Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Giardia

Well, it's official, Shasta has giardia; the vet called this afternoon. When it was first suggested, I didn't even remember what it was, so I had to go look it up at Wikipedia. I was reminded that it's the intestinal parasite that you worry about when you're out hiking or camping; that's why you boil water before you drink it.

So, now Shasta is getting a bit more stepped-up treatment. She is taking two Metronidazole pills, twice a day, and some Panacur powder added to her food once a day. It's easy to give her the pills, just pop them in some canned dog food and she swallows them right down. Getting her to eat the powder is quite another matter... I guess it makes the food smell not good and she is reluctant to eat it. Well, she's not getting anything else until she eats that dish of food.

I'm curious where Shasta got the giardia; we haven't been hiking at anything remotely like a park lately. The person at the pet store who first suggested she had giardia listed the dog park as a likely source. But Shasta has not been to the dog park in weeks; maybe only once since we bought the scooter. Perhaps she caught it from the K9 Casa where we boarded her a couple weeks ago. Wish I knew... I hate to blame the boarding place, but I'm not likely to take her back there if it's going to add over $200 in vet bills (and inconvenience) to the back end of any trip we take. Maybe once we get her over this, we'll have her immunized against giardia. I don't know...I hate to over-medicate my dog child.

Since we had to take her to the vet anyway, we had a heart worm test done and got a prescription for Revolution. We've had quite enough with fleas. We got spoiled in Oregon—it got cold enough the fleas died over the winter. It doesn't seem to get cold enough here in California to adequately wipe them out. So, we give up; flea treatment, here we come.

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