I have to admit, I am not the biggest pet person around. I’ve always had animals around, and I like having animals around, but I don’t dress them up, and I don’t take them to get their photos done with Santa, and frankly, if a tornado were heading to my house, I would grab both kids by the hand and take them to our safe spot and hope that the dog has the brains to follow us.
In other words, I love Sophie, and I accept her—flaws and all—just as you would accept any family member, but she is a dog. A dog she will always be.
Except now, she is a very sick doggie.
It started with ear flapping in March. A trip to the vet confirmed what we read online—weins and wein-mixes get allergies, and produce copious amounts of ear wax. She wasn’t scratching, so don’t bug her. She’ll be fine.
We checked again in May, due to more ear flapping. No scratching, lots of ear wax, can’t find anything--same thing. At the beginning of the month, we had to board her in a new place, with a new vet, and I wanted his opinion on her ears.
His opinion is that we are the worst people on the face of the earth.
Sophie apparently has middle and inner ear infections that are caused by rod bacteria (which is scary, and drug resistant), fungus, AND yeast. We’re only missing parasites here, people. After two sedations and ear cleanings in ten days, and seven different medications (including some antibiotics that are so strong that I don’t know if I would let a doctor prescribe them to my children) she does not appear to be getting better.
Her ear canals are swollen shut, and he’s sure her eardrums are gone (She seems to hear me fine, so I don’t know about that). He’s afraid that we’ll never get the infection under control (at least not for several months), she might go deaf, or the infection will spread and cause her to develop encephalitis.
He would love to have the chance to drill into her head to drain her inner ears, and place medicine there directly (instead of us giving her 6 pills and four dropperfuls of solution a day), and he can’t understand why I am hesitant to spend thousands of dollars to drill into my dog’s head for something that may or may not work.
I am speaking literally when I say thousands, by the way. We’ve dropped $400 on ear cleanings and meds in the past two weeks.
Needless to say, I got a second opinion, which was somewhat inconclusive, but, at the very least, much more tolerant.
The new vet (vet #3, for you keeping track) talks to you over the phone. Suggests things for you to cook for your dog to ease her belly problems (nasty antibiotics, remember?), but says it hesitantly—in case you are not the type of people who cooks for your dog. Oh, and she does not treat you like you are the worst pet parent on the face of the earth.
Sophie has her flaws and I have mine, and we live just fine the way we are. Most vets don’t like this (Get her crate-trained! More baths—did I ever mention Sophie hates water??? You didn’t take her dew claws off!), but this new vet seems to get it, and that’s one step in the right direction.
Sophie, will likely have problems with her ears and problems with infections for the rest of her life, but as long as I can find a partner who is patient with her and listens to me, I know we will figure it out.
In the meantime, we give her pill-cheese balls, and hope for the best. I can’t imagine not having the Super-Sophie around.
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