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greyhead

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Everything posted by greyhead

  1. Wow, that's a huge number of races! You must have given him the greatest of homes, as your lovely tribute attests. I'm so sorry for your loss.
  2. Just catching up to this and wanting to add my best wishes for Joe! From the commiseration department, and apropos of what Jen said, Shane was just in the ER for two days with high temp and BP. One of the things that makes him pant is gas (or having to potty), and Gas-X has been his friend the last few months. Hard to get an e-vet to take that seriously, and they don't have anything like that there. Eventually they said I could bring some in when I came. I said, "With rush hour I can't get there for two hours. You can't send someone to the store?!" But I got it there, they gave it to him, and his BP started to come down before they even gave him a BP med! I guess ER's are geared toward more drastic measures, but sometimes the "little things" totally matter.
  3. It is Unasyn, tbhounds. The head guy there is a neurologist, and we saw him this summer, which isn't to say we won't have to see him again! Shane is resting much more comfortably at home, so we're glad they decided to release him. He was still having peaks and valleys with the temp and BP, but not as alarming, and we're not seeing any evidence of peaks at home, knock wood. He'll be on Norvasc, Clavamox, and Zeniquin at home. They're suspicious of infection (maybe kidneys or TBD recurrence) and/or inflammation primarily. There's no evidence of cancer, though they're aware of the possibility, and possible immune-mediated polyarthritis as well. The doc wants to retest for Babesia and Lyme after the antibiotics are finished, and he wants us to treat with Panacur meanwhile since a larva was found in his fecal a couple weeks ago that could have been either round worm or hookworm. The regular vet hadn't been worried about that, but now... Thanks for everyone's help! Looking forward to sleeping tonight.
  4. Shane's temp came back down to 104 before I left an hour ago. He's on IV fluids with Baytril and another penicillin-based antibiotic with something added to make it stronger (Uni-something, I can't remember the name). They have him in a nice pen out where they can see him, with a fan blowing on him and lots of padding with blankets on the floor. They don't know what's wrong, but it's acting like an infection so they're treating him accordingly. His back end is weak and shaky. This is the first night he has ever spent away from home, and I'm afraid for him. The internist is taking over the case in the morning. Thanks for all your help.
  5. I'm so sorry for your loss. Godspeed, Blue.
  6. A quick departure like Penske's is such a shock. I'm so sorry he had to leave suddenly and couldn't stay with you longer. Sleep well, Penske.
  7. We wrap tramadol in little meatballs of cat food, and Shane gobbles them down too far to ever know what's in there! Good luck.
  8. Our first GH came already neutered from the track. Our second was neutered as a foster, and we weren't given the records of it, so I don't know if they did pre-anesthesia bloodwork. Sorry I can't be of more help.
  9. Is Foxy nipping at a particular place on her body?
  10. Warmest good wishes for Desi and for you.
  11. Oh, this is heartbreaking. You did everything you could. I'm so sorry.
  12. Holding you and Spartacus gently but firmly in our thoughts and prayers.
  13. I'm so sorry for your loss. Chellie didn't leave one minute sooner than she had to. Good girl, Chellie.
  14. I'm so sorry your beautiful boy has passed on. That was an amazing tribute, and Brucie had the *best* life with your beautiful family. Run free, Brucie. You'll always be loved.
  15. Carron, I'm so very sad and sorry to learn of Aquitane's passing. Hugs to you.
  16. Great news! Sorry they missed the fungus the first time around.
  17. We have the same kind of assist harness as Robin above, which are custom made by Carol Becker Rizzo of God's Greyts in FL. (ETA: Oops, hadn't noticed that Robin provided the link!) There's solid material under the chest rather than just straps, which makes it more supportive and more gentle. We have used it to help Shane jump down from the car and to come down the stairs. The coming down is often a hard landing, and then he develops a front limp. But I mainly wanted to mention that, at least for us and I think for others, LS hasn't been a linear degenerative progression in either of our GH's. They have good times and not-so-good ones, but they always recover from those (i.e., poop coming out involuntarily while on a walk or in the house vs. then going back to complete normality in that regard). Same with rear-end sinking. The one thing they both learned they could no longer do is pivot on their back legs! So if you have some bad days, don't be discouraged! Just keep up with the gabapentin and whatever until it just doesn't work anymore. Oh, and we did the Depo Medrol shots for a few months with Shane, and they helped a lot. But we had to stop recently when his kidney-disease status became bad enough that he can pretty much have any kind of steroid or NSAID again. Still, he's doing fine without them too, so that's encouraging!
  18. That tends to be lumbosacral stenosis. It's usually managed with gabapentin (and tramadol if there is pain). We have had two hounds with it and they managed well with acupuncture/chiropractic early on and meds later. Your dog sounds to me like a candidate for immediate meds. ETA: We also have worked to keep the thigh muscles up by twice-a-day walks of 1/2 mile or less. That might be too much for your dog at this time, but you may find that he walks better than he stands! Jumping is generally to be avoided. Lots of people have GH's with LS, and I'm sure more people will chime in with their good advice!
  19. Please don't underestimate the important role probably played by the antibiotic.
  20. Concur with the others who say this has gone on too long, so go to the vet! If it's an infection or small-intestine bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), it can permanently mess up the lining of the intestines and even be fatal, depending on the germ. It can also lead to intestinal malabsorption and inflammatory bowel disease. If it gets to the stage of suspected IBD, the vets will want to do a biopsy, which will be invasive enough to require anesthesia. You don't want to go there, right? Wishing you the best. ETA: The usual "fecal test" only checks for worms, not germs. Negative fecals only mean that no eggs are being shed at the time of the sample, not that there are no worms. Beyond that, poop can be cultured to determine if there is a bacterial overgrowth. At our house we found that to be money well-spent and, actually, life-saving. But it's not something vets do routinely, and I had to basically demand that it be done.
  21. Our kidney-disease GH is almost 12. I can't compare the numbers between the two dogs as ours are expressed in U.S. units, but Shane also has elevated creatinine and BUN. His other numbers are pretty decent, and he gets a thyroid supplement daily. The vet specialist said no NSAIDS at all, now or in the future, for his arthritis and lumbosacral stenosis. So he does well on tramadol (50 mg twice a day) and gabapentin (100 mg 2-3 times a day). As Metacam is an NDSAID that can worsen kidney function, I'd eliminate that for your dog too and perhaps get a glucosamine/chondroitin supplement. I've been told by others (confirmed by internist) that one can lose a dog with kidney disease very fast, like in a matter of hours. So treating conservatively is a good idea from that point of view. The other thing we do for the kidney disease is give 200 ml of Lactated Ringers solution, subcutaneously, at home every day or two. He perks up amazingly fast after his fluids! We're feeding prescription kidney food, but we supplement some days with such human foods as cooked ground beef and rice, dark-meat chicken (better for kidneys than light meat), 2% milk (he's not lactose intolerant), scrambled eggs, and Ensure (1/2 bottle at a time, total 1 bottle per day) for extra vitamins and calories. We fed 1/3 raw (2/3 commercial) to our other greyhound, who had IBD, and it's great food if you can manage it. We used that particular ratio just because we observed he did better that way than with 100% of either approach. Best of luck to you and Misty!
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