Echo and I will leaving for the ASFA International invitational in just a few weeks, so I thought she could use just a general exam and bloodwork. She gets these strange little growths on her from time to time that eventually dry up and fleck off, so I also wanted the doc to take a peek at one of those. Her general exam was unremarkable and her blood panel came back perfect, so she’s now got  clean bill of health! The vet said the little growths are nothing to worry about…most likely just a build up of oily skin material in her coat.

Melody was also in for a general exam and follow up bloodwork to check her kidney values. When she was at the specialist to have her toe amputed last year, her kidney values were off the chart. We put her on kidney-friendly food and rechecked at several weeks intervals and the levels did drop down. And ultrasound showed nothing unusual. This visit was just to take a look at her values and see if her kidney issues have progressed or stayed the same. Her creatinine was 2.7 (up from 2.1 6 months ago) which is elevated from what’s considered “normal” for a greyhound, but her BUN was within normal limits at 27. At this point, we are going to keep her on the kidney food and just recheck. However, the vet did clear her for toe amputation surgery, so we will be scheduling that in the next few weeks.

Tater was spayed last week and I noticed a little bit of fluid pooling around her spay incision, so I decided it was best to have the doc take a look. It wasn’t painful to the touch and the skin color along the incision looked great. It was just a little….puffy. The vet examined the incision and said he could feel that all the abdominal layers were intact, that sometimes the muscles just sweat a little fluid. He put her on an antibiotic just to be safe and said to keep her as quiet as possible. We’ll be keeping a close eye on that, for sure.

Peanut was in for a wellness visit last week and to have some baseline bloowork run…something we like to do for all new pups as soon as possible after coming home. Well, one of her values was a little high so they just wanted us to bring in her urine so they could make sure it was concentrating properly. Since she has had a few peepee accidents by the back door, it’s always best to rule out anything medical. I decide to bring her along with the urine specimen “just in case” they wanted to lay hands on her again for some reason. Turns out, her urine looked good and was properly concentrated so Peanut was just along for the ride. Which she didn’t seem to mind. She rides really well in the car and is just soooooo curious about everywhere she goes and everything she sees.

$200 and four healthy hounds later we headed for home…until the next visit!

I was a nervous mommy dropping them off this morning, but I know the spay/neuter surgery is in their own best interest (and my peace of mind!). When I picked them up this afternoon, the doc said Primo came through with no problems whatsoever. Tater did great with the surgery as well, but her uterus was unusually long so her spay incision is quite a bit larger than it normally would be. Poor girl…it really is long incision

Both hounds were given the once over by the pack and then went off to rest. They’ll be on pain medication for the next few days, but I’m sure they’ll both make a quick recovery.

So, we are relieved that Tater is completely healthy at the moment and showing no signs outward (or inward) of being sick. Hopefully this bodes well for the general health of the pack. I won’t rest easy until we get test results back from Cornell, but that may take a week or so. And we may never know what took Bodhi so quickly and tragically from us.

 Ken chose his pet name: Bodhi Dogma (Bodhi is short for bodhisattva - Ken is Buddhist, for those who may not know)…here’s a pic our beautiful boy on the way home from the track:

While we were chatting with the kennel helpers about Bodhi and greyhounds and racing in general, I asked about a hound I’d visited often at Fishdog Kennels that has also moved over to Toomanyhounds. I knew Rights to Riches had been retired recently and I was just curious about how she was doing. They asked if I wanted to see her…and I said of course! I figured it might be the last chance I had to see her before she went to an adoption group in Tennessee. So, we went to the overflow kennel and they pulled her adorable overbite-having, buck toothed, wiggly-butt self out of the crate and my heart just about burst into a million bazillion pieces. I just had to bring her home. I just HAD to!!

So, we did While mulling over a name for her on the ride hom, a bit from Ron White came on the XM comedy channel we were listening to and it hit me: TATER! Yep, our new girl was definitely a Tater if I ever saw one. LOL (If you happen to not be familiar with Ron “Tater Salad” White, you are missing out on a hilarious comedian…and a Texan, Ken never forgets to add!)

We did it…We caught The Tater!

After a really long day (8 hours round trip driving for us)…we’re almost home and stop to get gas

Many thanks to Heather with Team Greyhound/Fishdog Kennels who gave us the opportunity to meet Wildcat Bob and Rights to Riches. And lots of thanks also to Melony Cleveland, the owner and trainer of Toomanyhounds kennel in Birmingham, for taking such fantastic care of our pups while they were racing. The dogs were absolutely gorgeous, clean and happy when we picked them up. It’s always great to work with wonderful racing folks at the track!