The trip to Sweden

My friend Aslaug and I decided that we would be interessted in going for this examination at the University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala, Sweden, with our dogs. But as time went by and the day came closer, we found that we hadn't thought this trip through. We had made an appointment with vet. stud. Anders Odhelius and his supervisor prof. Clarence Kvart that we should be there Saturday Nov. 27th. What we hadn't thought of, was that I had to work until 4.30 pm. Friday and that we had 500 kms to drive. On top of this, we should experience that the first snow also arrived that day! Right, what don't we do for our dogs? 

So we had to start very early, in fact so early that we hardly didn't get any sleep at all. We started from my house at three in the morning and headed for Sweden and Uppsala, and it snowed heavily and kept snowing. Another thing is that it is far between the gas-stations in Sweden and they open very late on Saturdays! We had gone 400 kms before we found one open and we finally could get some breakfast. But the swedes are good at keeping their roads free from snow though!

Finally arriving Uppsala, it was difficult to find the university. Even though we had a map and road-description sent by email, we found it wasn't right and we went wrong. But suddenly we was right anyway. I am certainly no good map-reader! But finally there, we was welcomed by Clarence and Anders and they served us coffee and cake before the examination. It was very exciting to be able to see how your best friend's heart was working, to see where the murmur is located and how serious it is. We even heard the heartbeats in a loudspeaker and I was very proud of my spoiled, little dogs, that they was able to lay still on the table for the half an hour the examination took. When my dogs was done, it was Aslaug and her dogs had to go through the same thing. This was an incredible experience and well worth to go through if your dog is in need for this.

After the examintaion and a needed coffee break, Clarence ask if we had any questions - and of course we had - quite a lot I'm afraid. I had dogs with heart-murmur earlier and thought I knew a lot about this, but God how much I learned that day, especially about medication, when is the right time to start and the symptoms to watch for before you start.

So finally, after 12 hours we were on our way back home again - just 500 kms more to drive. But the trip went pretty fast though, it had stopped snowing and we had so many things to discuss and talk about.

Hanne Gulbrandsen