Favorite veterinarian misdiagnosis's - Page 3

ok ok I have a good one........

Babysitting a little poodle for a friend.... Boss Hawg.........come home from work one day and he is holding his back leg up, will not touch the floor with it for anything. I feel around on his hip, toes, knees, squeezing pulling and prodding. I could not find any source of pain. I am thinking Oh Crap..... Friend is gonna kill me if her dog is hurt!. I call the local vet, tell him whats going on he suspect either a knee or possibly back injury, get the dog right in. ER visit after hours on a sunday yeah. Since he thought it was urgent I went in. he xrayed, palped, couldnt find a source of pain anywhere, put the dog on the floor and he draws his foot all the way up to his belly. Vet thinks it might be a back injury or muscle pull but cannot find a source for the pain. Boss is 6 yrs old. The exam table sat in the middle of the tiny room, the window behind it and the vet on the side of the window. I am in the chair opposit the window. As the vet lifted the leg againmanipulating the knee to see if there was any pain response there I look up a little higher and one of his toenails is sticking out a bit further than the others! I get up, go look closer and told the vet his toenail looked like it was almost ripped off. the vet touchs the toenail, boss bites him and we discover the toenail had indeed almost been ripped off. Vet mildly sedates boss, cuts the nail back as much as possible, wraps the foot and gives him antibiotics.

It cost me a total of 480 bucks to have that toenail cut and I felt like a fool for not noticing it lolboss limped around for a couple of days and was fine. And no the friend didnt reimburse me, It was my call to go to the vet rather than wait and see if he would be ok on his own .

T

One of my Rotties his belly was expanding to the ground, no weight to the sides if him, just straight down. I kept every few days going to vet telling him he is not right. 3rd visit, he told me, look he is just fat and needs to go on diet. I took him over to the groomer there, she knew him. Asked her to look at him, she went and got another vet. Needles to say they immed stuck him and began pulling fluid out of him. He had liver shunts. I had to put him down. We know our dogs and when they are not right, need to learn to trust our own judgement as much as we trust the dogs.

a sad misdiagnosis.... My 10 year old GSD suddenly started limping on his left rear. At first I thought maybe he had twisted/sprained something ... he would run like crazy on the ice and snow. After a few days it wasn't getting any better so I took him to the vet. After exam and x-rays was told it was a partial tear of the cruciate ligament. He prescribed 10 days rest and Rimadyl. After a week, still not any better. Back to the vet who said he required surgery from an orthopedic surgeon for $3000. (For a "fraction" of a second I debated on spending $3000 on a 10 year old dog, but knew I had to do it - I loved this dog and he deserved everything and anything.) Went to the surgeon's to drop him off the morning of the surgery. The surgeon palpated the knee and said he didn't think there was anything wrong with the knee.... wanted to take more films. Came back with films that showed bone cancer in the head of the femur. He said treatment of choice was amputation. I said I didn't want to do that. He said he wouldn't cut off his 10 year old dog's leg either. He took more films .... cancer had spread everywhere.... so we put him down on the spot. It was totally unexpected. I had gotten everything ready for his return after surgery.... bought a ramp for my SUV, orthopedic bed.... new stuffed animal squeeky toy for his return. My only regret now is that maybe I shoud have gone for a third opinion....what if the orthopedic guy was wrong? I wish the first diagnosis had been correct. Miss that dog.

On a happier note.... this isn't a "diagnosis" story, but it's a true story from when I used to work at my vet's office. It was a bitterly cold snowy winter day in Michigan - (snow day from school for the kids). I answered the phone at the vet's office and a hysterical women was on the other end. She was at work but had gotten a call from the kids at home. She said, "I don't know how long the kids left the dogs outside.... but their butts are frozen together!!"  I said, "Let me guess, one's a male and the other a female." She said, "how'd you know?"  Really... this is a true story. We laughed at that story for years.

LOL!  Hope that one had a happy ending!

I thought I'd share,  just for fun, what was going on in my backyard a few weeks ago. I showed this picture to my vet, and we both had a good laugh over it:

The question I asked her was: Are you SURE you neutered him??

They were tied for a good 15 minutes. One lady I spoke to online said her vet told her it would be 'impossible' for a neutered male to tie with a female. I think she should show him this photo!