Thursday, October 7, 2010

Fun with Kaiser

I love my dog, I really do, but he is awesome at causing me problems: emotionally, mentally, socially, and financially.

For the first month or two we had him we basically had no lives. We rarely looked up from the floor, and we spent more time outside (in the freezing weather in December) trying to get him to pee outside instead of all over our floors. He also has an extraordinarily sensitive stomach, and was plagued with diarrhea. I literally spent almost $1,000 in vet bills over the course of the first month trying to clear this problem up, only to take matters into our own hands and change his dog food. Voila! That would have been great advice from the vet instead of the medications we pumped him full of. 


All of the conversations we had over the first two months of his life with us can be neatly summed up in this colorful pie chart:


I think if you click the picture it will link to a larger version. I don't know though, cause I just am not that talented with HTML.


Here are other fun and expensive experiences we've had with Kaiser:
Drugged after invasive surgery
  • He developed a kidney infection around five months old and started pissing all over the house again, literally every 10 minutes. Back on meds he went.
  • He developed Cherry Eye in his right eye, which magically went away. Then it popped up into his left eye, where it remains to this day, screaming, "THIS IS GONNA COST YOU LOTS OF MONEY TO FIX!"
  • One of his testicles did not drop, which meant he had to have invasive surgery, similar to what a female dog goes through when she is spayed. They told me it could be right below the surface or it could be as far back as his kidneys. The FIRST vet we went to (the one that charged me $1,000 over a month instead of telling me to switch his food....) gave me a $900 max quote - and she charged by the MINUTE. We ended up taking him to another vet and thankfully that lil nut wasn't as deep as they thought, but it still cost over $500.
  • One day while he was at dog daycare (don't judge! we both work 8-5!) he stood over an old Akita and got his leg bitten. It swelled up to the size of a softball and he was on antibiotics for almost two weeks.
  • Two visits to dog daycare later he was playing with a group of dogs and another dog BIT OFF A PIECE OF HIS EAR. He had it pressure bandaged for a week, and when we tried to remove it, it appeared as though the bottom half of his ear had liquefied. It was around this time he started coughing and throwing up as well, and we realized he had ALSO brought home a mild case of kennel cough. Back to the vet he went to the tune of over $200 - and he came home with flea and tick preventative, because he had picked up some fleas while he was at daycare too.
That was two weeks ago. Want to know what's new this week??? THIS:


Oh Kaiser. My mother graciously agreed to take him to the vet yesterday while I was at school. They're not sure what the growth is but they put him back on medication (surprise!) and want us to soak his foot every day in Epsom salt for a total of 10 minutes. They also recommended that he have surgery as soon as possible for the Cherry Eye, at which time they can remove this growth and also a mobile lump I found on his shoulder blade last week. BTW - there are two options for correcting Cherry Eye, one of which involves just hacking the gland out and then having to put eye drops in his eye for the rest of his life. I'm sure he'd fucking LOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE that. For those of you who have never attempted to force a 115lb exuberant puppy with a brain the size of a walnut to do something he doesn't want to do, imagine trying to do needlepoint while riding a bucking bronco. The tune of this upcoming multiple surgery is anywhere from $600 - $900. 


PERFECT! Right before Christmas and when I'm working reduced hours so that I can go to school. Perfect, Kaiser. My little master of timing. Did I mention Kaiser isn't even a year old yet? Yeah. We've got SO MUCH FUN in store for us in the short amount of time he has left, since Danes only live an average of 8-10 years.


So now that I've done tons of hating on him, a few cute pictures of times that make it totally worth it:
GIVE ME KISSES!
The best Dane cuddle you can get without being crushed

He looks like the deer you see on the side of the road...


And then he flew away


Back when it was still possible to lift him
Hard to believe he was ever this small





17 comments:

  1. Ohh what a sweet baby!! Look at that face!!! OMG. Adorable.

    ReplyDelete
  2. wow! that's a lot of work and a lot of money!
    but, he sure is a cutie!!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Bunnies are much lower maintenance. And much smaller. And still cute!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks! He's cute when he's not a monster. And Rachel - bunnies are cute and lower maintenance, but I'm a big animal kind of girl.

    ReplyDelete
  5. What a cutie! That's a lot of dog to love!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Yes, and a lot of money to hate giving away :-D

    ReplyDelete
  7. I have a big, fat cat who has put me in the poor house, so I totally understand the vet bills/animal lover conundrum!

    Thanks for checking out my blog. I just looked up James Cameron Pocahontas and did a Diet Coke spit take on my desk. Hilarious!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Lol yeah I saw the post about the kitty :-) They're like children (only you can throw them in the cage and go drink!)

    And isn't the James Cameron Pocahontas thing hilarious?

    ReplyDelete
  9. AND you have a Dane?... me too. Weird.
    (She's a 130lb harlequin beast, with a brain the size of a chickpea... but a heart like none I've ever known)

    Now I am actually really bummed we aren't neighbors.

    this is her

    ReplyDelete
  10. OMG she's sooo cute (and a couch hog like Kaiser). Have you had any medical problems with her? It's just been one thing after another with Kaiser and I'm concerned it was his breeding and not necessarily his breed.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Dane's have notoriously sensitive stomachs, and because of this we refuse to let her have "people food"... plus at their size begging for food from people can be downright intimidating to those who don't realize Danes are more gentle than bunny rabbits. But on the few occasions when she would manage to eat something we didn't give her... well... lets just say that having to clean up projectile poop, with an 8' radius, ain't fun.
    She had the gastroplexy (anchoring) surgery when she was younger (she's like 6 or 7 now) to prevent bloat... but my housemate (who I've lived with for like 8 or 9 years now) is technically her legal owner, so he go her the best health insurance... it covered the surgery (as well as a bunch of other things) - that dog has better health insurance than I ever had or will have!) If you're interested, I can get the name/number/website info for you. It does help- covers vet visits, front line, & multiple other things.
    I know Danes also have hyper sensitive skin issues as well, to the point where it can look like they have mange. Niela ("knee-luh", that's her name- gaelic for "champion" only the housemate spells it all queer it should be "Neala" *shrug*) Two weeks of antibiotics clears that up. Oh... and their nails grow to dragon lady proportions
    I highly doubt you two are doing anything wrong. I am not an expert, by any stretch of the imagination, but I think it's safe to say that Danes are more than a handful- but totally worth it. :)

    ReplyDelete
  12. We don't feed Kaiser 'people food' either. Different dog food still gives him the wall splatters so we pretty much just stick with Iams. I've thought about insurance but with the plan we looked at it ended up being that you had to spend around $9,000 for the year in order to not pay more into insurance than you get out. Send me a link to the insurance you guys used and I'll check it out. With all the problems we've had I'm starting to worry that he'll get hip dysplasia or bloat before we can tack his stomach.

    ReplyDelete
  13. We've been feeding her an organic brand called "Wellness"... it comes in a ginormous green bag (also in purple, but we buy the green one), and we get it from the local feed store here- which makes sense since one of her nicknames is "Pony." The regular store bought dog food tends to make her ill, but that is probably dog specific as opposed to breed specific.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Iams Large Breed Puppy is the only food we've given him that hasn't given him the squirts. We've done the Wellness and the adult and puppy versions of Innova. I've never actually sat down to look at the ingredients list and see if there's something in the other two brands that isn't in Iams.

    ReplyDelete
  15. The housemate (thankfully) makes the decision about the food ('cause she is "his" legally... and thankfully monetarily!)... but I'll ask him why he chose that one as opposed to others. He did A LOT of research about that stuff.

    ReplyDelete
  16. ok, asked the housemate... he said Merial Insurance, but when I googled it I didn't find much for pets... but I did keep getting linked back to this site , hope that helps.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Great, thank you! I'll check it out!

    ReplyDelete

Talk to the Cake Betch - I'll always respond. Unless you're a dick, then I'll just be mad.