I took Peka into the vet today. It went a lot better than I thought it would!! I'll paste the email I just wrote to some other volunteers at the shelter.

Hi everyone.

Peka and I went to the vet today and it turned out better than I thought it would. She definately has some medical issues, but she still has quality of life. The vet said her mammory tumors are probably the least of the worries. Most of the time they are not malignant. Her teeth are really bad which could cause her a lot of trouble and potentially become fatal if not taken care of. I have some antibiotics that should help her for the time being. She needs a dental but the vet needs to find out exactly what's wrong before we risk putting her through that. The tumors can easily be removed during the dental.

Her coughing and wheezing could be due to a collapsed trachea but the vet suspects it is kennel cough. Even though she had her bordatella, its still not 100% effective from preventing kennel cough. She said her stress level and age would easily allow her to catch kennel cough. I have some other medicine that will hopefully help her with her cough.

Her heart is extremely enlarged, which is normal for dogs with heart murmurs. She would like to do an ultrasound on Peka to find out exactly which valves aren't functioning correctly, then she could prescribe medicine to help her with that. We got some xrays and she said her lungs are filled with air, which is really good and means she's not congested. Her liver is enlarged a bit which may be a sign of congestive heart failure. The vet said even if she does have congestive heart failure, she's not dying from it at this point.

She also possibly has a bladder infection. She's been going potty a lot. She goes a lot outside, then when we get it, 15 minutes later she'll have a couple puddles on the carpet. This should be easy to take care of though. We just aren't positive if its a bladder infection or incontinence.

The vet would like to do the ultrasound and run some blood tests to pinpoint exactly what else could be wrong with her and to make sure it would be safe to do a dental. I went ahead and did the xrays today but we decided to wait on the other tests for another week or two. She thought it would be best if Peka got over her stress of being abandoned at a shelter first.

The vet said it really depends how much emotionally and financially I was invested in her. She said its very possible to prolong her life and she can live comfortably, but she is an old girl so there's a chance of her dying even with the treatment just because of her age. She is definately a fighter though! She was pushing the vet techs away the whole time.

She's settling into my house really well. She was showing some signs of seperation anxiety but we've been working on that and she's already much better. She wakes up from deep sleeps though and starts coughing and wheezing. It sounds awful and she looks miserable. Hopefully the meds will help though. I hope its just kennel cough. Oh, she's also blind in one eye and can't really see well out of the other. That is why she is so slow moving. I am thinking she has a hard time hearing too. She's not deaf but she doesn't seem to hear everything all the time.

She reallly is a sweet girl and is doing wonderfully with my dogs and cat. She's sleeping on my feet right now!

Can someone forward this to the Strawns? I can take Peka next week to get those tests done if they want something more definitive or if they want her sooner they can let me know. Or if they don't want her, let me know and maybe we can find rescue groups.

Thanks everyone and thanks Anne for the contribution to her vet bill! It helped a lot!