Sam scares someone else.

Before

When Sam hurt his leg and had to get staples, the ER vet said the staples could come out in 12 days. That means today (Thursday the 28th), so we went to the vet's this afternoon to get the staples pulled.

Sam's favorite vet tech was there, and he was going to pull the staples. Raymond touched the first staple, and Sam screamed.
Bloody.
Murder.

Poor Raymond was so surprised that he dropped everything: Sam's foot, the staple remover--everything. I was slightly less surprised, having encountered Mr Stoic(Not) before. (In the past, Sam has handled muscle cramps about as well as he handled his staples today.)

Sam was muzzled. I figured Raymond and I would feel like idiots if Sam bit one of us when I had the muzzle right there with me. To his credit, Sam didn't even try.

He just screamed.

He screamed when Raymond pulled staples. He screamed when Raymond touched his foot. He screamed when Raymond looked at his foot.

To complicate matters, Sam had been such a very good patient--leaving his staples alone--and the skin had started to grow over the staples. Raymond really had to dig for a couple of them. And Raymond was very apologetic.

I was not very helpful: I got the giggles. For one thing, I knew it couldn't possibly be as painful as Sam was making out since Sam continued to scream when nothing was happening. And I'm a dog groomer. We get dogs who scream over nail trims or ear plucking--and dogs who start screaming and keep screaming even when nothing is happening. It's always embarrassing when it happens: you want to hold both hands in the air and show everyone that you really aren't maiming the little screaming baby. So I knew how Raymond was feeling, and I think it relieved him that I knew Sam was overreacting. Around the vet clinic, vets on the phone with owners got off quickly before the people they were talking to could hear Sam's screams. Pet owners in the waiting room fully expected us to come out of the exam room with a cringing, crying, bloody dog.

Once the last of the four staples came out, we took off Sam's muzzle. Sam then got cookies--at least two of them--and got hugged and petted by Raymond. The vet stuck his head in, too, after he finished his phone call, and sympathized with the poor traumatized boy.

Then Sam trotted out to the waiting room as if nothing had happened. Now he's home, and sleeping the sleep of the exhausted dog.


After

My only question now: How on earth did the ER vets get the staples in his leg without his screaming like this?


Edited to add: Sam has never let out so much as a whimper during regular vet visits: shots, microchipping, drawing blood--Sam takes all that in stride. (So have both the girls.)