I adopted little Morticia about six months ago. She was found as a stray down in California and lives with me now up in Oregon. The closest her vet can get to saying how old she might be is “very”.
She’s very underweight at only 3.8 lbs (up from 3 but still not at her goal weight of 5.5) and half her teeth are gone, probably half of the rest need to go soon as well. She is also totally deaf and likely was born that way as she seems to have no concept of sound. Some mild cataracts but she seems to see pretty well.
Other than all this she is a pretty chipper happy little lady. She’s very happy and pounces and spins and we have a good time together.
We went in for her six month check up this week and her heart murmur seems to have worsened.
In October according to her vet it was “a 3” and it is now “a 5”. In October she had a heart X-ray that showed her heart looking fine so no red alert but now with the increase in level of murmur (which by the way was just something the vet wrote down on paper not anything on a printed lab result like they usually give me) they convinced me to do a $90 stress protein blood test.
I just got a message that normal is between 2-900 and she registers 1800. The vet is recommending I take her to a cardiologist immediately as “she could go into cardiac arrest in the next week or so” (direct quote).
I freaking love my dog so much it hurts. But I am very wary that this vet is exercising some fear-mongering tactics to drive me into the looney bin and the poor house.
For example: They tried to make me buy six cans of special weight gain food that are 3x the price of the organic premium stuff I’ve been buying her and they know she’s picky and it took a bit of insisting on my part that we will take one can please because it takes her a week to eat that much food and I live down the street I can come back or we can try something else depending on if she’ll eat it.
I have a budget to care for my dog - I spend $50/month on her wellness plan, buy her good food, etc. and I stash a little money here and there but I’m recovering from debt and not exactly rolling in spare cash here. A regular vet visit is more than a human dr visit, I can’t even imagine what kind of costs are associated with cardiac care and tests. And what do you even do for an ancient tiny dog who may or may not have heart disease? Spend a ton of money on pills? Surgery? Not let her go under anesthesia to get those teeth cleaned or removed just in case her heart can’t take it? I know she was under anesthesia in August when the rescue did some dental work and obviously that went fine.
I love my dog but I also don’t believe in excessive financial or medical duress for vet care. My mother spent over $10,000 on some broken legs and eventually an intestinal blockage that my childhood dog died from (from stress post surgery to remove the blockage). If they’re young that’s one thing but my little girl is an old lady. I want her to have a good quality of life but I don’t want us to end up living out of a box because of it.
Should I seek out specialist care just to check in? Or tell my vet to take a hike?
TL/DR: Would you take a very senior dog for cardiac care and further testing due to high stress protein in the blood? Have you experienced that and the results? Is my vet trying to extort me?
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/b9y174/small_dog_with_heart_murmur_and_high_heart_stress/
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