kudzu

I figured they really were conspiring to achieve maximum annoyance in the most efficient way, division of labor. Do they have some list of duties somewhere? “I’ll be the picky eater if you’ll splash all the water out of the bowl & onto the floor.” “Okay and I’ll whine to wake the humans up early if you’ll beg for early bedtime so we get our midnight snacks ASAP.” “Good. Y’all do that & I’ll refuse to go potty at last call but then wake them up at 3 AM because, ‘I really, really need to go out, NOW!’ “ Oddest thing is that when we lost one, another would take over some of the departed’s annoying habits. They really must have a list somewhere.

I’ll start & others are invited to add theirs … If the simple act of your dog standing up is considered note worthy, you might have a Greyhound. [Yes, that actually happens in in this house. BF calls out the rare sighting, “Su’s standing!”]

Su agrees with Sweep & Val. If it's chewable & says your dog will love it, it is clearly a poison to be avoided at all cost. She wishes they would make something like, "New Improved Cat Poop Flavor. Your dog will love taking their medicine in Pooptsie Roll form." My guy Luke should up with liver enzymes out of whack. Ultrasound found nothing of note. A round of antibiotics later and he was okay. We'll never know why. My boyfriend has a history of intermittent liver enzyme elevation. He did end up doing the liver biopsy. It should there had been some sort of damage from unknown cause but things were healing. Do not ask me what they found that helped form their conclusions. We did go back through records and each time things were out of range it was after he'd had an injury and took naproxen as prescribed by a doctor. My sister's dog, a Boston terrier x French Bulldog, had a situation very much like Remolacha's Conner. They eventually did a liver biopsy that was inconclusive. In the end, liver problem never amounted to more. He passed when very senior of unrelated issues. There! I've been absolutely no help at all. But I do send good wishes for Jeter.

She does like some canned cat food. And I give her that sometimes. Normally the canned cat food around here is for the skink, but he only eats a tiny bit per can. Su is often happy to finish that off. (We have cats, but canned foods make Tasty Kitty puke. An unpleasant experience for all.) Well worth the try of serving entire meals of the stuff to see if it works. Sometimes one meal of "super yum" seems to prime her appetite, except when it doesn't. Bless her picky little heart. Val's apology by proxy is courteously accepted. Mixing the dehydrated food with the "meh" foods or even the "I loved it yesterday, but..." foods is a hit or miss effort. Seems more often than not it serves to disgust her even more. I can only guess it would be like someone who really knew me adding broccoli to my favorite meal. I would be disappointed, disgusted and insulted all at once. (Bless my picky little heart )

Val, quit sending ideas to Su. Stop it now! Lamb is now on Su's "meh" list. This girl is currently downstairs whining. BF says, "Su's by her bowl, crying." The bowl is full of a food she had previously loved. Previously... Oh my girl. She's running the show now. I just want to find something healthy she'll eat consistently, enough to maintain weight. At this point it doesn't matter if it's expensive. Oh, and still no Dave's in our general vicinity. It's supposedly available, but nothing on the shelves. There is a food she consistently adores, "Only Natural Pet MaxMeat". It is a dehydrated food, high in protein content at 35%. That concerns me when it looks like she might be starting with chronic renal failure. So until her next recheck I'm not feeding it as full meals. We'll be having a long feeding conversation then. If they suggest renal food I'll happily give it a try even if we need to pull out the Entyce to get her to eat it. [I'm basically just venting right now. But still very open to suggestions.]

Look at that beautiful girl!! Keep on keeping on, lovely lady.

Hadn't even known these exist. Now I'm disappointed no one has responded. I've only seen toothbrushes. Have you tried any yet? Though now I'm thinking of just cutting a small piece of microfiber to try as a reusable wipe. Could use one of the various liquids or pastes on it. Hmmm...

Deciding when it is time, for me, is less about the dog's age and more about current quality of life. There needs to be more to life than just surviving. There needs to be some things the dog still enjoys, things that keep the balance of good and bad leaning more to the good. For my pets who are chronically ill and need a lot of medical support, I try to remember that I am essentially, artificially prolonging their life. In general, I think prolonging life is good. However, with the ability to prolong life comes the responsibility to decide when to stop prolonging that life. I ask questions like is the dog currently suffering? Are there ways to improve quality of life for good period of time? And, maybe harder to evaluate, will the dog be able to tolerate the diagnostics and possible treatments well enough to make a continued fight worth it? I have had many pets. Losing them, letting them go is always very hard. For me, the hardest is when I lose them during an emergency. It is a combination of the shock of the suddenness and the idea that my pet was scared and suffering at the end. My cats and dogs seem to have a better departure when it is planned rather than during a crisis. Despite my desire to keep them in my life, experience and hindsight has led me to feel that it is better to let a pet go a day or even weeks early over a day too late. But that is me and there are others who feel differently. With all the above said, it is only you who can decide what is best for your dog. You may evaluate the situation and decide it is time to let go. But you may instead decide to keep going a while longer. If decisions are made with love and done in the dog's best interest then it will be the right decision. All we can do is make our best decisions with the information we have available. That information is never complete. It isn't reasonable to expect we can know everything. We just try to do our best.

So much progress! Keep it up, Sweep.

In general, metronidazole is usually safe. It has been a big help to many dogs, including one of mine. Still, it does require care and caution. Am not saying you should stop giving it. But reviewing the issue with your vet in light of everything else happening may be a good idea. It's something to consider.

I really want to help you, but there is an awful lot going on with your pup. It might be time for an internal medicine specialist vet. You might ask for a referral. Your vet would then send her records to the specialist and the specialist would share info and keep your regular vet appraised of what is going on. Am going to say that metronidazole, while appropriate and very helpful in certain situations, does have a long list of potential side effects and can cause or contribute to neurological issues. Am not saying that is part of your dogs problem, but am urging a good deal of caution. It isn't something for long term use unless absolutely necessary and also be extremely careful with dosage. That last is even more important for a little dog. Metronidazole was a huge benefit for one of my dogs short term, but for a friend's dog it was bad news when giving long term. So... Yeah, just be careful. Sending good thoughts for Beau. I love Iggies and the seniors most of all.

Such wonderful updates! That's fantastic.

I love the seniors, so you should keep that in mind since my advice will be biased. My seniors have been the best pets ever, truly. The most amazing was Luke. Adopted him at 10 years old. I knew he had arthritis and we soon found out he had chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Despite that, he joined us for basically everything including camping and other vacations. I used to do a lot of classes like obedience and agility with my younger dogs. Apparently Luke got tired of being left behind. One day he body blocked me at the door when I was trying to leave. He just stood there staring at me. He moved when I told him to but ...v e r y...s l o w l y... lol Bless him! I signed him up for intro agility and he did everything along with the toy sized dogs. He was the class favorite. He loved it so much I also signed him up for intro rally obedience. He loved that, too. Luke stayed in agility class until he was almost 13yo. (Remember though, he was only doing the lowest obstacles.) At 13 he started to slow down and ultimately left us before his 14th birthday. Luke was good with kids up to a point. If they pestered him when he just wanted to rest, he would leave the room. When visiting family with kids we had a rule. When Luke went into "his" bedroom, the kids had to stay out. Some of the kids broke the rule. I tried to keep an eye and shoo them out, but one time I heard a, "she told you to leave him alone in there," and rushed down the hall. Apparently on child was in the room, laying on the floor with her face in Luke's face. Luke had growled a warning. The child backed up but didn't leave. Luke was just ignoring her at that point. From then on, if Luke went to his room I would put up a gate. That solved the problem with the pesky kids. Sunita is my current Greyhound and she is 13 yo now. She is a very picky eater and has laryngeal paralysis. She wants to keep active but cannot go on walks, except in Winter, because the heat effects her. She still goes camping with us. However, we only take campsites with electric hook ups so I can run the air conditioner for her. What she loves most are our walks in the cool mornings or late evenings. She slows or stops at any campsite where she sees a human to give them a chance to pet her. She's the darling of the campground, meeting and greeting with anyone who shows the slightest interest in her. Su adores humans sooo much. She's still good with kids and would still be excellent candidate for a home with considerate children. Of course, you would need a way to give her some quiet time away from super pesky visiting kids, but that would be the case for any dog. None of my greyhounds has been up for rough housing with people, but several would enjoy running with kids when they played in the yard. One would even retrieve items, at least for the first few throws. After that she'd look at you like, "Seriously, it's your turn to go get it!" The average lifespan of my Greyhounds has been 12-13 years. Some other people do better. I would adopt a 12 yo, but only if I though I could stand the heartache of losing one anytime from a few months to a couple years down the road. And I would have to be willing to adjust expectations to match age related problems. That applies to all dogs but with seniors it starts upon adoption, rather than years later. All that said, if you think your family is up to it then go get that dog. Seniors really are the best, regardless of the age of adoption.

Will be honest. In the beginning, it was hard to imagine we were going to get through it. Those first weeks were the hardest and then it started to get better. It was several months overall before things were back to somewhat normal. Seemed like forever, but in the years afterwards things seemed to maintain an equilibrium. Venus was on tetracycline (doxy serves the same) and niacinamide. At vet's suggestion, she also took vitamin E and high EPA fish oil. Not sure that's appropriate in your dog's case with the bleeding from the nails. Plus, that was a number of years ago and things may have moved on from those. It is good you already had your girls nails back to a decent length. Does seem quite unfair that work is now falling out. I remember working on Venus's nails when some had grown back while others were still falling out. Was always worried I'd hurt her but as long as I wasn't pushing on one of the loose nails it was fine. Keeping the nails as short as possible helps reduce nail loss going forward. At least it helped my girl. Her nails stopped sloughing off, but she still occasionally lost one. Each time it was when I missed a nail trim. It seemed her nails were remained a little less well attached than before SLO. Loosing one or two nails a year seemed such a small thing. Hang in there.

It could have multiple causes but SLO was my first thought, also. Had a dog with it. Initially, all her nails came off over a fairly short snort of time. However, she was in pain during it, making it seem like a very long road. With meds for pain in the beginning & a treatment protocol for the long term, she actually did quite well despite the disease. Good luck & please update us after the very appt.

Go Sweep!!

My man!! (Not that I'd turn down the fries.)

That is all very good! for more of the same. Su has LP. Since it has gotten warm she usually just ambles slowly around the yard during potty breaks but at the end she does a very brief dash up the ramp and into the house. That leaves her panting and raspy sounding at first when inside. It seems to be the heat and humidity doing it. PS Yuck, yucky, eeewwww, to the liverwurst. Ate it & liked it as a child. Can't even imagine why now. It's so gross. Same goes for Vienna sausages and bologna. Which also sometimes work for picky dogs.

Wonderful!! Don't be upset if she has another setback in the eating department. That seems common with mine during recovery from illness or surgery. It is clear her appetite is starting to return and you will have more successes even if some more meals are missed.

Sorry about that, but it still made me laugh. We've gone through the very unpleasant combo of pee accidents and yuckiness coming from both ends, all at the same time. It is very difficult and that was with dogs standing on all four. Hang in there. Things will improve. It won't feel quick enough, but it will get better soon.

We are likely headed down the renal insufficiency road soon. Her creatinine has gone up slightly on each of the last few blood panels. At her recheck we'll be doing a more in depth work up on that. And there will be a discussion of pros/cons of further LP testing & treatment. Not thrilled with any of that, but with a second crisis (and hindsight) it seems we're past due for that.

LOVE the pics. Petunia is almost google-eyed. Snickers, what big teeth you have! I strangely miss dogs who wanted to eat my food. Su believes she is an obligate carnivore, preferably red meat, and wants nothing to do with things like fries.

This is very good to read. Hope the next day or so is uneventful or at least minimally eventful.

Am glad to hear of LP dogs, with & without tie-back, living to 15 yo. Until Friday, I think I’d convinced myself there may not be something like a repeat of that Jan. episode, thus feeling medical or surgical treatment for this might be avoided. Am not at all confident about that now, but tie-back really scares me. More accurately, possible aspiration pneumonia scares me. Already been there with a dog, though it was because of other neuro issues. Those issues, of which LP was just a small part, ultimately caused his death. Pneumonia was just the last step of that journey. Still, it definitely left its mark on me. Of course, a dog with advanced LP is as bad as pneumonia. Either way, your dog struggles to breath. We’d end up at the vet school or speciality hospital for more advanced work up before that. It is a lot to digest & consider.