When you don’t have kids, dogs end up being furry surrogate kids of sorts (except they’ll never call you at 2am asking to be bailed out of jail and you yourself can prevent unwanted pregnancies instead of just worrying). Anyway, Maddie has had an ongoing infection issue with her feet that we just could not get a handle on.
We were constantly going to the vet and the vet was stumped, just guessing and prescribing. It was frustrating to say the least. It was frustrating and expensive and worrisome and Maddie was visibly miserable throughout.
Dena and Levi recommended we go meet with their vet, Pierce Fleming, International Vet of Mystery! I appreciate personaly vet recommendations, it’s really hard to find a vet that lots of people love and you really want your dog to go to a good vet. You know, like you want your kid to go to a good pediatrician.
Friday I grab Maddie and David and we decide to also bring Chester. Chester needs to get out of the house and it’s a good place for socializing a bit and you know, he’s a good guy. Great idea! Except my great ideas are quite often doughnuts stuffed with the forgotten jellies of very bad ideas. Chester gets car sick. Really car sick. He’s the only dog I know who gets car sick. Pierce Fleming, IVoM is way way way on the northwest side of town, i’m on the south east side of town. it took almost 40 minutes to get there. More than enough time for Chester to vomit and for Maddie to freak out about the vomit and plot her revenge.
We finally get there and get in the consultation room (the room has posters for animal accupuncture written in German. I don’t know how I feel about that yet). As the vet assistant is asking us all kinds of questions, Maddie decides that it’s time for her to let us know just how upset she is with having to ride with pukeboy. She drops a gigantic stewy load all over the floor. Yep, my dog did me proud by taking a huge shit in the middle of the room. She was really pleased with herself. I was mortified.
After the bulldozer and hazmat teams leave with the offending load, Pierce Fleming, IVoM, showed up. Instantly, I’m in love. My regular ver faxed over Maddie’s records earlier in the week. He sat down with them that day and started doing research. He started doing research in advance. he immediately ruled out food based allergies, those would not affect the feet so much as the face, stomach and ass (thank god my dog does not have an angry seeping ass rash!), it’s also not mites. The common assumption is that it might be airborne or inhalant allergies, but his research showed that those allergies affect the toes, not the pads.
So he did more research and checked things out and all. All signs point to auto-immune disorder, something not especially common in dogs, but not entirely uncommon in shar peis (you know, as much as I adore the breed, the health problems are really out of hand). Apparently, all the symptoms are classic, you just have to know what you are looking at to make the connection and Pierce Fleming IVoM did his research in advance.
He spent a lot of time explaining the course of treatment we were going to follow, he answered our questions thoroughly and thoughtfully. He wanted to put her on cephalexen but I pointed out that that drug makes Maddie shit blood all over my living room, an activity I am keen to avoid in the future. Cephalexen is really the best drug for the situation so, instead of going with a lesser drug and getting questionable results, we’re going with the cephalexin AND another drug that will help prevent great big bloody shits. Also, there is prednisone, which I’m not keen on, but we’re keeping the dose low and after 5 days we’re moving to every other day.
Maddie wanted to express her thanks to everyone, so she peed on the rug in the lobby. Thanks Maddie!
So far, she seems to be doing okay. We’re not getting instant results, but that’s to be expected. This course of treatment could take 2 months or more.
In other dog related news…
Remember last week when we never got to obedience class because I didn’t call ahead and it all got cancelled? And then we changed to the Monday night class? Well, I called the teacher of the Monday night class to say “hey, we missed the first night, call me and let me know if I need anything other than a dog, a leash and some treats”. She called me. She was not happy. She doesn’t let people sign up late for her class, oh no she doesn’t. The first night is a very important lecture and she doesn’t people to miss it. I tried to point out that I’d been through dog obedience classes in the past, I kind of had a good idea of what was what in the dog obedience world.
Chester has his basic commands down, he can sit, stay, lay down and, on occasion, “SHUT THE FUCK UP”. I relayed this to her (not the STFU part, people don’t appreciate that as much) and she said “well, that’s easy…” Well, yeah, lady, that’s why i signed up for the class. Look, I’ve been through the classes, I’m prepared to carry babies for the Dog Whisperer, I’m down with pack order and dominance displays.
Fine. She gave me a “well, if you want to come I guess…”
I called the community ed offices and asked if I could switch to yet another class since this lady was so cranky and I really didn’t want to be in a class with a cranky teacher. It’s not going to help me and it’s not going to help my dog.
Well, huzzah and blow it out your ass cranky lady! Seems the original class we were trying to go to was only postponed, not cancelled! That starts this Wednesday, we will make it and not have missed anything.
Look, i’m not trying to train my dog for any kind of competition or anything, I just need him to not bark so much when I am not home, get socialized with other dogs so he is not afraid of them and not jump on people when they come over. Stupid jerk lady.
And today we set Chester up with the citronella spray bark collar as he’s been harassing the neighbors. It worked really well. In fact it worked so well that it seems he was completely still and silent as much as possible, or at least that’s what David ascertained when he got home and Chester didn’t even dance a little jig. Hooray!