vjgrey
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Posts posted by vjgrey
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C'est la vie!
Knee jerk reactions to previous horror stories aren't "help".
Learning from (numerous) past mistakes is.
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That's great that it's been identified but what people do with the information is the critical piece.
Some kind of targeted gene therapy, I hope.
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I think it's pretty crappy that everyone is so quick to yell "NO!" Without having so much as met the dog.
While of course all dogs are individuals, sighthounds have a lot of traits in common. The people offering warnings aren't trying to be "crappy." They're trying to help a new owner adjust to the some of the quirks/special needs of sighthounds and to avoid another horror story. People who've worked with sighthounds for any amount of time have heard a lot of those, and almost all of them could've been easily avoided. The Lexus Project was started because a greyhound killed a dog in a dog park.
I think it's pretty crappy that you'd respond like this to experienced owners who were trying to help.
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I can't even imagine. I'm so sorry.
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That's just unbelievably horrible. I'm so sorry.
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I had some freezer-burned chicken wings the other week and I put them in the slowcooker in some chicken broth and cooked the snot out of them for 3 days. By then, the bones were so incredibly soft that I could mash it all up with a potato masher.
I do this with whole chickens - crockpot on low for around 24 hours and mash the whole thing up with a potato masher. You can add rice, oatmeal, veggies - whatever you want. For meals, I mix the mash with a little water and heat it on the stove. I pour it over kibble as a warm "gravy." It's smelly and meaty enough to appeal to my super picky eater and "gravy," like enough that she's not able to pick it out of the kibble.
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How scary! I'm so sorry. Definitely get in touch with OSU.
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Just go to the other clinic. You aren't happy with the care you're getting, it's worth a couple of hundred backs to be happy, especially if this is potentially a long term issue. I'm not sure though why you think the initial appt will be that expensive? I'm in the same area as you and the most I've paid was $225 but that was the insane oncology department at Friendship. Typically I expect the consult fee to be $125-150.
We paid a $290 consult fee for her current neurologist - although it may've been slightly higher for an emergency appointment (it wasn't marked that way on the bill - just marked as a neuro consult).
I think we paid $275 for Lucy's consult with a cardiologist last year and a similar fee for Gabe's first appointment with his oncologist.
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Have you come right out and told the nurses that you'd like to speak with the neurologist yourself, and can he please call you back? And if they say no, ask why, and see if you can make an appointment to speak with the doctor directly. It's possible that this is just their standard procedure, and the neurologist has no idea that you're frustrated and want to speak with him.
Yes, I have. They never say "no," they just say they'll pass along the message, and then a few hours later, or the next day, one of the neuro nurses calls me back.
I don't think he's avoiding me, personally - I'm sure it is standard procedure. In fact, I've read complaints about other vets in the clinic doing the same thing. That's why I'm leaning toward moving to a different clinic, rather than just asking if we can see one of the other neurologists in their practice.
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I thought of this quote tonight, and it made me smile:
I'm not afraid of death because I don't believe in it. It's just getting out of one car and into another - John Lennon
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Oh my, I'm so there with you. But I'll spare you that story. What I might do -- and have done -- is make an appointment and just go. It should cost around $100, give or take, as a follow-up rather than initial eval. (I've made appointments just to talk, even without the animal present, because I needed more information than I was getting through the techs.) If they ask why, you can tell them that you need to talk to the doctor about Diamond's future and you're willing to pay to do so. It will be interesting if they say "no" and you ask "why."
The alternative is to have a new doc have to do a complete new eval, and it's expensive, and it shouldn't be necessary. That's my thinking anyhow. Wishing you much luck with this.
For some reason, it hadn't occurred to me to see whether they'd schedule it as a follow-up, or even just a discussion with me, instead of a full initial consult. While I'm really unhappy with her current neuro, I have no reason to doubt the diagnosis, since the herniated disc was clearly visible on the MRI. All I really want is someone with a medical degree who's willing to discuss her long-term care with me and also someone with a medical degree who will be actively monitoring her meds. I kind of get the feeling that the current clinic is sort of arbitrarily raising and lowering her dosage based on my phone calls without looking at how long she's been on them or when they really need to be tapered off.
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Valerie, you and Gabe were so blessed to have each other, and he couldn't have had better parents. I knew Gabe when he was with his former owner (who made the heart breaking decision to return him), and loved him then. He was such a handsome guy. I'm so sorry he had to leave you so soon.
I know it was heartbreaking for her to return him, but what an incredible gift that turned out to be for us. We really were blessed to have each other.
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Some of you may've read my February 5th thread on Diamond. She woke up completely unable to use her back legs. We rushed her in for an emergency appointment with her regular vet who said she needed to see a neurologist immediately. The vet called around to various neurologists to see who could see her with no notice and found that we could take her to a specialist clinic about fifteen minutes away. We'd been referred to the clinic before with Lucy, (although that was Internal Medicine, not neurology) and had been reasonably happy with them. We also knew Diamond couldn't wait to see someone, so we agreed to take her there.
Long story (and long day) short, she was diagnosed via MRI with a herninated disc in her neck. The neurologist said he didn't think it required surgery at this point - he prescribed pepcid, 20mg of prednisone (10mg x 2 per day) and gabapentin. The meds worked, and she was walking almost normally within a few days, but the high dosage of pred gave her gastroenteritis, so her pred was reduced to once per day. She was on that dosage for three weeks before they asked us to start weaning her off - with pred every other day and the same dose of gabapentin. That did NOT work, and she started to lose function in her back legs again, so we're back to once a day. Here are my questions/concerns:
1) We haven't spoken to the neurologist since the day she was diagnosed. When I call the clinic, I'm sent to neurology's voicemail and one of the neuro nurses calls me back. If I ask to speak to the vet, they tell me they'll pass on the message...and then a neuro nurse calls me back. All of my questions so far have been answered by the nurses (sometimes after "let me ask Dr. X and call you back.")
Fortunately, I don't have a lot of experience with veterinary specialists, so I don't know whether this is common. Aside from the internal medicine visit with Lucy at this office (which needed little follow-up), my only experience is with an oncologist (Gabe) and a cardiologist (Lucy) - both at another local clinic. Both the oncologist and the cardiologist were extremely busy, but BOTH took the time to talk to me personally about every single concern, every med question, every issue, every single time. If I called the clinic with a question, the oncologist would even call me back on his days off.
After that kind of care, NEVER getting to speak to the neurologist, not once, is really bothering me.
2) They've expressed no interest in a follow-up visit, although I've asked about it repeatedly. She's basically doing okay right now, but with a serious issue like this, I kind of expected the neurologist to want to see her again. At the very least, I had a long list of questions about her long-term care, since they're not recommending surgery. They told me I could discuss all of my questions with the nurse - who can answer them herself or consult the neurologist.
3) They've expressed no concern about long-term prednisone use. Diamond has now been on it daily for five weeks, and they've mentioned that we may try to start weaning her down after another two. She's doing okay with it, aside from a few incontinence issues, but I worry about how long is too long.
4) The neuro nurse didn't tell me that panting was a known side-effect of prednisone even after I called twice, asking whether it was a sign that Diamond was in pain.
So all together, I'm really unhappy with the neurologist and would like to move her to the other clinic - the one whose oncology department saw Gabe and whose cardiologist has treated Lucy. I believe the clinic that's seeing Diamond does have another neurologist, but from what I've read, the phone relay, etc... is just standard operating procedure for that office.
The problem is, I know they won't agree to discuss meds, etc... without seeing her, and I cringe at the thought of facing another consultancy fee. It would be somewhere around $300 for just the initial visit.
Worth it? Or since she's basically doing okay now and we're just adjusting meds, should I stick it out with the absentee neurologist and his nurses?
And how long on prednisone is too long? When should I become really concerned that they're not more concerned about it?
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I felt like the world's most incompetent greyhound owner the day I brought Gabe home. I could not get him into my car. Literally could not convince him to climb in. He was about 85 pounds at the time, and I was about 100 pounds, so lifting him in was clearly not going to happen. I'd come to pick him up in a Mini Convertible I'd bought while we were stationed in England, and he wanted nothing to do with the tiny thing. As I stood with him in the track parking lot considering my options, someone from the office ran out to hand me the free bag of kibble I'd forgotten to pick up. I was humiliated and worried he'd repossess my dog right there, but I asked him if he could help me get Gabe into the car. He lifted him in, but Gabe was still not pleased and spent the entire drive home panting and trying to climb all 85 pounds of himself into my lap. I thought he hated car rides until I traded my Mini for an SUV. It turned out they were one of his All Time Favorite Things - he'd just really hated that car.
DH was deployed, and I was on summer break from law school with nothing but time, so for those first few weeks, it was just me and Gabe. I thought he needed to get up early to stick with his kennel routine, so we went on lots of 5:30am walks. It didn't take me too long to realize he was conning me - he'd sleep in as long as I wanted to. But I wouldn't trade those precious sunrise walks with him for anything in the whole wide world.
I feel the same way about all those early morning car rides we took together his last four months, after he was diagnosed with Osteosarcoma. We ran all over town for vet appointments and oncology appointments and radiology - sometimes three or four visits a week. Funnily enough, we drove to all of those appointments in DH's (non-convertible) Mini, because it was much lower and easier for me to help him in and out. That car he didn't mind, though - it was slightly bigger, and he could see out the window to people watch. While I hated the reason for all those early morning drives, I also felt really content just to spend them with him. It felt right that it was just me and Gabe - the way it had been at the start, five years before.
We had to let him go a year ago today, and I miss my sweet boy terribly.
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What a relief. Still thinking lots of good thoughts for you both.
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First, I wouldn't teach him to go in the garage, even on potty pads. He needs to understand that outside is the place to pee, and I'd imagine giving him an indoor option is really confusing him. Second, it sounds like you're giving him too much access way too soon. Until he's fully housetrained (meaning no accidents at all in a month or more), he needs to be in your sight at all times. That may mean you need to attach him to you with a long leash at first. If you watch him carefully you can also just block him into whatever room you're in with x-pens and/or baby gates. Take him out often at first (every few hours) and give lots of praise for peeing outside. When you're not home, either crate him or use the baby gate to block him into a small (hopefully easily cleanable) space. Also, make sure you're cleaning up the pee with an enzyme cleaner like Nature's Miracle. Otherwise, he'll still be able to smell it and he'll keep going back to the same spots.
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I'm so sorry. His pics have always made me smile.
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He has the world's sweetest face. Seriously.
TONS of good thoughts for your little guy. -
Way too young. I'm so sorry.
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For traveling/hotels, we now have this one, which is fabulous for this purpose.
Ooh! Good to know. We do a long trip with our dogs once a year, and I've been thinking about picking up some of these.
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I'm so sorry he had to leave you.
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Can't remember whether I ever told this story on greytalk or not, but several months ago, DH was away for work, and I woke up around 3am to three growling, barking hounds. They pushed the bathroom door open (which is connected by another open door to the rest of the house) and ran into the living room, growling and lunging at the front door. I peeked out the window and didn't see anyone on the front porch, but there was a car parked with its lights on in the middle of the street. The car didn't move for fifteen minutes or more, and my dogs were still aggitated, so I decided to trust their instincts. I called the non-emergency number for the police. I told them I thought someone might be having car trouble in my neighborhood and asked them if they could send a patrol car by. They sent THREE cars, and the driver failed a field sobriety test. They arrested him and searched the car, and apparently found a massive amount of drugs.
The way the dogs ran out of the room and lunged at the front door, I kind of suspect that the guy tried the knob while I was sleeping. In any case, the dogs seemed to know that guy was different. Our neighbor throws late-night parties, all the time, and they're never phased by people coming and going.
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What a beautiful girl. I'm so sorry she had to leave you.
TONS of good thoughts for your little guy.
First Time My New Fuzzy Will Be Off Leash....suggestions?
in Training and Behavior discussion
Posted
I'm not referring to my own mistakes. When I was new to sighthounds, I was smart enough to learn from experienced owners.
Yes, they're dogs, but they're dogs that are bred for a certain purpose and with certain traits. There's no need to jump on posters who remind new owners (specifically this new owner, who ASKED for advice) that they need to take those traits into account.