He doesn’t look sick to me

photo(30)If you don’t know that I am a bit obsessed with me dog chances are that you haven’t met me in real life.  My dog is like my son only he doesn’t talk back and he’s a lot hairier but he’s just as special and he’s probably just as spoiled.

It’s not just me though, my husband puts me to shame in the overbearing love he has for the dog (which is like 190 posts for another day).

The other night while fawning over the dog’s beauty I discovered what can best be described as a bit of shmutz next to his eyes (for those who have grown up with no Yiddish influence in their life –shmutz is a bit like dirt of the unknown variety.)

In an attempt to rid his face of anything detracting from his beauty I got a tissue and pulled off the shmutz. Pulled, as in yanked.  When there was a bit of blood on the tissue I started to feel a bit bad, when I noticed that the shmutz looked a little like a tick I started to worry.

My husband wasn’t home and I toyed with the idea of phoning him to tell him (we take dog matters very seriously in this place) but I could just picture him speeding home, scooping the dog up and placing him in intensive care and I could tell that this was CLEARLY not necessary. The dog was, at that point, running around the house amassing his toys into a central eating area.

So I left it and casually mentioned it to him the next morning. He panicked but only internally at first. By the time I checked my email at 9:00am there were several quotes from eminent veterinarians about the dangers of ticks in my inbox.

A couple of hours later I was apologising to the vet for presenting such a healthy dog. He assured me that I had pulled off a skin tag (nice!) and there was no danger of any tick related illnesses.  While I was there I thought I might just mention that the dog may have been biting his paws and his ears were in need of a check up as they could smell a little, er yeasty at times.
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$350 later I walked out of the vet with anti-biotics for his feet, ear drops for his ear, some other tablets for a fungal infection (also on his feet) and some eye drops for his eye that I might have irritated by pulling off a skin tag (still nice!). Oh and steroids for his persistent skin allergies (which is another 900 posts for another day).

$350.

I gave him his dinner and his medication last night and he vomited it all up.

So I have two questions

  1. If I hadn’t pulled off the skin tag would he have needed any of this medication because he certainly wasn’t planning a trip to the vet for any of these other “ailments”?
  2.  What kind of fancy car do you think my vet is saving up for?

Comments

  1. :/ Good luck Fluffy Pencil. I don’t know, maybe a sports model for the vet?

    For my part, I am about to Google ‘treat dog conjunctivitis’ because we have a poor sod over here with ick. I think he brought it on himself because he won’t stop butt-plugging the cat so I think he’s copped a claw.

  2. So it’s not just me and my husband who think more of the dog than we do of the kids!

    Vet bills come to around $5000 over the past few years (I’m blushing just thinking about how you describe spending money to remove a dog’s anal glands!). However the love and affection that we get in return is priceless.

    If you’re ever in the neighbourhood, take the dog for a walk down on the beach at Rose Bay behind the shops. Always other dogs there to play with and on a sunny afternoon, nowhere else you’d rather be – water, sand, sunshine and a glorious harbour to enjoy.

    • I am dying to take me dog to the beach! I will look out for you there – in fact I just saw a friend of mine’s pictures of her dog at the beach on Rose Bay come up on Facebook. It’s a sign – we need to get there!

  3. Your dog is gorgeous! Reminds me a little of my moodle Penny, who has been on many a ‘precautionary’ vet trip.

  4. On 11:30pm on the eve of the Easter long weekend, my Schnauzer decided to throw up. Nice. She then ran out to the yard where I found her lying passed out on the grass in the back corner. Emergency Vet here I come with my MasterCard by my side.
    Initial quote was $1,300.00 to include scans of some sort… I knew there wouldn’t be an obstruction – she’s not like a Lab that’ll inhale anything – so I declined that bit of treatment. Am I a bad owner?
    Final diagnosis: Hemorrhagic GastroEnteritis! WTF
    A drip for fluid, and another for antibiotics and a bunch of pain relief I got to bring her home on Easter Sunday.
    Picking her up and bringing her home was better but more expensive than any Easter egg.
    Final cost: $1,000.00.
    I hate the term of the Schnauzer being my “Baby” but she’s family all the same.
    ps: I’m kinda glad that she had the ‘bottom’ end f the illness at the Vet hospital. Paying the staff to clean that up would have been worth $1k in itself. Gag.

  5. Can so relate to this story – our dogs (big Kelpie and little curly black one like yours) assume a big place in our family unit and I think (in fact I know) they think they’re human. However, we’re not in doggy-medicare and I therefore ignore it if they look a bit sick (unless it’s critical) until I am given a HUGE guilt trip by teenage daughter (who incidentally never contributes to vet’s bill) and implies I am a terrible negligent dog parent. A persistent weeping eye drove me to the vet recently. I thought it was conjunctivitis (note to Twitchy) but it didn’t respond to human eye drops (that’s how bad I am – using cheap, over-the-counter human drops as opposed to expensive vet-car-fund ones) It was a scratched cornea and needed special drops and ointment and time to heal. Weeks and weeks, and another trip back to the vet.
    Answers to questions:
    1. No, he wouldn’t have needed those treatments – they’re all non-critical conditions!
    2. Something flash and expensive 🙂

  6. Benita (MissBenben) says

    Two days ago I noticed my beautiful Cocker Spaniel lying under a chair shaking. I panicked because she is indeed my fourth child and second daughter. I put a blanket over her and she stopped shaking so I assumed she was just getting used to her new haircut and it had turned quite cold recently. Later on that night (after hours so you all know this is going to get expensive) I brushed past her, barely touching her tummy and she went into a yelping, howling frenzy. Lost all control of her bladder and hid under her chair, again, shaking. So a call to the vet and 10 minutes later me and the kids and the sick dog were on our way into town. Something something infection or arthritis, needle, drugs, another needle, more drugs, $200. We took her home but the vet wanted to see her first thing. So. First thing next morning, in we go. Vet says she has to stay for the day to have bloods, urine sampling etc. Picked her up late that afternoon with more drugs, a confirmation of a severe stomach infection, and a bill of an additional $300.

    But how can I complain? Like I said, she’s one of my kids. And that terrifying 24 hours of not knowing what was causing it and thinking “kidney failure? cancer? bowel obstruction?” was the absolute worst.

    Pets eh?

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