Artie is getting old. She just doesn’t know it yet.
Since July, Artie has been to the vet 3 times. Twice in this month alone. She’s going back on Tuesday.
I can’t really say that the last two are definitely due to old age, but I can’t rule age out as a factor, either.
In July Artie started having trouble with incontinence. Blood work showed that she has too much protien in her blood. It was caused by a problem with her kidneys and required that she go on a special diet and take medication for the incontinence. She had to be taken off the steroid she was given to deal with the effects of flea allergy.
Two weeks ago I took her back to the vet because she was shaking her head almost constantly and losing hair. I knew that the hair loss was due to the flea allergy. We’ve been fighting this battle since she was a puppy and it always gets bad this time of year.
Artie had lost 3 pounds since the July visit (mostly likely due to all the itching and head shaking) and the vet gave her a half dose of a steroid to help her out. Everything else seemed normal.
Roughly this past Wednesday, she started shaking her head again and itching more. Not as bad as two weeks before but I didn’t want things to get too bad so I took her back today.
In two weeks she had lost 3 pounds even though she was eating as much as normal for her. The head shaking and scratching only started back up this week. She really shouldn’t have lost so much weight. So a visit to try to nip the head shaking and scratching in the bud turned into a 45+ minute visit with the vet to try to figure out just what was wrong with the dog.
Two things we figured out for sure, she has a kidney infection (again) and may have a yeast infection in one of her ears. Anything else will have to wait for the results of blood work. The blood, though, can’t be done until Tuesday. Due to my work schedule, I’ll have to leave her at the vets so they can draw blood about 6 hours after she has the medication. I’ll pick her up on my way home.
Another thing we discussed but didn’t address is the fact that Artie is becoming clumsy. She still runs and jumps but she doesn’t always land well. More and more often her legs go out from under her and she ends up hitting the ground. I know this is due to old age and there isn’t much we can do about it. I just wish Artie realized that she’s getting old and decided to take her energy levels down a notch. I worry that one day she’ll hurt herself.
So that was my somewhat depressing visit to the vet. I don’t blame the vet for Artie getting old. Plus everyone in my vet’s office love Artie. Whenever I take her the vet techs will come from where ever they are working to stop and say “hi” to Artie and pet her. She’s probably been treated by all of the vets there at one time or another as well. By the time we left today she had filled up on treats by various members of the staff.
It looks like we will be seeing more and more of the vets as things go on. I guess it’s a good thing she loves to go there and they all adore her.
Technorati Tags: getting old, Vet
