Nicki update

I know a lot of you were worried about Nicki. She's doing MUCH better now that her buddy Cameron is home, but we went to the vet today because she has a skin tag that she's suddenly decided to lick obsessively. $250 later and we have a series of blood tests being run to see if she'll handle surgery to remove the skin tag.

My choices for the skin tag were:
*E-collar until it heals, which she'd then start the process all over again after it healed and we'd have a series of life with the E-collar and without.
-OR-
*Surgery. In the end, surgery would be less stressful and less expensive because of months of trips to and from the vet for a single skin tag. Believe me, I know this girl. I have 13 years experience with her and I KNOW she'll keep licking at it until she's managed to liberate the skin tag from her leg herself. It would be months of healing, licking, healing, licking, healing, licking. And vet visits in between for antibiotics to fight the infection she brought on from licking.

Thank goodness I was wearing a sweatshirt over my dog trainer uniform top (I train tonight) because she was SO BAD! She was very stressed and worked up about the car ride and upset that another couple wouldn't let her say hi to their dog aggressive dog. She was pulling the leash, ignoring commands, and whining up a storm. Turns out another couple there were also dog trainers. I don't want them thinking I'm a bad or ineffective trainer based on Nicki's very un-polite behavior.

All in all, the vet said that if she hadn't read Nicki's chart she'd have never guessed she's as old as she is. Her heart sounds great. Her eyes and teeth look great, and the only thing wrong with her on inspection was arthritis in her back leg (we already knew about that). So now we wait to see what the blood tests reveal. I'm hoping she'll be strong enough to handle surgery so we can remove the skin tag.

All this for a skin tag! LOL

Yup sometimes things that should seem simple sure turn into a big deal sometimes. Hope the surgery goes ok.

If you didn't want to do the surgery, what about the bite not collar? It's much less restrictive. That's what Dasher has been having to wear while his toe is getting well. They can sleep, eat and play and do adjust to it. Just something to think about in case you didn't know about that collar. Otherwise, I wish the princess well and still would love to see some pics of her. Give her big hugs from me.