Vet visits

We moved onto a farm property last month. Unsurprisingly, there is a lot of flea pressure. Chimera has always attracted fleas. During Clicker Expo a few years ago, Cai picked up fleas while Jacques (Sherry's Papillon) came through unscathed. Cai was on Advantix II and I've been keeping the house clean, but they still wouldn't leave him alone. When he ended up chewing at his side badly enough to pull out hair, I took him to the vet.

I had already decided that I wanted Happy Tails Animal Hospital in Vacaville to be our new clinic. I had gone onto the Fear Free website to see if there happened to be a nearby clinic with certified techs and vets, and was thrilled to find one!

Cai has always been quite good at the vet's but I wanted to make sure that things stayed that way. He is a little nervous about getting man-handled by strangers (understandably). And I definitely wanted to support a clinic that went to all that effort.

The longer appointments offered by Fear Free clinics are great - they allowed me to get to know the tech who worked with me (Shawn) and the doctor (Dr Diedrich). The doctor asked for my business cards and gave me some of hers. They gave me a tour without me even asking.

I got a free trial of Nexguard and some medication to temporarily lower his body's response to itchiness. Both helped and the potential hot spot healed up.

The doctor noted that he had enough of a plaque build up on his teeth that a dental was recommended. I went ahead and scheduled one asap - I had noted that his breath was awful lately and I didn't want to neglect his dental health. The pre-dental x-rays revealed that Cai had a couple of molars in the back of his lower jaws which are normal in big dogs, but small dogs usually don't have them because of the lack of room. There was bacterial build up around these molars and the doctor removed them. She said they came out easily and he should recover quickly, which was true.

A week later, we had an appointment with Dr Wallace, his chiropractor. We hadn't seen her in a few months because I'd had to reschedule an appointment and she always books up way in advance. Once again Cai had to have an adjustment around his sacrum. He was PISSED when she pressed in that area. He whipped around and tried to snap at her hand. I had to hold his head and he kept growling and whale eyeing. But finally she got him adjusted and was able to feel him up with no reaction. And that evening, he was much calmer during brushing around his back legs. I hate that he keeps having problems in that area even when he hasn't been very active. I made an appointment one month out and another two months out. Poor guy.