MaryJane

This just crossed my news feed. https://vet.osu.edu/vmc/cto/clinical-trials/dogs-forelimb-bone-tumor-osteosarcoma

I might suggest not going the first week as you do not know your dog and what they are capable of. It could end up being overload on your dogs with so much that is new going on. I would suggest instead doing walks around your area and bonding with your dogs and getting started on training. If your dogs can handle 10 to 20 minute walks, then increase it to 40 minutes or so. After 3 to 4 months then try out the dog parks however, ensure that your dogs have recall to come back to you immediately just in case there is an issue.

I've been feeding my dogs oatmeal for their breakfast (with rice, honey, milk, and meat) for more than a decade - they are doing awesome and in addition to helping to keep the poop firm, it will grow hair back - takes a awhile though, 6 months to a year.

I should add that this high temp/panting seemed to happen when they got my dogs up and moving after a procedure so hard to say that it is the temperature or the panting or the result of the anesthesia causing the panting and increasing the temperature or the stress associated with coming out of the anesthesia (so many factors). I made sure to keep my dog inactive when this occurred and I passed these instructions to the hospital staff as moving the dog seemed to make the situation worse. They would use cold towels and a fan and temperature would return to normal within 20 to 30 minutes (under 101). FYI -- they may have given gabapentin to help relax the dog, it takes about 20 minutes to take effect.

I'm really rough on remembering all the actual theories here but I think that the high temperature (happens with some greys coming out from anesthesia) causes the rapid breathing and that leads to deprived oxygen. It also affects the CO2 balance as I remember. This is one link that I found - there are more (search for - dogs high temp low oxygen) http://www.petmd.com/dog/conditions/cardiovascular/c_multi_hypoxemia I hope the dog is OK. I'm finding from situations that my dogs have been in that once the temp hits about 102.5 is a stressed situation (usually coming out from anesthesia but not limited to that), it is likely to keep climbing so cooling measure need to be put into effect immediately - again, this is just my experience.

Wonderful news !

I suggest that you do a higher level of Tramadol and maybe add Gabapentin. You need to stay ahead of the pain. When Adam was waiting for surgery for his osteo, he was getting a Tramadol every 6 hours and Gaba about every 8 hours.

I suggest that you read the Osteo thread - there is good information in there. http://forum.greytalk.com/index.php/topic/318606-osteo-thread-part-9/

You note that you do not care for the other dog -- it could also be that your dog is picking up that up and reacting to it. It might be that you see that the owners are not controlling the dog well or something else that is making you leery of being close. If you think that the other owners are not controlling their dog, consider carrying a walking stick.

I'm sorry that you are facing this issue. I would imagine that your dog can smell and hear the other dog pretty well and knows when it is near. It sounds like Polar may be nervous/scared of this other dog and probably being blind has something to do with it. My impression is that Polar does not trust this dog and is letting both you and the other dog know it. Your dog, being blind, cannot protect himself well and is being placed in a situation that is not safe. He needs to feel safe that you will protect him. I would suggest avoiding the other dog for the time being and not put pressure on your dog to adjust to this other dog until he adjusts to being blind. If you see the other dog, just turn around and go the other way. You might want to let the other people know what you are dealing with. At some point in the future, you can try and desensitize your dog to the other one but they would also have to do the same with their dog.

FYI -- University of Penn looks like they might have some new clinical trials for osteo either upcoming or in process so make sure to check the AVMA database if your dog is newly diagnosed. I just talked to the company producing the osteo vaccine - it is still in process and they are waiting to go to next step and that looks like it will be a another larger study rather than being available to public.

Your dog is probably giving warnings/signals before the event happens, it is just that most people are not keyed into recognizing these signals for what they are. If a dog starts licking the lips, looking away, pulling back a bit .. these are just some of the signals that a dog can give when they are not comfortable in a situation. There are some great books out there on signals that dogs give when they are uneasy - hopefully some people can recommend some. Note, once you recognize the signal, you can then try to de-escalate the situation and that would hopefully result in "no strikes".

I never "school" trained my puppies until they were older and as I remember, that was between 6 to 12 months old. Before that, I focused on house-training (& words for that) and playing with the puppy. I would spend time throwing the ball and using that to teach "come". I would also spend time with "sit" and "lay down" but not heavy training sessions, more like short play training sessions of 5 minutes or so. I would also spend time walking the puppy and doing a little bit of heel, stay, fast. slow and so on ... Be careful about over-using the word "no" and instead distract the puppy to do something else. The word "no" can lose it's value in training. I tend to use a sound like "ehhh" to let my dogs know that I need their attention and to stop what they are doing and I don't yell it. Depending on the breed, the puppy phase can last up to 2 years but, be aware that some breeds act like a puppy all their life. As they grow - they will go through the shoes, books, papers, plants and so many other things. Not to mention couches, chairs, pillows, and so on..... The antics associated with a puppy are fun - that's why people get puppies. The puppy should make you laugh and smile -- and your heart feel lighter ... Puppies are cute for a reason, so people will hang in there through the tough patches.

A few weeks is not long enough - it may take a few months. I had a food aggressive boy for a few weeks but it was not long enough for him to completely trust me - he would bite the hand. He made progress but, not enough to be adopted by just "anyone" and luckily, he was eventually adopted by a trainer who could deal with the issue. As Greysmom said, he needs to learn to trust and that means just giving him the food and no testing, let him get comfortable and not feel like the food is going to be taken away. Let him eat by himself and keep everyone away. When you do feed, keep a long leash on him (not holding it) just so you can move him away from dish if necessary. I also would NOT do treat training - that might reinforce anxiety over food.

You might want to remove her collar - the head bobbing that happens with front amps can cause collars to also bob and if there are tags, can hit them in the face. You might want to get a harness to help just in case she gets tired on the walk and having the leash from the harness is just better overall than from a collar. Mine gets tired so I just do shorter walks and I have him on a long lead unless I am helping with some of the weight by using the harness. I'm actually thinking of taking up running because it seems that walking is more of an effort than running for tripods. edited to add -- I asked the forum about harnesses for tri-pods - that thread might be of interest to you http://forum.greytalk.com/index.php/topic/321136-harness-for-a-front-leg-amp/

With a puppy, you have to take them out right after -- 1. they wake up 2. they have been playing, 3. they eat or drink 4. every hour pick a keyword and use it often along with praise - I would not use treats.

Try using the FB page - Greyhound Sitters Exchange - they have a file that provides a list by state of greyhound sitters. https://www.facebook.com/groups/362259110628359/

I checked the website for the vaccine that is out of U Penn and it is still at pre-release. This is the link - go down about 1/2 the page and you will see the Osteosarcoma vaccine. http://www.aratana.com/pipeline/ Meanwhile, Adam developed a rash (pustules ) on his back legs and the oncology & dermatology teams at Tufts checked him and it does not appear a reaction to the chemo - looks like a bacterial dermatitis and they are not concerned as of yet. He will be on antibiotics for 3 weeks and depending on how he looks next week, we can still proceed with the chemo ...

If you have to walk - walk places where it is very quiet and very little activity. Everything is so new to your new companion that Reggie doesn't know if he should be scared or not - so he just stops. This was a problem I encountered frequently with my fosters and I ventured out into the world very slowly with them. Sometimes I would just go to the end of the driveway and stand there for 10 minutes or even less if the dog started to get nervous. After a few days, I could go further just as long as there minimal distraction - if there were too many cars, too many people - it would set us back. You can get past this and it usually just takes time.

I'm going to suggest that you bring a first morning urine specimen into the vet and have it checked for specific gravity. If it is between 1.020 and 1.030 then, your boy may have some trouble concentrating urine and might be drinking more water because of that. One of the reasons that they drink more water is that it takes more to filter out the protein they they digest - so you might want to check to see the protein % of what you are feeding and maybe dropping it to a lower % and see if it makes a difference. It can also be caused by a food allergy usually to a protein in the food so you might want to try a Limited Ingredient dog food and see if that makes a difference. One of my greyhounds could only have a certain amount of protein a day and if I gave him more - he would be drinking and peeing up a storm. He also had food allergies and that would also cause him to pee all the time.

It might be that Arcana has changed the formula - you could try checking with them and see if they will share information. Please note, they may not tell you although, they might be interested that you are having a problem with their product (could be a bad batch). Hope Rudy gets better.

My conversation with the Univ of Penn that did a study on the vaccine suggests that they are looking for a September release - but that was about 2 months ago, timelines may have changed. Hope everything goes well with the chemo.

I would wait at least a few weeks before doing any formalized training so that you can develop a relationship and before that, you can do much of the training yourself on a side street. The problem with Petco/Petsmart type of training is that the trainers are not really knowledgeable and they can tell you that it is OK to do things that are not so much ok especially for greyhounds. For example, one class that I went to, the trainer wanted me to let my dog off the lead -- that was not going to happen and I am sure enough of myself that I let the trainer know - others might be willing to assume that the trainer is right and put their dog in jeopardy. Another trainer that I had (at an excellent place) was way to "positive reinforcement" focused and just believed in shoving treats down my dog's mouth. I also stopped that and only treated few times during the session (not as a bribe). What I do find invaluable and the reason that I take my dogs to training sessions like this - it allows you to train your dog to ignore other dogs. It also helps that there are distractions so that you can make sure that your dog is focused on you and you focus on protecting your dog. It's a good place to train your dog to move closely with you so you can get by people/dangerous situations a quickly and safely as possible.

Can you try a white fish like tilapia (not salmon - too oily) ? This is what I feed my IBD girl and she gets it with white rice and some veggies. I bake the tilapia (do not give raw) for about 10 to 25 minutes depending on whether fresh or frozen. As others have said - stay away from chicken including chicken broth. I don't know what has changed in chicken processing/farming but, it always make my dogs sick. Hope she feels better ...

Update on the White blood count information -- I talked to the oncologists at Tufts for a bit today and they are also talking with Dr. Couto. As a refresher, the 2nd chemo for Adam had to be delayed because his count was 1.8 which according to Tufts level was too low (their low level is 2.5). His white count today was OK, so he had his 2nd chemo. However, a few days before his 3rd chemo in 3 weeks, we are going to do a blood draw and see what the value is and then the day of the chemo, he will get another blood draw. If the count from the "days before" and the "day of" indicate a white count that is increasing, they are going to look more favorably on doing the chemo even if the values are lower than their limit but, not as low as the 1K. If however, the "days before" and the "day of" values indicate that the white blood cell count is decreasing, then chemo is likely to be pushed back a few days unless the level is above their limit of 2.5. So while a level of 1K might be OK - it really depends on whether the count is increasing or decreasing and it also depends on how comfortable the oncologist staff is on working out of their "black box" of experience. And to throw in another factor, what Adam was running for white counts before (luckily we got blood every year). Many "ifs" here .... however, we are leaving it that every potential chemo event with Adam is going to be a consideration of many factors and which at this time, both the oncologist team and I are happy with.