Tooey’s tests

Good breeders make sure their dogs are healthy before breeding. With Irish Water Spaniels, breeders typically get the dog tested for healthy thyroid levels, hips, elbows, and eyes, usually done after the dog is 2 years old.

I am not a breeder, but Colleen, Tooey’s co-owner is. Tooey is 2-1/2 years old, and it’s 4 months after she last went into heat — perfect timing for hip x-rays. (Apparently, a bitch in season has relaxed hip joints to get her ready for the birth of puppies, making an x-ray at that time of less value for evaluating the soundness of the hip joints.) And she hasn’t had any vaccines since last year, making it a good time to test her thyroid levels.

So last weekend I loaded Tooey up and took her to the vet for her thyroid tests and hip and elbows x-rays. We decided to take her to the Steamboat Animal Hospital in Olympia, Washington — the same place we took Cooper for his x-rays.

Since I posted Cooper’s hip x-rays earlier on the blog, I thought I’d post one of Tooey’s elbow x-rays in this post.

canine elbow x-ray

The event ultimately went well, but parts were scary. First they took the blood to test her thyroid levels with. That went fine.

Then it was time for x-rays. To keep the dog perfectly still when the x-rays are taken, many vets (but not all, I discovered later) give a bit of mild anesthesia. That’s to prevent the dog from moving when the images are taken. Movement would blur the image, and the person reading the x-rays wouldn’t be able to tell if there is anything wrong with the joint or not. And the amount of anesthesia is determined by the dog’s weight. In Tooey’s case, unknown to everyone, she needs less anesthesia than most dogs of her weight.

But no one knew that, so I became very worried when they walked Tooey out to me. She could walk, albeit drunkenly, but when she stopped walking, her back legs collapsed underneath her. I told them to take her back immediately and find out what was wrong. No way was I going to take her the 2 hours home to Portland before I knew she was OK.

And about an hour later (a very l-o-n-g hour later), she was fine, just a little sleepy. She stayed that way for the whole day, but the next morning, she was rip-roaring around the house, chasing Cooper and jumping over the couch.

Three days later, I received the results of the thyroid tests — perfectly normal. She’s already had and passed her eye exam. And then today, I received a copy of the x-rays. Now we’re just waiting for the radiologists at the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals to read and rate her hips and elbows. Let’s hope for Excellent or Good ratings. With that, and with her general health being good, she’ll be ready for breeding and puppies.

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