A $2000 Dachshund

well, today was a long and tiring but very interesting day.
Our little dog, Cookie has been having really bad problems with her teeth and gums.
We have been fighting it for 6 months now and it just got to be too much.
Our regular vet said it was too extensive and complicated for her to handle so she referred us to a veterinary dental clinic in Charlotte NC.
We went up there today (we left at 6:00 a.m.).
It is a pleasant drive to Charlotte.
We found the clinic easily (Thank Heaven it wasn't in Charlotte proper but just outside the city).
The vet (veterinary dental medicine is her specialty) was absolutely WONDERFUL.
She was young but very knowledgeable, kind and patient.
She examined the Cookie monster, took her back sedated her did a full set of x-rays which took about 30 minutes.
Then she came out and showed us the x-rays and talked to us about what needed to be done.
It turned out the Cookie had very extensive periodontal disease and needed to have numerous teeth extracted.
We said go for it, that is why we came up here.
The dental surgery took about 2 hours.
We had lunch and shopped, just killing time.
Then it took another 2 hours for Cookie to wake up from the anesthesia.
The vet pulled 16 teeth!
She did a couple of gum flaps (a small surgical procedure to attempt to save a couple of key teeth) and put her on antibiotics, anti-inflammatory medicine and pain medication.
Cookie recovered very well...although our bank account won't.
Everything came to a little over $2000.
It will be worth it if her gums heal and she is happier, healthier and not in constant pain from a low grade infection.
what a long day.