Sorry for the long post--feeling so worried and confused!

Anya hadn't seemed like herself for a few days. Rather than being a high energy maniac during the cold weather like usual, she was very lazy and spent most of the time sleeping. She would eat, drink, and go to the bathroom normally, but she would nap all day after a half hour walk whereas before it would take 3 to 4 hours to tire her out.

I called her vet to make an appointment; her usual vet who we adore was traveling, but we didn't want to wait, so we saw another vet in the office.

He felt her all over and said she seemed to be a bit tight/sore in her back. He said to give her a few days rest with only short leash walks, and gave us a mild painkiller for a day or two.

He also did blood work as a precaution.

It's been about 5 days since, and 3 days since the painkillers ran out, and Anya is back to her old self. She is a gleeful Northern breed bounding out in the freezing cold and begging to play 24 hours a day, so I thought we are all good!

But the vet called today to say while there was nothing major, there were some things that came up on hr bloodwork that came up as slightly higher than normal or on the high end of normal. He did note that her bloodwork was done last year by our usual vet, and those numbers were higher and her numbers now have improved. My usual vet never mentioned anything abnormal--she said Anya came out fine and nothing to worry about last year.

For example, her monocytes u/l came up 846 (normal range is 0-840). Neutrophils came out 10700 (normal range is 2060-10600). There were 1 or 2 others, but these were the greatest abnormalities.

The new vet said he isn't telling us what to do, but we can run a urinalysis, ultrasound, and x-rays to see if everything is working like it should. He raised kidney issues as a potential reason for the numbers coming out like this.

I don't want to assume he's wrong and our old vet is right (just because I like her view of Anya's health better!) but is it normal to do so many tests for such slight abnormalities when Anya seems so healthy? Is it possible that these numbers, especially since they went down since last year, are just normal for her?

If it helps give some more context, she's 3. We adopted her about 18 months ago, when she was very small and underweight and had been fed terrible food, so maybe the poor nutrition impacted her? What would you do?

Kat,

Please seek secondary advice. I dealt with a cat with kidney failure for 10 months, the numbers you point out do not represent kidney malfunction. These numbers represent blood/immune/bone issues. Using this: Corticosteroid medication (eg prednisone), will raise those particular numbers.

http://www.2ndchance.info/dxme-Neutrophils.htm, he is a retired vet, I often times will read his articles, and if you google monocytes u/l or Neutrophils with the words in dogs, it will be the first one pulled.

I am no expert nor vet, however, I do know bad numbers for kidney failure in a pet, and those numbers do not represent it. I would have a chat with my regular vet, the numbers don't seem real high, but they are elevated. Read the articles I mentioned above so you can ask if you need to be worried. On a positive note, the retired vet did mention that both numbers can appear high because of stress when going to the vet.

I wish you and Anya luck and hope there is nothing to worry about, I am of the nature to arm myself with as much info when going to the vet, so you understand these type of tests better. Personally, if your regular vet says don't worry, I wouldn't worry, however, i would insist on doing the same test in 6 months, to see where the numbers are.

Hugs,

Renee

Whenever I have tests that are slightly above normal or high normal, hubby rolls his eyes...says not significant. Hubby is people doc, not vet.

My take - if your previous vet was not concerned, I would wait until he returns.

amymeme wrote:

My take - if your previous vet was not concerned, I would wait until he returns.

I agree. This is why routine bloodwork is beneficial in healthy dogs in order to have a baseline for your individual dog. My boy routinely has slightly high numbers or high normals in some areas consistently which are nothing of concern.

What do you feed your dog? Has what you feed changed since last year? Diet effects those values and ours have a different "normal" since being raw feeders.

Within the 18 months we've had her, she's had 3 different foods.

Originally we had her on Fromm's Chicken formula, but due to eye allergies, we switched her to grain free.

She was on Great Life Grain Free Salmon for about 6 months, then about 6 months ago we switched her to Orijen's Six Fish which she seems to be doing very well on (her coat and overall condition seems improved).

Rijen is a very high protein, high quality food. I'd bet that might be causing the difference in values Raw fed dogs have different blood work as well.

Here is some info as it pertains to raw fed dogs:

http://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/normal-blood-values-and-raw-fed-dogs/

http://www.rawessentials.co.nz/media/documents/aAzotaemia.pdf

Not to step on toes, but I think some Vets like to convince owners that additional tests are needed when there may not really be any benefit in doing so. I felt like this with a Vet that I dealt with previously. I feel (or my opinion is) that it is unethical considering the way people feel about there animals, kind of praying on emotions.

Just wanted to update on this. We decided to wait until we could meet with our regular vet before going forward. When we met with her and discussed the blood results, she paused a little, then rolled her eyes. She said, "Not to put him down, but he's not familiar with Northern breeds and their need for higher protein diets".

She explained that Anya's diet, being very high in good protein, may cause her blood results to be different, as "normal" blood counts are based on studies in dogs with a lot of grain in their diet.

She said that blood counts are fairly subjective (unless drastically high or low) because dog nutrition is such a new science and we're just figuring out what is really good for a dog and what isn't. So she said for Anya's mild differences in blood levels, not to worry, it's just due to diet. If it was a more drastic difference, she'd be concerned, but since it's close to normal and she's on a good, high protein diet and has been responding well to it, to calm the heck down.

Thanks everyone for your advice and for talking me off the cliff!

Anya, here's a people take on blood work; I'm 68 so given all the wrong things I do my blood work should be very off ... I've had one VA doctor order a second workup because he wasn't willing to accept what he had in front of him.  I eat eggs, butter, cheese and my cholesterol always comes in low.  I've had my thyroid irradiated - I'm told I should be on life long medication - but my T1 is excellent.
I'm in good health, can do most of the things I want to; turning over a garden by hand is an invitation to a heart attack but it just runs me a bit short of breath ... (I really should stop smoking, I won't live to see 100 if I don't [huh???])  
All of that to suggest that if the blood work you're seeing is possibly a bit out of kilter and Anya is in generally good health then I think your vet really has the right idea.  If there are drastic differences between blood work done on different dates or if any of the blood work is drastically above or below the norm then I'd be concerned.  Since it appears as if you're talking about minor variations from the norm ... as she says, calm the heck down.

That said, each dog is different, just as we humans are.  I'd suggest keeping a folder (or a spreadsheet) of her blood work and seeing how it "graphs out"; if one thing is consistently a little high, then that is her norm, Obviously, if it's drastically high you have a reason to be concerned but a little above or below the "norm" is really often to be expected.

Just bragging a bit more on me - I smoke, drink coffee by the potful and have a blood pressure that is consistently on the low side.  The last time I had my BP taken, for some reason it came in at 145 over 90 something ... I asked the nurse to reset the machine and try again ... this time it came back in the normal 117 over 70.  
As I said we're all different and we just have to establish what is NORMAL and go from there.