MaryJane

I'm so sorry to hear this. Is her leg swollen and hot to the touch?

You and your husband are playing and your dog wants in on the action. Your husband is in effect pulling at you and your dog responds by also pulling - however, your dog has bigger teeth. Your dog is easily excitable, I have had a few dogs like that. For example, if you started running in a yard, he would likely grab your arm because he thinks you are playing. Training is going to be the key - you need to teach him to "calm down". I also suggest that you keep the activities to the bedroom and shut the door (at least for a month or two and see if it makes a difference). Some of this is happening because the dog is new and just wants to participate in whatever is going on.

You may want to make sure that you stand a few feet from the doorway (on the other side) so the opening is not made smaller by you standing there. Make sure if there is a outside door that it is wide open when you want her to go through it, if it is partially closed it can set off the fear reaction again. Clear away all clutter from the doorways and make sure the lights are on when you want her to move from one area through a door to another area. If you are using the leash to lead her - set off on a brisk pace with a pretty tight lead so she doesn't have time to react until you get outside. Same thing when coming back in. I fostered a dog or two that had a fear reaction to a doors - it took awhile before it calmed down - it's not quick.

Vet

Is he limping at all ?

The poster seems to be trying to make a case of over-vaccination (one issue) and blaming vaccines for issues (2nd issue) - very hard to track which vaccines the poster is talking about as the post seems to wander quite a bit. I didn't post it so why should I provide any reference material for it ... sorry, I have enough on my plate without doing someone else's fact-checking for them. At the beginning of the post, vaccines (again, which ones) are blamed for seizures in greyhounds ... seems also likely that it would be the horrific injuries that occur when the dogs take tumbles when racing however, I have no proof so, this is my opinion. Can I get proof, not likely as that would involved tracking dogs at tracks and seeing what they are subjected to - so it will always remain my opinion and therefore, can easily be disputed by other with their opinions however -- if minds are left open, maybe debated about and minds swayed or changed. I personally don't believe in over-vaccinating dogs (or people) however, some vaccines are necessary for protection. For example, in my area Lyme is epidemic - as a result, my dogs get yearly Lyme vaccines as I made the carefully-thought out decision that the side effects of Lyme can be fatal if not recognized early enough. I thought about this one vaccine for at least 3 months and researched (read at least 50 books on the subject of Lyme) the ones available before I made a decision. Hopefully, a titer test will become available soon. I also do the rabies as necessary (3 years) because if I don't and my dog bites someone or gets bitten by a rabid animal, my dog could be seized and killed to determine whether he/she has rabies. My dogs do not get the flu vaccine because it is not epidemic where I am located and they usually do not get other vaccines unless there is a special reason. You mentioned that there are more immune issues today because of vaccines, however it would be difficult to lay this blame solely at vaccines as it could also be the chemicals in the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat -- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12505286.

I'm a bit confused here -- you seem to be making many statements that could be disputed -- meaning that you are providing little facts to back them up. Can you link your statements to reputable clinical studies that serve to prove the points that you are trying to make.

Gaba can do that although it is unusual that 200mg would do that. It can make a dog clumsy and unsteady on the feet - less coordination and muscle control. On the plus side, it does have a tranquilizer effect and can lessen anxiousness although usually prescribed for nerve pain which it can work well for.

You probably should not be walking at all. Any excitement is not good. The vet should be able to give you all the things you cannot do.

You need to get rectal valium in a liquid form that you inject into the rectum with a syringe and a canula (much easier than it sounds) - that is fast-acting, within minutes. The pills or suppositories just don't work well. Some neurologist are also using Keppra as a cluster-buster as that is relatively fast-acting although not as fast as rectal valium. Pheno is not a great drug - it works but has tons of side effects so most neurologist will start with drugs that have less severe side effects like zonisamide - your regular vet usually prescribes Pheno as they don't know the options. Try and get an appointment with a neurologist and chances are, that will be the only appointment you might need assuming that they might be able to do phone consults for later incidents. I understand how scary it is - Lucy at her worst was flinging herself against the walls - her GMs were that bad. Lucy is a dog that doesn't like anyone next to her and for more than a year I had to sleep right next to her so that if she started a GM, I could grab her and hold her to prevent her from injuring herself. She would be growling at me all night and I had to cover myself in comforters so that if she snapped at me, she wouldn't get skin. I also used the comforters to hold her during the seizures so that I wouldn't get injured. During one of her first GMs, she manged to cause some very severe gouges in my leg - so severe that I thought I was going to need stitches.

Yes, this is very scary however, it looks like you have rectal valium so you can make sure the seizures are not occurring close together. How many ML of the rectal valium are you using. It looks like you might be giving about 14 to 15 ml which sounds like the right dosage. Mu Lucy used to get 16 ml and she is about 70 pounds. If you have more than 3 GM seizures in 24 hours, then consider going to the ER for better control however, the rectal valium should be able to lengthen out the time between so you may not need to make the trip (unless the GMs are longer than 5 minutes). I suggest hat you give a high quality vanilla ice cream (make sure no fake sugars) after the seizure as it can help them to stabilize their sugars - not too much, just a tablespoon or two. You didn't mention what other meds the dog is on. Chances are you may need to increase the med or add a new one. Note that my Lucy is on 3 meds - Zonisamide, Keppra and Sodium Bromide along with rectal Valium for a cluster buster and she has been doing well for more than 2 years however, it took 2 years to get her stable (she had GMs too).

Larger cities will have higher costs so, your numbers are about what I would pay around Boston. I also suggest that you also look into getting x-rays of the teeth so you can spot potential problems.

They may not have let him out at regular times at the kennel and he got used to just going in the kennel and brought this behavior home. Or, he may have just stressed out in the kennel. If you don't want to have him sleep in your room, then sleep downstairs for a few nights so you can get up when he gets up and take him out - it shouldn't take more than a few days of this to get him back to the old routine. As already noted, do not shut him in the laundry room as that can make him more stressed.

I must have missed it in the text - can you provide the section where it says that the rabies can be deferred ? I see the section now - it's C. It is the Public Official that decides and there is little information on what classifies to be deferred.

I personally think that all the changes in the first few weeks might be too much for your new grey to absorb easily so, as previous posts suggested - either delay the adoption until you get back or see if the adoption group will keep the dog until you return.

Very high dosing levels - that would make me uncomfortable as excess can cause racing heart. Maybe talk to vet about stepping back the dose until you talk to a specialist and run further tests. Suggest that you include the free T4 along with the total T4 along with the TSH. They may also want to run the Total t3 and free t3 to get a complete picture.

This is true. If protein is coming out in the urine then, there is too much protein being given in the diet. The kidneys are responsible for filtering the protein from the body and if protein is being excreted, it means that they are getting through the filtering mechanism and as a result will eventually damage the filtering function allowing even more protein to get through. So, decrease the protein/phos in diet until you no longer get protein in the urine (you can get dipsticks and check it every few days yourself). And as noted, white rice is great in cases like this.

I forgot to mention that I used to use Metacam (about a decade ago) - it's a liquid which can easily be mixed into meals.

Thought this article might be of interest ... https://www.avma.org/News/JAVMANews/Pages/171201a.aspx

Do a home-made food with less protein (less phosphorous) and it can really help. You probably want to stop the jerky.

I get the Deramxx from Foster & Smith and it costs about $100 for 30 pills of the 100mg which lasts 60 days (Adam get 1/2 once a day). Sometimes Foster has specials and if you spend 100, you get a $25 gift certificate.

Wonderful news! Keep up the good work.

The T4s are low so even though the TSH is OK, this could be a pituitary issue which is causing hypo (not likely but possible). Greyhounds typically run about 1/2 the normal values of other dogs which would put the T4 values in a "normal place". Having said that, Jean Dodds book has the following statement - "Both Total T4 and free T4 are lowered in cases of hypothyroidism". This was found on page 87 of the 2011 version of book. Since the T4 tests also seem to be correlating with "hypo symptoms", then you might want to send to a lab that also gives a diagnostic evaluation in addition to the results.

I'm so sorry that this turned out this way. It sounds like you were doing everything that you could to help this boy. Sometimes, no mater how hard we try or what we do, it just isn't going to turn out the way that we would like.

I suggest that you make an appointment with a neurologist - they can discuss medicine options with you and are better qualified to deal with seizures over a long period of time. Pheno is not used as a first drug by most neurologists as they prefer to start with something a bit less damaging long-term so, they might prefer Zonisamide or some of the even newer drugs. Regular vets that do not know all the drug options for seizures, tend to prescribe Pheno. The issue is that it is difficult to get a dog off a seizure drug once started (can cause seizures) and as a result, you usually end up adding drugs as necessary so, the choices that you make are really important as your dog can end up on quite a few meds before you get the seizures under control. If your dog had clusters (more than 1 seizure in 24 hours), then there is a possibility of status (non-stop seizures) and with that, you need to get a cluster-buster that is given after the first seizure to delay any subsequent seizures. My Lucy has had seizures for more than 5 years now and is controlled on 3 meds of Zonisamide, Keppra, and Sodium Bromide along with a cluster buster of rectal valium.