Everywhere A Vet Vet

Reyna had an appointment this afternoon with a new vet (same practice) because of the trouble she’s having with her left leg. I liked the new vet – she took the trouble to review Reyna’s chart before we got there, she realized that Reyna’s name is actually Vereyna but that we call her Reyna (and she pronounced both correctly), and she patiently listened to my concerns. Reyna wasn’t too sure about her at first. The initial meeting was cute, in a sad sort of way – Reyna was so excited to see the vet, right up until she realized it wasn’t HER vet. The instant droopiness was rather pitiful, actually. By the end of the visit, though, Reyna had given the vet a little kiss and took a cookie from her (which is a bigger deal than you might think, since Reyna almost never takes cookies from new people). We’ll definitely keep this new vet on our list of possibilities.

The visit confirmed my suspicions. Reyna has lost over 6 pounds since her check up in November (I KNEW she was too thin), and it appears to have all come from her hips. She has almost no muscle in either hip, which is definitely a problem. She also has very little range of motion in either hip and in her left ankle. The vet put Reyna back on Tramadol for a while, to help with the pain. She also recommended that Reyna go somewhere for rehab, but I was ahead of her on that – I’d already made an appointment. Reyna goes to VetHab next Tuesday for an evaluation and rehab plan. I also talked to the vet about the fact that Reyna's been spinning into the furniture a lot lately - most frequently plowing head first into the entertainment center. The vet said there's no sign of any problems with Reyna's eyes, so we're thinking her problem is that her back end is too weak to support the spinning properly and so it throws off her balance. Poor girl...who knew that good hips were so necessary?

Reyna also has a meet-and-greet appointment this Thursday with another new vet – only this guy is less than 10 minutes from the house. I’ve heard good things about him, so we’ll see how it goes. Whether or not we stick with him will depend on several things, not the least of which is how Reyna responds to him.