greyhead

Considering the number of weeks this has been going on and her prior history of no stomach trouble, I would have Spriet's poop subjected to a culture and sensitivity test (C&S). I'd send it off today as it takes 7-10 days to get the results. If there's a bacterial overgrowth in the intestines, the colonized bacteria secrete toxins that are very, very damaging. It's a big deal. But it's not nearly as expensive as an ultrasound; $80 or so in my part of the U.S. After we found the bacterial overgrowth with our Spencer, we had to give three antibiotics, and he still wound up with IBD and will be treated for that the rest of his life. But treatment for IBD ranges from useless to harmful if there's an underlying, untreated bacterial fest in the intestines. Really not trying to scare you. Just offering our experience and support. We're thinking of you and Spriet and wishing you strength, energy, and health.

We got good information on the state of Spencer's intestines from ultrasound. And it sounds like Spriet can't do carbs, which Spencer couldn't either for about a year. Best of luck, our thoughts are with you.

I'm so very sorry that Quilty had to go. But it warms my heart to read this beautiful tribute and think what a perfect fit she found in your home. As always, thanks for being the surpassingly greyt grey-parents that you two are.

If this is Dr. Debra W., give her our best. She was our vet before we moved to a more southerly community.

I'll PM you more details if you like. But the short course for right now is Spencer benefited from acupunture and chiropractic adjustments from the very first visit and improved steadily over the first few months then held steady in a good place. He now gets treatments every four weeks but sometimes that seems a little too long. Now, after two years, his right rear leg has started shaking if he has to stand for 10-15 minutes. We're going to start at-home massage for that and will carry a sling on walks in case we ever get into trouble. I don't know anything about Cougar Mountain. Do they know they're treating with acupuncture for probable LS vs. generalized mobility troubles? I ask because it sounds like your vets/neurologist haven't been all that clear with you about what they think. That would make it hard for you to be clear with the acupuncture vet about what was desired in the treatment, I'd think. Just FYI, our acupuncture/chiro vet is Dr. Patti Shafer and we see her at the Family Dog Training facility in Kent. That's probably a bit far for you, plus she only comes up once every two weeks, on Tuesdays, from where she lives in Olympia. Not ideal if one wants treatment for an emergent incident, which makes me a bit nervous at times. (But I feel better now that we have a new ER that's closer than 17 miles away.) If money isn't a huge issue, an MRI might be helpful. How old is Asta? I'm sure you've already said, but I've forgotten. Spencer started treatment at age 7 and was diagnosed tentatively (i.e., without an MRI) by doing Dr. Stack's push test on his back end after I reported that he was tending to fall down if he tried to pivot around on his back legs. He was also stumbling on walks, which I later learned was from knuckling. All that cleared up with what we call "chiropuncture" treatments alone, no meds. We know he still has the problem, but treatment has slowed it down. Meds will come later, I'm sure. (It's complicated because he has IBD; perhaps the immunosuppressant he takes for that has actually helped reduce the LS inflammation.) Well, shoot, I guess I gave the details anyhow, so no need to PM. I'll gladly entertain any other questions you might have, though, and you have our full measure of good thoughts and support.

Did Asta ever get acupuncture? I live in your neck of the woods and could help out with a referral if you like. Our Spencer has probable LS (diagnosed without MRI) and has been treated with acupuncture for about two years.

Hopeful is good! Glad to see this update. Sleep tight with all our good wishes wafting in the air above you.

I happened across a very soulful (and dog focused) blogger yesterday. Her dog is still with her but she's thinking about how she'll feel when he's not and what kinds of things she'll remember. Finally she realized that what she'll remember most is not how he looked or what he did but rather the way she feels about him. That feeling will be her strongest memory and won't be going anywhere!

Egad. That's almost exactly the opposite of what a leading researcher at the same school told me. Don't you love it when you ask the same question and get two different answers from reasonable sources? The thing with PCRs is, you only have to catch one fish, you don't have to catch a bunch. That's the beauty of the technology. You got one piece of DNA, you got a positive. A single negative PCR isn't a guarantee, but it's a pretty good indication. Two different answers -- what fun! My researcher wasn't saying you need lots of "fish"; one's plenty. It's just that coming up with even one bit of DNA in the random blood sample you draw from the dog is very small because the bits are so minute and the circulatory system so relatively large. I did read somewhere that capillary blood is a good place to look for these bits because the narrowness of capillaries tends to trap stuff like that better than veins or arteries. But all you could get from a capillary would be a smidge for the vet's slide. It's interesting stuff to think about -- but not when it's your dog. I felt a lot better after Shane was treated and I didn't have to worry about it. Now it's interesting!

Yes, it helped! Spencer had SIBO and has IBD. He was put on Flagyl and budesonide for the IBD, but the poops didn't get completely right until we added Tylan. I think we started him at 1/8 tsp twice a day, which I put in a gel cap (size 00) because it's bitter. The other thing we did was give him glutamate from the health food store. The internist recommended it. He got to where he didn't need the glutamate anymore, but he can't seem to do without the Tylan. Hope this helps. Hugs and scritches to all concerned!

Not what I wanted to see in this thread. Thanks for the handsome photo, though. That helps. My deepest sympathy to Tonya and her family.

It may take more than a few treats to keep her tummy from getting too empty overnight. A small meal might work better. If dogs want your attention, they don't need to resort to barfing, which is not much fun for them. They're pretty direct, not as twisty as humans. Discussing this with your vet would be best. When our dog had a similar problem, though much less frequent, it turned out to be hookworm. Went untreated for too long. He later developed an infection and IBD.

I held a margarine container under my dog and got the sample, so it did come directly from the dog. Good luck.

Sorry to be unclear. A C&S test is a Culture and Sensitivity test. In this case the poop is cultured over a few days just as urine would be, to see if anything bad is growing. Maybe the main thing it reveals is bad bacteria, which cause SIBO, Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth. (I think it can also find fungus and other nasty things.) Vets may argue that the germs you find are the ones that are supposed to be growing in the intestinal tract anyway. Yes, but the size of the population is key; a vast overgrowth of them lead them to produce toxins, which lead to damage and even death. A couple other things. A negative fecal does not mean that there are no worms! Here's a link to a recent Greytalk thread that includes a spectacular explanation by LindsaySF: http://forum.greytalk.com/index.php/topic/254289-quick-question-about-poops-etc/ (Somebody please tell me how to reduce these links to a one-word thingy!) If your dog has developed an inflammatory response to what it eats, changing the food may only work briefly. Until the cause of the inflammation is discovered and addressed, the dog will keep having that response to each new protein you introduce. If it turns into IBD (inflammatory bowel disease), you'll curse every protein you previously tried because then none of them will be "novel" or useful again. You'll be hunting for kangaroo meat, only to find that the provider mixes the formula with white rice, which doesn't agree at all with most of the dogs we're discussing at the moment. That's why I'm always jumping up and encouraging people to not just change foods, but to do some testing to investigate the underlying cause. Especially when hooks have been involved already. They are nasty, destructive, and persistent despite treatment.

Oh dear. Same thing happened here. Also history of hookworm (bigtime). The drugs your pup is on didn't work for Spencer either, until we diagnosed his SIBO by doing a culture-and-sensitivity test on his poop. It took so long to come to terms with all this that he ended up with IBD. It took three rounds of three different antibiotics to kill the two strains of anaerobic bacteria that he had. I recently saw pictures of hookworm damage in a parasitology text in my vet's office. They dig channels in the intestinal walls. Very impressive channels. That's probably what makes these dogs more susceptible to bacterial overgrowth. I kept mentioning to my vet that the poop smelled truly vile (well, yeah, after 5 months of this kind of thing) and could surely reveal something! But they just kept doing fecals for worms! I finally calmly insisted that they run the C&S. I suggest you do the same. (I wasted lots of time on beet pulp, sweet potato, changing foods, and antibiotics that were too weak to work on a bacterium that could have led to gangrene and death.) Btw, on the hookwormsl, since they're systematized and never entirely going to leave, we use Interceptor monthly but still have to do an annual treatment using Drontal. Interceptor keeps them under reasonable control most of the time, but we still find Spencer has flares where the hooks are obviously having a convention in his lungs. We find the Drontal easier to administer than the Panacur for this purpose. Let me know if you have any questions for us. Especially about SIBO and C&S. Edited to add: The one thing Spencer couldn't handle after hookworms was white rice. Later he couldn't handle Iams either.

Okay, no heartbreaking yet, y'hear? Fluids are amazing, and there are lots of prayers and good wishes flying around out here. So hurry up, Wednesday, and get here!

What an inspiring story! You've been amazing kittie parents. I'm truly sorry for your loss; words aren't sufficient. We can only console ourselves with our memories and the thought that they're beyond pain. And hunting twinkies.

Even killing the yard won't help if the hookworms have migrated through the dog's body, which they do pretty easily, and taken up residence in their individual cysts. (If I were a hookworm, I'd encyst at the first sign of Panacur!) In any case, they continue their life cycle in this manner for years. So monthly Interceptor and possibly annual Panacur or Drontal may be the only answer.

Just seeing this and feeling terrible for you. We went through all kinds of stuff with Spencer's intestines a year and a half ago. I know how tired and lost you can be. Lots of prayers from us for Red, you, and DH.

Please keep us updated, okay? First of all, we care! Secondly, sharing your experience and what you find out may help other greyhounds just as their experiences will, hopefully, help you and yours. I know how much this has to be bothering you and Lucky too! Hoping you get some answers and relief soon.

I too can feel your heartbreak, all the way on the left coast. But first you gave Spencer a wonderful name and then a wonderful life, and apparently he gave you one back. I so hope the time comes soon that those thoughts console you. Meanwhile, I am so very sorry for your loss. :

Please go to the Technical Questions forum and second the thread I started to ask about doing just that!

You have to subscribe first and, I'm sorry, I forget how! You won't find a ton of stuff about babesia on Tick-L, and you'll have to do an archive search. But what you do find will be worth reading.

Shane had the imidocarb shots a couple months ago and was given atropine to mitigate side effects. He had no reaction to the shots at all! The atropine, however, did get him panting for a while. I did call NCSU beforehand to ask about the PCR and spoke to a 15-year researcher. She said she'd go ahead and treat for babesia even without PCR confirmation, for this reason: The test is like dipping a bucket in the ocean and hoping it comes back with fish. You know there are fish in the ocean, but the odds of the bucket catching them are pretty small. That's why all the experts I consulted, including the vet on the Tick-L forum, say that a negative PCR is meaningless. As Batmom will tell you, however, the odds get better if you do the PCR twice. So what you wind up doing will depend on a number of factors, including $$ and how much you fear imidocarb. Brucie Dad, I need to confer with you about your pup's autoimmune problem. Shane is having some problems lately that have everybody stumped. Don't want to hijack the thread, though. Could I PM you about it?

If Spencer really was "loaded", I'm guessing the first vet just didn't know what they were doing (sorry). Unlike whipworms, hookworms and roundworms don't really shed eggs in cycles. (Whipworms only shed a few thousand eggs at a time, and in cycles, so they often get missed. Hookworms shed around 20,000 eggs per day I think. Roundworms shed something ridiculous like 200,000 eggs per day). If he had symptoms for 9 months the first vet should have caught it. Unless the first two fecal samples were within the first month or so? It's possible that their fecal flotation solution was expired or the wrong concentration, they didn't let it float long enough for the eggs to stick to the cover slip, etc. Do you know how they were testing the sample? Direct smear, flotation with salt solution, centrifuge, etc? That *was* great info, Lindsay. Seriously, it should probably be pinned on GT somewhere! I was the one that mentioned Seattle. Hooks are here now but mostly weren't in 2005 when Spencer arrived. Within a month he started showing "aggression," if you can call it that, when he felt especially vulnerable and was diagnosed hypothyroid. That had to be a stressor for him, clearly, on top of all the other stressors involved in the haul from Kansas and adjusting to a home. Next he developed stomach rumbling, inappetance in the morning and, most telling, he'd whip his head around toward his intestines or even jump three feet sideways. I told the vets he acted like he was being bitten. (I was a new owner and had no idea that it might be worms and that some worms have teeth.) Their system was flotation, is all I know. After the first negative fecal, I kept calling with concerns. One day a new tech decided in 30 seconds over the phone that "it's the treats," went and told the vet, and came back and said the vet agreed with her. Went to a second vet, in a practice that had been treating several greyhounds at least. Their fecal -- I don't know their method -- also came back negative, and the vet said the problem was "probably emotional, it usually is." I knew that was wrong, but I wasn't getting any support from anyone, and I did not know what to do next. "Discouraged" is an understatement. Two months later I picked myself up and took Spencer to a third vet, who did a centrifuge fecal just as SOP for a new patient. I heard the tech call him from the exam room, "Would you come look at this?" He's the one who said Spencer was loaded with hookworm. This was August and the first fecal had been in January. It was at this point that I learned that the coughing up and swallowing that he had been doing was from worms that had migrated to his lungs. Basically, I think that apart from the methological problem, the first two vets just didn't take take the possibility of worms seriously. And they had too much confidence in their methods. And they didn't tell me what a negative fecal means and doesn't mean, nor do I think they gave it much thought themselves. Our current vet, which is now the fourth (because we moved) just automatically sends the samples to the lab for processing because the centrifuge equipment costs more than they can afford and they don't trust the other methods. It really bothers me to think how many people are told that the fecal results are negative and are left thinking that that's all they need to know. Which is why I think what you wrote should be pinned on GT.