Make That TWO Canine Concerns

It’s a pretty sad day over at the Hermits’ Rest. This morning I noticed Goldie was limping. Soon after, Lee pointed out a huge lump on her left front leg. What the heck?

Well, Lee was already planning to take Harvey in for his lump and official diagnosis, but he went over to Dr. Amy’s mobile clinic and asked them to come by when they were done in Cameron (not cheap, but better than trying to transport the two big dogs).

So, they showed up and the challenges of looking at our dogs commenced. Looking at Goldie was easy. She loves Kelly the vet tech and volunteered to be looked at, poked, and prodded by Amy, too. Then she happily trotted off to the truck to get weighed. We need more Goldies.

The bad news is that the lump is probably a mast-cell tumor. Yes, they can pop up that fast. Those are the bad ones. Dammit. She has some heavy-duty steroids and antibiotics to take to see if that will shrink it. She’s getting the treatment for anthrax. Intense. Of course she won’t eat it. Lee is working on her.

It was harder to treat Harvey. He was all shivery and snappy. But with patience, Kelly got him muzzled and Amy was able to palpate his lump. Thankfully, it felt full of fluid, not bad things. It is the least of his worries.

The blood work on Harvey came back really bad. All his liver levels are awful, which means liver cancer. That’s the last thing our family needs, more of that. His abdomen is swelling, too. We discussed options and decided to try a medication that can help in dogs, Denamarin. It’s helped Pickle, Anita’s dog. I don’t know that it can do much, but it will be less traumatic than taking him somewhere to get scanned, which would just tell us what we already know. Sniff.

A funny thing or two. We were all concerned he was losing hair. Well, he isn’t. Harvey had been shaved last week to remove a cyst, and the other smooth patch was from something else they did last week that Lee didn’t remember or know about. Also, Carlton was hilarious. He ran to greet them when they came in, but when he saw who it was, his tail went between his legs and his hair stood on end. Whoa, he is not fond of veterinarians.

Were we done yet? No. Lee’s brother had asked if Dr. Amy had come to trim Vlassic’s toenails. No, she had not. No one wants to trim his toenails. He has gotten worse and worse about it as he ages, but the nails hurt Jim. So, they said they’d give it a try, as the rain began to pour.

This went very badly. Kelly tried to just hold Vlassic, but he acted like he was being murdered. It was horrific. He bit and screamed until Amy was able to stick a needle in him. They covered him in a towel until he settled. I don’t think we will let them try without sedation again, to save on potential human injuries. What an embarrassment.

Oh, and I forgot the icing on the cake: when Vlassic was squealing, Penney ran out through the gate and tried to take matters into her own hands. She started biting his butt! So we had to remove her and Goldie both. They were upset, of course.

We are just going to take things one day at a time now. At least horses are doing ok at the moment. I spent a lot of time after the rain stopped just walking around and breathing. I’m glad I have some centering tools to help me deal with this stuff.

And to top it all off there was another school shooting murder spree. Why do we keep giving unstable people access to assault weapons?