Awesome pics!

I think the Spoodle is a cutie.

She really is.

She can get away with anything because she knows how to tug our heartstrings... grr.

I love her. Miss her too because she's over in Australia and I'm here in the States

Just spent the weekend going back/forth to the emergency veterinary clinic with our 10-month old chocolate Labrador Retriever, Winnie.

Starting this past Tuesday, she almost completely stopped eating food. If you know Labs, this is quite puzzling, as her food is usually inhaled within 30 seconds of it being put on the floor. This past week, she would even go up, sniff it, and leave it alone. Clearly something was wrong!

She wouldn't drink any water, so we resorted to feeding her ice cubes. This seemed to quench her thirst, but you could tell she was very dehydrated. Her skin looked like it was sticking to her bones, and she lost a fair bit of weight as well (53 lbs --> 48 lbs). She would bark and her lips would curl up, as if she had cleft palate. It was kind of amusing, actually, as it made her look really angry and bear her teeth.

She also began throwing up multiple times per day. It was mostly stomach bile, as nothing was really going in. It's not fun to put a puking puppy to sleep at 11pm and then wake up at 1am, 2am and 3:45am for puking sessions, then up for good at 6am. She became very lethargic too... when she wasn't throwing up, she was pouting and lying down on the couch.

We thought the virus would work through her system in a couple of days, but when she was still sick on Saturday morning, we took her to her vet. They did a complimentary exam, found nothing, so they sent us to the after-hours emergency vet clinic for some blood work, fluids and potentially x-rays.

Blood work came back clean ("oh you have such a healthy puppy"), but putting her on IV fluids seemed to help her perk up a bit. She still wouldn't keep food down though. Spent Saturday night there, then by yesterday morning the vet recommended to do some x-rays. This was to check for a blockage of some kind. Both vets manually felt her stomach and intestines to check for hard objects like peach pits, pieces of plastic/metal or other crap from the street that she might've eaten.

Of course they found nothing, and neither did the x-rays, so the next step they recommended was a set of barium x-rays. I gather barium is a liquid the dog injests, and they're able to follow it through her system on x-rays, to see if it gets blocked anywhere. This might help locate a swallowed sock, rubber glove or some other object that wouldn't get picked up by a normal x-ray. Naturally, it came back negative.

I guess the barium solution they give helps coat/ease her stomach, because by this morning, she was back to her normal perky crazy self. We went back and picked her up, had a monster poop in the parking lot and took her back to the regular vet clinic to remove the IV and take off her cone.

Here are the final damages:

Emergency examination, $99
Hospitalization (12-24 hrs) $323
Catch.cephalic/drip set/fluids $147
Fluid pump/ IV mtce per 24 hrs $144
CBC, Profile, Electrolytes (incl BCF) $226
Additional litre of fluids $70
Injection into IV port $97
Radiograph (first view and setup) $157
Radiograph (additional view) $59
Barium Swallow ($68)
Barium Series (not incl. survey) $325

Total $1,715
HST $223
Grand total $1,938

Yikes! So it looks like I work for free for the next few weeks.

I mean, we can certainly afford it. And she's obviously the love of our lives, but that is not an insignificant amount at all. Maybe it is time to look into pet insurance.

Has anyone had similar treatments for their animals, and if so, do these costs look on par? We live in Canada. I gather we might pay a bit more of a premium for visiting an off-hours clinic.

The gf and I just brought home this guy today:



Meet Gizmo! He's a 3 month old Beagle-Boston Terrier mix. A Boggle, they call it apparently. This guy's energy is absolutely incredible; he napped for about an hour today but most of the day was spent running around, sniffing, exploring. Like, nonstop. He's got a lot of beagle in him. He's going to take a bit of work as far as training is concerned, but that is ok. He's so much fun already and dammit he's cute.

Roger, our ~9 month old Border Collie mix.


If you aren't active and/or ready to become active do not get a BC. They are amazing dogs, but not for everyone.

Toby got out of my in-laws yard today while my niece was supposed to be watching him. He was hit by acar. A neighbor called and let me know after we had been searching for an hour and a half.

No broken bones, lots of cuts and scrapes though. He has a bunch of stitches and is resting comfortably

I can imagine how scary that was, crashjr. Give Toby my best and tell him to get well quick.

Thanks kioshk. His front left paw is swollen to 3x normal and he is pretty unhappy right now. We've been up for a few hours and have to start the 9 hour drive home when the sun comes up in about an hour or so.

I think we could both use a sedative.

glad he's ok

Aww poor Toby Glad he's alright!!

Poor guy

lol...cone heads are always funny, tho

A few years ago when we had our springers we were having awful problems with them digging up the carpet and generally destroying stuff. So after they were both spayed and became cone heads we decided to keep the cones for when we went out and would put them back on the dogs. They were loosely tied at the back but you still had to untie it to get it off their heads.

We did this for a few days and didnt have any problems with chewing etc so thought great we are starting to get somewhere. The one thing we noticed was one of them always had the string undone when we got home but the cone in place. So we decided to park thecar down the road and sneak up on them. Now we did a rubbish job of sneaking up to the window and door but we did catch one of them trying desperatelyto get her head back in the cone, unfortunately for her in the rush she went the big end first and so looked like a lamp shade. Couldnt be angry at them and we did laugh.

Home he gets better soon, its not fun trying to slow down the injured ones.

Pretty sad night for me tonight...had to say goodbye to our 20 year old cat Charlotte; lots of good memories over that span of time.

awwww...rip

I'm really sorry. It's so tough to loose a pet. It's like loosing a member of the family.

RIP Charlotte.

RIP

20 years is a good long life for a cat. Mine is 15 now, I know that day is coming.

Thanks for the sympathy, everyone; she definitely had a long life, for which I am grateful.

So I ended up giving orange guy to Grandma last year as she was looking for a cat - he seems pretty happy.

The Calico is still mine and attached to my hip when I'm home, which is rare as I'm a 9-5er and play B&M poker at night.

Does anyone have experience fostering pets via their local shelter? I am thinking that might be a good way to get her a playmate without the long-term commitment..

My pup is my kid. Sleeps in bed with us, and is completely treated like a person for the most part. Just like a little kid. I love her more then anything. She is 1/2 black lab. I know that for sure. Her other half I'm told is dalmation and pit bull, but I do not know for sure.

beautiful pics, Jay! Your dog is so cute. I like how she is smiling in the pics. What's her name?

omg that little guy looks almost exactly like mine. even the white patch on the chest. pitbull half sounds about right by the way their mouths look when they're open. i wish i had a good pic of him on this pc