MaryJane

I'm so sorry for your loss.

I will have to do that in the morning since the office is closed. she has only eaten one meal today so I'm not sure where all this poo is coming from. she isnt acting sick she is still playing and active, so not sure, we have had an outbreak of parvo around here this month and its been bad, so not sure if I should be watching for that too since she still have one more in her series to go until fully vaccinated. Has she been drinking enough water? The reason that I ask is if she has diarrhea she will loosing fluids and she can easily get dehydrated. As to firm up the poop, you can keep on giving the rice and chicken or give noodles with hamburger (not too much fat). If the poop is still water tomorrow AM then you will need to probably get her to the vet sooner rather than later especially with an outbreak of parvo in the area. edited to add .. also, if you are going to give her rice, make it white rice rather than brown as the brown can be harder to digest.

Just wanted to mention that the WSJ had an article about dogs and cancer - it was pretty interesting and sad as one of the facts that came up is how much faster cancer progresses in dogs compared with humans. They also mentioned that later this year the Cancer Research Center was going to do a study on dogs with osteosarcoma.

like the pull cheesesticks for kids? The cheese ones that they sell in regular grocery stores - they are about 6 inches long and about 1/2 inch wide. Try just one and see if your dog has a reaction to the dairy - some dogs will get diarrhea.

I used the Cheese sticks when I was training one of my dogs. I would let him nibble just a bit off each time he did something good.

Love the dog in the fireplace picture!

Yep, cleaned those as well. They were not impacted, nor was the material hard. It was one of the first things I thought about, and had checked them to make sure they were not enlarged or inflamed. Now the dust mites might be another issue. I live in an RV and they are notoriously dusty and as mine has a carpet like substance on the ceiling, that does not help at all! HOWEVER!!!!! I do believe he might be slowing down a bit in the itching/chewing! Maybe something is kicking in! I am keeping my fingers crossed! Many thanks. We used a hypoallergenic shampoo for itching that had eucalyptus and peppermint in it, and left it on for about 7 to 10 minutes. Maybe I was expecting results too soon, because as I said above, it looks like it might be slowing down! I would like to know the Benadryl dosage though! You mentioned that you had a seizure dog and I noticed that you used a shampoo with eucalyptus in it - this could actually trigger a seizure as it is very aromatic. As to the itching, you might want to try adding cooked oatmeal to the food.

I would like to know what happened to the study as well. I will check out the yahoo group. The weaning was suggested by the vet as we had gone from one 64 mg phenobarb twice a day (all doses twice a day) to 1.5 and then added 1 mL Kbr and then upped that to 1.5 mL before he finally settled down. He had been seizure free for 11 months on just the 1 phenobarb, so we hoped to get him down a little. I had a lot of other grey owners very concerned about liver toxicity and all from the drugs. I am down to 1 phenobarb and 1 mL of Kbr right now. Trying to reach a happy medium. Although he has grand mal seizures, they are evidently considered fairly short, about 2 to 3 minutes for the thrashing phase, though that is enough for his half gallon bladder to relieve itself. The vet was mentioning if they last over 10 minutes to start hosing him down. I cannot imaging him or any dog going through that for that long. Are you using a neurologist or a regular vet? If you are using a regular vet then I would suggest switching to a neurologist - seizures are pretty tricky in being able to keep a dog relatively seizure free and without the side effects of many of the medicines and regular vets may not have the expertise on these particular drugs.

I had sent a message to the seizure study owner but, never received anything back. I would have loved to see the results of the study .. or even continue it. I also joined the yahoo epilepsy group and it can provide good support and information about medicines. I personally miss having something like greytalk for seizure greyhounds but, it is what it is. Also, dogs can start seizing again once you start weaning down or changing the medicines - was the decreasing of medicines on the recommendation of a neurologist?

My vets have not really suggested a "next step" yet as Larry is doing OK. If he was in pain, then I wouldn't even consider going to the chiropractor but, I'm hoping some small adjustments would be beneficial and maybe even reverse the muscle wasting. I did find a canine certified chiropractor that is not too far and he even makes house calls. You do bring up a good point about the acupuncture though, maybe I will go that route instead. I think I know the one in Framingham. Thanks

You're right -- Natural Balance is expensive but the alternatives are a home-made diet or a food like prescription ID ......or the countless vet visits when it moves past just being diarrhea and becomes an "immune issue". If you are feeding food that gives soft poop and is close to diarrhea - think what it is doing to the insides of the dog. It's diarrhea because the intestines are pushing the stuff out so fast that it is not able to be formed and that means the gut is having a bad reaction to it. Just as long as the Natural Balance still works then you can try other dog foods every few days and maybe another one that is more reasonable will work out. Some stores have sample packets - ask next time you go in. Also, check out some web sites and they might have some "free" coupons. If you haven't already done it, you might want to consider doing an elimination diet to determine what food ingredients will work.

Larry has healed OK from his problems of a fractured toe, leg joint issues, and branch thru the foot which all occurred in the latter part of last year but, all the inactivity may have caused some muscle atrophy at his rear end and it is a little worse on one side. We ended up going to a neurologist to confirm that it's not neurological and then just because I still had some worrying doubts so we went to another neurologist that also confirmed that it is not neurological. At this point, they seem to be in agreement that it is either age-related or maybe there was an issue earlier and it "went away". I've asked my vet and the neurologists for recommendations for canine chiropractors and just like in regular medicine, medical professionals shy away from providing references to chiropractors. Would appreciate it if you could share some names of chiropractors that you have used around the Boston area. Also, whether it helped your dog.

Not working. What I usually go by ... if after their first 1/4 cup if the next poop was soft (12 hours or less) then that food wasn't going to work. Time to try another one. If you keep on giving that dog food, the diarrhea could get worse so it's not usually wise to think that more time might make it better. If you want to try again, go back to the regular food until the poop is better and then try adding 1/4 cup again and see if you get the soft poop again.

I'm sorry that you are going through this.... Did they do both an aerobic and anerobic culture? If not, please make sure they culture again and do the anerobic one also. Also, are they doing bacterial antibiotic sensitivities or just assuming that a particular antibiotic will work?

Try pasta with turkey and see if that helps. Oatmeal can add fiber to firm up the poops but, not while there is a severe issue still going on. If I remember right, raw fish can have a parasite. If it is cooked, should be OK. One problem is that many varieties of fish are now "farmed" and if that is the case, they throw in quite a bit of antibiotics to keep the fish healthy which is not such a good thing for anyone later eating the fish.

Please talk to your vet or to a veterinary dermatologist. Your boy may need a skin scraping. Hair loss around the eyes is a frequent symptom of Demodex. His problem might not be that--it might be straightforward allergies--but I think you need a skin scraping to be sure. I agree, if it is around the eyes you want to get to the vet and they may culture or do skin scrapings.

Welcome from Mass! edited - three words and I manage to spell one wrong.

If my dog was screaming and wouldn't stop I would be on the way to the e-vet.

I'm sorry, he looks like such a beautiful horse in your picture. Thank you for sharing your stories.

If he is waking you up in the middle of the night then he really does have to go. You can make an appointment to the vet and they will probably prescribe something like flagyl which usually helps. In the interim, put him on a bland diet - rice and cooked hamburger (not too much fat). A good ratio to start with is about 1 1/2 cups rice to about 1/2 cup hamburger twice a day. You can also use noodles and chicken instead. You can also give him some oatmeal as that has fiber and helps to firm them up. But, if he is waking you up in the middle of the night and the stool is pretty liquid, you will probably need the vet visit. You might also want to get some Forti-flora, it's a probiotic to repopulate the good bacteria in the gut.

My last greyhound had a heart murmur and at 10 1/2 years old he underwent a dental cleaning because his teeth were getting bad and the vet was concerned that he was going to end up with a life threatening infection if I didn't. I was very concerned about having him put under but, I wanted to give him the best shot at living a long life as I could. Luckily, my boy didn't have to have any extractions and he came out OK from the surgery. I think the anesthesia was a little tougher than on a younger boy and I noticed that he slept most of the night and he seemed chilled so I covered him up with a blanket. Otherwise, he was fine. He did have to go on antibiotics 1 week (or so) before the dental and he stayed on them for another week. As suggested, do a senior panel bloodwork and the echo and make sure that you get antibiotics for before the surgery. One last note, you may want to check into whether or not you should use amicar (can help prevent bleeding by keeping blood clots intact) after the surgery if he is going to have many extractions. My Lucy went in last week for an emergency tooth extraction and I was worried about bleeding because greyhounds just have "funny platelets" in my opinion. She had a nasty infection and her whole muzzle was swollen. She's also a seizure girl so I wanted to make sure I covered all my bases. I mention the amicar because some vets don't stock it and if it is appropriate in your case you would have to start it right after surgery and may have to order it from someplace else. In my case, the vet's online pharmacy was "out of stock".

I agree with what has already been said - get a urine culture and make sure it is a first morning specimen (make sure to clean her first). I would NOT let them catheterize her to get it as this is a great way to catch an infection (almost guaranteed in my experience). The anitbiotic is not going to help if the bacteria is not sensitive to it. What is the level of protein in the urine (if any) and what is the specific gravity of the first catch urine? You did not mention the BUN value in her blood - have they run that? What has her temperature been? By the way, it sounds like you have already started to do some great things to get this under control like filtered water, lowered protein (at least until you figure out what is going on), and cranberry supplements. My girl had a UTI right at the beginning and I had to be pretty diligent in cleaning "her parts" at all times of the day to make sure she didn't get irritated. My girl also likes poop. She would go out and get into poop and then came back in and "clean her female parts" so she was re-infecting herself. I also made sure to do two cultures - one to find out what she grew out and the antibiotics to use and the second to make sure the culture was clean, nothing growing out and the second culture was a few weeks after I finished the antibiotics.

It's good news that you have something to treat. As a side note, a urinary tract infection could also be involved in kidney issues ... I haven't read back to see specifically what the kidney issues are so I might be off base.

When I moved to my new house a decade ago my greyhound at the time refused to do my wood back stairs which had the open backs. Luckily I was able to take him in the front door which was level with the walkway. The stairs were also just a bit narrower than normal which made it even worse. But, it was only about 5 stairs and he still would not do it. This was one battle he won as I could not do any of my usual tricks of putting his feet up because they could go out the back of the stair and break a leg. I couldn't carry him as he was over 100 lbs (no, not fat just a real tall boy). The result .... within a few weeks I put wood backs on the stairs and he trotted up the stairs. There is never a guarantee in life but, in this case - greyhounds and many other dogs have a "thing" about open backed stairs and are going to give you a fight about going up them. I would suggest that you talk to the apartment management and see if backs can be put on the stairs - as many have said, they are a hazard not just to dogs but to people as well.

I read the link and maybe I'm just a worrier but, I would be heading out to the e-vet.