So the munchkin's crazy illnesses resume. If you recall when we first got her she had hookworms, coccidia and giardia all in the first month we had her. We've also made a couple of donations the ASPCA poison control hotline because she has gotten ahold of something she shouldn't.
Our adventures with her health have continued this past month. Three weeks ago we noticed April was peeing much more often than usual on our walk. I'd heard from someone at work that if dogs do this they often times have UTIs. So we took her to the vet, got a UTI dx and started treating her with antibiotics. We also found out from the vet that she had two types of oxylate crystals in her urine which could lead to stones in her bladder. Sometimes the crystals are a product of the UTI, sometimes stones.
Two weeks later, we broght back another urine sample and the vet called within an hour and said one type of the crystals had cleared up but she still had calcium oxylate crystals and she wanted to bring her in for a urine culture (they get the sample right out of the bladder somehow) and an x-ray of the bladder to check for stones. I asked if it was normal to have a dog so young have stones and she said no but normally dogs this young don't have crystals either. So we made an appointment to take April to the vet Monday for the testing.
In the meantime when we were playing with her on Sunday we noticed she had a little cough whenever we got her running really fast. We didn't think too much of it but it concerned me enough to mention it on Monday as I was dropping her off. I figured it might be allergies or possible a collapsed trachea (which is very common in small dogs - not harmful).
I got a call from the vet a few hours later and was happy to learn that April did not have any stones in her bladder! We have to wait on the results of the urine culture to determine how to further treat the UTI symptoms. Yahoo, no surgery!! However, the vet tech asked a couple more questions about the cough and conferred with the vet and came back and told me she has KENNEL COUGH. I asked how she could have gotten this, she has had no exposure to dogs in the past month and she received the vaccine a couple months ago. After some more discussion we determined that she got it at the groomer the week before and I learned that the kennel cough vaccine does not provide 100% protection from the disease.
At this point I was a little panicked. We are going to Florida in 3 days and had made an appointment to drop her off at the PetSmart pet hotel, I knew they would not take her now. As I was asking the tech if she thought they would take and her and wondering what I was going to do, she started to tell me that the techs at the vet's office will often board client's dogs for them while they are away. I asked if she was one of the ones that does it and she does and if she was available this weekend. She was and she has two dogs as well. Although the kennel cough is very contagious she was not worried about April transmitting it to her dogs since they'd both had the vaccine and she had such a mild case. She told me a bit about her dogs and we made arrangements to drop April off tonight.
I was a bit apprehensive about leaving April for this trip but when we got there and she started to play with the other dogs I felt much better. She was running around and exploring and in general just having a good time.
We are headed to Florida in the morning and as much as I am going to miss the dog, I know we left her in good hands. I cannot wait to relax and have some fun in the sun!
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