Ozziemydoggy

Nope here either. I do trim off fat if there's a lot of it, but that's it.

We let Icarus pass last Tuesday. Praise God he didn't have cancer, but his poor old man body just gave out on him. Our first senior, my heart dog, I'll miss him. One blessing though was we knew it was time. He's running now with his sisters and all the others with no more pain, probably hiking his leg everywhere he can.

Hmmm, we haven't had to use products in years either. However, I'm not sure it's because of raw. I will find an occasional flea on them during the summer, especially if we aren't keeping the grass in the yard mowed. We have fed raw for 7-8 years, and I don't think it has anything to do with deterring fleas.

I have not read this book, but can also say that the improvements happened much sooner than 8 weeks. What have you read so far in the book?

No kidding?! Wow. Well, I guess I should count my blessings that this is one time a lump has been benign.

I don't have any pictures, but it's pretty easy to describe. I'm used to seeing normal scabbing due to scratches, cuts, and bug bites, but the recent ones have really puzzled me. At the beginning of November I felt about a 3" oval on Icarus's shoulder, right over the muscle. I was worried that it might be a tumor, because it felt a little hard. We decided to wait a week to see what would happen because he didn't seem to be bothered by it. Well the following weekend came and it hardened a lot, enough to feel like a really thick scab. It didn't hurt him to touch it, it wasn't raised like a tumor, and he wasn't limping. So three days later I'm checking it again and it felt like a really big scab, enough that the edges were starting to peel away. The odd thing about it was his fur and everything were part of the scab, so that when the edge lifted, it was bare skin. The weekend came again, and the entire thing came off. There was a patch of bare skin about 2" with a small red dot in the center. It didn't bleed when it came of either. Now that it's almost 3 weeks later, his hair has grown back and the center spot isn't there anymore. I don't think it's a pressure sore because the area wasn't on any bones. He didn't scratch at it and when the scab came off, the area underneath wasn't red so I don't think it was mites. I know not having pictures doesn't help, but has anyone ever heard of this before?

Wow!! I WISH I could buy duck feet that cheap! The cheapest I've found is $2.50 per pound. I think they are way more than 1/2 oz each, unless the ones I saw were related to Godzilla somehow.

Thank you for your responses everyone! I can't tell if he needs anything extracted, but his gums do look a little red and has the the build-up of tartar or whatever it is along the gum line. I'm more concerned about his back teeth though. He eats fine, just necks now and nothing larger or harder than that, so that's really why I don't want to do a dental. I didn't even think about antibiotics though, thank you for the suggestion! I'd never thought about gel or peroxide, those are great suggestions. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Hello everyone! I've got a question for all you guys with seniors. Icarus will be 13 in January! His teeth are starting to show it too. We brush but it's just not helping as much as it used to. I'm really scared of giving him a dental at his age though. Am I worrying over nothing? What do you think?

I'll pray for Marx, and you guys too! Thank you for posting the positive news. It's never easy when one of your pups has to go through things like his.

Holy cow that's Argo too! He's always been hard-headed but even more so now. I just figured it was because we aren't as strict as we used to be.

It might have been a mild seizure. When Argo has his, his legs shake, his face contorts, his whole body shakes, he peed and drooled all over himself. It doesn't sound like Bow had anything like that, yeah! Just keep watching to see if anything more severe develops.

Hooray I'm not crazy! Energy11 - We haven't totally ruled out a brain tumor but since the seizures have stopped, he started pheno on January 4th and by now he would have had at least 3, I'm PRAYING that means there's no tumor.

Okay I know that sound like a silly starter, but I'm really asking in earnest. Ever since Argo has begun having seizures he has become more aware of smells, how things work, and manipulating his environment to get what he wants. I'm not saying that he was stupid, and since he's blind his sense of smell has always been good, but goodnight he's like crazy dog going for the goodies. Some things that he's begun to learn is how to open the fridge, how to get things out of the sink, how to get Icarus to go outside so he can get Icarus's spot, finding candy wrappers inside of coat pockets that are buried under other clothes, and opening doors! I know that a lot of people here have dogs that already do these things but Argo never has. We've lived in the same house for 5 years and he's never done any of these things. I think it's interesting and was curious if anyone else's epileptic houndie has been like this either.

He just started at the beginning of January. We first started seeing him fall on Saturday. We go back to have another blood panel done probably on January 25th to see how he's handling it. I'm not so worried about it since it's a normal side effect. I was scared that he had a stroke.