Entering the golden years

Dolph had his first appointment today with our rockin’ vet, Joe Fong, over at Arguello. It was a rough appointment for a first-time visit with a newly adopted dog. 

First off, Dolph is not 5 years old as the pound has "estimated". We knew he was older, so that is not too surprising. Dolph’s more likely in the range of 8-10 or perhaps a better way to think of it is that he’s in his later middle age years, considering his plans for retirement. That is retirement as in golden years, not retirement from life completely.

Dolph has a few worrisome cysts which are pigmented black like sun spots. One is troubling enough that we took a sample and sent it to the lab. It’s possible melanoma, but also possibly benign. We’ll find out Friday.

That’s the biggest concern right now. Dolph also has a heart murmur. As you may know lots of dogs and humans live with heart murmurs for years, decades even! Our guy’s is mild — a 1 or 2 on a scale of 1-6. Something to watch over time, nothing to get our knickers in a twist about right now.

We’ve also learned that our new boy has mild arthritis in his hips. It’s not too bad, not too discomforting but one can see him struggle a bit heading up the steep stairs to the house.

One last thing — I saw that the Dolph had some traces of blood in his urine. Rosy looking urine and this time I was without my rosy cycling glasses! He’ll go in for an ultrasound tomorrow and get on an antibiotic regimen. This is quite likely a urinary tract infection or possibly a kidney stone. More on this later.

Clearly the big guy (he’s a standard after all) was not taken care of. Awful, awful.  This is apparent in his physical health, but also in his eyes and the way he doesn’t quite know what to do with all this care. 

Here’s what I say to all this news: so be it. All we can do is care for the guy as best as we can and make sure he’s as comfortable as possible as he heads on into the golden years. These years will truly be his finest.