That Kiki Cat

Greetings all! Just a little update on Kiki-girl. Long story short, we brought her home on Wednesday night after her lump removal surgery. While attempting to put her reverse e-collar on her, she managed to get her right leg underneath the collar and in doing so, cut part of her dessolvable stitches. After we were able to stop the bleeding, we had to take her back to our vet the next morning. Dr. Ostrich checked the stitches at her neck and since her wound had already begun to scab over, he advised us to forego the e-collar idea as she was not scratching at it and it would most likely only serve to make things worse. Also, she gave us such as hard time giving her the pain meds (both pill and liquid), he told us that so long as she had not appeared to be in any pain, not to worry about it since it was only stressing her out unecessarily.

She spent a couple of nights in the large dog cage so that she would have some time to allow her stitches to heal and she is now out and about the house with the rest of her siblings.

>^^<   >^^<   >^^<   >^^<   >^^<   >^^<   >^^<   >^^<  

My poor little Haley ...

 

 

Last night, we dropped our little calico kitty, Haley, off at our vets for her dental surgery this morning. After her check up last week, we found out that she has at least three bad teeth which need to be pulled. Makes sense because her breath was becoming really bad and that usually means only one thing ... BAD TEETH!

I completely trust our wonderful and long-time veterinarian, Dr. Ostrich! He has always and continues to be "the best" in his profession and, even though he is now well into his late 70's, he still attends/speaks at veterinary conferences and shares his very extensive knowledge to his esteemed colleagues. I can honestly say that he is the only vet whom I would never second guess as he has always taken good care of our family's furr babies throughout these many years. I can't tell you enough about what a good feeling that is!

We were told that we should be able to pick her back up sometime this evening and so I will be sure to update this post later on tonight.

HAPPY FRIDAY ALL!!!

A Healthy Bunny is a Happy Bunny!

For the past couple of days or so, our Netherland Dwarf bunny Samuel ("Sam") has been sneezing and weezing with a runny nose. So this afternoon, I left work early in order to take him to our trusty vet, Dr. Ostrich at Eagle's Peak Animal Clinic.

Turns out that he has a respiratory infection and needed meds and so Dr. Ostrich gave us a prescription for an antibiotic called sulfatrim in a liquid form. We must give it to him in a syringe twice a day.

I had a feeling that was what the issue may have been as many years ago, our Mini Lop bunny Barney, had one as well. But instead of a liquid medication, we were given rather large pills which were very hard to adnminister. So, how exactly does one give a rabbit pills? Well, since the pills would not dilute in water and we were afraid to give it to him the way in which you can give a cat or dog meds using a pill popper, we broke it up in tiny pieces and mixed it in with a very small bowl of rabbit pellets so that he would in gest it all in one sitting. It worked!

"Sir Barney Charles"

To be honest, it was actually a relief to find out that what he had was treatable. Rabbits are not known for having the strongest of constitutions and even though you may keep your bunny indoors as we always have sometimes all it takes is a draft to get them sick. Hopefully now, he is on his way to making a full recovery!

Midnight's Laser Therapy

Since Midnight's diagnosis of athritis in his back and tail, we have decided to take Dr. Ostrich's recommendation to put him on Laser Therapy as an alternative to pain medication and/or periodic shots.

Yesterday morning was Midight's first Laser Therapy session with his technician, Danielle. She allowed us to be in the room with him while she treated him and she explained to us all about Laser Therapy, what is is, what it actually does, and the beneftit of this kind of treatment. She also told us that they have worked on hundreds of dogs so far but Midnight is their very first cat to be treated there. 

All of us, Midnight included, had to wear safety googles to protect our eyes. The entire session lasted only about 10 minutes and our baby was an absolute trooper as usual. Danielle said it feels like a warm message and took a pic of him afterwards. She told us she was going to hang it up in the office lobby for all to see. She even printed off a color copy for us to take home ...

Eagle's Peak Therapist Danielle works on Midnight's arthritic back using Laser Therapy techniques.

So far, Midnight is responding to the therapy fairly well ... only 5 more to go! 

Okay, I can breathe again now ...

The past couple of weeks since it has gotten so much colder here in Berks County, PA, our kitty Midnight has been limping and crying in pain if we so much as touched his backend near his tail. We finally decided we needed to take him to our trusty vet, Dr. Ostrich, to get him checked out. Turns out:

1. After placing a sample of his fur and skin dandriff on a slide and immediately looking at it under a miscroscope while waited, he had developed a yeast infection on his back; and,
2.  Upon examination, Midnight had to be scheduled two days later for x-rays of his spine.

For the infection, he prescribed a lotion we must apply on his back once a day for two weeks called, Ketomax. And, he also gave him a shot for the pain.

As for his x-rays, I took him back to the vet today and Dr. Ostrich took two shots of his spine. I got the results within a few minutes and the doc took me into a viewing room and, with Midnight in tow while I cradled him in my arms, went over the results. He showed me the x-rays and exactly what I was looking at and told me that the area between his tail and spine are arthritic and that is what is causing him so much pain. The answer: Laser Surgery treatments. It will take six consecutive treatments and then one session per month thereafter. 

Talk about relieved? I am so very happy that it is not something much worse and that we can help him with treatments. No pills, no shots, just a painless laser procedure with the added benefit of NOT having to put him to sleep while doing it. 

Thank you once again, Dr. Ostrich ... you're the best!!!

The Best Vet in the world!

For as long as I can remember, my parents have always put their trust in our family veterinarian, Dr. Sherbyn Ostrich. VMD. He started an animal clinic back in the 70's called, Cacoosing Animal Hospital. He was doing so well that he hired Dr. Carl Veltri who graduated from the very prestigious Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine. During this time, Dr. Ostrich was elected as President of the American Veterinary Medical Association and also President of the Pennsylvania Veterinary Association. Aware that he would be gone for three years and would have little time to work at the hospital, he decided to sell his practice to the VCA Animal Hospital, a decision he had expressed to me that he would later regret!

No longer able to take our cats to Dr. Ostrich, we eventually ended up taking our cats to the "new" VCA Hospital in the same location simply because Dr. Veltri was still a part of them. A couple of months ago, we noticed a lump in the middle of Midnight's tail. Concerned, we took him to VCA. The vet, one of many new vets that come and go there, diagnosed his lump as a cyst and told us that we should "keep an eye on it" to make sure there was no change in size, color, etc. I would have preferred to have him seen by Dr. Veltri, but you are never guaranteed he will be working at the hospital when you have to make an appointment.

We decided to get a second opinion after we saw a recent article in our local newspaper which featured Berks County Vets, one of them being Dr. Ostrich who had very recently started another animal clinic called, "Eagle's Peak Animal Clinic. "Ah ha!" I said to my husband, "we found him again!" So we immediately took him to see Dr. Ostrich this past week and upon due examination, he informed us that Midnight had a blocked gland and that is what was causing his cyst. He sterilized the lump and then cauterized it really good as to not cause an infection, and for only HALF of the fee which VCA would have charged us, we walked out with him knowing that he was in the best of hands!

Dr. Sherbyn Ostrich

 

The next day, I called VCA to find out if Mr. Earl Gray's ashes had come back yet (since they had already sent me the bill a day later after telling me it would take about 2 weeks to get them back and then failed to call me when they did ... after all, they had already gotten their money), I immediately had all of our cats medical records transferred from VCA to Eagle's Peak Animal Clinic. Nuff said.


Let me tell you just how much integrity Dr. Ostrich has. A few months before he opened Eagle's Peak, he had decided to go back to the place where he started his practice in the first place, before it was sold to VCA Hospital. It wasn't very long before he left and I immediately thought to myself, "I'll bet he didn't like what was going on there." And, after speaking with him this week, I found out that I was right! In my opinion, VCA Hospitals are the greediest of the greedy, the most heartless of the veterinary businesses there are. They would rather see you put your beloved pet down then work with you on paying their extremely high and very insane vet bills! There is absolutely no question in my mind what-so-ever that they are ALL about the money, NOT  the well-being of the animals they treat! Personally, VCA Hospitals make me sick and I will never go back to them ever again. Period!

So, what makes him so good? Well, other than the fact that Dr. Ostrich has managed to save my parents dogs and our kitties in the past, while other vets were "resting on their laurels," Dr. Ostrich continued to educate himself throughout the years which only served to add to his long-time experience and knowledge of animals. I am extremely grateful to have found him after all these many years and I will continue to put my complete faith in him to take of our fur babies.