Visit(s) to the Vet(s)

Lots of updates to give, Mom's been slacking on the blog again. First of all, to follow up on the post about that unsightly bump on my side - Mom took me to the vet to get it checked out on Saturday. She put my harness on me about 15 minutes before we left, and I WAS READY TO GO!

Come ON, Mom, you are SO SLOOOOOOOW.

The good news is that they think that little bump is either a benign cyst or a skin tag. They tested some cells and they all came back fine. They are going to look at it again when I go for my shots in October. And in more good news, I'm down to 21.5 pounds! That's down a whole pound since last October (and 2.5 pounds since a few months after she got me and porked me up on treats while we were in obedience training!). Mom says it's the grain-free food. I say it's the starvation. Po-TAY-to, Po-TAH-to.

Now on to a little scarier stuff. The Saturday before last, Mom took Vinny to the vet because he had been barfing. They did blood tests on him and his liver enzymes were "markedly high." (Mom saw the results and she thinks "markedly" is an understatement.) So the vet said since Vinny is acting totally normal (and he has stopped vomiting), and is still eating like a pig, that he wanted to wait one week to re-check the levels. So Mom took Vinny back to the vet this past Saturday (yes she had to take 2 different pugs to 2 different vets that day!) and she got the results again today. There has been only slight improvement. So now they want to do an ultrasound and possibly a liver biopsy.

The vet said there are several things it could be. One being a "portal systemic shunt" which is something they are born with, and involves an abnormal blood flow to the liver. This could possibly be solved by surgery, or Vinny just may need to be monitored and "live his whole life with chronic liver disease." Whatever that means.

Mom knows she might not have gotten some of the details right. It is a lot to understand and we just aren't to the point where we know what is going to happen or what his future holds. But it makes Mom very sad because he's such a seemingly happy and healthy boy.

We will keep you updated. They hope to schedule the ultrasound for this week. Mom still hasn't adopted Vinny and for now he is on "medical hold" with the rescue. It's causing Mom to stress out a lot. She is not sure what she is going to do.

On another note, Jack stayed with us AGAIN this weekend. You guessed it, Uncle Michael went floating AGAIN.

And you also guessed it - he tried to eat both of us! Once it was me and once it was Vinny! Luckily Mom put him in time-out and gave him a stern talking-to before he could swallow us. The good part about Jack trying to have us for dinner is that Vinny & I really bonded as a team against the Crazy Beagle.

Mom said for most of the weekend we were all really good.

But she was happy when Uncle Michael came home to pick up Jack the Jerk at noon yesterday. And so were we!

Later, friends!