Senior Dog Checks.
In around October of 2023 I took 3 senior dogs to my long time vet to have wellness checks. For one of the dogs this was the 2nd annual senior checkup. Like the previous year everything looked great except there was some dental work that could be done.
Early in January of 2024 this dog was taken to emergency Sunday morning becuse she could not keep food or water down for the last 24 hours. It ended up being a 2 day stay to the tune of just over $5,000. She had multiple issues but the one that reared its head as an emergency was severe thickening of the intestines with many lesions and scar tissue. This meant her intestines were all stuck together by the lesions. The vet wondered how long I had owned this dog. I said “since she was 10 weeks.” Bottom-line this was a case of very severe gastroenteritis. Usually treatable but this would take lifelong maintenance.
This got me thinking about a couple of things. The first was gut health in general, but that
is not the topic of this blog. The 2nd
thing that came to mind is how we catch this sort of thing before it is a
$5,000 emergency. I do not have pet
insurance and to be honest pet insurance would not have saved my dog all the
discomfort, it would have only paid a good portion of the bill. My concerns were what I missed and what did
the senior dog checkups miss.
These lesions, scaring and thick walls did not happen all of a sudden. This was brewing for a LONG time. Quite possibly years which is why the vet asked how long I had owned this dog. It was an ultrasound at the ER Clinic that discovered this. I thought back and all I could say was that occasionally she would throw up. Sometimes she appeared not hungry but then later would eat. Nothing was a red light but in hind sight maybe a pale orange light.
After chatting with her doctors I learned that it might be a good idea to do an Ultrasound at the senior check-up. In this dog’s case the thickening and scarring would have been noticed and we could have looked deeper without it being an emergency. So yesterday I took my oldest senior dog in for an ultrasound. The doctor said it was unremarkable. We talked a bit about the other dog and senior dog checkups. He told me that his senior dogs always get an ultrasound with their senior checkup and then bi-annually they get chest x-rays. AH HA! He also told me that only about 10% of clients (would) do that. I thought well, I would, and I did not know it was a thing.
When our dogs go for surgery we are always offered to do an optional
pre-surgery blood test. I always say yes
unless I know there was a very recent blood test for this dog on file. But it is offered as optional. I think for a senior checkups it might be
nice to know other suggested options. I
did a quick search on the internet and to be honest only one site suggested
ultrasound and xray for senior dogs at their annual checkup and it was at the bottom
of the article as an afterthought. In my opinion anyone willing to spend $400.00 for a senior check up would be fine doing an ultrasound too. Why wouldn't our vets offer it.
I always talk about advocating for our dogs. A $150 ultrasound each year for the last 4-6 years of my dog’s life is honestly very worth it. Let me do some math here for 5 years.
$400.00 annual check up $2000.00
$150.00 annual ultrasound $750.00
$200.00 biennially chest x-ray $500.00
Total $3250.00 for senior checkups from 9 – 14 years.
That is far less than the $5,000 emergency invoice and much less traumatic on the dog. Granted you may find something that does cost some money to treat but not involving emergency and long term suffering to your dog is good thing. From now on, I will be doing ultrasounds each year and x-rays every other year on my three seniors. Two of those dogs have had minimal to no vet expenses during their life. We cannot expect no cost for our dog’s health thru their lives. Whether you are self-insured or buy insurance think about what it covers and perhaps you may need to have more out of pocket to cover the optional tests. I would not choose emergency over a $150.00 ultrasound.
This dog, my beloved Madison is ok now but she will be on a special diet for the rest of her life.
