Our vet has a double Chin when we visit 3

(Pictures are at the end.) Today was vet day for the pups. Alice had to go in for a follow-up appointment. Hestia went in because she’s had a rash since March. We took her to UrgentVet in March (our vet had a 2-week wait at that time) and they said it was allergies, so we were expecting to get her some allergy medication.

When we arrived, our favorite receptionist, Patty, was there. We are Facebook friends 🙂 She recognizes me on the phone as soon as I say my girls’ names.

We soon got in a room and the tech came in to do the preliminary stuff. She weighed the girls and took their temperatures. Boy was Hestia mad at me about that! I held her while the tech took her temperature, and after that Hestia wanted nothing to do with me! She just sat on the far corner of the bench and ignored me.

The tech had to take a look at Hestia’s rash. That included sticking tape on the rash to collect skin cells for the microscope and taking a picture of the rash. Hestia the empress was SO not pleased!

Then the vet came in. She said that she doesn’t really know what’s going on with Alice, but thinks it is all somehow linked to her missing organs. She thinks other organs might not have formed correctly in addition to some being missing. Since we know she had pancreatitis, we decided to do a pancreas panel. That will test for pancreatitis as well as exocrine pancreatic insufficiency (which a friend’s service dog has). She is also doing a vitamin D test.

She said she thinks her most recent bout of not wanting to eat her homemade food without the fish topper is probably due to her being in heat. Since Alice likes chicken so much, she said I can switch out all or most of the meat the next time I make her homemade food for chicken. She also approved a supplement called GastroElm Plus that a different service dog friend has offered to send me some of. It’s designed to help the pancreas and tummy.

For now she’s staying on the same supplements, though we are adding in the multivitamin that is needed with the homemade diet. I should get the blood test results back soon and we can go from there.

Then it was Hestia’s turn. It turns out Hestia has a staph infection! Poor doggie was suffering from it for three months! I am mad at the UrgentVet for misdiagnosing it. They didn’t even take a sample of her rash—just looked at it. The vet was able to give her an antibiotic shot which should take care of it in 24–48 hours. Hestia will be happy about that!

The vet noticed Hestia has a heart murmur. This is something the UrgentVet had mentioned to me, and that was the first time any vet has ever said that about Hestia. My vet was a bit worried and wants to do an echocardiogram on Hestia. We’ll have to wait and save up for that. She said Hestia may even need an echocardiogram every year, but we’ll see. In the meantime, she gave Hestia a heart supplement.

I asked her about the dogs’ weight, and she said Alice is probably a 4 on the 9-point scale (5 is their perfect weight), though maybe a three because it’s hard to tell if her ribs would be showing or not since she has so much hair. Hestia is a 6. That’s about what I thought. I wish I could get Alice to gain some weight. Right now she’s eating 1/8 cup in the morning and 1/4 cup in the evening, but only with her freeze-dried fish added in to tempt her into eating. That’s quite a lot of food, so I hope she gains weight soon. She’s been hovering around 4 pounds 10 ounces for about a week now. The most she’s ever weighed is 5 pounds.

The good news is that the vet still thinks Alice is fine to work as a service dog in training!

Brad got some pictures in the waiting room and during the exam. I am wearing my blue cornflower dress and a blue mask. Alice has on pink and brown patterned panties. Hestia is wearing a pink piggy inflatable donut to prevent her licking her staph infection.