Tuesday!

cupcait927 · February 2017

@AtomicBlonde Did you check out the Blue Buffalo Basics dog food? They have three versions, including one with lamb and one with salmon. The other is turkey, which obviously wouldn't help. I can't find the ingredients list online but it says that it contains no chicken or other poultry by-products for the lamb version. We feed our dog the turkey version to help with his skin sensitivities and it's really helped. It might give you another option for food if nothing else.

OliveOilsMom · February 2017

Atomic - I guess I need to read the ingredients more! I wouldn't have suspected chicken being added to a food that advertises itself as a lamb formula!

I am also well versed in the Wellness brand and that stuff is expensive. We put our one dog on the white fish and sweet potato blend for ear issues for some time, but her ears were too far gone for it to be helpful at that point. The only option was to have her ears drilled open to get the infection out. Needless to say, that seemed excessive for a dog who wasn't in pain from her ear issues.

bleve0821 · February 2017

@sparklepants41, the Merrick is too expensive for us, unfortunately. We love our dogs, but there's a price limit to our love.

@cupcait927, I haven't looked at the Blue Basics in a looong time. IDK if the line was new when we were scrambling for a formula, or if our local pet store didn't carry it much, but what they did carry was always always always around $60/bag. I don't know if that's still true or not.

We use the Amazon Subscribe and Save for our dog food for convenience as much as the lower price (Wellness IS really expensive).

@OliveOilsMom, you don't think to look until your QOL starts to deteriorate!

Thanks for the suggestions, guys. I will have to do a little research to price match and things. Admittedly, it's been about 4 or 5 years since I did the initial research and settled on Wellness, but since Wellness hasn't changed, we haven't thought much about it.

sparklepants41 · February 2017

@AtomicBlonde yeah - dog food really is expensive. Especially when your dogs are larger breeds - they eat a ton. There are a lot of things I would fix in this world if I had the power - and the price of pet food and vet care are two of the things on that list.

GBCK · February 2017

speaking of dog expenses...
For vet costs only (ignoring the food, the suppliments, etc), by the end of the month, we'll have dropped $1k for February's dog bills.
*sigh*.

There will be a point where we can't afford this. And there will be a point where the quality isn't there. But right now, we're still working on seeing if we can get the Cushings to a good baseline that will be tolerable. But we have to do trial-and-error of meds to get there, and the follow up blood tests = $200 EVERY time we do them.

Add to that the drugs being $100 a month, the new sweater (because she's continuing to have her fur thin, because Cushings does that), the supplements (because she still has joint health problems), and her food (she has some food allergies and an easily upset stomach--we do CA Nat. At least that's affordable)

Although she does take her pills wrapped in a piece of lunch meat w/o a struggle at least)....
I like having a dog, but I'm not sure I'd recommend it today

The vet talked to me today, we're waiting a week, then trying a lower dose of the meds, and then doing bloodwork again.

levioosa · February 2017

@GBCK have you tried looking into pet insurance? It's saved my parents with our uti riddled cancer dog.

GBCK · February 2017

she's almost 13, and all of this would be pre-existing--I"m fairly sure we've priced ourselves out of it by now, but I'll check--worth a try.

Trying to figure these things out is harder when you're kinda in the 'making her comfortable, but not expecting her to be longlived' mindset. We're not just giving it up, but...she's a 50#, 12 year old dog with no rear knees and arthritis in a front shoulder and Cushing's. We're clear with the vets that we don't expect her to act like she's 5 anymore--we just want to have her as comfortable and healthyas we can while she's still got quality.

And I'd really like for this to be clear-cut and not in that fuzzy gray area, because explaining it to a 6 year old is going to be hard no matter what.

levioosa · February 2017

GBCK said:

she's almost 13, and all of this would be pre-existing--I"m fairly sure we've priced ourselves out of it by now, but I'll check--worth a try.

Trying to figure these things out is harder when you're kinda in the 'making her comfortable, but not expecting her to be longlived' mindset. We're not just giving it up, but...she's a 50#, 12 year old dog with no rear knees and arthritis in a front shoulder and Cushing's. We're clear with the vets that we don't expect her to act like she's 5 anymore--we just want to have her as comfortable and healthyas we can while she's still got quality.

And I'd really like for this to be clear-cut and not in that fuzzy gray area, because explaining it to a 6 year old is going to be hard no matter what.

So....we started to give our dog pot. Lol. There's a special kind just for pets at a dispensary near us that is meant to help the pain, and it's made a world of difference to our dog. It comes in a liquid form and we just give it to her orally. It's much easier on her liver than most of the heavy duty pain meds the vet would prescribe. She's not 100%, but she's acting much more like her old self. And she's not trying to self soothe by licking her legs for hours on end any more. I wish we had done this for our old family dog too. Our family dog now has a slow growing type of cancer that we are choosing not to treat because the treatments would be worse than managing the pain and then letting her go when it's time. It's a bummer. She's such a sweet heart. I'm sorry about your dog too.

Eta: Re: your 6 year old, after the earthquake I looked for books about death and grieving for my ex's little sister who was about the same age. I found some really good books that might be helpful with losing a pet too. I'll try to remember/look and see if I still have the list. I seem to remember one about a caterpillar being really good.

Heffalump · February 2017

Hugs, GBCK. I'm sorry Dawg is having a hard time.

GBCK · February 2017

I'm all about good books--the little one is understanding it fairly well, I think, but it sucks and it's hard to make it not.

I know you guys all get it. Dawg's snoozing comfortably today, and left the porch, but still got up 2x during the night (because it makes her drink moreand pee more. Although I might have been a tad bitchy when she had to go out again at 6:45 and proceeded to spend 15 mnutes licking a block of ice, as I stood inside next to a full water bowl.

I do love our vet's. They get it too. And Dawg loves them--which is good--if she has to do bloodwork all day, at least she's where she gets hugs and enjoys herself while being stabbed.

OliveOilsMom · February 2017

@GBCK this article came up on my main news source today. Thought it might help.

http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/healthy_kids/How-do-I-talk-to-my-child-about-the-death-of-our-pet.html

OurWildKingdom · February 2017

Hugs to you, @GBCK!

GBCK · February 2017

Thanks, I'll take the help I can get in this minefield

sparklepants41 · February 2017

@GBCK sending you all my hugs and support through the interwebs.

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