Since we\u2019ve come to Italy, vet visits have become a regular occurrence. I\u2019ve had pets all my life but I\u2019ve never had to visit the vet so much in my whole animal owning life than I have since we arrived here two years ago.<\/p>\n
We brought two dogs with us Asha – a large black german shepherd who is afraid of the dark, creaking doors and thunder. And a bicon frise called Looney who isn\u2019t scared of anything and likes to save small creatures from cats.<\/p>\n
We have since adopted two Italian black kittens, Spooky and Moonface.<\/p>\n
Our first vet visit was with Looney, she couldn\u2019t stop sneezing for 24 hours and pawing at her snout. I searched for an english speaking vet and found Maria just a town away.<\/p>\n
Arriving at her surgery I suddenly feel tall. I am 5.2\u201d I\u2019ve never felt tall in my life. Maria is less than 5 foot, smiley and welcoming. She thinks Looney has snuffed a seed up her nose. She\u2019ll need to be sedated for Maria to examine further.<\/p>\n
Now, what I am used to in Ireland is the vet either keeping the pet in over night or giving you an appointment for the following day. But not here in Italy.<\/p>\n
After telling us Looney will have to be sedated, I find myself holding a drip. It\u2019s happening now and we are part of the assisting operating team it seems. Ronan is excited, I\u2019m not. I\u2019m not good at these things, I\u2019m squeamish as hell. Ronan looks after all cuts, bruises, tiny bells inserted into ears, broken bones, laundry chemicals in eyes, glass eating\u2026 all the wonderful things that having kids involves.<\/p>\n
So I hand the drip to Ronan and back off. I watch through a squint. Looney is dopey. Maria gets a magic tweezer like tool with a light on the top. Soon she says \u201cAh yes there it is\u201d. She pulls out the mucus covered seed with long barbs.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cIt was very far up, it could have been dangerous. These seeds you must be careful of, we have many seeds in Italy that dogs inhale and get stuck in their skin. Particularly these, they burrow into the skin.\u201d<\/p>\n She also pulls out two small rotting teeth.<\/p>\n We have been with her nearly an hour. The sedation medicine cost \u20ac30. The total bill cost \u20ac40.<\/p>\n With four pets now, we have Maria on speed dial and have been to her for sterilising, a tail amputation, a fractured back, sore paws, ear infections, eye infections, bad breath and teeth.<\/p>\n We were back again last week as we noticed flies around Asha and discovered a cut under her long hair at the top of her tail. It wasn\u2019t pleasant. Off we go to Maria. Asha has been there so many times at this stage that she walked straight over to the scales, stood on it and looked back smiling at us proud of her 55kg.<\/p>\n Maria has her assistant vet with her today. I feel even taller as her assistant is a slight woman even shorter than Maria. Do you have to be a small woman to be a vet in Italy?<\/p>\n Again we\u2019re there as Asha gets sedated and we are put in a room to let it take affect while she attends another patient. When Asha is out cold,\u00a0 <\/span>Maria returns and gives Asha the best Brazilian ever, she should be a beautician. She cleans the infected wound,. I gag. But luckily we have caught it early otherwise it could have got very serious. She gives us a prescription for painkillers and an antibiotic. She says something about humans being cheaper but I don\u2019t quite understand. Is she telling me she treats humans too on the side but doesn\u2019t charge as much?<\/p>\n While there she gives Asha a full check up of her ears, teeth, eyes. All good.<\/p>\n The total bill is \u20ac50, with the sedation included at \u20ac40. So for a checkup and treatment Maria has yet again charged us \u20ac10 for her time (plus 22% VAT).<\/p>\n Our local chemist doesn\u2019t have the antibiotic, so we go to a neighbouring town. They don\u2019t have it either, but wait. He looks it up on the computer, \u201cIt\u2019s a big dog yes?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes\u201d I nod.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a human form of this antibiotic, it is the exact same but under a different name. I can give you that? You need two boxes, the animal form of the medicine is \u20ac49 per box, but the human form is \u20ac7 per box. The Italian government subsidise medicine for humans but not for animals.\u201d<\/p>\n Ahhh that explains what Maria was saying about humans being cheaper! … And it’s also why Asha is now a human as far as the pharmacist is concerned.<\/p>\n Useful words:<\/p>\n Dog – cane<\/p>\n Cat – gatto<\/p>\n Injured – ferita (feminine)<\/p>\n Not eating – non mangiando<\/p>\n Infection – infezione<\/p>\n Seed – seme<\/p>\n Sedate – calma (feminine)<\/p>\n Antibiotics – antibiotici<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Since we\u2019ve come to Italy, vet visits have become a regular occurrence. I\u2019ve had pets all my life but I\u2019ve never had to visit the vet so much in my whole animal owning life than I have since we arrived here two years ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2451,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[235],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-how-much-does-it-cost-to-live-in-italy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosiemeleady.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosiemeleady.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosiemeleady.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosiemeleady.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosiemeleady.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2450"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rosiemeleady.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2452,"href":"https:\/\/rosiemeleady.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2450\/revisions\/2452"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosiemeleady.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosiemeleady.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosiemeleady.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosiemeleady.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}