me in. I think I could have stood it a little longer, given the alternative.

The vets and students all seem so nice but really they are into capybara torture. In the photo above they are trying to figure out the most painful way to give me a shot of anesthesia. I put up a pretty good struggle. I broke one syringe and I refused to go into those cages.

During the struggle, I lost quite a bit of fur. This is some of it lying on the floor.

I hope my hair grows back quickly, I don’t like having a bald spot. Note to capybara wranglers worldwide: Do not grab a capybara’s fur to hold onto it.

I begged Rick to save me from the vets but he and Melly were colluding with them. They all kept talking about how it was for my own good.

Eventually the vets kicked Melly and Rick out of the room and while I was watching them through the window in the door and pleading with them to come back, a vet sneaked up behind me and hit me in the butt with a pneumatic syringe!

In the photo above, I am completely unconscious. They are getting me prepped to go down to xray. I got to go in my own bed, which is nice.

After xray, they moved me onto another table to do their dental tortures…I mean “procedures.” I am very glad that I was not awake for any of this and have to take Rick and Melly’s word for it. I’m scared just looking at the pictures. Poor little me!

Even though my eyes are open, I am asleep. They had to put goop in my eyes to keep them from drying out. Later, that made it hard to see. I think my mouth looks pretty cute in this photo.

Don’t forget that you can click on the image to see a higher resolution version. You might want to do that to get a good view of the inside of my mouth. Melly said I had a huge point on one tooth and they had to dig a long trench through it with a drill and then break it off. Underneath the point, a bunch of old food had gotten stuck and was rotting in there. Once they got the point off the tooth, they could get that old food and bacteria out too.

That’s the point of my tooth that they cut off. It was pretty big!

The good news is that it seems like I only have one really bad tooth. After the last time when they worked on my teeth at the beginning of November, my teeth have actually straightened out a lot. The bad news is that this one tooth is pretty bad. I am going to have to go back for another trimming in just four weeks! I seriously don’t want to. At all. But the vet says once they do that they will be able to “get ahead” of this bad tooth and I won’t ever have such a bad problem again. The worst news is that I will have to have my tooth trimmed every few months for the rest of my life. You can imagine how much I’m looking forward to that!

It’s bad enough that I get a rectal probe while I’m helplessly unconscious, but does Melly have to post a photo of it for the whole world to see?

This is right after we got home. Capys always like to be in the water when something is wrong but Melly and Rick wouldn’t let me go outside so I had to just sit in my two poop bowls. I felt so horrible! My butt hurt from the shot, my teeth from the drill and my neck from holding my head in that uncomfortable position while I was being worked over. I would sit in one bowl for a couple of minutes and then move to the other, then come back. Over and over. And over and over. And over and over.

Melly gave me a little pillow so I could lie down with my butt still in my poop bowl. That helped some. I didn’t get any sleep at all last night and I didn’t eat anything either. Who can sleep or eat when you are in so much pain?

Having my green pool in the house today really helped. I can lie all the way down in my green pool. And it was a lot warmer in the house than outside, or so Melly says, she wouldn’t let me check for myself.

I am still very miserable tonight but I have eaten some today, a head of endive and a head of lettuce plus some treats. My butt still really, really hurts from that shot. My teeth hurt too.

My advice to any pets reading this blog is: DON’T GET IN THE CAR! IT IS A TRAP!

If I’ve spared even one other pet the misery I’ve suffered, I will consider it worthwhile…

Wait, no I won’t. I don’t ever want to go through this again. The only way it could be worthwhile is if I never had to go to the vet again. I so, so, so, so hope it is worthwhile!