Excuse me...how much?

Our poor dog has some serious issues with her ears. Summer 2008 she started digging and scratching them so much that they became extemely infected. We took her to the vet and $200 and my heart attack later, they cleared up. She took her antibiotics and we put the cream and everything else in them. Fast forward to summer 2009...the digging and scratching begin AGAIN. We clean them, put cream in them, put her flea medicine on her, clean and BLEACH her pen, and everything else we could do to help kill whatever it is. Bless her heart, nothing helped. I finally took her to the vet yesterday. Once again, they gave me the same antibiotics (more because she has gained 11 pounds!!!), a different cream and instructions to bring her back in 2 weeks because it might not be bugs....it might be a FOOD ALLERGY!!!

Well, if you know us at all, we do not spend a million dollars on our pets. They are ANIMALS! I love my dog and I will do anything to prevent something from happening to her but I will not buy kangaroo based food products from the vet. Sorry but I won't. If she is allergic to beef, I will head down to the river, catch as many fish as I can and make her fish for dinner. If it's chicken she is allergic to, I will cook pork, beef or whatever else to make her happy but I will not spend that much money on my dog. They said that if she bites at her rump, which she does, that it is more than likely she has an allergy. When I take her back in 2 weeks which is probably going to cost me another $200 just to walk in the door, they will take another sample of her ears and see if we have killed the source of the problem. If not, we will begin a strict new diet. We will try fish first, we have some dented cans of tuna, some old frozen shrimp and a river full of trout. It seems to me to be the cheapest route. If that doesn't work then we will try something else.

The worst part about all this is that if she is allergic to something, she cannot even have a Milkbone while we test her. She takes her heartworm pill with peanut butter and gets a piece of cheese when she does something good or just because. I don't know if we will have to cut those out too. Anyway, I hope that it is jsut bugs and we can eliminate the problem with medicine and a good scrubbing.

Might I add, that she fell in love with a 6 week old Rottie when we were there yesterday? It whined and cried and she just sat there watching it and whining because she wanted to play. Apparently, the man with the dog was slightly intimidated by my whiny, 74 pound German Shepherd so he wouldn't put his dog down. Oh well, his loss.