MaryJane

"Bored" can be good but, on the flip side making taking him out on the leash in front of the house might help him get a bit more steady by having him focus on walking. There's also something to be said for "getting back to normal routines". I'd keep him away from other dogs or anything that could be "stressful".

I wonder if the reference to baby powder related to this .... Diatomaceous earth (DE) is a powder comprised of microskeletons of deceased diatoms, which are a type of algae (both fresh water and sea water varieties occur). You sprinkle the powder on your pets and your carpets, and the fleas die from dehydration. As a foster care provider for hundreds of dogs, this stuff has been a miracle. You can use it on dogs, puppies, kittens, and cats. How it works: When applied to the animal’s fur, DE scrubs on the hard exoskeletons of fleas. The tiny granules of silicon (think finely ground sand) work in the tiny holes of the flea’s respiratory system and in the joints of the fleas. Every time the flea moves or breathes, the silicon grinds away at the exoskeleton, eventually killing the flea through blocking/maiming the respiratory holes or by water loss, as the exoskeleton helps keep in the flea’s body water. It works the same way when applied to carpets instead of fur. How to use it: 1) Wear a mask and put one on your pet. Even though it’s nontoxic, you don’t want to get it in your lungs. 2) Sprinkle the DE along your dry pet’s spine. Massage it along the body, working your way carefully to the extremities, avoiding the eyes. 3) Spread some diatomaceous earth on the carpets, brush it in and leave for about four days. Then vacuum it up to remove most of the fleas in the carpet. 4) Repeat the application frequently during an infestation. You should notice a decrease in fleas within a couple days. Read more: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/all-around-non-toxic-flea-control.html#ixzz1WL1YOQar I got this from the link http://www.care2.com/greenliving/all-around-non-toxic-flea-control.html

I stopped using crates for the fosters that were coming through here. In a crate they would bark/cry all night and be miserable. Without the crate they settle in faster and get used to my routine and seem to have less accidents (sometimes none at all).

It's great that he's been without seizures for 24 hours - that's a big step (IMHO) considering how he was clustering. I think the next milestone the experts would look for is 48 hours (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). Hope you get a chance to take a nap and rest

Glad he made it through the night without seizing! When will it be 24 hours since the last seizure?

Thanks for the heads up!

I don't raw feed but I do home-made so I supplement with between 1500 to 2500 mg Calcium per day per dog and what I use is the Oyster shell calcium (500mg) from CVS pharamacy. Most human grade calcium has started to include vitamin D - oyster shell is one that doesn't. There is no notation of China sourcing on the bottle.

The ice pack as referred to in this thread isn't used to cool the dog, but to help stop the seizures. A friend used it on her seizure girl and she told me it seemed to help shorten her seizures. Phaelin's seizures are fairly quick so I've never had the time to go to the freezer to get one to try it with him. Phaelin's head seems to get pretty hot after a seizure, so I try to keep his head cool. I do give Phaelin vanilla Haagen-Dazs right after a seizure because it seems to help cool him down fairly quickly plus I think the real sugar in it helps bring his blood sugar back up. Thanks you for the clarification - as you noted, my reference to ice packs was in context of what to use for cooling the dog down - that is what I discussed with the vet and she said wet (cold) towels. Question - how much ice cream do you give and over what period of time?

I feel your pain ... two weeks ago Lucy had another seizure which lasted almost 2 minutes and was probably a touch worse than what you showed in the video of Steak. This was only her second seizure in 5 months so she is not on medicines right now but I'm preparing myself for more seizures. I contacted Lindsay and she was great with all the information that she provided - I can only suggest that you take advantage of her skill in dealing with this condition. I also went through and searched the forums for information about treatments so that when I went to the vet I would be prepared. I guess some of the questions I asked myself might be useful in your case .. Did you give him rectal valium - I was instructed to give rectal valium if she seizes more than 1 to 2 minutes because it will lessen the chance of another seizure in the next few hours. The dose of rectal Valium I got was 5.5 ml from the regular vet but I will be going to a neurologist shortly and check to see if this dose is appropriate. Are you seeing a neurologist or a regular vet - I will be seeing a neurologist that will monitor Lucy along with the regular vet. Sugar needs after a seizure - I plan on giving yogurt or ice cream (maybe even some molasses) after a seizure because of the toll that it exerts on the "glucose food store" in the body. Baseline MRI - yikes, these are expensive but, I will probably be getting a baseline MRI to check whether there is anything going on. After that I am not likely to get another MRI unless both the neurologist and I agree that there might be damage occurring from the seizures. ice - my vet is recommending using cold towels to the back and chest rather than ice because ice might be too much of a shock to the system. But, I will rechecking this with the neurologist to see if there are any studies available. pillow - you might want to have a pillow for his head - when Lucy had her seizure she was banging her head on the floor and I worried whether that could cause additional damage ... in my case, this could end up requiring another MRI/xray to make sure that she didn't cause additional damage to herself vet visits after a seizure - my plans are at this time that after Lucy seizes she will be seen by the vet to check her out but that should just be an office visit ($40 to $50). I'm not planning to do emergency visits unless she doesn't stop seizing after 4 minutes. I'm expecting (like Lindsay said) that most of this can be handled at home. goal of less than 1 seizure a month - my understanding is that the goal is to keep seizures to less than 1 per month (I may be wrong and if so, please correct me). If there are more seizures than that then I would think the medicines need to be increased and/or changed (please correct me if I am wrong here). If Steak is seizing every two weeks than it sounds IMHO like he is not "stable" yet. It also sounds like when Steak went into his clustering he was not getting additional medicines (until the last vet visit) to stop the clustering so it sounds INHO like a better procedure needs to be worked out with your neurologist when he starts to cluster. It sounds to me like your neurologist has not worked out a "plan" for getting the seizures under control and what you should do in the case of clustering, if that is the case, you may want to find another neurologist in your area. I would also suggest contacting the adoption groups in your area and finding out who they use for their "seizure dogs". I want to apologize if any of my responses sound rude - they are not meant to be. I'm a novice at this but, I'm trying to pull in as much information and things to do and when to do them so that I am as prepared as I can be. Good luck

Chicken sensitivity/allergies are pretty common with greyhounds so I'm a little confused as to where you are getting the information that it is unusual.

The greys are beautiful!

Did you try the Natural Balance venison and sweet potato? This is a limited ingredient food and as such, less to be allergic to. Most other dog foods might have 1 main protein source but, if you check the ingredient list you will see that they will still have some of the other proteins .. so a food labeled a beef might still have chicken in it ... You mentioned that she is on beef and oatmeal now and the stools are better. If you want to find out what the allergy is to try adding some cooked sweet potato and see how the stool is 24 to 36 hours later - if it gets runnier, then that food is likely a cause. But you need to start off with small amounts and gradually increase so just checking one food could take 4 to 5 days. I've found that 1 cup can be a tipping point where they will get the "runs" the next day if they are sensitive to that food. Do the same procedure with chicken and see how the stool is the next day. This would be an elimination diet where you go through different foods and see what causes a reaction. Note, between the switches make sure that the stool gets back to being good... I've done this with most of my own dogs and it can take up to a month to go through most of the basic foods and get a good baseline.

The oatmeal is a fiber which helps to firm up the stool. The bland diet of hamburger/rice is easy to digest and IMHO, can cut down on the inflammation in the digestive tract but, is not necessarily going to firm up the stool. Once the inflammation is in check, the oatmeal can help to "firm things up". If the combination of hamburg/rice/oatmeal does not work over a few days then your dog may be allergic to one of the ingredients and then you should consider an elimination diet. Note, for dogs not used to oatmeal I would use the hamburg and rice for a few days before i start to add in the oatmeal. The nice thing about oatmeal is that it (in conjunction with fish oil) has given my dogs a pretty lush coat. I forgot to add that sweet potato also has a good amount of fiber so you might want to consider a limited Ingredient dog food like natural balance Venison and sweet potato - I have used this for some of my fosters and had good luck with it controlling their "digestive issues".

The bland diet that your dog is on is intended to be easy to digest and while it can sometimes firm up the stool, it does not necessarily do that. You mentioned that your dog has lost weight on this diet -- how much are you feeding because I might suspect that you need to feed more. In the other thread you had on this subject I believe one of the recommendations was to increase fiber - this can help to bind up the material (making it more solid) and easier to pass. I usually give cooked oatmeal (which can be a bit of work) but I know others on the forum had used canned pumpkin (not sweetened). You might also want to check out some of the dog foods that have more fiber -- the "green iams" is one and "Science diet lite" is another. I think the science diet lite has about 10% fiber.

It might be a fractured toe. A few weeks ago my Larry was zooming in the yard and he slid on a corner, a couple hours later I noticed one of his toes was double the normal size. Off to the vet and after x-rays she diagnosed a fractured toe. Not much you can do for a fractured toe as it is not a great place to put a cast. She did prescribe an anti-inflammatory to help with pain (but that may have caused diarrhea so we had to stop). Icing is also something I have been doing to try and get the swelling down. He does cry when he needs to get up and has to place weight on that toe and he also cries when he tries to "paw" his toys but otherwise, it seems to be "very slowly" healing. He is not noticeably limping but, he is favoring that foot a bit. I would still recommend that the vet check it because there could be something imbedded in the toe.

I'm so sorry.

For a commercial dog food you can try the Natural balance Limited Ingredient Venison and Sweet potato - it does not have any chicken so if your dog has chicken allergies this food should be OK but, you need to switch very slowly from the rice and hamburg otherwise you'll get diarrhea just from switching. With the fosters I usually switched about 1/4 to 1/3 cup a day so it could take up to 2 weeks for a total switch. If you are going to get diarrhea, I usually found that it would happen the day after I had the dog up to 1 cup of the new dog food - that seemed to be the tipping point. Note, Natural Balance also makes other "Limited Ingredient" foods so if the venison does not work one of the others might. I also found that the Natural Balance had decent ingredients and was OK in price. Good Luck

I got into this same thing with Larry with the diarrhea ... a few weeks ago he started with the diarrhea - always at night and having to go out every hour and straining but, in his case there was no blood. With Larry, there were a few things that might have caused it - he got into Lucy's chicken, he drank bad water outside, and he was on an anti-inflammatory for his fractured toe. Stopped the anti-inflammatory, checked for worms (none), and chicken is now totally banned in the house as Lucy is also getting sensitive. Got Larry on Flagyl and within a day or so he was OK. Four weeks later the same thing started up again - got the Flagyl again and this time Larry is also on Flori-Flora probiotic. He always gets oatmeal every day but, in addition I'm going to up his fiber intake a bit more hoping to "slow things down" as mentioned in the last post. I'm also making sure that he's getting treats before he goes to bed so he doesn't have an empty tummy. We did have a stressful situation here that occurred right before the diarrhea started again which might have cause Larry's "second incident" but, it's hard to tell. Note, Larry is on a home-cooked diet so he's always getting rice and beef with vegetables. Personally, I always worry about letting diarrhea go on for too long because there's no telling whether it could lead to other digestive problems later because the GI system gets so inflammed. It sounds like you have done everything that would be recommended ...the bland diet, the stool check, the antibiotic, probiotic. As the vet suggested, you might want to keep giving the bland diet for longer and make it a much more gradual transition and see if it happens again. If is happens again with the transition to the dog food then you could be dealing with an allergy to something in that dog food. Just because a dog was not sensitive before does not mean that they cannot develop allergies in the future and it could manifest the way that you have described. If it is a food allergy, then there are commercial limited ingredient dog foods that you can try to see if something works (I've used the Natural balance Venison and sweet potatoes for fosters). There is also the prescription food like I/D and Z/D but, they are expensive. Good Luck

Lucy says "thank you"

Like others on the thread I would suggest a vet appointment. They will be able to put special drops to dilate in and look at the eye more closely and see if it is scratched and if so, you will probably get you antibiotic drops to put in. This happened a few months ago to Larry - he scratched the eye and I couldn't see it but the vet could. With the drops it healed up within 10 days.

Lucy has has two Grand Mal Seizures, one back in March and one this month. First one lasted less than a minute while the second was between 1 to 2 minutes. I've started to put together my "emergency kit" of rectal valium for seizures lasting more than 2 minutes, muzzles (for her and Larry), wet towels to cool her down, blankets to cover her legs (she scratched me pretty deeply last time), pillow for her head, ice cream, cookies, and water w/yogurt or applesauce. I put the list together with the help of another GTer in CT (thanks Lindsey). If I missed something, please feel free to add items .... Right now I'm not planning on treating with medication as per a discussion with her regular vet unless the seizures becomes more frequent but, would like to have her see a neurologist to get a baseline. Dr Sisson has been recommended and he is at Angel Memorial in Boston which I take my dogs to frequently (they have a great ER and an oncology department) and I am thinking of going there. But, my regular vet also recommended Dr Silver at Mass Vet Referral Hospital in Woburn. Since I expect this relationship between Lucy and her neurologist to run over many years I would like to make sure that I pick the best neurologist for greyhounds. Would appreciate any recommendations from GTers that have used these doctors (or others) in the Mass area? Thanks for your recommendations

What a beautiful girl .. especially love the picture with the stuffie in her mouth and her ears up straight!

You mentioned that you fed him and went back to sleep for 20 minutes and he had pooped in the interim -- maybe consider taking him out immediately after he eats and keeping him out for about 10 minutes because some dogs will go a "few times".

I'm not sure of the protocols but, have they considered giving platelets?

I'm so sorry, it sounds like your situation is a tough one to deal with and I have to mention that it sounds like you are doing the best that you can. Is there anything that changed 3 weeks ago that might have precipitated his starting to whine all night? With the slider open is he still whining or is he just going out to do his business and coming back in? If leaving the slider open fixes the problem then maybe consider a dog door - others on the forum used them. Any chance that he could have some stomach irritation from taking the aspirin -- maybe ask the vet if he needs to take it with something else to coat his stomach. You might also try giving a cookie before bedtime and see if that makes a difference. Does he whine during the day too? Just curious, when does he start whining? Is it random or is immediately when you go to sleep or is it at 2am - is there any common link to when he starts? This might be a little far-fetched but, you might want to try and let him sleep in your bedroom for one night and see what happens. It could be that he is restless because he is not close to both of you, although this is a little far-fetched because one of you has been sleeping in the living room with him ... but, it might be worth a try. Hope others on the forum have better suggestions ...