I Love Schnauzers   My life with Schnauzers

I am sorry to write that Selena passed over the rainbow bridge 🌈 this morning. She was 12. She had a cardiac tumor blocking her aortic valve and causing a lot of pain and seizures these last few months.

Rocky and I are devastated. but it was the right decision. It was time to let her go.

Hi everyone! We got a special treat last weekend where we got to meet Santa Paws himself! It was so much fun! And Santa gave us a ton of treats to smile prettily. Aren’t we adorable?

One of Mommy’s coworkers heard about poor Rocky’s dental visit and gave us this sweet get well card.

Plus a can of soft food for our boy. Isn’t that adorable?

Good thing Selena can’t read, she’d be jealous of all the attention ❤️

Toothless, I mean Rocky, is on the mend. His mouth has healed well but his tummy has been somewhat aggravated by the meds so he’s back on the prescription plain food for a few days. We’ll try transitioning back to his usual food over the weekend. If that doesn’t go well we might need to stick to the prescription food for a little while and try to find another non-prescription brand/flavor.

Such a problem pup! Lucky he’s so sweet and lovable ❤️🐾

All for now. We’ll let you know how this story progresses!

Rocky had an emergency dental cleaning today. His teeth were really bothering him. No wonder.

They extracted 25 teeth 🦷

That’s not a typo.

He kept all his big teeth. The canines and molars. All the little ones are gone.

Obviously, it’s been a rough day. He’s still a little high.

Poor Buddy!

sorry for waiting so long since our last post. But wanted all our friends out in the blogosphere to know Rocky appears to be on the mend!

As you can see, our boy is once again enjoying his day in the backyard. No matter how hot and sticky it is outside, he finds himself a bit of shade and streeeetches out.

When Mommy goes out and calls him to come in, he just streeeetches out, flattens out, and stares at her defiantly. So… he must be feeling better to defy Mommy like that!

Still… he has to come inside every now and then to cool down, whether he wants to or not.

Rocky, come! You are such a stubborn boy!

Mommy here with a quick update. Rocky had a little relapse Sunday evening so he stayed the night at the Emergency Vet. They gave him IV fluids and ran some more tests. The good news is he doesn’t have pancreatitis. Just the same gastroenteritis acting up.

As you can see, he’s back home again now and continues his convalescence. Hopefully it’s all uphill from here!

Thanks for all your kind messages. Please keep Rocky in your thoughts!

Thunder! Everyone to your thunderstorm positions! (you weren’t planning to get up anytime soon Mommy, were you?)

…

Rocky is convalescing well. Vet sent him home with 7 medications, some to be given an hour before eating and the rest to be taken with meals. Most are only once or twice a day, but one GI protectant is given 3 times per day. Vet also gave him some anti-anxiety meds for the storms expected this weekend. And after Mommy said Friday overnight got rough, Vet gave him some extra pain killers for the next couple days too. And some prescription bland food which he just loves.

After checking the weather report, Mommy moved supper up an hour tonight so he would be fully fed and properly medicated before the predicted storms roll through.

Selena has been taking it all in stride, though she does insist she deserves a mid-day snack like Rocky gets. And as you can see, Rocky has been teaching her how to fear thunder. I swear he learned this from day camp. They weren’t afraid of storms when they first came home!

Frankly, she’s more stressed about the thunder than he is right now. He’s well out-of-it. Not a care in the world.

The grand-pawents generously offered to dogsit on Monday while Mommy figures out how to juggle the midday medications with her work schedule. After Monday we will be back to two meals a day, so there’s that. And it’s only for the next 10 days, so we’ll get by.

UPDATE! Mommy got to visit Rocky with Vet just now. He’s looking perkier than this morning but still pretty shaky. Vet says he might get to go home Friday if she’s able to get him on solid foods and meds. So it’s looking more likely that he’ll come home on Saturday. He was happy to see me and Vet said he hadn’t wagged his tail all day, but he wagged his tail when he saw Mommy! He’s been chatting with a cat staying in the crate above him named Tanaka. Tanaka just had a ton of teeth extracted and was telling him all about it. (Selena could relate!)

Mommy brought him Red, the red panda, to snuggle with but Rocky didn’t see Red because his cone kept getting in his way. So hopefully it’ll be a nice surprise when he finally turns around and sees it.

Vet said he has HGE, which I still haven’t looked up, but she said it’s usually not something that comes on slowly. It’s more of an acute thing, brought about by stress rather than environmental factors. So poor Rocky has been so anxious lately that he made himself sick. 😦

Well, when it rains it pours. Rocky was feeling poorly last night. This morning Mommy dropped him off with the vet. The diagnosis is something she called HGI (I think. The connection wasn’t too great). Basically, highly inflamed gut. High white cell count, indicating inflammation, but there’s no blockage or any other indicators.

Since he was so out of it this morning, he’s now in IV fluids. He must have been fighting with this for some time for it to be so inflamed. Vet said his other systems could shut down if we don’t get it under control. Mommy can visit him this afternoon but he’ll be staying with her as an inpatient for a couple of days. If he responds well to treatment, he might come home on Saturday.

Please keep poor Rocky in your thoughts today. Will post updates with photos if/when I can.

Hey guys! I figured out why the batteries in my digital scale keep dying! 💡 🐾

Recently Selena went in to the vet dentist for a dental cleaning. They wound up extracting 5 teeth, including 1 upper canine that had been broken. Poor baby suffered terribly afterwards as Mommy had to take away all her toys for 2 weeks while the stitches healed. See how miserable she is without her toys…

Anyway…

Selena is doing much better, but Mommy’s wallet was not. Ouch. With little hope, we filed our claim with Selena’s pet insurance. They spelled out quite clearly that dental cleanings aren’t covered, so we were prepared to pinch pennies to pay down the debt.

Yesterday, the claim EOB and a check arrived in the mail. They covered 67% of the costs! About 90% of costs were actually covered, when you factor in the deductible. The cleaning itself wasn’t covered (~$180), but the anesthesia, x-rays, pain killers, primary diagnosis (~$300) and 5 teeth extractions (~$660) were.  It’s a miracle!

Now Rocky has been diagnosed with a new heart murmur and we will soon have to send him to the cardiologist, just like Selena, to get that baseline screening and clean bill of health before his dental cleaning. I know the cardiologist visits are covered, after deductible.

And now I know that any future teeth extractions will be covered as well. Such a relief! Today’s reimbursement made all the premium payments worth while.

So I say to you, if you have pets, the sooner you find them pet insurance, the better. I couldn’t get Checkers coverage because she was too old when I tried to sign up. But Miss Deita had insurance, which helped us when her Cushing’s diagnosis came in. And while Rocky’s allergies and subsequent skin issues are considered pre-existing conditions, Selena’s heart murmur and now Rocky’s heart murmur are not.

Money will not be as big a factor in determining whether or when we visit the vet. I wish everyone had such peace of mind when it comes to health care.