Pawcurious Vet Blog: Pet help, stories, and information with Dr. V

We are all inspired by our pets- to be kind, to give a little more than we take, to play hard and snuggle a ton and enjoy every little moment in life. They encourage us to connect with one another. And they push us to do a little more.

Last week, an hour before closing, a family came in with a 4 pound, 10 week old poodle puppy. She was vomiting, had diarrhea, and no history of vaccinations. They had just enough money to confirm the diagnosis of parvo. Her white blood cell count was 1, meaning the parvo was in her marrow. This was bad. Very bad.

The little dog was very very ill. Her prognosis was poor, but rather than euthanize her, the family agreed to relinquish her so that we could at least give her a shot at life. One night, I said. She will have one night at least.

A dog that critically ill should have a blood transfusion. Things go downhill very fast in those conditions. But, we’re not an emergency facility and we weren’t equipped to do anything remotely like that. And who would donate, anyway? It was the end of the day.

You know where this is going, right?

The shaved places explained.

It wasn’t well done, mind you. The circumstances were far from ideal, the equipment jury rigged and dug out of the back of the broom closet where we keep stuff that never gets used. But at that point, what did we have to lose?

I came in the next morning, cringing as I looked into the iso ward, expecting a dead puppy. Except she wasn’t dead. Brody, meet your damsel in distress.

Despite all odds, she survived and will be discharged tonight. Brody’s Beasty Blood saved the day! (Don’t worry, I made up the indignity of donating to him in spades. In buckets.)

Brody is my hero. Already, at 5 months old. How I love him.

Thanks for coming along for the ride.

The Grand Prize will be announced at 5pm PST- in one hour. The tally is at $2080, but you’ve got one more hour to mess it up for whoever’s about to win the $100 GC.

5 cans of soda: $5

Small Brody accident because I was being horrible and didn’t let him out in time: 5 minutes of cleaning and one $20 pillow.

Cheese for the dog food: $0.05

Raising two thousand dollars for shelter pets when I was expecting to raise two hundred and seeing the best people in the world come out to support? Absolutely positively 100%:

Huge ((hugs)) to Vanesha, who is mourning the one year anniversary of a very hard loss and is still here to support me today. This is what I’m talking about, Best People in the World.

This is the part where I lay down on Brody and start feeling sorry for myself. Not really. I’m just running out of brain cells to remember things and direct my fingers to type them.

I was looking through the files of my old journal and came upon this little gem from last Christmas. Last Christmas was rough. Mulan was very sick (she was euthanized on New Year’s Eve) and every death was a reminder of what was coming.

I read it today and actually laughed at myself. Boy was I bitter. This year will be better, though.

“Christmas at the veterinary hospital always means death and destruction. Seriously. Those in the field will back me up. It was worse in the emergency hospital, but even in my boring old day clinic there has been a rapid parade of serious unresponsive viral pneumonias, cancers, parvo, and the like.

I said I needed a Christmas miracle, and the next room was a 12 year old Pomeranian who had lost half his body weight in a month. The woman adopted him a month ago and had $30 to spare since she has 6 kids at home. The tech brought the dog back and told me she wanted to euthanize her but couldn’t afford to cremate him, even, so she needed to take him home. And did we have a box to put his body in. I said, “This is NOT WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT!” and burst into tears. I think the techs were a little scared at that point since I’ve never actually done that before.

So… we euthanized him and we sent the dog home in a box. What, you were expecting some sort of happy ending?

OK, I went to my car after work- the parking lot was flooded and it was raining up a storm- and I had a flat tire.

Ho ho ho!”

This was her very first Christmas at my house: note the healing pyoderma and acral lick granulomas she arrived with.

Boy, I haven’t seen these pictures in ages. 2002, her first Christmas as a V. I still can’t look at the pictures- any of them- from this last Christmas.

I promise to be merrier this holiday season!

*dedicating my home stretch to Mulan, because for all her fluff she was a heck of a fighter too

Oh man, doesn’t Mile 21 correlate with hitting the wall when you run a marathon?

That is about where I am now. My husband took the kids out to lunch to get them out of my hair, and it’s strangely silent in the house. The dishes are piled up, the china with the dog food waiting patiently in the sink to be cleaned. In just a bit.

Apollo and Brody are keeping me company, like they always do. Apollo looks the same as he did 9 years ago. He is aging quite gracefully. When I adopted him, he was a teeny 8 week old kitten with big yellow eyes and a crusty nose. I brought him home to Nuke, also newly moved in, except Nuke was 10, an elderly coonhound in need of crate training. 6 months later, Callie was adopted.

Apollo was with us for our first house, our marriage, a new kitten, three dogs dying, two children being born to torture him, his companion disappearing, and now a puppy to chase him. It just keeps getting worse for him. I should do something kind for the elder statesman of the house. He’s been good to us.

What would be a really nice treat to spoil him with? A sweet bed? Cat tree? Lay it on me. I have another bead to give away too but I’m too tired to come up with a good reason so, uh, tell me why you deserve said bead.

Su (otherwise known as the woman who sampled an entire panoply of canned dog food live on the net) just sent me a link to a really cute guy named Punk Rock. He really takes the whole punk thing to a new level.

Apparently Punk Rock felt he was not punk until he had piercings, so he found himself a porcupine to help him finish the look. (Sadly Dad didn’t let him keep the piercings.)

Punk Rock: living the dream. Rescued from the El Toro shelter in 2002.

Stories like this are why I’m sitting here with bleary eyes and cramped fingers, because every dollar you send, every bit we help, means that more people will get to experience these moments. The shelter is full of pets just waiting to be a heart dog or cat- and every time one is euthanized due to overcrowding or lack of resources of just not enough time, the world is a little bit sadder.

So here in the final stretch, I could use a little juice to help me to the end. Let’s hear about your shelter/rescue pets and how your life is better for having had them. I know I wouldn’t trade my time with Nuke, Apollo, Calypso, Emmett, or Mulan for the world.

Kim asked me what I think about pet insurance. Me? I love it. It means people who would normally be unable to afford an emergency surgery or illness are able to get their pet treatment.

Most veterinary clinics don’t offer payment plans. We all wish we could. The problem is not that we don’t want to deal with it, but that they never work. There are too many people who renege on it and ruin it for everyone else, so the only way we can stay in business is to be paid at the time of services rendered. Insurance has saved many lives.

The other reason I like it is actually something most owners probably dislike. I really don’t have anything to do with it. There is none of that craziness human MDs have to deal with, no coding and negotiated reimbursements and arguing with medical billers. You pay, you fill out the papers, you get reimbursed. I just sign off on what we did.

The disadvantage to that is of course that you still have to have the money available to pay, even though you are reimbursed. I can’t speak as to the positives and negatives of individual companies since I don’t work with them much at all, but I know I have heard some grumblings about reading fine print. Be very aware of the exclusions- many insurance companies have a list of breed related conditions they will not pay to treat, regardless of its medical indications.

I’m not sure how beneficial it is for preventive care, but I see its greatest value in emergency treatment and catastrophic illness. If I didn’t have this job already, I would definitely be looking into it. The feedback I have heard is definitely quite positive as a whole.

Anyone here have pet insurance? What do you think of it? Would you do it again?