PatricksMom
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Posts posted by PatricksMom
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Congratulations on your baby and on King's progress, he's a lucky boy to have found you.
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Thanks for the update and sharing an adorable picture. I know he's still too thin, but he looks better to me than in the picture you posted earlier, and it's great that he's doing better.
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I swear Leo does this just to make me paranoid. He's been fine for three months, now this week he doesn't want to eat breakfast again. After a couple of rounds of exams and blood work (which were always normal), I figure this is just how he is (started around 5 years old).
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On top of all of this good advice, Leo freaked out that night--like he only does during storms, but there was no storm--I wonder if there was a weather front or something that was also contributing to her anxiety.
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Frontline worked perfectly in Delaware, moved to South Carolina and learned the hard way it does not work here for fleas, so it can be pretty regional. I use Trifexis year round, and that works, and Frontline spring through fall, for ticks.
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Have you approached your adoption group about some financial assistance for his vet bills--this isn't like you adopted a dog and now can't handle his bills. Even if they don't normally do it, if the only real alternative to sorting out and hopefully treating his medical issues, is to give him up to the adoption group, it sounds like a win all around--King can stay where he's obviously loved and cared for and the group doesn't have find a foster and adoptive home for a boy in his condition.
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Glad he's improving, you're so kind to have taken him in.
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I participate in the "never" camp but believe in the "know your dog" camp.
Most situations for me that are not fenced or indoors I'm going to want my dog at my side due to environmental dangers. And I see no reason to be off-lead if they're going to be so close constantly anyway. I'd personally rather have the failsafe.
This is me. I'm not the world's best trainer, and while we do work on recall, I'll never feel comfortable taking the risk. Murphy I was 99% sure I could have walked off leash--he always glued himself to me and had no interest being outside unless I was right there, but with a seriously ill dog, I didn't want to take any chances.
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I'm so, so sorry, I'm glad she's not in pain, but I know how traumatic and horrible this must be for you. When you're ready, if you'd like to, we'd love to hear more about your girl and the amazing life she lived.
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Can you swing by the vet's for a weight check?
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Off to the vet for a checkup today. She's as well as can be expected but so thin. She weighed in at 23.1 kg (50lb). Her racing weight was 27.5 kg (60lb). Racking my brain as to how to feed her up without making Mac fat or jealous.
Continuing with the pred and antibiotics.
He may well feel jealous, Henry took up stealing Murphy's food dish after he ate, and taking it to his bed with stink eye looks at us. But you're the mom, and sometimes you have to do what's best for both kids, getting food into Pebbles and keeping Mac healthy. We did give Henry a small bit of Murphy's special food, and he got several health treats when Murphy got his 2 extra meals a day--maybe that approach might help?
And both of them are absolutely beautiful, Pebbles has that wise look in her eyes.
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I think it is important to do some serious reading before making sweeping comments about the panacea of pharmaceuticals. . There are better and new ways of treating a range of medical problems emerging all the time. From Harvard Medical School writing about the very serious problem of the overuse of antibiotics, to new thinking on the "epidemic" (their words, not mine) of diabetes, resorting to drugs is not always the best first step. Think of all the people in psychiatric institutions who are misdiagnosed for years.
Again,with the right cues, our geyhounds are far far more capable than many people realize. However, with the wrong cues, sure, they'll need to be doped up.
Just in Leo's case, I consulted two professors of psychiatric nursing, read approximately 30 referred academic journal articles, talked to a active researcher in pharmacology (also specializing in psychiatric meds) extensively, and got the opinions of two vets. And this is on top of a lot of background reading pro and con, about psychiatric medications in general and specific medications in particular. So I wonder what "serious reading" you think I need to do? I teach history of Illness and Medicine, so I've read both medical articles/books and historical ones, about mental health treatment, issues before antibiotics, antibiotic resistance, etc, vaccinations, etc.
And no, we did not resort to medications as "the first step," hence my comment about the 2 years we spent on behavioral work, finding a house to buy where we'd lower his stress levels, etc. We made progress, but not enough for him to be happy.
And I'm not sure how you define "doped up," but a less stressed, well functioning, dog enjoying his life is not my definition of "doped up."
I've seen my boys "doped" up, Patrick, say for example, the sedative they gave him prior to euthanasia when he wasn't going to make it, but I wanted him comfortable and out of it while we waited the 10 minutes for DH to get there to let him go, hardest day of my life, literally. Murphy, in the time between the first and second shot, because we could no longer promise him a pain-free life and he was dying.
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I free both my hounds and have free fed for 8 1/2 years. My boy is really skinny too. Free feeding didn't really add any weight but I like that my boy who nibbles can have food whenever he is hungry.
Luka says it is cookies that will add the weight. He says he is under-cookied.
Luka, you must be right...I've always heard that from my boys--cookies are the magic cure for everything that ails us.
I'm glad you found the right solution for Jack, it is hard to see them thinner than they should be.
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Personally I don't feel medication is morally justified in canines. We have almost no ability to truly monitor the effects of medications. We can only monitor the resulting behavior but have no way to understand the psychological effect on the animal. In my opinion it is irresponsible to give medication without truly knowing the effects. For an example, look at anti-depressants in adolescents it leads to an increase in suicides. What can be happening in the dogs mind? We will never know, so I don't feel it is responsible to give something without knowing what it is doing. Yes you can look at the resulting behavior, but the hound could be suffering in ways we don't understand.
Yes, I worried a lot about that (well, the suicide in teens wasn't actually documented and suicide rates among teens spiked after they black boxed all anti-depressants), but that Leo could potentially experience side effects and not be able to tell me. So I waited, 2 years, until life made it necessary to try Prozac, and you know what, now I regret waiting, deeply. He's so much happier and less stressed, I feel badly that I let my fears get in the way of his care. I hope you're not planning on denying your dog needed pain medication, because those have side effects too, that aren't always apparent from the outside, but to let any animal suffer in pain that could be relieved, is unfathomably cruel, well, the same is true of mental pain.
I simply don't understand this anti anti-anxiety med mind set.
If your dog had an infection, would you even hesitate to use an antibiotic?? If your dog had a thyroid imbalance, would you refuse to give it the proper supplementation?
If you had a human friend who was suffering from severe anxiety attacks would you tell that friend to just get over it??
Unfortunately, yes some people do deny their human children antibiotics, and they die. Deny them treatment for things like diabetes, and they die. Say cruel things to people about "just getting over it," or "if you just did [fill in the blank thing they've almost certainly tried] you wouldn't need medications or "medication is the easy way out." So yes, I believe it, even though I don't completely understand it--these are terrible things to do, but yes, people do them to children dependent on them and say them to their friends and loved ones. (And in case it's not crystal clear, your mindset is not the one I disagree with).
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Are her lymph nodes still swollen? If she truly has lymphoma you will be very lucky to her to live a few months. When mine had lymphoma one had to be put down within days of the swelling. The other in less than 2 weeks. Treatment would have been futile.
I don't regret not doing Chemo, when we had to choose, a number of people told me my oncologist's prediction of a year+ was BS, they'd done chemo and hadn't gotten much if any more time than we got. Spoil her rotten, it will help you feel better afterwards and you'll both have fun in the meantime. Mostly cuddle her and love her, no one can ever get too much love.
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We're struggling to try and keep weight on Pebbles. She looks as though she's wasting away, even though we're feeding her up as much as we can. Is this her illness? When a dog loses weight rapidly how long can we expect her to last?
What can we expect to happen over the next few months? How will we know whether or not she is suffering. What do we need to look out for?
Will going on steroids give her any longer?
Steroids gave us about about 4 weeks, where Murphy was happy and feeling good, when he started to show signs of decline in quality of life, we let him go the next day. The oncologist predicted 10 weeks, but from what other GTers shared, 1 month is more realistic (I'm assuming since she's on steroids you're not doing chemo). There was another steroid you can switch over to if the Prednisone stops working, but it didn't work for Murphy. Signs to look out for beyond the usual ones are new swelling in the stomach area, and discomfort finding a position to lie down.
Her rapid weight loss is probably the steroids. It's hard to see, but as long as it's not affecting Pebble's well being, try not to worry. What are you feeding? Our vet recommended a little chicken with his evening and morning meals on top of the kibble, and then two smaller meal during the day of chicken and rice. That helped and he seemed much happier, but he was a lot thinner at the end even so.
He was, if I remember correctly, also on Denamarine support his liver/reduce the swelling in it, help his stomach (I think just Tums--be careful to make sure there's no sugar free sweeteners) in it, and Tramadol--of course be sure to run this all by your vet/oncologist, make sure it's appropriate for Pebbles and get the dosing right.
I hope this doesn't sound insensitive, I don't mean it this way, but I think those 4 weeks were way harder on us then on him, he was comfortable and happy and I don't know if dog's don't understand they're dying when they feel well or they just don't worry about it the way people do. He'd just been removed from an extremely neglectful home, was fed enticing food instead of his "person" forgetting to give him food and water, and was so happy to be loved and to live indoors and sleep in our room, and we cleared up a number of other medical issues that were causing him pain. What helped us then and still (and he and Henry did enjoy), was we made him a bucket list and I kept track of how many fun things he got to do--nothing fancy, but ice cream trips, getting to be off leash in a friend's yard, etc. (the list still remains on my fridge) and knowing we made a difficult but in hindsight right decision to just as it became clear he was starting to experience some pain/discomfort.
ETA: Is there a medical reason she's waiting until Friday for the steroids? You may or may not prolong her life by much more by starting immediately, but she will feel better almost instantly.
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It's not separation anxiety, but generalized anxiety that Prozac made a big difference with--I wish I'd started Leo on it a year ago when behavioral interventions / environment management clearly weren't working. At our vet's suggestion, we overlapped with Valium short-term, since we were making some major life changes, I think about 2 weeks of daily use. Now really only if a storm is happening or there's a high likely hood of a storm happening on a day I absolutely cannot come home to dose him if mid-day. I doubt we'll ever stop needing that, but around here that's only 1 dose every couple weeks, and not year round.
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Oscar
in Remembrance
Godspeed Oscar, you are so very loved. I'm so sorry not only that you lost your boy, but that you don't know why. You did nothing wrong, but I've been there and it does hurt your heart even more.
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Yea! Henry's ALT value are way down (still well out of the range), but showing steady improvement. Between that, that the rest of his bloodwork (including liver) has remained completely normal, and he's his usual pain in the butt but adorable self, we agreed for now to drop to Denamarine 1x/day, & replace the second dose with milk thistle. If this goes well, I'm hoping (budget wise) to eventually get him completely onto milk thistle.
If you use Milk Thistle, and don't mind answering:
1) Are their brands you/your vet prefer (or warn you away from)?
2) What dosing are you using, what's your greyhounds approximate weight?
3) Is your greyhound ill, or do you just have elevated values?
Thank you.
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Thanks for the information. I had a phone call from the RGT centre offering to take Pebbles to their vet to have her teeth done, which I've accepted. I'll ask about getting a fine needle aspirate either at the same time, or from my vet.
I'm not putting her through chemo, we're going to treat with steroids and we've agreed that when she starts to suffer we'll send her to the bridge.
In the meantime we're going to enjoy having her for as long as possible.
Please let us know what you find out, and, and if it helps at all, we went the steroids, have a lot of fun, and let Murphy go before he was suffering, and while it sucked for us knowing what was coming, it was the right decision for Murphy. We can also give you a lot of tips on helping with the steroid related issues, like weight loss and keeping her eating.
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Hi all - just an update... it was just a cyst. The vet popped it and he said it's a bit infected so I'm giving him a topical ointment and preventing him from licking at it.
Thanks again for the replies! Looks like I panicked for nothing. (not out of the ordinary behavior for me lol)
Just FYI, drained/popped cysts can reoccur. Again, not a crisis, not cancer, but if it reappears and flairs up, they will probably want to remove it, because the only way to prevent re-occurrence is usually to remove the exterior sac, but that's usually fairly minor and done during a dental if possible.
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Not as likely as what others have suggested, but it could be a cyst (not cancer) that flared up, they can get painful really, really fast, and so if he started messing with it. Again, get it checked, but if it's this, it also wouldn't be a big deal, although with a flareup and a safe location to remove it, your vet probably would.
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Emailed the RGT centre she came from to ask this but no response yet. Took her back to the vet today. Glands all over her body are up, so it's very likely lymphoma. Have to decide whether to put her through a biopsy or not but I'm pretty down at the prospect atm. Got some more antibiotics for her.
I'm sorry. I don't think we needed a biopsy, just lots of blood work, but anytime you spend 6 hours at the oncologist, it's a bad day and memory blurs, maybe they did a needle biopsy and I forgot. I'm hoping that your vet is wrong, but if it is Lymphoma, please feel free to pm me with questions about the experience or ask here.
Eta: I think you need to hit 50 posts to PM.
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I have little useful advice to add, you've gotten so much already that is great, just that I'm very sorry for you, Charlie, and the cat, and I do believe the blame lies completely with the cat's owner.
That said, keeping in mind I'm not Canadian and am unfamiliar with this aspect of your legal system, I wouldn't personally feel comfortable asking for vet bills reimbursement now, but I'd keep photos, vet records, bills, etc. in case the owners ever tried to cause trouble.
Recommend Soft-Side Or Pop-Up Crate Or Pen?
in Training and Behavior discussion
Posted
For that purpose, I think soft-sided is fine, that's what I have. Henry no longer needs to be crated to avoid getting into things, but he does need his private space, particularly in an environment more hectic than our house. He did role his over once (he was surprised but fine) but he's never tried to get out.