PatricksMom

If she's eating with pain medication, and not when she goes off it, you need to be looking for sources of pain and how to treat it. Why isn't she taking the Deramax anymore if that was working?

Thought I'd post to give other people with fear aggressive / high anxiety dogs some hope. Since we moved from an apartment to a house, Leo's stress levels have come way down and his fear aggression has improved a lot. He's gone about a month without any peeing when we leave the house and the neighbors swear he isn't making noise while we're gone. He's getting used to one of the little dogs that was terrifying him on walks--still nervous but he actually wagged his tail yesterday when he saw him. And he went to the M&G at the farmer's market the other week--2 hours with no problems--being literally in the middle of a pack of greyhounds really boosts his confidence levels. Thanks to everyone here for their advice about helping him. I think he'll always be high anxiety (I can relate to that) and we're still working on his on leash issues, but he is generally a much happier dog than when we adopted him.

Try magazines all over the bed.

My memory (DH concurs) our vet told us 5-7 days to see relief and be worth it, but we usually saw relief within 24 hours and continued improvement for about 2 days. It loads in the blood stream faster than deramax, by quite a bit. I used to use it for 2-3 days at a time for Patrick, no longer as he didn't need it. It also worked a lot better and he didn't need it as long if we jumped on any signs his pain was increasing, paid attention to the weather, etc.

She did--the local compounding pharmacy made it strawberry flavored for her.

We do half an hour in the morning--that's what we can handle before work. When it's not too hot, we'll go back to our habit of longer (usually an hour) walks in the evening. We do have to monitor Leo's stress load--too many sightings of other dogs and he starts to get overwhelmed and we'll head back early.

Patrick took Meloxicam periodically for years, no problem. Interestingly, my rabbit took it for probably 6 years, which should have killed her (it was the only pain relief option available so we risked it), never had a problem with it either.

Then try Innova Senior kibble or Fresh Pet, as suggested, but whatever you get, if she won't eat it, keep trying until you find something she will. She needs to eat more than she needs anything other than air and water.

Could she be in pain, either from bad teeth/gums or another source? I agree, they can get hard to keep eating as they age, so if she gets a clean bill of health, it's time to switch into bribery mode.

I would think almost any brand would be likely to make her happier if you mix in something yummy she can't pick out--some canned dog food of a similar brand, yogurt, super fine grated cheese, soaking it in low sodium broth of some kind...

Reading another thread, a thought occurred to me--how are her teeth?

1) Think about what she can have and try it. Maybe a low sodium broth--chicken, beef, lamb? Maybe something else. If she can't have hamburger, what about skinless chicken breast, boiled? I've heard (not personal experience) that the kidney diets don't taste very appealing. If it's not eat vs. eat something she's not technically supposed to have, I'd go with feed her whatever she'll eat, it's what I've always done. 2) Is there a possibility she's in pain? There are a lot of safe pain killers that you might try. If you're not sure one way or the other, I would personally try pain medications. 3) As hard as it is to hear, Brandi is right--we cannot give you permission to let Snow go nor tell you to keep her alive. These are deeply personal decisions. Many people have offered guidance on this forum about how to make the decision, but we can't do more than that.

I'm so sorry, I know how much he meant to you. Godspeed Poodle.

I'm not thrilled with the idea in theory, personally. But since we can't get Inteceptor here, we use Trifexis, with no problems.

Talk to your vet about increasing the Tramadol--you can really safely crank the dose up in most cases. Gabapetin works well with Tramadol too, you don't necessarily need an NSAID.

Have you called your vet? I'd start there. If your vet doesn't think Bullet needs to be seen, s/he will probably recommend a bland diet until his system calms down--boiled rice and chicken works.

Was there artificial sweetner in it? Some of those can be dangerous.

Don't switch all at once from what he's been eating in his foster home--that's a recipe for an upset stomach. I've been feeding Kirkland Lamb and Rice for two years--that's what the boys ate in foster care and it seems to work well for them.

Our adoption group feeds fosters Kirkland Lamb and Rice (Costco). It seemed to be working for our boys and we are members, so we've stuck with that.

Thank you for sharing. I hope knowing you did everything you could for Red helps you find peace.

I would think his stomach, if he'll let you. Would he lay down in front of a box fan?

Arg, xray this morning looked good, they're going to do one more this afternoon just to make sure. But he doesn't want to eat, last night he was starving, but I wasn't allowed to give him a fool meal, breakfast today, not so interesting.

The 4pm x-ray was encouraging--things seem to be moving in the right direction. He goes back in tomorrow morning for another x-ray.

These alone are perfectly good reasons for another dog, imo. Sometimes you do end up with greyhounds that don't get along, like with any dog, but I think it's less likely. Does your group permit fostering with the intention to adopt? That way you would make sure you find a second that gets along with Abby.

We adopted Leo because I needed him, after the loss of Murphy. But if we'd had him first, before Henry, I think his anxiety/separation issues would be a lot worse. He really seems to feel much more secure with Henry, there were multiple greys in his foster home, multiple greys at the dog sitters, so he's never been an only dog, but I don't think he would have been happy that way. So yes, I believe a second dog can help with anxiety problems.