Your dog has a very individual approach to your care. Instead of saying your vitamin D is low and suggesting you get more sun, your dog takes you on three walks a day. If you suffer from insomnia, they will lie on your stomach and stare into your soul until you fall asleep every night for the next fifteen years. If you’re anemic, they’ll kill a squirrel and put it under your pillow. Would Dr. Moskowitz do that? I do not think so.
Forget long waits and running back and forth between offices to see specialists. Your dog only makes house calls. And they are available 24-7. If you have a high fever in the middle of the night, your dog will check your vitals every half hour from the most scientifically advanced medical facility: under the couch.
Ask your doctor if they would like to go to the park with you, and they will increase your antidepressants and refer you to a therapist. Ask your dog, and they’ll run in circles and run for the door, no questions asked.
When your dog is your doctor, you never go to the emergency room for a debilitating migraine and are sent home with two Advil and an eight thousand dollar bill. There are no unexpected costs because your dog doesn’t know what money is. Or bills. Instead of cash or card, they accept TreatPay, a simple behavior-based exchange. You choose what you pay based on the quality of care and whether they have been a good boy.
Instead of spending hours on the phone begging your insurance to cover life-saving care, your dog begs you to let him cover all treatments 100 percent. Your dog is so against private insurance that he chewed and swallowed your insurance card, and you had to spend eight hundred dollars to get his stomach pumped. That’s how devoted your dog is to your health care.
Your doctor is always overbooked, but your dog has no other patients and no sense of time. They will never make you feel like a hypochondriac because you schedule a follow-up every time you have a stomach ache. Has your gastroenterologist ever been so excited to see you peed on the floor? Probably not.
It took your doctor eight years of school and a stethoscope to hear your irregular heartbeat. Your eight-pound medical prodigy, Doogie Schnauzer, hasn’t even graduated from PetSmart Puppy School yet, and they can detect your panic attack from the next room.
Most doctors only help you after you are sick or injured, but your dog’s preventative care is more proactive. They smell all health hazards, such as garbage trucks, the wind, metal curb grates and old ladies with shopping baskets on wheels. When was the last time your orthopedic surgeon dragged you half a block to avoid a collision with a child on an electric scooter?
Your doctor doesn’t call you as often to check in. Your dog rushes to your desk every hour to see how you’re doing and lowers your blood pressure by letting you scratch his neck.
Your dog will never minimize your symptoms or suggest that it’s “all in your head.” When you cry out in pain, they cry back in sympathy. When you sneeze, they bark until the neighbors call the police.
Your dog loves you unconditionally all his life. They will follow you to the other side of your three hundred square foot studio apartment and back to rest their little heads on your feet. When you’re sad, they roll over on their backs and look upside down at you, as if saying, “I’m going to rub my tummy now,” because they know it will make you laugh. They are your family. Your doctor calls you Caroline, even though your name is Catherine.
The one thing your dog can’t do to improve your health is prepare your taxes. You need a cat for that.