Disclaimer: I am not a veterinarian and this article is not a substitute for veterinary care. Any information found on this site is meant to serve as a starting point for a conversation with your dog’s veterinarian about what options or treatments are appropriate for your dog’s specific needs.
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In 2016, I bought my first house. I had recently made the switch from hospital nursing to working on the insurance side of healthcare and now, with the move, I would be working completely remotely.
In theory, I was going to have more free time probably since high school (although anyone who has ever owned a house knows how that turns out).
This would hopefully be the last move after a series of apartments with one thing in common…NO DOGS ALLOWED. I had two cats who had trekked with me from place to place, but I missed having a dog like when I was a kid. A dog for couch snuggles, walks in the woods, and some light home security.
Houses need dogs. Everybody knows that.
So, I set out to scour the local shelters and rescues for a big, friendly, cat-tolerant canine.
I took this very seriously and “interviewed” quite a few dogs.
A hound mix who was sweet to people, but totally failed his cat test. A boxer mix who did well with the cats, but was too high energy (he would have been so bored, he needed kids to run with).
A mastiff who I was warned ate anything that resembled food and quite a few things that didn’t.
A few others. All good dogs, but none was a good fit for my house (don’t worry, they were all adopted by other people).
Then along came Guinness.
The people who dropped him off listed him as a “10-year-old German Shepard/pitbull”. He was big and brindle and he hated being by himself. He would flop on the floor and refuse to move when they tried to put him in his kennel. The volunteers would bribe him with pettings and treats to get him back inside.
He was clearly used to being someone’s baby. He definitely wasn’t a German Shepherd and his age was kinda questionable as well.
According to his paperwork, he had lived with one woman his whole life, but when she passed away there was no one in the family who could keep him. So, he found himself in a kennel at a shelter.
The day after I brought him home, I was watching TV on the couch when a paw made its first cautious foray up on to the cushion next to me. When it was not turned away, the rest of the dog followed. He stretched out on top of me and promptly fell asleep. I couldn’t really breathe under 120 lbs of mutt, but…bonding.
Not quite happily ever after…
Everything was looking good until our first visit to our new vet. The shelter had mentioned he might have an old leg injury. The vet said she thought he had arthritis as well and a mild case of kennel cough. More concerning for me, he came back positive for Lyme Disease.
As a nurse, I knew that Lyme disease could be pretty serious for humans. Requiring heavy doses of antibiotics
And then the veterinarian recommended giving Guinness the Lyme vaccine. Huh? Isn’t it already too late for that?
Although I love all the vets at the clinic we go to, I needed to understand what was going on and what I could do about it.
You see, I happen to be the type of person that sometimes gets labeled a “control freak”. Not knowing what is going on around me gives me major anxiety.
I have a tendency to compulsively research anything and everything around me. It actually fits in pretty well with my nursing career. I’ve taken whole classes in research in nursing school.
This problem wasn’t going to be any different.
And so that was the day I started using all of my nursing research skills to figure out what I needed to do to give my big, old mutt the happiest, healthiest
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