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Mar. 15th, 2008 12:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
commotiocordisOkay. So the dog is back. But my entire faith in the Humane Society as a vet place has been killed. I don't believe they did anything. Well, I know they didn't do anything, but I also don't think they're right. They heard lameness in an overweight, 7.5 year old lab mix and immediately went to hip dysplasia or arthritis. They didn't do the spinal x-ray that they told my dad they would (or at least they didn't bill us for it, but what are the odds they threw something in for free, really?), just popped up the hip and knee x-rays up there, saw the arthritis (that we knew he had, that we've seen what he's like when he's in pain from, and which this is not) and said "Well, that's it, here's some pain killers, hopefully he'll be able to walk again in a few days."
After interrogatage on my part regarding how we knew he had arthritis and that this was a new, acute pain, the receptionist lady (who was really nice and totally up for bugging the doctors that were there to explain things) came back out with something about swollen lymph nodes and fluid buildup in the back legs that exacerbated the whole thing. (I didn't get the exacts on that one, this is what Dad reported; I was off looking at the cuteness of the pets up for adoption--funny story there, I was in the puppy room, and there were these triplet black dogs that I thought were the cutest in the whole room, breed/mix-wise. Just in terms of their face and body and such, that they were the best looking animals in there. Looked at their papers on the cage that told the breed and realized why--they were lab-chow mixes just like Rascal, LOL. From being around Rascal so much, I've become conditioned to find his body structure the most appealing.) By now, they're bringing him out on a dolly and heaving him into the backseat of my car (which I must now find air freshener for, because it vaguely smells of dog), so we had to leave so he'd still be partially doped up--he was so high he didn't recognize any of us when he got wheeled out--for the car ride (he gets carsick).
Did they give him anything to cut back on the fluid buildup? No diuretics of any kind? Nothing to combat the swollen (infected?) lymph nodes? Nope. Neither of the (at least) two vets that messed with him were there, nor would they be back until Monday. The receptionist lady said she'd ask them to call Dad on Monday and explain a bit more, but I'd really rather they called me, because he doesn't really know what's been going on as well as I do (nor does he report things well, since he doesn't have as much background knowledge on the medical stuff as I do).
So he's here. Sleeping, right now, thankfully, but I can hear even in his sleep that his breathing is labored with the pain. (Edit: And now that the pain just woke him up, he's practically Lamazing it over here with panting.) He's still constantly crying when he's awake, and when forced to move does this odd frog-crawl where he pulls with his front feet and hobbles in an almost sitting position on his haunches with his back knees bent and hunched up around him. I'm more than a little pissed, because he's obviously unwell and they did nothing about that save throw some pain meds at us--nothing to fix the underlying condition or even really tell us what said underlying condition was. And when he's miserable, the rest of the house is miserable, because crying dog = not conducive to sleep. Nor is a $300 bill from a vet who did nothing.
And I really want to know what they did to him while he was there, because evidently he had a "Caution: I bite" sign on his cage. This dog has never bitten anyone. Ever. Even the whole two days he was in pain before we took him down there and today when we got him back, when plenty of strangers have been coming in and out (as Kaci and Tyler both have had multiple friends over in the past few days). I suppose unfamiliar place plus pain plus nobody he knows could theoretically do it, but I doubt it. One of the tech ladies that we talked to was similarly surprised, because she worked with him a bit and she got no indication that he was prone to such bitage and mused that perhaps the sign simply wasn't taken off the cage from the last dog that was in there (which I hope was the case).
After interrogatage on my part regarding how we knew he had arthritis and that this was a new, acute pain, the receptionist lady (who was really nice and totally up for bugging the doctors that were there to explain things) came back out with something about swollen lymph nodes and fluid buildup in the back legs that exacerbated the whole thing. (I didn't get the exacts on that one, this is what Dad reported; I was off looking at the cuteness of the pets up for adoption--funny story there, I was in the puppy room, and there were these triplet black dogs that I thought were the cutest in the whole room, breed/mix-wise. Just in terms of their face and body and such, that they were the best looking animals in there. Looked at their papers on the cage that told the breed and realized why--they were lab-chow mixes just like Rascal, LOL. From being around Rascal so much, I've become conditioned to find his body structure the most appealing.) By now, they're bringing him out on a dolly and heaving him into the backseat of my car (which I must now find air freshener for, because it vaguely smells of dog), so we had to leave so he'd still be partially doped up--he was so high he didn't recognize any of us when he got wheeled out--for the car ride (he gets carsick).
Did they give him anything to cut back on the fluid buildup? No diuretics of any kind? Nothing to combat the swollen (infected?) lymph nodes? Nope. Neither of the (at least) two vets that messed with him were there, nor would they be back until Monday. The receptionist lady said she'd ask them to call Dad on Monday and explain a bit more, but I'd really rather they called me, because he doesn't really know what's been going on as well as I do (nor does he report things well, since he doesn't have as much background knowledge on the medical stuff as I do).
So he's here. Sleeping, right now, thankfully, but I can hear even in his sleep that his breathing is labored with the pain. (Edit: And now that the pain just woke him up, he's practically Lamazing it over here with panting.) He's still constantly crying when he's awake, and when forced to move does this odd frog-crawl where he pulls with his front feet and hobbles in an almost sitting position on his haunches with his back knees bent and hunched up around him. I'm more than a little pissed, because he's obviously unwell and they did nothing about that save throw some pain meds at us--nothing to fix the underlying condition or even really tell us what said underlying condition was. And when he's miserable, the rest of the house is miserable, because crying dog = not conducive to sleep. Nor is a $300 bill from a vet who did nothing.
And I really want to know what they did to him while he was there, because evidently he had a "Caution: I bite" sign on his cage. This dog has never bitten anyone. Ever. Even the whole two days he was in pain before we took him down there and today when we got him back, when plenty of strangers have been coming in and out (as Kaci and Tyler both have had multiple friends over in the past few days). I suppose unfamiliar place plus pain plus nobody he knows could theoretically do it, but I doubt it. One of the tech ladies that we talked to was similarly surprised, because she worked with him a bit and she got no indication that he was prone to such bitage and mused that perhaps the sign simply wasn't taken off the cage from the last dog that was in there (which I hope was the case).
