Give the Dog a Bone by Leslie O'Kane Page A

lie” doesn’t come from nothing. “T-Rex! Good dog,” I called, trying to rouse him, to no avail.
    Ruby came in, letting the screen door bang behind her. T-Rex opened his eyes for just a moment. Ruby clicked her tongue. “He just kind of picks his head up every now and then.”
    There was no telltale whitening of the fur around his muzzle. “This looks like a fairly young dog. How old is he?”
    “He’s six. Used to have so damned much energy that I couldn’t even control him. That’s when I started to see Dr. Palmer.”
    “Uh, oh. You’ve been giving him a prescription tranquilizer, haven’t you?”
    “Yeah, but Dr. Palmer said—”
    I gritted my teeth. I needed to set aside the question, for now, of why the dog had apparently been sedated just because he was energetic, for God’s sake. “Your dog is overmedicated. Let me see your prescription bottle.” I made a quick calculation. T-Rex weighed about sixty pounds, and he was acting as though he’d been given at least fifty milligrams of acepromazine.
    Ruby retrieved a nearly empty bottle of pills, saying, “See? I’m s’posed to give him two of these a day.”
    I glanced at the label. “These aren’t tranquilizers, they’re Clomicalm, an antidepressant. Does T-Rex have a second prescription for acepromazine?” She was looking at me with such a blank expression on her face that I snapped, “A second bottle of pills. Just for when you’re taking him to the vet or someplace he’s afraid to go.”
    “Oh.” Her cheeks turned red, betraying the fact that the implications of my question had dawned on her. She shrugged and said, “Yeah, but I . . . didn’t give him that. I gave him two of . . . whatever you just said it was.” She pointed at the bottle in my hand.
    “Could I see the other prescription, too, please?”
    She brought me that bottle. I sighed with relief to see that these were also 25 mg tablets. The 50 mg dose he’d obviously been given by mistake was not going to kill him. I looked again at the Clomicalm label. She was only supposed to give him one pill a day, not two.
    I handed her back both bottles. Trying to be tactful, I said, “I don’t have my reading glasses on. Could you tell me what the labels say, please?”
    She scoffed and put a hand on her hip. “ ’Scuse me?”
    “I’m trying to find out what’s going on with your dog so that I can help him. I need to know how much medication you’ve been giving T-Rex and when.”
    “I . . . do exactly what it says there on the labels. Maybe you should leave if you can’t help T-Rex anyways.”
    “So you give him two pills of the tan-colored tablets with a morning treat every day?” I said, testing.
    “Right.”
    “That would mean T-Rex is receiving twice his prescribed medication.”
    She furrowed her brow. “I jus’ meant that’s what I gave him this morning. ’Cuz giving him just one hasn’t made much difference.” She looked down at T-Rex. “You think my dog is gonna be all right?”
    “I hope so. We have to watch for respiratory failure. But he seems to be breathing fine.”
    She nodded and sighed in relief.
    “I am not a veterinarian, Ruby, and can’t give medical prescriptions, but my advice would be to stop all medications to T-Rex immediately.”
    “But then he’ll be . . . acting as out of control as that damned Maggie!”
    “In my opinion, it’s very likely that he simply needs to be better trained. At this stage in my career, I can’t volunteer my services free of charge, but the Humane Society has obedience classes that are reasonably priced, and maybe they’ll provide scholarships, if money is an issue.”
    “Ain’t it always?” she snarled.
    I felt a bit trapped, wanting to do something to help T-Rex but knowing that his drug-ingestation was best left for a skilled veterinarian to handle. “Please take your dog to a vet.”
    She set her sturdy chin and glared at me.
    “I’ll be right next door if T-Rex’s symptoms change,” I