three weeks ago i booked jack and toby in for their boosters, at the same time i booked bruce in for a weight check as he would need worming, i thought at the time it would make it easier one trip to the vets and then barring accidents no more til september when tessa booster due, how wrong could i be, a week after making the appointment i had to add tess to the list as i was worried about her keep chewing her feet wanted to find the cause.
Sadly toby never made the appointment for his booster as he had to be pts last week :(
so this morning loaded tess jack and bruce in to the van, got to the vets thought we would save time by weighing the dogs before we went in, oh great fun took me my mum and the receptionist to keep tess and bruce on the scales while jack was 'buzzing' at the end of his lead, the funny thing was the livelist one out of the lot sat as good as gold on the scales. Tess lost weight, ok she needed to, jack put on 5 kilos since being casturated, ok he needed to, bruce has put on nearly 8 kilos in 3 weeks, growing too fast needs to be slowed down.
Vet came out called the dogs and for today the dogs all decided that they wanted to see the vet at the same time, it doesnt work, an adult lab, puppy lab and a teenage springer plus me and mum all trying to fit through the door at the same time added to the fact they never gave the vet chance to move,
explained what we were there for (even though he has it on computer) and he looked at bruce agreed that he needed slowing down, so asked what i was feeding, James Wellbeloved puppy i replyed, but im thinking of putting him on junior to slow his growth rate down, to which the vet said that he would be better of on one of the large breed puppy foods as cutting his protein levels down too quick could cause more harm than good, he said they can be pricey though, no problem JWB is any way.
next we move on to Jack who had his jab, and we explained that he keeps having these coughing fits almost like asthma, but the little b*&%*r didnt cough once, checked him over said it could be one of two thing (asthma or a bronchial constriction) either way he could do some of the tests then refer him or he could refer he straight away, (which we decided to do, waiting for an appointment need to go to luton) he also said that he needs to lose weight as it wont help with the problem (great its only taken a year to get him looking like a fed dog rather than a half starved).
Next tess he looks he over, sees where she has been chewing straight away and asks a few questions about her she has yeast infection, made worse where her hormones have been up and down due to having pups and being spayed.
I then asked him for advice about one of the dogs at work.
An hour later we walk out of the consulting room, dogs got bored and fell asleep whilst they where waiting, went out to pay and jack starts coughing, the receptionist goes and gets the vet so that he can hear him in action.
Any way get the bill, i should have been sitting down but the didnt warn me, £180, so never again am i taking more than one dog to the vets at a time

(sorry its so long)

tanya

Sorry to hear about Toby.  Your story reminds me of when I took my 9 lab puppies to the vets for a check over and first worming.  I had three big boxes with 3 pups in each.  Trouble was, they had just learnt that they could jump out the boxes.  It took me, my daughter, 1 vet and 2 vets nurses to keep them in check.  We had to keep a careful eye on who had been 'done' and who hadn't.  The noise they made was horrendous.  Of course 'en route' back through the waiting room was hilarious as everyone wanted to see them.  Great fun now thinking back though.
Lorna

when we took the pups for their first jabs we took than in a large crate, they werent happy, as there were some choc pups people ask if one of the parents was choc or howcome some are choc and the rest black, when i said that mum was yellow and dad black people ask oh does yellow and black make chocolate then, the nurses and receptionist were in fits and trying to explain why there were some choc was even harder and trying to explain why there were no yellows was almost impossible, all good fun though

Hi Tanya, congratulations in making it through your vet trip without tearing your hair out :D :D :D its bad enough with one dog let alone 3 of em .  I was interested in reading about Jack's cough.  My dog keeps coughing and the vet took a blood sample and found his eosinphilic blood cell count was 20+, apparently in normal dogs it should only be about 1 or 2.  This would indicate doggy ashtma but she needs to another test under general anasthetic to be absolutely certain.  Has your vet taken a blood sample, because I would be very intersted in what the results showed.  Currently we are waiting for the results of a blood sample taken last night, if the cell count is still high then the vet will probably do more tests.

Good Luck :) :)

Clair