MaryJane

Before she goes out in the AM, I would clean her with some antibiotic solution and they try and get an early morning free-catch sample for a culture. When the sample goes to the lab for culture, ask the vet if they can make a notation to spend a little more time on the sample to see if there are crystal fragments - sometimes you can see them but it takes longer on the examination. If the lab tech sees crystals, then you have your proof on what is causing this. It would be interesting to see if there are also white cells in the urine in addition to the red, if so, then there is a likely irritation or infection. In your case, I probably wouldn't start any antibiotic yet until you get an answer on the urine. But, please be aware that I tend to be very, very conservative on antibiotics.

Try feeding hamburger and rice or scrambled eggs and yogurt. The wet kibble may be tough to eat if teeth were removed.

These have worked for me in the past: - cat food (I was told by my vet not to use for a long time) - yogurt and cheerios - peanut butter on crackers - butter on challah bread - eggs - canned salmon - mashed potatoes with cheese - pinto beans

I'm so sorry about this news .... A few years ago when I faced the same situation I did the amputation without having a confirming biopsy or aspirate. My understanding was even with a biopsy there was a chance that it would not provide a confirmation and the biopsy was very painful and could cause additional issues. My boy was in so much pain that I wanted to move to the amputation as quickly as possible. I might suggest that you send the x-rays to Dr Couto for a second opinion.

I don't know if these plants are poisonous or not - I suggest that you call the "pet poison hot line" in your area.

What about fax seed oil or giving whole sardines? You mentioned that he was on rabbit/veg elimination diet - is he on something different now?

Oatmeal also helps to firm up. I usually get results by the next day if I feed the in the morning with either hamburger or eggs.

My yard service was using "pet-sensitive" materials on my yard and my greyhound was still affected. My suggestion is to keep your greyhound inside as much as possible on the day of the treatment and the following days ntil you have a good drenching rain. When they do go outside, make sure that you wash their feet because sometimes greyhounds will lick them and as a result, ingest the chemical. This was one reason that I terminated my yard service and I now fertilize myself. I do 1/3 to 1/2 the yard one week and then the next week do the other half. I try and keep my dog on the section of the yard that does not have the fertilizer. I usually also make sure that I do it right before the rain.

The urine test stix have a hemoglobin patch on them -- check with your local pharmacy to see if they can order them for you. I have included a web site link so you know what they look like. http://www.anytestkits.com/utk-blood-in-urine.htm This way you can check the "first morning speciman" and if there is a problem, you can catch it as early as possible.

Do you know what they cleaned the carpets with? Is it animal friendly? I think if it was me, I would keep her off the carpet because it's probably still damp and would likely cause more irritation. You might also want to wipe her down with a wet cloth on the fur areas and wash her over the stomach and belly where she may have had contact with the solution. Also wash her paws. Greyhounds are more sensitive to chemicals than other breeds so you might want to keep her in a room that doesn't have the carpets until you find out what they used. It might be a good idea to call the cleaning company tomorrow and get the ingredients in the solutions they used. That way if it does get worse and you have to go to an E-vet they'll be able to prescribe something appropriate.

How much of the fish oil are you giving? If I were in your position, I might consider stopping the fish oil for a few days and see if the poop gets back to a normal color. Fish oil should not do this but, it can't hurt to stop for a few days. Also, check and see where the origin of the fish is along with where the gel cap is assembled. You could have some "not up to standard" product.

It could as simple reason such as when your dog was under anesthesia and moved from the operating table to the post-op cage, a leg might have gotten banged a little or maybe when he was still groggy he got himself into a contorted position and really didn't move himself out of it. These could explain a day or two of stiffness in an older dog but, I believe it's been a few days since the dental so I would have thought that it would have been worked out by now. You mentioned a limp, if he has pain in one of his rear legs that could explain why he is having trouble getting up. Seniors have a tough time using only three legs to get up from a laying position, they also have a tougher time than the younger guys getting around with a limp. How bad is the limp? Is there any swelling on the inside of the legs? Is it one leg or both rear legs? Has it been getting better or worse? If it doesn't get better, he's probably going to need an x-ray. Depending on who you use for a vet, they may be able to do it very gently without anesthesia and without "contorting" the leg too much.

Some machines might have a different value for controls but this is just to ensure QA in the labs. Thus, the crit of 45% should be repeatable on that same sample on different types of machines in different labs. You might expect one lab might have a value of 44 or 46 but another lab should not have a value of let's say 40. That would put it out of a tolerance specification. This particular test is a percentage of red blood cells to plasma and thus the values should be the same in Europe and US. For example, when I asked for the EOs count yesterday - normally they take a certain amount of blood make a slide and count 100 white cells that they see and identify the type of cells. Some places may count 100 white cells, others 300, it would still be a percentage. On the blood culture, it would either grow or not grow - but they may have done both an anaerobic and aerobic culture so there might be two results for this. They may also include the # of days that the cultures were allowed to grow for. The white blood cell count is usually based on a specific sample size and this could be different between the two countries as you noted but, if the analysis specification states normal values equate to 5K to 10K (approx) then you are using the same sample size as the US.

If they see bacteria in the microscopic quick test - they will usually ask for a "sterile sample" to culture. If they do not see bacteria (or white cells), the conventional wisdom is that there is little chance that something will grow out in the culture. They will not usually do a culture automatically because the sample most people bring in has not been collected in a sterile container. It's not usually a good thing to get treated with antibiotics when there is no evidence that there is an infection. There are exceptions like if you have a heart murmur and are undergoing "dirty" surgery and then you typically get an antibiotic pre-surgery. Super-bugs happen when you give an antibiotic that a bacteria is only slightly sensitive to and then what happens is that the bug develops a tolerance for it and is no longer sensitive at all. If you give the wrong antibiotic, you can end up destroying all the good bacteria that's holding the bad bacteria in check and that lets the bad bacteria get even worse. Also, unless you get something to grow in a culture, you don't know what antibiotic the bugs are sensitive to (there is no antibiotic that works on all bacteria).

Might I suggest that you post a picture?

I'm so sorry .... Lighting a candle for your guy.... Please update when back from vet.

If it is a possible case of diabetes, then I would be concerned about the "black tip" because diabetes can affect the extremities and make them more susceptible to infections and to subsequent gangrene. If this was me, I would keep this "on the front burner" and bring it back up to the vet if the sugar comes back high...

They have tested more deeply for blood infection both in december (before the claw), and in january (after claw). No signs. CBC diff is routine bloodwork and has been checked every time he have had his blood tested. Kidney, liver etc is also checked (by blood and urine samples combined) several times. Blood donors have seperate waiting areas, so do not think he catched something there, he is always alone or with my dads dog (also a blood donor) when we wait? Needles are sterile and disposed after each use. I see when they hook up the stuff, and needle, bad and so on comes out of sealed, sterile 'one time' bags, and are disposed in front of my eyes after use. (Scary that they re-used needles..) Did they do a blood culture? Do you by any chance have the EOs and WBC count from the CBC result? One other possibility is meningitis which might cause some of these symptoms. Someone already mentioned a brain tumor. Another cause could be a fall and a fracture of the skull.

Good to hear that's he's up and about!

There are five things that I think of: 1. vision which has already been mentioned 2. septicemia - blood infection - they should culture the blood. A blood infection could cause a multitude of symptoms and possibly the swelling. Infection could have happened when he donated blood in November. He also fractured his paw and has an infection there that is not healing - could be there are two bacterial infections and the antibiotics that he is on for the claw is making another infection (like a blood infection) worse. 3. check the eosinophil count in the CBC diff and see if it is elevated. If it is, could be an indication of an allergic reaction and could be the reason for the swelling 4. was a urinalysis done? A untreated urinalysis infection in people can cause confusion although I don't think this could cause the swelling .. 5. Can you check to see what type of cases were presented in the hospital when he gave blood. It could be that he caught something from another dog coming in for treatment. This will probably be very difficult to get, if not impossible but, your doctor might be able to get it. OOPs, thought of one other thing ... do they reuse the needles on the dogs when they give blood - if so, you may want to try and track down other dogs that gave blood. Re-using needles is not as uncommon as most people think - there was a case of a clinic in the US just recently that had an incident similar in that their sterilizing equipment was not working correctly (or something like that).

I did a quick search out on the web using "weight gain in emaciated dogs". The two links below are interesting. http://www.thepetcenter.com/imtop/recovery.html http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summa...86-31234926_ITM They sort of recommend not feeding more than the quantity per day that you would feed a normal weight dog and it seems they also favor calories from fat rather than carbos so more "puppy type chow" rather than adult. So in the case of an 80 lb dog, I take this to mean that he/she should probably not be fed more than 4 cups a day but with a higher fat content. Hmmmm .. not sure about this in greyhounds though because of their intolerance to large amounts of fat. They note that there is a "refeeding syndrome" where the dogs are fed too much to get the weight on too quickly and as a result, chemical imbalances occur in the body which in turn can cause problems. Theoretically from what I gathered in the articles, I suppose that if a starving dog is overfed and gets too many carbos, it could turn into the "fat" that you are mentioning that the "spay" surgeon saw. So ... this "fat build up" may not be a good thing and loosing weight (very slowly) is likely a good idea and then maybe gain it back slowly (I guess so it comes back correctly in some form other than fat). But, I'm not a vet or a nutritionist and don't pretend to be - I would probably take those articles and talk to some specialists and see what they say. If you follow up with your vet, I'd love to hear what they say about this so I have it for future reference.

Wonderful, that's great news!!! Are they giving you antibiotics to take home? yes...she said she's giving us antibiotics and pain meds. What should I feed him tonight? Will he even feel like eating since he had teeth pulled? She told me that he probably won't feel well at all tonight. If they say that he can be fed tonight then Yogurt (as noted in previous post) would be good if dairy is tolerated-- It's soft and it's cool. Canned dog food would also work if mixed with yogurt or warm water to make a soup mixture. Don't feed right after getting home, let him settle in and sleep for a few hours ...

Wonderful, that's great news!!! Are they giving you antibiotics to take home?

Do you think that the vet's scale was off for the weight on 1/12? I've put weight on fosters but that's usually AT THE MOST about 5 to 8 pounds over 2 weeks (ie .. about 15 lbs a month) and while these dogs were a little underweight, it was nothing like a "47 pounder". I'd be interested to hear if anyone else has experienced anything similar and what they fed to get the weight up.

I agree with this. This does not sound like hypothyroid symptoms. While hypothyroidism would cause the fur to be lost, there would not be any blood associated with it. This sounds more like an infection especially since there is some blackness at the end. Any chance that the tail was caught in a door or maybe another animal got at it when the dog was outside? You also mentioned you were gone, how long and who was caring for the dogs?