Well, time for an update for those interested. First off, I had to work Thursday so my wife took Lucy and picked her up. I never talked to the vet, and don't have a lot of details on exactly what's going on. anyway, they cleaned her teeth and had to remove one of them. apparently, going by what my wife told me and what I saw myself, her teeth are in pretty bad shape. not terrible, but but she'll probably need more removed in a couple years. she's fine for now, but they put something on, or did something to, a couple of them that will keep them around for a few more years. as for Lucy, she's doing pretty good. Thursday and Friday were kind of rough for her, but she's getting back to normal now. amazingly, it hasn't dented her appetite.
She's on a limited amount of soft food for the next week, but she's back to her usual trying to get into the trash can, drag stuff off the table, and take the other dog's food when she isn't looking. but I guess the good news is, she has lost weight. when they weighed her Thursday she has lost 4lbs. not a huge amount, but she had only been on her new diet for 9 days at that point. so looks like we might have finally turned a corner on the weight thing. though I'm not quite sure how much soft food to give her to equal the 3 cups of dry she was getting. well, 2 cups dry and 1/2 can soft.
anyway, price wasn't too bad either. they had given me a best case price of $480 and worst case of $1080 with a 20% off special until sometime in march. that would have made it somewhere around $380 and $850 respectively. we ended up pretty much splitting the difference with it coming out to $640. and since it included everything including the pain killers and other pills she gets for about a week (4 a day) I can't complain. I think they're some kind of antibiotic for the gingivitis.
I guess she goes back in about a week to make sure everything is right, and then we'll get our instruction on brushing and any other maintenance things we'll have to start doing.