Dog Gone Things

Well, I took Festus to the vet yesterday and it turns out the poor boy has bronchitis. We have allergy medicine, cough suppressant, and antibiotics. We were happy to have a diagnosis that was not too bad.

Then I get a call last night at 5:33pm saying his heartworm test came back positive. I was deflated. The treatment seems as bad as the disease. It is a costly and is hard on the animal and involves arsenic, rest, and then additional treatment. Lots to consider and being unemployed and Todd in training not an ideal time for that kind of expense. I awoke at around 5:30 this morning and decided to have the rest of the dogs tested. It is hard to sleep peacefully when you have such news the evening before. I loaded all the dogs into the car, mind you I was tired I did not go to bed until midnight, and headed for the vet trying to maintain a positive attitude, yeah that's easy.

They had a good time yipping, baying and barking at the vet clinic. The were excited to get out and sniff around until... we went in to get blood drawn. Dolly and Boo were traumatized, Georgie with her good nature and trust wasn't too put out. Boo was as bad there having his nails trimmed as at home, he will let out a wail before you even get the clippers to his toe nail. It did make putting them back into the car a lot easier, they were anxious to escape the clinic.

The techn said she would test the blood and it would take about 10 minutes. I pottied and watered the dogs, watched the clock inch by the minutes, and went in. They were all .. negative. Hurray!! We got them heartworm meds to make certain they would not test positive in the future, paid the vet bill (ouch but not that bad when it is three dogs) and headed home

I am medicating Festus and once his bronchitis is behind him will take him to another vet to have the heartworm test run, just to confirm the results. I want to make certain before considering treatment that he has heartworm. I am afraid that the bronchitis lowered his immune system and that is why he would pick it up and not the other three. There is hope that his blood test is wrong as they took the blood at 8:45am and did not test it right away. I can hope the sample was contaminated or it was a false positive (although the tests are accurate these days). If it is positive Todd and I will have a decision to make. Either way not a good thing to deal with. I hope everyone else is having better experiences than I am these days.

Looking forward to brighter better times when these clouds have passed.

Take Care and God Bless. This is Candy Cane, over and out.