Four-hundred Dollars Later…

Yesterday marked the first visit to the vet (for us) with Fitz!  Both Gwen and Fitz needed to head to the vet for various things and one thing we didn’t really think of was how much TWO dogs will cost at the vet:  over $400!  But what the vet talked to us about Gwen is really the reason that I wanted to share this in a post.

Let’s start with the easy one:  Mr. Fitzwilliam.  Fitzy had to get his rabies shot and get an exam so we could get him Trifexis — the flea/heatworm/internal parasite prevention & treatment that Gwen has been on since she was a puppy.  We went back to the vet that Gwen had seen when we first moved here. Initially I wasn’t too impressed as I didn’t really like the lady vet.  I’m not entirely sure what it was but I didn’t really like the way she talked to me or answered or rather didn’t answer my questions.  Either way, this time around we were scheduled to see the man vet.  He was a lot more easy to talk to, liked both dogs, and answered all of our questions!

They took Fitz back to get his rabies shot, bordetella vaccine, and to microchip him.  We could hear his little puppy screeches and it was so pitiful!  We tried to guess which was which…we knew from prior experience with Gwen that the microchip was painful (but over in a second!) so that, we figured, was the biggest screech.  The poor little guy was so happy to be brought back to us and given a cookie that his big sister tried to steal.

When it came to Miss Gwendolyn she was only supposed to get an exam and her bordetella (kennel cough) vaccine.  Then the vet asked us if we had any other concerns and at this point we brought up her paw which she keeps licking and itching at.  One paw, one toe.  Back in January or February, I had a friend of mine that is a small animal vet take a look at Gwen’s paw when we were at the barn.  She prescribed her an antibiotic, some bendaryl, and told me how to clean it and recommended keeping her from itching it.  She also recommended that I put Gwen on fish oil.  Gwen’s paw cleared up pretty well but then after awhile she started up again.  I have some spray stuff to put on it which seemed to make her feel temporarily better.  Only problem was, it would never go away completely.

So Mr. Vet took a look at her and said he would like to shave the toe and get a better look at what was going on there. Gwen was taken into the back to have her toe shaved.  When they came back he said it looked like she, again, had an infection in that one toe/claw and that it needed to be treated and cleaned.  The infection, he told us, could have either come from her having had a little fracture in the nail or a cut in the skin.  Either way he strongly advised that we get this taken care of ASAP or she could lose that claw in the long run!  Neither of us realized how serious her obsessive toe licking had become! 😦  He talked to us about the different options with the strengths of anti-inflammatory medicines and he recommended the stronger steroidal one that way she would not be itchy and it might speed up the healing.

Gwen went home with a baggie full of special paw soak cleaner, long-term antibiotics (21 days worth!), and some Prednisolone (the steroid).  (Plus they both got flea medication.)  Gwennie also has to go back in for a recheck in 2 weeks to see how her itchy toe is fairing.

All in all, these little twerps cost over $400 to go in for their routine visits.  I should have known it would be more expensive than we had planned.  Oh well, got to keep the Corgis happy and healthy!

Drinking water out of the same water dish at the same time! We are making progress!

Dog Food:

One of the things we talked to the vet about was the food the dogs are eating.  Fitz is eating Puppy Wellness Complete while Gwen is continuing to eat Purina Pro Plan.  When we broached the subject of Gwen’s itchy paw we brought up the question of “do you think it might be a food allergy?” and the vet said,  “honestly, I highly doubt it.”  She is at the age where it would become apparent if she did but the itchiness is only manifesting in one paw, she does not have the chronic yeasty ears, hot spots, raw spots on her face from itching, and her hair is not falling out.  Her skin isn’t dry and itchy everywhere, only in that paw.  We talked to him about the current trend of total grain free dog foods and he told us he thinks of the grain-free foods as being more of an off-shoot of the human dietary fad of gluten-free everything.  Yes, there are some people that cannot handle gluten in their diets. Yes, there are some dogs that cannot handle grains or wheat or corn, etc. BUT not all dogs/humans are like that. What he told us was that the food we are feeding Gwen is not a bad food and that her weight is not bad and we have no reason to change her diet unless it is really bothering us that she isn’t on something fancier.

Fitz came to us eating a really nice food called “Go!” which is a grain-free and overall really good food.  The reason we did not stick with that food was that it was going to be hard to find.  Only one store in the area carries it, unless we were to go over to Seattle (a ferry ride away) just to buy dog food.   That was when we decided Puppy Wellness would be the way to go with him.  If our Natural Dog store was closed for the day then we would still be able to swing by Petsmart or Petco and get puppy some more food.  I suppose that would make it about convenience (and a little of cost effectiveness too) more than anything.  Either way, the vet was happy with our choice in puppy food.

Both dogs are a healthy weight and have good looking coats and are nice and active!  Gwen weighed in at 30.8 lbs and Fitz weighed in at 18.4 lbs!

Yucky things like my dog…

A quick trip to the vet?  That should be quick, easy and painless!  <– These were my thoughts before I took Gwen in on Friday afternoon…

 

While we were in Charleston we’d had Gwen on Trifexis for her flea and heartworm medication.  Before we moved me made sure to get her next month’s dose so we would have time to located a vet up here to continue her monthly flea/heartworm regimen.  The first vet we went to did not sell Trifexis but they did recommend another vet that did so I called them up and made an inquired about what would need to be done to get her new flea medications.  I was told I needed to make an appointment to see the Vet before we could actually be given a new prescription.  At $55 for just a visit I was reluctant so I put it off for another week or so.  Finally I decided that I was being a bad pet owner and made an appointment to get the dog in.  In the long run I am glad I went with the second vet since the office was much nicer, in my opinion, and the vet we saw was pretty nice and all the staff liked Gwen (who wouldn’t?!).

Gwen saw the lady vet and she got her ears swabbed.  Later on they asked me if they wanted me to run a test on the gunk from her ears (I hadn’t cleaned the dogs ears yet but it was on the list of things to do!) and I gave the okay for that ($29 just to look under a microscope!).  I also opted to get Gwen’s shots at this visit since she was due for them next month anyways.  Might as well kill all the birds with one stone.  When they brought out the invoice agreement thing for me to sign, I read through the list and ended up telling them no I would not approve half of the things on it.  They wanted to run a heartworm test on her since she’d been off the medicine for almost a month after they had informed me that we are in an area where heartworm is extremely rare due to the fact that it does not get or stay warm enough at night for the hearworm larve to be picked up and transmitted by the mosquitoes.  They also wanted to charge me $33 to clean Gwen’s ears!  THIRTY-THREE DOLLARS!!!  I clean her ears myself normally and as much of a pain she is about it I do not believe it is worth $33 to have someone else do it.  They don’t even charge that much at the groomers…  The also had invoiced some medicines that were not discussed.  There was an ear-cleaner and a prescription for antihistamines since the vet said she “may” have allergies when we have not seen signs of allergies other than yeasty ears.  They really wanted all my nickels and dimes…

So a vet visit that I figured would come out around $70 with an exam and her Trifexis Rx ended up being more like $177.03.  She ended up with her shots that last 3 years, her exam, Trifexis, a bottle of super-special medicated ear cleaning solution, and the test on the ear gunk.  The vet said that Gwen had the beginnings of a yeast infection in her ears.  So now we have to clean her ears with the super special medicated cleaning solution twice a day for two weeks and then once or twice a week after that.  After hearing the doc’s instructions I was thinking are you kidding me?!  Because Gwen is a royal stinker about ear cleaning…she squirms and shakes her head, shaking the cleaning stuff into my face and on my clothes.  I feel like I need goggles and a hazmat suit just to handle her!  Good thing is she no longer snarls and snaps at me like she used to when I tried to convince her to let me clean those giant satellite dishes.

I did some googling and found a couple articles that pertain to yeast infections in dogs.  I learned that if it is in one ear it is most certainly bound to be in both, and that the “frito feet” smell that a lot of people describe their corgis having is really yeasty feet! (Thank God she does not have frito feet!)  I had heard before that Corgis can be prone to allergies, as well as other dogs that are mainly indoor dogs.  In these articles there were also some ways to help keep the yeasties at bay.

Here are the articles I found:

• http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2011/05/03/eating-these-foods-can-make-your-dog-itch-like-crazy.aspx
• http://pets.webmd.com/dogs/yeast-infection-in-dogs-causes-treatment-and-prevention

 

Apart from our recent wallet draining vet visit, Gwen had a tick on her!  Andrew and I have been playing soccer in the back yard with Gwen at night; the other night we took her to the park down the road and then when we came home we played soccer.  We are not entirely sure where she picked it up but we guess in the wooded part of our yard. 😦  I discovered it in the morning right before my parents came to visit.  I had picked Gwen up in the garage and felt a weird bump right in front of her right foreleg.  I dug through the hair to look at it and then showed Andrew, we both agreed our poor little doggie had a nasty tick sucking out her blood!  I of course doing the most logical thing panicked and called my mom.  I knew the gist of how to get rid of it but had never done it since Dayzee had never had one and I was too young to take care of our dog Zack when he had a tick.  I ended up holding Gwen while my mom doused the offending arachnid in rubbing alcohol and then when that didn’t work she took a smoldering match to it, but of course the tick was reluctant to give up its meal so Andrew pulled it off with tweezers and then we put more alcohol on it to sanitize the bite.  The whole time I had my eyes shut.

On trying to find an image to put here for the ticks I did not want to put an actual tick because I find them gross yet when I found a tick identification chart I figured it was a good resource…so here is the link for the chart.  On it you will find you can search different areas of the country (my apologies if you are outside of the US, hopefully you don’t have ticks!).  I found the chart/site both gross and fascinating.  They also had good tips for the battle against ticks!  Another informative link from NY.

It seems that the past couple of weeks have been a time of yucky things trying to attach themselves to my dog!  I really need to take her to the groomers to get washed!  She has grass stains and mud stains and smells like a rotting log…yucky things like rotting logs!  (No she is not rotting.) 😦

On a happier note, I start work tomorrow!  After the month+ run around I got with my transfer, it will be nice to be bringing in a paycheck again to pay for my menagerie.  I only work for a few hours then I have the rest of the week off since I am going to the Sister-in-law’s wedding.  First time meeting the other half of Andrew’s family and of course I’m going it alone.  I have the Navy to thank for that…  Here’s to hoping I make it home all in one piece!