Eye, Ear, Nose, Leg and Whoo-ie

Over the past few months, I've been dealing with various health issues with the dogs.  You know how they say "double your pleasure, double your fun"?  With my dogs it's "triple your pleasure, triple your Vet bill".

Some things I've been able to manage with the little bit of common sense God gave me. 

Example?  Scooter has the classic droopy lower eye lids that somehow manages to collect all the random debris that floats through the air.  Lubricating eye drops to the rescue! 

Both Ginny and Scooter need periodic ear drops to keep yeast from growing in there.  Poor Ginny also manages to pick up the random bug or fluffy debris inside her big ears.  This sets her to rolling on the ground rubbing her ears and grinding her teeth.  (SM and I sit and "wince" when she does this.)  No help for it when you have big bat-like ears.



The girls keep their teeth clean with daily rawhide chews.  Scooter is the only dog on the planet that doesn't understand that bones are for chewing.  He just lays on it and growls defending it.  He had his teeth cleaned at the Vet this past spring but lately his gums were getting inflamed all over again.  Stinky breath too.  Dilute hydrogen peroxide to the rescue.  I took an old sock and cut off the tip, dip it in the solution and scrub away.  (He growls the whole time.)  Pink, healthy gums...Much better!

Ginny has had an undiagnosed leg issue this past year.  When we took her in this spring, the Vet suspected an ACL issue.  Sedation to diagnose and surgery if found.  We postponed this through the summer months hoping that restricting her movements would allow a potential tear to heal on it's own.  It seemed to get better but it's never really gone away.  She has good weeks and bad weeks and is putting most of her weight on the other leg.  Not good.  She's still young at 6 years old.  SM and I have gone back and forth over this for months.  Ginny will be going in on Monday.  We've given the OK for surgery if needed but we don't really know where we'll end up.  Stay tuned.

Casey, being the youngest, has been skating by just fine until this summer.  My "little piggy" is built like...well...a pig.



She can't bend around to...ummm...you know...do her own housekeeping back there.  So she's had multiple skin infections down there.  The worst one a few months ago and I had SM take her to the Vet to see what could be done.

SM reports back to me that the Vet says she has an...ummm...inverted "Whoo-ie" and pees all over herself.  Since she can't clean herself, she gets irritated and infected.  The Vet cautions that dogs like this start to develop UTI's.  (Dear God...not a doggie UTI.)

"Great."  I say.  "So what does he suggest?"  I ask.

"A surgical nip and tuck."  SM says, clearly not comfortable discussing this.  Of course, you can imagine my reaction.  (Why is everything a suggested surgery?)  I researched the subject and the surgery.  Pretty common thing among girl dogs.  Still..."Ouch".  In the meantime he recommended various ointments to clear things up.  Temporary solution though as this keeps repeating.

This got me to thinking about the kids I never had.  All the diapers I never changed.  What I have here is a case of doggie diaper rash.  If Casey was a little kid, I'd have to do her housekeeping for her until she could do it for herself.  Since she's built the way she is, I either take a chance on surgery, as the Vet suggested, or just keep her clean myself.  So that's what I've done and it works wonderfully.  Twice a day cleanings and I've rediscovered the miracle of a jar of Vaseline.




Ain't it fun having animals? 

So there.  (Now, you know I've read all of your "horny" goat posts, the deworming posts, the chickens with their eggs stuck up their behinds....I might not have farm animals but I've got stories to tell too @;)