What a Difference a Person Makes

Jul 24, 2025

It was a bit of a weird week, with lots of stops and starts and changed plans. Winchester, who made a cameo in the recent WeakNotes, needed an unexpected vet visit. He's been chewing on his feet quite a bit, sometimes to the point that he is having trouble walking, but we haven't been able to figure out the actual cause.

Winchester is a wonderful dog but also very stubborn and, in particular situations, very temperamental. ⊕ We've learned this can be summarized to: 'He's a heeler.' He can be picky about when and where he likes to be touched, and his mannerisms are not always easy to read. Some amount of sedative is required for most vet visits, and putting him completely out is often required for anything that requires him to be still and docile.

One of those situations is the vet.

In our prior home, in Indiana, we had a vet who instinctively knew how to handle him. If they had any major incidents with him while we weren't there, they never told us about them. ⊕ Unfortunately, not all that long before we left Indiana, Winchester had a nasty run-in with a delivery vehicle he decided to chase. That involved several vet visits, at least one of which was decidedly not fun and, we think, pretty traumatic for him. We often dropped him off and picked him up without incident, and we boarded him with them, too.

We'd were unhappy with the vet we found in our current home, as they just never quite knew how to handle him. Their discomfort and uncertainty made us feel like our needs were an imposition, making vet visits extremely stressful -- for everyone, really. When we asked them to look at his feet, they did so in the most cursory manner, without much concern and no real follow up.

So even though it is a further trek, we decided to try the teaching vet and hospital at a nearby university, which is where we got our Theseus treated for an emergency a few months ago. What a difference a vet makes!

They showed so much patience with Winchester, despite his occasional growls and unpredictability. ⊕ He had a lot of sedative -- and he fought it SO HARD. He just wouldn't give in and go to sleep. The vet said she gave him as much as they'd give a full-sized police dog, and he's just a 50 lb heeler. He's like a wonder dog but in the weirdest ways. When they tried to put him out for a bit to get a closer look at his feet, it didn't take right away -- and they waited, patiently. And waited some more. And even after he seemed to go then sprung back to full alertness, they waited again.

The vet did what they could for now to guess at some possible causes - which was much more than the old place - and gave us a few next steps. She also talked about different ways to make his visits work in the future, which no vet has ever taken the time do, and was sensitive not just to Winchester, but also to us. She affirmed that we were doing the right things, that he was super smart and super stubborn, a combination that makes for wonderful animals who are also, at times, wonderfully complicated.

She said the magic words: this is my job, I'm used to it. As in, "So he got a bit hostile with me, no big deal. It's my job, I'm used to it."

(I'd like to find a human doctor who says such things.)

Since then, I've thought a lot about the difference just one person's demeanor and capacity and empathy can make in our lives, and how that difference almost certainly goes unrecognized. Such people have a way of lessening the friction in our lives, frequently in ways that are invisible if you're not looking for them. If we hadn't been struggling recently with the less-successful vet experience, it would be so easy to such a positive vet experience for granted.

What a difference a person makes.