I can get hairy.  My two-legged pets take me the infernal grooming place every 32 meals or so, where way-too-perky humans mutilate my nails, soak me to the bone, and place me inside a deafening wind tunnel.

Despite having received a near full-body buzz cut on these trips (except for my voluminous tail ... why do they think that's attractive?  It's like I have a Goodyear blimp trailing me everywhere!), my pets forget to take advantage of the situation and apply my anti-flea and tick topical agent.  They wait and get it stuck in my fur -- all smelly and goopy.  (And then THEY want to complain about "Creak's odor."  Really.)

Apparently my constant scratching of myself has paid off.  The Two-Leggers noticed their anti-vermin solution was anything but, and have now switched me to chewable tablets.  (They taste like Flintstones vitamins.)

Here's hoping this human answer works.  (Though, remember it is humans who place dogs in bags ... to carry them around.  Sanity?)

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Sometimes it seems the doctor just isn't listening.

I try and I try to convey to him that my knee pain has been increasing as of late.  I whimper when he's massaging the joints.  I give him my sad puppy dog eyes when he asks how I'm feeling.  I gently pat his hands whenever he tries to walk away -- reminding him I appreciate his attentive care.

And then he says to my two-legged pets, "Creak seems fine.  Pain seems minimal.  I recommend he just gets his rest and drinks his water and everything should be kept in check."

It's as if he hasn't been listening to me at all.

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So my pets think they're clever.

Hands hidden behind backs before mealtime.  The faint glimpse of a plastic syringe.  A strange cherry sogginess in my normally dry food.

They're trying to poison me.

Ah, the heartbreak!  I cannot imagine what I have done to deserve this fate.  Was it the frequent trips to the doctor for my limping?  Was it the massive amounts of money bits they paid for my osteoarthritis injections?

Have they just grown tired of me?

A deep feeling of remorse has overcome me.  How did this happen?  I never complained about my knee pain, never whining and moaning.  I valiantly kept up with the youngest of the Two-Leggers, even if waddling to do so.

Sure, I may have be hit with a few reverse sneezing episodes as of late, but you would, too, if your soft palette extended into your esophagus.

Where's the loyalty?  The oath to care for one's family -- not harm them?

Sigh.

I must plan my escape before it's too late.

And when I find this Mr. "Benadryl" my pets keep mentioning, I'm going to sink my teeth into him.

It is getting colder outside.  As of late, I have noticed a particular dryness during my morning constitutionals.

Wincing, waddling and veritable wheezing ensues.  My osteoarthritic knees seem embedded with knives and daggers.

Pain.

It has been foremost on my mind.  In fact, it has consumed my mind.  I can focus on nothing else.  Desperately I try to remember a time in which I led a relaxed, medicine-free, pain-free life ... (how lucky are those who do!) ... yet it seems this disease has overtaken even the recesses of my memory.

With pain comes its cousin, Sadness.  Even a member of the noble family of Canine cannot escape its weight bearing down.

My two-legged, arthritis-free pets have noticed.  I feel it in the way they gingerly pet me, hear it in their increasingly-cautious tones.

But I have not figured out how to respond.  Not yet.  For the moment, I feel lost.  Trapped, even.

The pain.

The sadness.