MaryJane

I'm so sorry for the loss of your gentle girl.

Try sprinkling some parm cheese on top. If he eats it then he's probably just bored with the food you are feeding him. Sometimes mixing a touch of ketchup into the food gets their interest up. You could try smashing a sardine into the food. One of mine used to love cheerios - you could try putting some of that on top. How much are you feeding him and how much does he weigh?

Can you x-pen him in the kitchen for the interim? He'll have room but the area will be confined and more easily cleanable. He's still relatively new and getting adjusted and maybe if you are coming home, letting him out and then going back out - he's just getting lonely and anxious. Can you try and stay home for a few days at night and see if it makes a difference? To check for a UTI you can get a sterile container from the vet and get the first morning specimen - that's the one that is most concentrated. When you get home and take him out - how long is he out for? Does he get a full 30 to 40 minute walk be fore you leave again?

Is she drinking more water? Have her kidney values been checked? Did they do a culture for a UTI or just check under a microscope?

Can you wait until he lays down? Either that or do one foot a day - sometimes I find that doing 4 feet in one session might be too much . Keep a treat in your pocket and if he smells it, he won't go far. You can also try giving a treat after each foot.

What was his urine specific gravity and is there protein leaking into the urine? Did the vet put him on a kidney diet?

Get him into the vet as soon as possible. No way is yelping when going to the bathroom a normal condition - I would guess that there is"pain". The fact that he vomited earlier is also troubling as there could be a partial blockage. Keep on feeding him. maybe smaller amounts - the vet will need to know whether he is eating or not. Feed hamburger and rice instead of kibble because the kibble can be hard on his GI tract. If you don't feed, the dog can start vomiting bile from not having anything in their stomach and that can create a whole set of other problems.

If your dog has kidney issues in that they cannot successfully excrete the protein waste and it builds up in their blood (BUN/Creat level) - then they will need to have less protein but, a better protein (more usable). If your dog is spilling protein into the urine, then there is a problem with too much protein as it is not getting filtered correctly (protein on a dipstick). If your dog cannot concentrate the urine to put more waste into it (specific gravity) then there is also likely a kidney issue and the more protein that gets fed, the more liquid will need to be used to "process" the waste. You do need to watch the phosphorous. I have had two kidney diets formulated by a leading veterinary nutritionist and the bottom line was "less protein but better protein".

I'm so sorry.

Have you ever tried just hamburger and rice - some greyhounds have food sensitivities and I've found that chicken is high on the list of problem foods. One of my current greyhounds cannot have chicken at all and if he does, liquid poo. He does great on beef like hamburger of roasts.

very handsome boy - love the expression !

What town are you in?

Anal glands need to be checked- they are probably infected. Need to put dog on either yogurt or probiotics to re-establish the normal bacteria in the gut. Change the dog's diet to cooked hamburger and rice to soothe the GI tract for about a week or two and see if there is a slight improvement - if there is, add some cooked oatmeal (tablespoon or two) into the food as that contains fiber and helps to firm up the poop.

With any new fosters that I have they go out -- 1. after they get up from sleeping/nap 2. after eating 3. after playing 4. at least every 3 to 4 hours (in the beginning until you learn their schedule Do you use any "code words" so he knows what you want him to do? If not, start using them when he does it and praise. Then when you need him to do it you can keep on saying the code word over and over again.

I'm so sorry for your loss.

If it is working keep on giving the cooked hamburger for at least a week and then try switching back to raw. You might also want to give some probiotics or yogurt to get the normal GI bacteria up to normal levels. Having the rabies vaccine could have thrown the immune system into a spin and that could be why he can't tolerate the raw just yet. It could also be that the raw has some bacteria in it that they cannot tolerate although from my understanding, most pre-mixed raw goes thru some intensive testing. Maybe the raw food went bad in the store??

I would get her off the Soloxine, keep her off for at least 2 months, and then reassess to see if you want a premium panel done at MSU (Michigan State University), with interpretation by them or by OSU's Greyhound Wellness Program. The panel should include fT4ed (free T4 measured by equilibrium dialysis, the most accurate method) and TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone). T4 is not an appropriate diagnostic tool. It fluctuates greatly -- it can be zero at one point in the day, up in the 2's a few hours later, etc. A dog should never be medicated on that basis. I do not understand why adoption groups and their vets do this. Despite the popular references, nervousness is a hallmark of excess thyroid hormone, not the lack of it. I'm sure some hypothyroid dogs are nervous, but it isn't a defining symptom of that condition. For a diagnosis of hypothyroidism, you want to see a very low fT4ed AND a well-above-normal TSH AND symptoms indicative of hypothyroidism. Note that you can't compare T4 (or any other measurement) between laboratories without knowing each lab's normal ranges and adjusting for those. A 0.5 at one lab might be equivalent to an 0.8 at another. Or it might be equivalent to an 0.2. It has become popular to interpret these measures as if there were one true level that is correct; that's erroneous. Laboratories have different measurement methods and different ways of establishing their normal ranges. There is considerable evidence that for greyhounds and some other sighthounds, the T4 can measure zero repeatedly and be normal. That doesn't mean these dogs have no thyroid hormone. It means the measurement techniques simply can't detect the amount that is present. Even in the "old" days (not so long ago), many people felt that a ballpark T4 for a greyhound would be normal if it were in the neighborhood of half the low end for other breeds. Even by that criteria, 0.5 would be normal for a greyhound at most labs (remember, you have to know the individual lab's normal range). I'm not against meds. But, despite the experience of some on this board, I really question what is going on when a dog needs meds to hype up (soloxine) AND meds to calm down (xanax, clomicalm, etc.) at the same time. I have never personally seen a case in any breed where both types of meds were truly of benefit. And I have seen several cases where using both types of meds resulted in damage to the dog and to the dog-human bond. So I would be very very cautious and ask a lot of questions before going down that road. In my experience, techniques like the hand-feeding mentioned and ordinary, matter-of-fact training can do a lot for a nervous dog. These things take some time, persistence, and much patience but are well worth doing. Good luck with your girl. I agree totally with Batmom on this and I had stated such earlier in this thread. Why would you consider getting pills to calm her down when she is on pills to get her "hyped up". Get a vet and work together on getting her off the thyroid pills and then redo the tests. Also, do not stop the pills suddenly - they need to be weaned off thyroid medication.

What I usually go by is the protein (in grams) in 8 ounces or 1 cup of food (home-made or kibble) rather than the "percentage" they give you on the label for the protein. The vet nutritionist that I consulted also used the same method. Larry gets a certain number of grams of protein a day based on his weight and that is broken up into meat, rice, oatmeal, beans, and grits.

Chances are the hamburger and rice are not going to be enough (it will help but, not likely cure what is wrong) - you probably need to culture the poop to get the right antibiotic.

The reason that people might consider fasting a dog is because most people feed kibble and that just causes more GI distress in a case like this because it is not easy to digest. I never fast my dogs because they are fed home-made. Try giving something easy to digest -- that's why I suggested hamburger and rice. If you want to still do the raw then buy a roast and sear the outside and keep the inside raw and cut it into chunks and give that with rice. Also, if you don't feed, you might run into issues of vomiting because of no food in stomach and that makes the diagnostic process harder.

yogurt and cheerios - this was the only thing that my angel Onyx would eat after his chemo treatments. Also vanilla milkshake, spaghetti, flavored oatmeal, cat food, sardines, toast made from challah bread with butter.

Getting any vaccine ends up being a load on the immune system and I'm thinking that with the recent vaccine along with feeding raw he may have picked up something that normally he could handle but with his system slightly stressed out he couldn't. Doesn't explain why your other dog is sick but, you didn't offer much detail on that so I'm thinking that it might not be the same thing. It looks like this has been going on almost two weeks so IMHO, get a culture on the poop. You might need different antibiotics then what he is on. Usually the metro helps within a day or so - so this is another indication that maybe you need another vet trip and a culture. For the short term, feed cooked food to the dog that is sick (hamburger and rice) - it may be that the food was bad (lack of a better word) and only one dog -the one with an immune system exposed to the rabies vaccine couldn't handle it. It could have been a virus that was picked up at the vet but, after two weeks I would start looking at other possibilities.

I'm sorry to hear that you're at the vet so much. I find that it comes in bunches for my dogs - I won't go for a few months and then it's one thing after another and then calms down again. As to the diarrhea, it could be worms, it could be nervousness about being in a new situation - it could also be food allergies, not enough fiber, or maybe food too rich. I might suggest switching to a "bland diet" (easy to digest) which is cooked hamburger and rice for at least 1 week and see if the diarrhea improves - this diet helps to soothe irritation. If it's either rich food or food allergies causing the diarrhea then this diet might help make it less liquid. After a few days try adding in some cooked oatmeal (has plenty of fiber) and see if the stool starts to firm up. If you are not up to cooking oatmeal - pick up some "Science diet lite", it has to be the lite because it is has at least 10% fiber which should start to firm up the poop.

I agree here - this is staring to sound like a thyroid medicine overdose. Before getting any other meds into the picture go back to the vet and talk about getting her off the thyroid medicines and redoing blood work. Do not stop the medicines yourself without vet assist as she would need to be weaned gradually. edited to add -- I suggest that you do a search for "thyroid medicine overdose symptoms" and you'll find a whole host of symptoms including anxiety. Also, how much thyroid supplement is she on?

She's a beauty! Just a note that you want to check with your vet and get the results of the bacterial culture to make sure that the antibiotics that your girl is on is the right one for the bacteria. Hope she starts to heal ...