Tuesday afternoon I took both Bozley and Nova to the vet...at the same time all by myself. They did SO good. :) Bozley used to hate riding in the car. He always wanted to be sitting right in my lap, refused to ride in the back seat, and would jump in my lap from the passenger seat as soon as I'd put the car in park. But now that Nova is with him? He rides in the back seat and enjoys poking his head out the window to look around. :) He just seems to have so much more confidence and is a lot more relaxed now that he has a friend. It's been such an awesome difference.
Our vet's office has never done appointments (except for surgeries). But ever since the Covid shutdown last year, they've implemented a check-in process where we can check-in using the app and then wait until we're closer in line to actually drive over there. The lobby was still closed until a month or two ago...so we'd wait in our cars and then do curbside drop-off and pick-up. Now that the lobby is open, we're able to check-in on the app and then wait in the lobby until the vet is ready. We waited in the lobby for quite awhile but Bozley and Nova were very well-behaved. I had a hold of their leashes so they never got more than a couple feet from me, but neither of them acted anxious at all. They were more curious about the other dogs than anything else. They got a lot of compliments about how sweet and beautiful they are. :)
Nova Lee weighed 58.5 pounds at almost 7 months old. We got her rabies shot and I also got her microchipped while we were there. Aside from that, we wanted to have the vet check out her skin to make sure she doesn't have an infection or anything. She is still scratching quite a bit, but the vet just recommended continuing the Benadryl for now to help the itching...rather than giving her an allergy shot (Cytopoint). Some of the spots where she's had scabs seem to be clearing up and we haven't noticed any new spots in the last couple days...so that's good! But other than that, Nova is doing great!
Bozley really just needed his annual heartworm test so we got that out of the way. :) He weighs only 56 pounds...which isn't that surprising considering he's such a picky eater! He doesn't look sickly...he just has a more "lean" build. He's always been smaller than the average golden size though (he weighed just 5 lbs at 8 weeks) so it's not too out of the ordinary for him anyway. But we are still working on finding the best diet for him. The vet talked about some prescription diet options that are good for allergies, but his food allergy isn't really the problem...it's the fact that he just doesn't want to eat the kibble that we've tried. He prefers wet food...but that gets pretty expensive when it's like 6-7 cans a day for a dog his size. We've been adding a can of wet food as a topper, but he still leaves most of his kibble uneaten. We just got some dehydrated food for him to try...sort of an in-between of dry food and wet food. He would get 2-4 cups a day of the dehydrated food mixed with 3-6 cups of water...making it more of a wet food. So hopefully he'll like it! *fingers crossed* I have never known a dog who is SO picky!
I just can't get over how well Nova Lee has merged with our family. She and Bozley bonded pretty much immediately. Where one is, the other is always close by. Shortly after we got into the exam room at the vet, the nurse took Bozley into the back to do his heartworm test. Nova immediately started whining and pacing between me and the door until he came back.
Next up is getting Nova spayed. Even though we've considered breeding Bozley, Nova isn't AKC registered so I don't want to breed her. Even IF we decide to breed Bozley in the future (Johnny wants to), I would rather offer him as a stud and be able to keep one of his puppies. But...that won't be for another couple years at least (after Ashlyn and her dog move out). I'm hoping to get Nova fixed before her first heat...so we'll have to do that soon.