The holidays were wonderful with family and friends, and Josie turned 5 on December 14th-It’s her BARKday and her Gotcha Day. Not knowing when sh was born since she is a resuce-I decided years ago the first night I took her home would be her and my Special day.

With Dental Health Month in February-I decided to get a jump on things and get Josie’s teeth deep cleaned on January 12th. My vet clinic of choice is Conejo Valley Veterinary Hospital in Thousand Oaks California conejovet.com. I like going here as it’s open 24 hours, and lets face it-problems with our pets, just like us never happen 8-5pm. I had in the past done the non-anesthetic dental cleaning procedure which is a dental cleaning completed without anesthesia where your pet is restrained using gentle, proprietary holds that ensure the pet’s safety throughout the dental procedure, but it was time for her to fully get checked.

If you are like me-you never want to opt to have your pet put out-but in doing my research many diseases are caused in the gum areas and like us, in order to really see what is happening you need X-rays etc. In addition, I opted for the outside blood test since we had time to make sure before Josie was going to be put out-everything was fine. This was an expensive test-I believe over $300 dollars, but I knew it would give us a baseline for the future and tested for more things than the less expensive in house test before going into surgery. I originally wanted Dr. Jason Sweitzer, DVM to do the surgery, but he was not available so Dr. Cris Fontes, DVM stepped in and was wonderful. He was kind enough knowing Josie and I do T.V. to take some pictures for me-see attached, and Wow you can see a difference. Josie was ready to come home later the same day, but really laid low for two days. All dogs react different, and I was glad to hear all was a success and he saw no issues. As a Dog Mom-one of the worst things I don’t do is brush her teeth enough, or consistently-which I am sure most of us are guilty of or am I alone? However, once the tarter builds up-it won’t brush away so I am trying my best to be more consistent. I have a few options, and truly depends on the day what I use, but liking the traditional finger brush I put toothpaste on or jaxandcali.com/toothbrush-wipes that also are easy to use and great. Anything I post here as well are products that I have personally tried, or purchased, and not being paid to promote.

The rest of January was pretty fun, and we did a fun photo shoot with a friend, and played or went to the park every day, or for a walk. Fetch is life for me, and almost forgot- my Opa left on a trip around the world. If you follow me on Instagram-@firsttimefurmom- I take lots of walks with my Opa (Grandpa) when he is in town and snuggle too. We have lots planned for February-and glad we can check off-Dental cleaning for this year.

g to promote a website we like to shop at, or a foundation doing good things- This month it’s lucypetfoundation.org Please check them out and support if you can. I seem them filming at my local park, have met many of their dogs who do T.V. and just love their mission.

Please try to adopt or rescue when Pawsible,

Dawn McCarthy
IG- FirstTimeFurMom