Bob and Herbie at the Vets

Both Bob and Herbie have been at the vets this week. Herbie had a chesty cough before Christmas, we took him to get it checked and they x-rayed him and found he had an enlarged heart. So he had some treatment that he didn’t respond to, and when they tested him again, they found a ‘mass’. So they did more tests and found that his heart is ok, and this mass was making the heart look enlarged in x-rays. However when they did an ultrasound and blood tests, there was no sign of this mass and no sign of cancerous cells. So it’s a bit of a mystery. This mass showed on the x-ray pressing against his trachea, which is what makes him cough. He has lots of medicine, which I guess is to reduce this mass. If it stays as it is, I think we’ll be quite happy to leave it as he certainly seems happy enough.

Bob was diagnosed with a heart condition in the summer and had to go for a check up. However that appeared to show that there was another problem and the heart was symptomatic of that, but they don’t know what it is, so he is having blood tests done. We would never have started down this road with Bob, if they hadn’t tested his heart when he went in for a sore that he kept scratching in the summer, we’d never had known there was a problem as he is completely normal as far as we can see. However, having started, it makes sense to see if there is a bigger problem.

Luckily vet care is very low cost here. The total treatment with their medicine, ultrasounds and xrays didn’t come to a lot more than we’d pay for a basic consultation in the UK before we left 7 years ago. They didn’t charge us for a few of Herbies x-rays, which I think was in recognition of the fact that we’d taken on a dog with problems, and were giving him a chance of life he wouldn’t have had otherwise.

One thing that always strikes me as odd, is that most, but not all, of vet care is low cost. I still think that neutering animals is expensive. And this seems to be one thing that ought to be as cheap as possible.

Herbie’s medicine is children’s medicine and I think he quite likes the strawberry flavour!!