greyhead

Lumbosacral stenosis? It can involve difficulty getting up and also having the feet point outward when walking. Our LS dog has never shown overt signs of pain, so the absence of pain doesn't mean the absence of LS. We have found it pretty easily treated with acupuncture by a holistic vet.

I'm so very sorry for your loss! When and if you feel up to it, perhaps you'll start a thread in the Remembrance forum and tell us a bit about Cushtie. Many of us find it helps us heal to do this when we lose our beloved pets, especially since the good folks of Greytalk are uniquely qualified to understand the particular bond that happens with a greyhound. In any case, take good care of yourself. Run free, Cushtie! :

Xena was an amazing cat, it's clear from your tribute. Thanks so much for sharing her story. I'm very sorry she had to go now.

I'm very, very sorry.

Same here!

Oh, thank God! Glad he's home and doing well!

Oh no I can't get involved with nothing like that. I was a cop for 8 years and I know from much experience not to get involved in anything like that. I'm probably naive to have to ask this, but what happens if one gets involved in something like this?

As splendid as he was gorgeous. I'm so sorry. :

Prayers for you and Lily.

Poor Connor and poor you too. What an ordeal! Hoping for a good update and a quick recovery!

Sending prayers for strength to all three of you. And for a good result. Given the nose bleed and everything else, has anyone looked at her head to see if a blood vessel burst or something?

Some advise against giving Immodium if diarrhea is ongoing for more than a day or two. If there are germs involved, a product like that just keeps them in the intestines for a longer time so they can be more destructive. One wants them out, not kept in! Given your other concerns, a conversation with the vet might not be out of place. Any change in behavior is noteworthy, and her reversal of policy on sun/heat is interesting. I have no idea what it means, but the any-change-in-behavior rule is what I generally go by. Edited to add: It's what I go by *now*, after spending months treating softserve yellow poop as if it were normal for a greyhound, only to end up with a dog with infected intestines and IBD. I learned my lesson.

It was thyroid in our house. Loss of fur on sides and throat were prominent. After correction he changed from fawn to the red fawn he had been before, and the hair regrew. Testing for thyroid isn't that expensive. And being hypothyroid involves a lot more deficits than hair loss, deficits which the dog will notice but you may not.

Prayers for you and your boy! I'm so sorry this happened. Please update us when you talk to vet.

Oh dear, I'm so sorry. Lots of prayers for you and Bea, and hopeful thoughts for Sizzle. Seriously? Wow, that's depressing.

Way to go Beau! Robin, I know how thrilled you must be!

Just found a really good comprehensive article on IBD. If a person could only read one article, this should be the one. Especially note that everything else (like SIBO) should be ruled out before testing for IBD, and that radiography, such as by ultrasound, should precede biopsy as it reveals the particular area of the GI tract that's problematic. And it's by an English doctor, Stripeyfan! It's from 2006 and billed as a "State of the Art" lecture by WSAVA. http://www.ivis.org/...erman1.pdf?LA=1 Hope Kelly's vet visit has gone well. Please let us know!

I just have to ask, why have you had to do so much walking? Good luck with the limping problem!

Holli, my heart sank when I saw Sunny's name. No dog was ever more loved and I'm so so sorry You're going to miss him. He is out of pain now, and I'm so glad to hear that that thought comforts you. Run free, Sunny! :

In dogs with histories like Kelly's and Spencer's (i.e., hookworm), it probably makes sense that the hookworm damage sets them up to be more susceptible to SIBO, which, uncured, sets them up for IBD. So it doesn't make sense to me to ignore the possibility of SIBO and try to just treat the IBD. IBD is an inflammatory disease, and unchecked bacteria are certainly inflammatory! That's the gist of my thinking on the whole matter. Here are the articles I was able to dig up quickly, which isn't to say they're the be-all and end-all on the subject. About SIBO in general: http://www.vin.com/p...VA2002&PID=2580 This is buy an english vet named Batt. His credentials are given at the bottom. Perhaps this would persuade your vet. http://www.upei.ca/~...0overgrowth.htm I'm guessing this old (1998) Canadian article characterizes the way your vet is treating Kelly. Though I think it's out-dated, it might be good for you to read what your vet is thinking. It states that IBD could lead to SIBO, which, as I stated above, I think is backwards in general. But this may explain one reason your vet is so keen to scope. (It cites Batt as a source, but his 2002 article above is, obviously, more recent and up to date.) About C. perfringens SIBO in particular: http://www.veterinar...?P=A&A=2239&S=1 http://www.vin.com/V...000/PR00425.htm This article from 2001 says that fecal testing for C. perfringens is "meaningless." Well, it worked for us. (And I'll happily explain why it's not meaningless if you like.) But the rest of the article is worth reading anyway. http://www.oaklandvh...D=162&Private=0 Ok, this article has this sentence, which refutes the fecal-testing-is-meaningless hypothesis. "Spore colony counts from a fecal sample greater than a certain number are associated with clostridial infection; lesser counts are often found in normal dogs without signs of clinical disease." I just want to add that scoping may not do him lots of harm. It surely doesn't pack the wallop of a surgical biopsy of the intestines! It's just that it doesn't make sense to do something invasive like that before exhausing the non-invasive tests like a culture-and-sensitivity on the poop! Hope this helps. I used to be an academic type, and apparently I'll never entirely grow out of it. Hugs to you and scritches to Kelly, Mary Edited to fix massive typo. And to note that I'd initially missed the fact that your "scoping" is the full surgical biopsy, not just endoscopy.

Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. Let me dash off some fast thoughts right away and then I'll sign off and try to dig up articles that might help you. (I gave one really good one to my vet; it used to be on the Internet, now I can't find it, so I'll see if she kept the hard copy.) And, yes, you DO have to educate your vet. I had to ask three times to have Spencer's poop tested for germs, as opposed to worms, before it got done. And even then I had to tell them to make Clostridium perfringens one that they'd tell the lab to test for. So not only do you have to educate, you have to insist, however nicely or not. Your dog, your money, and the vet loses nothing by humoring you. So don't scope, at least not yet. (We've managed to never do it.) Get a poop sample in and have it tested, by means of a Culture and Sensitivity, for bacteria. It will take a week or more for results. First they have to see what germs grow in the culture and then they have to see to which antibiotics it is susceptible. (For Spencer it showed three antibiotics effective on his two strains of C. perfringens, and it took ALL THREE to cure it. Each of the a/b's was effective up to a point, but we could always tell -- by smell and consistency -- that we weren't quite done when the each a/b course was supposed to be over.) If memory serves, the three a/b's in order given were Simplicef, clindamycin, and metronidazole. And I believe we had to double back then for a second course of clindamycin. He has been on metronidazole, which is also useful for IBD, for a year and a half now, though we've been able to cut the dosage in half. He also wound up needing tylosin (Tylan) permanently too, though that hadn't worked at all when we first tried it (because it didn't address C. perfringens at all). Scoping will not solve this problem, nor will throwing the usual a/b's at it, hoping that they work. IMO, scoping will just weaken Kelly further because of the anesthesia experience. Possibly, the sheer mechanics of sticking an object into the intestines will not do them any favor either. And as you point out and the vet even recognizes, scoping to identify inflammatory cells won't necessarily help with the IBD and won't do anything whatsoever to help with SIBO. I'm so sorry you and Kelly are going through this. Forgive me if I sound opinionated. The strength it takes to stand up for what you know in these situations is considerable. I'm just trying to support your strength with our experience. Bottom line with the vet: The vet doesn't freakin' matter. Your only allegiance is to Kelly. I know you know this. I'm off to look up articles now. Please, anybody else who can find them too, please do. Sweetdogs? MZH? tbhounds? Lindsay?

So glad things seem to be improving Robin! What are hoofies? (Spencer's nudging me to ask!)

So very sorry for your loss! Run free, Dusty. : :

Very, very sorry!