Clan Updates February 2015

Wow, thank you to all those who have been sending us pictures. The pups look like they are doing great.Amazing to think that our Maggie produced such a great bunch of pups.  Way to go Girl!

I know that I sent the 2014 puppy families home with six weeks of free pet insurance. I am a bit ambivalent about insurance, as I know that these companies are making money off of me. If I could put my money away rather than give it to them, I should be making the money.  But like most of us, putting aside $50 or so a month for possible future vet bills never gets done. And over the past few months, I have been very grateful that we have had a bit of insurance with PetSecure, to cover some unexpected incidents.

First there was the hole in the side incidents:  Both Maggie and Grace over a period of a week managed to tear holes in their sides.  I posted some pictures of Maggie's hole.  The vet suggested we just let it heal up as it was far enough down her side, and did not penetrate into her body cavity.  It took awhile, but it healed up so nicely there is not even a scar. However, Grace's cut was into some of her shoulder muscles, so we actually had that one sown up. It costs a lot to have emergency surgery even for a minor injury like a tear.  With Secure level 2 and a $300 deductible we were able to get some of the costs covered for these incidents (mainly because we had already covered the deductible for Maggie with all the unexpected costs of a C-section and mastitis with her 2014 litter.) 

We are really hoping that our next misadventure will be covered as well. Kassey has been having a nasal problem (wheezing and snorting) and running eyes since last August. Originally we thought it was associated with an eye injury at the end of July (ran into a stick we think). When we took her for her annual physical in September, the vet did not think it was anything to worry about. And Kassey was not too bad over the October-December period. But IN January it seemed to worsen, so off to the vet we went.  And she thought we should get a specialist to see it, so off to the CARE Centre in Calgary we went. The suspect of course was that she had something lodged in her nasal passage, that could have been anything from a seed to a cancer tumour.  So a couple of thousand dollars later for a CT scan and oncology consult, we are happy to report that there does not seem to be a TUMOUR or any foreign body.  Of course we are no closer to knowing just what the problem is, but sometimes when you rule out the BIG issues, the little ones don't seem too important.