I’m not talking about emergency situations…those are easy choices to make, I’m talking about when your dog has a nagging injury, maybe he seems a bit off…when do you make the call to get him checked out?

For myself personally, I’m not one to go to a people doctor unless it’s something that I’m at the point where I feel like I’m near death or it’s an injury that’s just not getting better. However, for my dogs, I’m just the opposite…if they seem off, I’ll make that call…better safe than sorry. If your vet is like mine, when I make that call, it almost always leads to a appointment. My vet doesn’t want to diagnose my dog over the phone & I don’t blame her.

Right now, I’m in the indecision phase of if I should make an appointment to bring Hooch in. A little background on him, he had both shoulders operated on 2 years ago to take care of an OCD. When he was having that done, I also had his hips X-ray and they came back “fair”. What’s happening with him now that’s making me ponder between bringing him or not is the fact that he’s starting to limp on one of his back leg. He doesn’t do it all the time, but just enough for me to notice. I’m sure he has arthritis in his shoulders from the surgery & you can see more info here on how to manage it like I do: http://dogvetcare.com/arthritis/arthritis_treatment.shtml

 Any thoughts out there? When do you “make that call?”

The rest of the gang includes the “old man” Denver - another Golden I took in from a friend who needed to find him a home. Denver’s a spry guy at 10. He loves to run & romp on the farm.

Bailey - who’s 9 and the queen of the household & the baby & ham of the family is Hooch. He just turned 3 & is certainly full of himself. Hooch started in the family as a foster dog. I had fostered over 25 golden’s for Golden Retriever Rescue of Wisconsin and Hooch was my last one. He needed 2 surgeries for OCD in both shoulders when he was just 1. After recuperating from the surgery, there was no way Hooch was going anywhere. He was settled in & is the happiest dog in the world. Hooch’s pastimes include chasing kitties (which he never can catch), playing fetch & his all time favorite - to my dismay is rolling in fresh horse manure.

The two horses are Quest - a breeding stock Paint & Scotch - a Quarter horse mare. Quest is the gamer - she loves to run & while Scotch’s mother was a race horse, she’s more of the laid back, trail riding horse.

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