Swimming Dingle? Nope.

If there's one thing I miss about living in the small town I grew up in it's the beach. My mom moved away when I went to University, but is still in the same general area, right on the lake.

Though it's never really nice beach weather when I come up to my mom's. Dingle and I did manage to get to the beach briefly yesterday night.

He surprised me by running right up to the water - and in slightly:



But then he decided he was in too far and left:



So I "helped" him:



Poor little ratty:



There were other families with dogs down there and they were going crazy swimming - swimming far out into the beach for sticks, toys, etc. Then there was me trying to get Dingle into the water... I think they thought he was pathetic.

One thing that did irritate me is that when we first got down there Dingle (on a leash) was heading over to another dog and she was like "oh, keep him away, my dog has kennel cough". Cool lady, excellent idea to bring your sick dog to the dog area.

Dingle is on vacation!

Really, when is he not on vacation? He's a dog.

That said, a freshly groomed Dingle and I are on a vacation from the city.

We are up at my mom's house - in a small town in Huron County.

We got here last night and will be staying for 8 days.

We have come up every year for the last 3 years I believe.

I'm hoping the weather will be nice (today it is not and every other year it's been somewhat crappy weather) so that Dingle can go swimming at the beach.

Though we haven't done much of anything today aside from going for a fairly long walk Dingle is exhausted.

He's taken upon himself to patrol my mom's house - going room to room checking on her Conure and Love Birds (really looking for dropped seeds) and watching the door for intruders.

Yesterday on the way up we stopped at my dad's place in the country and Dingle was exploring the wide open fields... running around like crazy until I heard/saw an eagle (or was it a hawk... I don't remember) and got all paranoid it was going to fly down and snatch him up and ended his free roaming time.

He was really tired when we finally got here - sitting in a car is exhausting, apparently.

The Corneal Ulcer is GONE!

Yay - Dingle had his 3rd vet appointent in an 8 day span and although we got a bill for $111.42 we also got the good news that his corneal ulcer is gone!

That meant that Dinglehopper was free of the e-collar. He seemed so happy to be able to scratch his neck and face (luckily not his eyes).

We're keeping up with the corneal ulcer solution for a few more days just for good measure, though.

Dingle will be back at the vet on Saturday morning, but this time it's for a grooming appointment before Dingle and I go on vacation (well, up to my mom's) for a week.

$406.44 later and we're still not free of the ulcer...

... I should clarify that $87.76 of that is not related to the corneal ulcer treatment... but the rest is.

We had our follow-up on Tuesday. Dingle got the anesthetic and florescein eye stain and the vet confirmed that his ulcer is still there.

She confirmed that it is superficial and that it had gotten smaller since Saturday. I could even see that it was smaller as Saturday when they brought him back downstairs after staining his eye I could see the big yellow spot where the dye had stuck. On Tuesday that dye was barely visable - if I hadn't know where the spot was (from Saturday), I likely wouldn't have noticed it.

Dingle continues to get the eye ulcer solution every 4-5 hours.

We've stopped the Tobrex so we're down to 3 different drops.

He's supposed to get the ulcer drops for the next 10 days and continue to wear the e-collar.

We have another re-check on Sunday... and those instructions may change... hopefully it has healed enough to stop the drops that night.

Dingle really needs to be groomed and I was hoping to do it early this week... but I guess we will have to hold off for now.

The $87.76 plus taxes was for Leeba III dental spray.

When I went in on Saturday when he first hurt his eye the vet commented that he needed a dental. She seemed shocked that I had said he had one last September... and every September before that for quite a few years. She recommended I try the Leeba dental spray. She said that a lot of people had success with it... and though it is expensive it is cheaper than a dental every year. So I'm going to try it and will post an entry about it with our 'review'. I hope it works... so I can save $500-ish this September.

Drops, drops and more drops!

Today was our first full day of corneal ulcer eye drops. He got them every 4 hours or so.

I kind of felt trapped in my house today - as I couldn't really venture far from home because I needed to be able to do his meds. The ulcer meds are every 4 hours and 4 hours is a fair amount of time to run errands, etc... but I had the Cyclosporine, Tobrex and Tears Natural II also - and those were spread out throughout the day.

Despie the constant drops Dingle remains in good spirits.

Our re-check is tomorrow (Tuesday).

*Fingers crossed for good news*

Just When I Thought Things Were Going Well...

We may have made it a year between eye vet appointments... but in the last week we've sure made up for it.

On Tuesday I noticed that Dingle had green discharge from both of his eyes so I knew Dingle had eye infections.

The eye vet was closed at this point so I called his regular vet.

Luckily they were able to 'prescribe' Tobrex for the eye infections, without seeing him (thus saving me like $75). They did this because Dingle has had eye infections (and Tobrex) in the past... so they knew I was aware of what was an eye infection.

So he's been getting Tobrex since Tuesday night and the green discharge had almost went away when today's issue came up.

I went to bed at about 9am (I work nights). Dingle was fine, eyes looking good.

When I woke up at 3pm I discovered Dingle would not open his right eye. At first I thought it may be because of the eye infections - perhaps some discharge had 'glued' his eye shut. I washed it with warm water and gave him his Tears Natural II meds to see if I could flush the eye out incase there was something in it. That didn't help.

After I had showered he still wouldn't open his eye so I called Downtown Animal Hospital. Luckily they were able to fit us right in. They stained his eye and when they did it was very obvious that Dingle had a 2mm (ish) ulcer on his cornea. This was caused by trauma - perhaps Dingle scratched at his eye or he bumped it.

I don't think it was because he scratched - as his eye infections weren't bothering him and ever since we started treatment to the KCS/PRA almost 2 years ago he hasn't really been bothered by his eyes.

I think that he did bump into something in our bedroom. He doesn't see all that well in low-light situations and I do have room darkening blinds so it's quite dark during the day.

I feel really bad for him because it's clear that his eye is bothering him. After reading up on corneal ulcers online I learned that they apparently hurt like hell.

Hours after we got home from the vet he was still keeping his eye shut. The corneal ulcer solution we have for him is supposed to help with pain... and hopefully it will.

He has to get that special solution (that they mixed up at the vet) 6x a day, roughly. It has an antibiotic in it as well so we can discontinue the Tobrex... in that eye at least.

I'm feeling slightly overwhelmed by the amount of drops he will have to get for the next few days.

Dingle will get Tears Natural II and Cyclosporine in both eyes twice a day.

Then he will be getting Tobrex in his left eye 3 times a day.

Finally he will get the corneal ulcer meds in his right eye 6 times a day.

I will be busy.

He has a re-check on Tuesday evening. Hopefully it will have healed or have shown improvement... and not be a situation where he ends up needing surgery.

Dingle's back to being a cone head dog again... so that he doesn't make his eye worse by scratching.

Poor little guy.

It was weird because after we saw the vet I pulled out my bank card and the vet suggested I just wait and pay it all on one bill on Tuesday. I found this odd because I've always paid after each appointment... even if they have known I'll be back. I had a moment of "they obviously trust me to show back up and pay my bill" but at the same time I also thought "maybe I am being spared the shock of the cost of this visit". Ha ha.

Whatever the cost may be it won't compare to the leg surgeries.

Plus that's what pet insurance is for. It was funny because while at the vet my Blackberry buzzed and 3 Emails from Trupanion (formerly Vet Insurance) came through saying that they had processed our claims for Cyclosporine, tear tests and the Tobrex.

Now I'll have another for them next week.

Trupanion is so worth the $50-ish a month.