Bella = expensive (but still so cute) puppy.

Remember in a post a while ago I mentioned Bella's tummy issues? Well, they haven't gotten any better. A couple of weeks ago, I met a girl named Gina who stopped me while I was walking Bella to admire her and tell me that she also has a 16 month old boxer. I didn't really thinking anything of it at the time. A week or so later, Tim and I were walking Bella and Gina popped her head out of her house with Dallas, her boxer. He and Bella went nuts playing for an hour while the rest of us talked.

Apparently Dallas had the same sort of issue that Bella is having. And the same "treatments" were tried out on him with no success. Gina said that she finally ended up having to take him to a specialist and found out that he has a condition that is specific to boxers called (appropriately) "boxer colitis." It's not genetic and it's not in all boxers but it is really common in these type of dogs but no one seems to know why. She had to put Dallas on pretty strong medication for this type of colitis (there are several different types) for 6 weeks, 6 times a day.

At this point last week, we were getting desperate. Bella was continuing to go to the bathroom 4-7 times a day (ridiculous) and it was huge and messy and just not normal so obviously the probiotics/new food cocktail was doing nothing for her. It had been helping but I think that it was just masking the problem and not fixing it. So we called the specialist.

We took her in on Wednesday and THANK GOD. (Side note: stop reading here if you don't want gory details).

Bella had been having greenish goopy discharge from her, uh, lady part. I talked to my friend Miss Ashley, a new vet, on the night it started because I was freaking out. We determined she was probably ok and that the next morning I should call and talk to my normal vet. We called our normal vet and she said, "Oh it's probably just vaginitis which is very common in puppies." She said it should go away on its own but we should just watch it because she didn't want to put Bella on antibiotics given her tummy problems. Ok...cool.

So by Wednesday (probably a week later after talking to our normal vet) her discharge is bloody. And we are FREAKING OUT. Because we thought that she could possibly be in heat. And this is bad why? Because boxers are already pretty cancer prone and if they go into heat unnecessarily (aka you aren't breeding them) then they can be even more predisposed to certain types of cancers. So while Tim and I are shitting our pants thinking that a) she is either in heat or b) there is something seriously wrong with her, our house is becoming a red polka dotted mess to the point where we finally just had to crate her (oh, and while this is all going down? The f-ing cat is puking all over the house. It's a freaking zoo).

We anxiously await our vet appointment all day. Here is what we find out about the intestinal problems: yes, the doctor has experience with boxer colitis (obviously we knew that) and yes, the doctor thinks the symptoms sound like the disease. BUT since Bella is just a puppy, the antibiotic to treat it isn't really good for her because it can damage her joints. So first the doctor wants to rule out anything else that COULD be wrong given that we can't really treat her for the colitis right now anyway. We do a blood test to rule out any other problems and we start her on a hypoallergenic food to rule out any food allergies.

For the lady part issue. The doctor does not think she is in heat. Phew. HOWEVER, the doctor does think she has a bladder infection. Ugh. The doctor wants to keep her for an hour to stick a needle in her bladder to send out a culture to verify. Lovely.

We pick her up and $400 later we have medicine for the supposed bladder infection, new food, anti-diarrhea meds since the antibiotics for her bladder infection will make her tummy even worse, and a myriad of tests sent off to the lab.

So a couple days go by and this is what we know now: 1) Blood tests are normal 2) Urine test came back positive- she does have a bladder infection, she is being treated by the right antibiotic so we need to get more of it- two weeks to be exact (and after that the urine test will be repeated). 3) We need to keep her on the hypoallergenic food for a while so we need to buy a big bag.

Guess what? $120 today and we have two weeks worth of more antibiotics and a huge bag of food. Sigh. It's not even really the cost of everything that gets me, I don't really care. It's just I want our baby to be 100%. The bladder infection was setting her back the most as far as her energy level. The tummy issues don't really seem to matter to her but it just seems so unhealthy and almost like she can't gain weight while that's going on. So hopefully in the next couple of months we will find some resolution here and hopefully find a time to get her spayed as well, which is dependent on when all of this other stuff gets ok'd by the doctor since she wants to wait to spay until Bella has some of the problems under control. I do feel comfort in knowing that many boxers have these problems and that she is perfectly healthy otherwise.

In more happy news, today we had another puppy class where we learned to make the dogs "come" from long distances. Bella did great and got to be the example in front of the class again which she LOVES. It was actually a really helpful class. We then took a trip to the beach and then she got to go on a walk AND play with her buddy Dallas the boxer who I mentioned above. She is one tuckered out pup now. That girl goes and goes and goes and then she just crashes. She is absolutely adorable.

We taught her to swim last weekend but my camera had died. I really need pictures to make that post. I'm hoping we can get some tomorrow. Today I just had her stick her legs in but no swimming since she already had such a busy day. Once I get pictures, I'll post about it.

And now I will stop rambling for a million years about the puppy.