Work has been a little harder to get to due to a 12 week old next to me at all times…

Don’t get me wrong, I’m LOVING this part of my life,

But other things end up getting pushed to the side for a little while.

Juggling 3 kiddos & 4 senior pets is the name of the game at the moment & making sure i’m getting posts & emails out is going to the way side.

I’ll get everything back on track, it just might take a little while so I deeply thank you all for sticking with me.

So I was at the vet the other day with Einstein my 12 year old mini aussie, he has heart disease, a bout of pancreatitis in the past, lives with arthritis & is now has low albumin.  (I’m not going to get all sciency today so feel free to google it. :)

Ahhhh the joys of having an older pet. :)

With having 4 pets enjoying their senior years, we now have to budget the amount of money we can spend on them.

A fantastic vet will always give you what we call the gold standard of care…

That’s every test they can run, imaging they can do…etc…to make sure they have all of the proper information to help your pet…

& honestly that’s what I want to know before I make my decision on something.

However, If you don’t have the money to run all the tests, then knowing which ones to run first are key.

When I was in practice as an LVT, our clients ran the gambit of doing everything (& I mean everything) for their pet to the ones that would do nothing.

To be honest….I’m in between this group.

Running a standard bloodtest to check all the organ functions is a great idea when our pets are seniors.

That’s how we found out Einstein’s albumin level was low!  (being proactive, not reactive with this!)

Now gold standard of care is, checking his urine, bile acids blood test (which means I need to leave him for the day since it is a fasting then feeding blood test), & abdominal ultrasound.

Holy jeeze this could run me 1 to 2 grand to figure out what is going on!

I had my vet explain the reason behind each test, what the test would entail, the price of each test.

Then I asked if there were any supplements that i could try as well to help with his liver if there was an issue.

So I went through the tests & decided which one was the cheapest to start with….dropping off a urine….check!

If we don't get the answer here, then I will look into the bile acids blood test next…

A lot of veterinary medicine uses the process of elimination in order to figure out what’s wrong.

So I budget my money & will save up for the next test to help him.

Now this is a case where it’s not an acute illness, he’s still acting ok, I’m not talking about a dog in an emergency that needs a full workup because he has pancreatitis or a foreign body or a bloat.

If it’s an emergency, I recommend doing all the tests to get the proper care immediately.

I’m talking about longer term issues.

So remember you have options about what tests to run for your pet & having a conversation with what your vet thinks is a great place to start.

Saying something like, “what is the cheapest test to run to help us get some answers?”

Or

"What test would give you the most answers?"

Or 

"What test is the least invasive to start with?"

These are all great questions to ask your vet to start the conversation.

Let me know if you have any questions for me!

Remember, Age is not a disease

Enjoy the Journey!