chihuahua white blood cells

Question
QUESTION: Ihave a one year old Chihuahua I had her blood work done on Saturday they called today said her white blood cells are high they said they want to test again in a month what does that mean is there something wrong with my dog and if we wait month so should we wait a month to test again.ps she is in heat does that have anything to do with the white blood cells being to high...........Thanks robin

ANSWER: Higher white blood cells usually indicate an infection. Why was the vet doing blood work on her anyway? There must be a reason and if there is he must have told you why he was pulling blood and running tests?
I can't see why he wouldn't have.

Unless he was doing pre-op blood work for you to get her spayed, I need to know why he was testing her blood. Otherwise I can't even tell you much more than what I did.


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: I did what you said and asked around it's not part of a package at the vets I called.I think that this place Noah's wants my money.I did ask about the test they said the white blood cell mouocytes were 500 over and lymphocytes was 400 over I asked why they weren't treating her and they said that the overage is not bad but I could have her retested if I was worried.she is acting fine if she starts to act  I will find another vet and take her.I JUST WANT TO SAY THANK YOU THAT VET IS SOMETHING ELSE.one of the other Chihuahua had very red eyes you could tell she had an infection and they would not give any med until they did some kind of eye test flurescein stain to make sure there wasn't an injury to the eye that test was 60 dollars and of course it came back neg so for 30 dollars they gave her antibiotics and another office vist for 60 dollars.so needless to say by the time 4 chihuahuas got there shot and the eye test we got out of there for 500.00 dollars.thanks again robin

Answer
I am sorry you were getting robbed there Robin. The average person isn't going to know what is going on. That eye stain you had was done with  strip that cost the vet about 2 cents. It is always smart to do a test because you don't want to use the wrong drug on the eyes. However, the whole test shouldn't have cost more than $20 tops. So to me that is a giant rip off.

I think at some point you should have another vet test your dog to see what her base line blood work really is or go to the vet you had it done at and tell them you want copies of your records for another vet. By law they have to give you copies.

Then have the new vet look them over and see if she really is having a white cell overage.
That is the only way you will know.
There are still SOME good vets out there that work for the clients not just their pocketbooks.
Look around and thanks for letting me know how it went.