draggonlaady

Cracked called, and spoke to Receptionist1 on Friday of last week (at quarter til 5, of course--she lives about an hour's drive away). Receptionist1 tells her that from what she's describing, the dog is most likely either 1: pregnant/whelping, 2: having a false pregnancy, or 3: has a uterine infection (pyometra). She explains that we cannot tell the difference between these over the phone unless the dog starts pushing out puppies. She strongly recommends bringing the dog in the next day to be looked at, or taking it to the Pet Emergency Clinic (because nobody in their right mind wants to deal with her alone after hours here!). Cracked is shocked that a dog as old as this bitch (giant breed, 7 yrs old) could even get pregnant--don't they go through menopause? Receptionist1 explains that dogs don't have menopause, and any dog that's still having heat cycles can probably get pregnant. Cracked then relates that Bitch did "tie" with Evil about 2 months ago. Repeat discussion of possibilities and options. Cracked wants to go take Bitch's temperature and then call back. Repeat discussion of possibilities and options, and that we CANNOT DIAGNOSE OVER THE PHONE. Taking her temperature won't change those options.
Cracked calls back and speaks to Receptionist2, who once more repeats the "cannot diagnose over phone" and options conversation. Cracked decides to watch and see if Bitch has pups overnight. If not, she will come in first thing Saturday morning.

On Saturday, Cracked calls. No puppies, but she can't bring the dog in because she has to go get snow tires on her car. WHAT?!? It's December; winter happens every year by this time! If you need snow tires, why didn't you get them a month ago? And if you've managed to drive this long without them, why do you need them NOW? Repeat conversation of options, with caveat that if Bitch has not produced pups by now, she obviously isn't going to do so--she either has a stuck puppy, or she has a pyometra, both of which are life threatening situations that should be addressed right now (or she is having a false pregnancy, which is not life-threatening but if it was your dog, would you take the chance when 2 of the 3 options might mean she dies?)

On Monday, Cracked calls. Repeat above conversations, I'm too tired of it to type them out.

TODAY, Cracked finally brings Bitch in. Bitch has a raging pyometra with several dead/decomposing pups. Really, truly, impressive in an ohmygod way (dead puppies aren't much fun...). I shit you not, her uterus was as big around as my thigh. This, sadly, means it was so distended/stretched that it was leaking pus into the abdomen through several small tears. So now, on top of the pyometra, she has a peritonitis. Dr M spayed her, flushed her abdomen, and started her on massive quantities of antibiotics, and she was recovering as well as can be expected when I left, but she could just as easily have died (and still may, despite surgery and medications!) because the owner didn't bring her in 3 or 4 days ago, when the uterus would have been much smaller, and we would most likely have not had to deal with the peritonitis and potential sepsis issues.


Previous encounters:

http://draggonlaady.livejournal.com/60430.html
http://draggonlaady.livejournal.com/61451.html
http://draggonlaady.livejournal.com/62833.html
http://draggonlaady.livejournal.com/68458.html

For those few of you who are following some of my cases:

The hydrocephalus-is-not-caused-by-worms folks have not called back in. I don't know if the pup died on its own or is still around. (http://draggonlaady.livejournal.com/71971.html)

Procrastinating Bloke and his coughing puppy--I've got lab results back from WSU, but I can't tell them that, because the house phone is never answered, the cel number they gave me gets me a men's clothing store in Spokane, and nobody has responded the message I left at the message number (his ex-wife, apparently). Since I can't get in touch with them, I don't know how this dog is doing either. (http://draggonlaady.livejournal.com/70967.html)

I've called several times to try to get an update on the dog who'd been shot. Have left messages on the machine 2 or 3 times. Have not been called back. (http://draggonlaady.livejournal.com/69291.html)

Broken-femur dog that the owners wouldn't allow surgery on is apparently doing "as well as can be expected." (http://draggonlaady.livejournal.com/69007.html)

Cracked has not called back with any updates as to how Evil Beast Dog is walking, or whether she's able to get his medication down him. (http://draggonlaady.livejournal.com/68458.html, http://draggonlaady.livejournal.com/62833.html, http://draggonlaady.livejournal.com/60430.html)

(Are you all sensing a trend here yet?)

But I'm ignoring all the incommunicado people and focusing on the cat from August, (amputated a leg, sent him to WSU for a transfusion and feeding tube, and who later had a large patch of skin die and slough off--jnau, you remember him, even if nobody else does) is doing good. Racing all over the house, jumping up on the chair and climbing into the bed unassisted. Skin is slowly growing back.

You all remember Cracked, right? With the 3 huge, completely untrained dogs? Well, it seems that the dog I looked at for limping is still limping. So she sent me a cd with a video of the dog on it. Receptionist told her before I watched the video that very likely all I'll get from it is confirmation of which leg he's limping on, and that if she wants to know what's wrong with the dog, we need to see him back--not on drugs this time, so I stand a chance of getting a reasonable pain response when I examine him.

Just got the video in the mail today. Watched it tonight, and between the dog being on the other side of a railing, spending 1/3 of the video laying down or urinating on something, and the owner trying to get the dog to move by 1) throwing frisbees at him, and 2) baby talking in a most annoying voice, guess what I could tell? You got it--he's limping on the right front leg. But I knew that last time I saw the dog (23rd of last month), when he'd been limping on it for 2 weeks already.

So I guess I get to see the dog again on Friday--with any luck, I'll even be able to convince Cracked to leave the 2 bitches in the car again. But I'm not betting on that.

This is the return of a woman I've had the misfortune to deal with on several occassions, though I don't think I've written to you about her yet. We shall call her Cracked. Because she is. Cracked has several very large, completely untrained Newfoundlands, which she is incapable of controlling. She is also apparently incapable of understanding why this would frustrate the people around her. In her credit, she's recently found new homes for some of the dogs, and is down to 3--an older, evil, intact male, and 2 bitches.

Yesterday, she showed up immediately after lunch (no appointment), let all three dogs out of the car (no leashes on any of them of course!) herds the whole lot into the lobby (without bothering to check for other clients and smaller beasties first). With the help of a technician, she rodeos the chaos into an exam room. Now, I want to point out that this level of chaos was only attainable by SEDATING THE FUCK OUT OF ALL THREE DOGS BEFORE BRINGING THEM IN. She'd given all of them a heavy dose of acepromazine so that they could be groomed that morning. Usually when she shows up, she turns the dogs loose and they run in different directions--towards other clients, towards the highway, towards other people's cars, etc. Well no, I suppose i don't really mean usually--she does this EVERY TIME she comes in.

Anyway. I'm supposed to be evaluating the male for a lameness. So I walk into the exam room to talk to Cracked. Seems that Evil has been limping for 2 weeks now, and the groomer pulled a big wad of "like hair, but hard, I mean completely solid" stuff out from between the "hoof parts of the foot" he's been limping on. (Hoof parts? when did dogs get hooves?) And now he's walking a lot better, but the owner doesn't think that was why he was limping. Because he's still limping, you see. "And it's not a... what do you call it? Chick weed?" "Cheat grass." "Yeah...that... it's not that because the groomer didn't find any in his feet." Right. Your dog runs loose on 100 acres of dirt and trees and he's never come in contact with cheat grass. Yup, I believe that.

Evil has already been fitted with a muzzle before I entered the room. But when I bend over to look at him, the OTHER dogs growl at me. So I ask Cracked to put the other dogs back in the car so that we only have to deal with the one that's got the problem. "Well, he won't like that--it'll upset him to be apart from them." He's drugged, lady. So're they. And I'm going to upset him a whole lot more by poking and prodding at his sore foot. And it's going to upset ME a LOT MORE THAN THAT if one of those other dogs bites me for doing it. So put them back in the car. And for once, she actually does it. Hurray.

So I try to see what lameness she's talking about. I ask her to walk the dog in a straight line across the lobby and back so I can watch him walk. She goes three steps out and comes back. I ask her to go all the way across the lobby, in a straight line. She goes in a circle, with herself between me and the dog. In 5 minutes of trying to get her to understand the concept of "walk the dog away from me, turn around, walk back towards me in a sraight line" I probably actually see the dog take 3 steps. At this point, I give up. Too much risk with having this dog (who's still not on a leash--we've discovered in the past that if we give Cracked leashes for the dogs, she simply puts the leashes on and then drops them, letting the dogs run around dragging the leash) loose in the lobby with other clients potentially arriving and people walking through is not worth the effort. So I round up the technician (the only one--the receptionist is at lunch and the other technician's sick), and we take the dog and Cracked into the back room to put him up on the table. I lower the hydraulic table (yay! I don't have to lift the 200+ pound dog!), and tell her that I want him on the table, pointing "this way" (which was punctuated with body language to indicate that i want the dog facing me). She looks at the non-hydraulic table--"You want us to lift him clear up there?" No. No, I want you to lead him onto THIS table, (which is 4" off the ground) and face him into the room. "Oh. Which way do you want him facing?"

Right. Skipping the rest of that--we eventually get the dog on the table, facing the correct direction, raise the table and lay him over on his side. Dog growls at me several times, but Cracked is much more concerned about the cat in the kennel behind her who's quite cranky while waking up from anesthetic. She goes off on a diatribe about how the cat has a bad attitude and her dog is so sweet and well behaved. I do my best to ignore her while looking at the dog. So then she asks the technician about "what do you call it? Chick weed?" To which the technician replies "Cheat grass". "Right. That. What's it look like, anyway?" Technician points to the seeds I'm collecting from between the dog's toes. "It looks just like that." I remove several cheat grass seeds and several small matts from the dog's feet. (I'm not dissing on the groomer here--I'm sure the feet were much worse before she got to them, and that she did her best with the evil beast and only Cracked to hold him still for her.) Show the owner where the bottom of one of his feet has a sore on it, which is probably where the groomer pulled the matt from earlier. Cracked wanders off on a verbal tangent, redescribing the matt and speculating on what it was (probably hair and pitch, which I've told her 3 times already at this point), and NOW she thinks that might be why the dog's been limping. But she doesn't decide that until after I go through the analogy of having a rock in your shoe and how your foot is still bruised after you take the rock out...