[paulapoo]

My old vet,(very expensive) 60.00 just for the visit, she thought Oliver had demodectic mange. He had ONE small spot on his neck of hairloss and it was slightly darkened. He did not scratch and it was NOT red. I did extensive internet research on all the different types of mange and I was convinced that was NOT what he had, but I'm not a vet. So finally I relented and she did a skin scraping. The first one wasn't that bad. Oliver did ok. She sent the tech back in the room because they did not see mange on the scraping. The tech said she was going to scrape AGAIN. I reluctantly agreed. Oliver likes to be held straight up with his paws and head on my shoulder so I held him like that while the tech did ANOTHER scrape. This time she went deeper and it hurt my boy so bad he actually pee'd on me. Poor baby. But the moral of the story is.... He did NOT have mange, she gave him a round of steroids and some spray and it went right away. I refused to pay for the scrape because I was against the idea all along and it was VERY expensive, not to mention Oliver had to endure it twice just because she was so sure of her diagnosis. I don't remember how much. I know they have to rule things out, I just wonder why the small dose of steroids wasn't their first treatment option. I don't go to this vet anymore. Sorry this is long.