KingsMom

Thanks for the responses all, we're excited and looking forward to seeing all of you!

Anyone have experience staying at the country inn? It's our first time and that's where we're booked. Thanks!

ORLANDO FLORIDA AREA I'm not the sitter but highly recommend Mollie Moore who has greyhounds of her own but also operates a pet sitting business. She can be reached at mollie707@yahoo.com We have left our hounds with her and have always been completely satisfied. She has a great fenced yard and is very accommodating.

I'm going through similar issues with them getting old... prayers for you and yours. Let us know how the appointment goes.

Thanks for all of the prayers and well wishes! Thankfully King did ok overnight and this morning. Our vet does acupuncture so, while pricey, we were able to do that for both of them this morning. It seems to have helped King as he's moving around a little better. It is likely still a neurological problem for him but we'll do what we can to keep him moving and comfortable. On the plus side Dazie's chest xray was clear so the cancer hasn't spread. It looks like the greyhound health initiative isn't currently offering free carboplatin but we're going to write to them to see. Out vet also offers a new therapy for dogs that has been used in people called glucose metabolic inhibitor. We'll see what we can work out for her. Thanks again for all the prayers, we're ok for now.

My King and my Dazie are both dealing with issues tonight that signal the end may be nearer than we anticipated. They are sibling 12.5 year olds. King has an unknown neurological issue that is keeping him from standing up and walking well. He has his ups and downs with how well he does lately. Dazie has a cancer in a joint in her foot. We're going for chest xrays tomorrow and we will take King and talk to the vet about him too. Hopefully everything will be ok but just in case I wanted to ask for prayers for my babies. They've had a yummy dinner of medium rare ground beef with pork roast juice and I'm giving lots of love, just in case. Thanks. Here's my very best and most recent picture of them. King on the left and Dazie on the right.

Congratulations Ducky! It was so nice to meet you at Mountain Hounds! I'm so glad this worked out for you and Percy, I know he hit the jackpot with you!

Thanks so much!!

Can you help me figure out why the image below is coming out so small? It's in my gallery and I thought I picked the large size but it's only loading tiny. Thanks.

I have to agree. Dazie has been diagnosed by more than one vet with a grade 2/3 murmur and we have never been instructed to have it checked further. She's getting older and doesn't run too much anyway so we don't worry to much. Hope your vet is willing to confirm it as low grade for you!

We went to the vet today and got the culture and sensitivity test. The results should be in next week. He looked at King's throat and didn't see anything specific. He recommended we try an antihistimine for a few days to be sure it isn't congestion. If that doesn't help we'll have to work on getting the LP scope. Thanks to all who posted info, if anything changes I'll be sure to update. Here's a pic of my good boy, thanks for the help with him!

3greytjoys thanks so much for your post, it's good info to have and I appreciate it. If we get a confirmed LP diagnosis I'll probably reach out to you via PM. Last night Kings roo had a bit more sound to it but not much. It's like he's re-learning how to use his voice. However, I did hear a definite growl out of him (towards a bunny on our walk). So it seems that he can use his lower register but really struggles with his upper register; I don't know what to make of that. Thanks for all of the responses, I'll keep you updated as I get more info. Thanks!

Thanks for all of the responses, I greatly appreciate the insight. I spoke with our vet this AM and he said that if something were stuck King would likely be gagging and drooling a lot and he doesn't seem to be doing either so we're moving past that and focusing on the possibility of LP. Right now the vet wants us to come in on Saturday for a Culture and Sensitivity test where they perform a Cystocentesis by inserting a sterile needle through the belly wall into the urinary bladder, and remove a urine sample by aspiration into a syringe. Depending on the result of this test we may need to do a specific creatnine/protein blood test and depending on the result of that we may need to do an ultrasound, we'll see what happens with the urinary issue as it seems to be separate from the voice issue. In the mean time I'm going to continue to research and observe King carefully so we have more data about his condition and the vet will look at him for the voice issue on Saturday. We'll decide the best next step based on what he sees there. I'm pretty sure I heard him growl at a bunny on our walk tonight but he still doesn't seem to be able to make noise in the upper register of his voice so I'm interested in seeing what else happens between now and then. I also have a chinese medicine vet that I can speak with and I plan to try to get a hold of him Thursday night to discuss everything we know up to that point so I can have as much info as possible when we see our regular vet (who is very gh savvy and deals with many dogs straight off the track so he's seen a lot) on Saturday. I'll be sure to keep this updated for all of you and so that I have a good record of everything as sometimes the details start to mesh together. By putting it all here I can remember how it all actually happens... Thanks and keep it coming, I'm very open to any insight people may be able to offer!

It's been a while since I really posted here, have been more of a lurker for a while but... This will be a bit long so I appreciate any insight you can offer. On about Oct 9th King started peeing blood so we took him right to the vet and it was diagnosed as a bacterial infection. A 7 day course of Cipro seemed to clear it up. About a week after he finished the cipro he started hesitating when we put his food down. He did that for a few meals then Saturday night he was very disinterested but eventually ate. Sunday morning when we put it down he would not go near it. As a test my DH put in some meat and he ate that but wouldn't touch the kibble. This from a dog who in 6 years has never refused a morsel of food and is a total food hound, I was concerned. We had to go out for a few hours and by the time we returned he had finished the kibble. Since Sunday night he seems to have mostly returned to normal eating maybe a little less exuberant but at least going directly to his bowl and eating. This is where it gets really odd... Sunday night we decided to play a video of other greys rooing to get them going, it always works. We did it twice and both times he threw his head back in traditional greyhound roo but hardly anything more than a squeek came out. You could see him breathing as though he let all his air out and was going to roo again but there was just a smidgen of sound. It was frightening. Then it started to dawn on me that the last time I remember hearing sound from him is probably Thursday night but even that's a bit of a guess. I could hear rooing through the front door when I got home and I think it was both of them but can't be sure because they stop as soon as I enter. Normally he whines when he wants something and lately it's been more huffing and breathing at me than whining which I didn't pick up on until after the rooing video episodes. DH tried the video again today with the same result. I took a follow up urine sample to the vet this morning because I didn't know what else to do. It showed a slightly elevated protein level so he wants to do a sample directly from the bladder but he says it isn't urgent to get it done. We feed him beef trachea as a treat after dinner each night bcause he loves to chew and it's more digestible than rawhide. Tonight we started thinking that perhaps he got a small peice of kibble or beef trachea stuck somewhere Friday night and that's what is prohibiting him from making sound and perhaps what impacted his eating. When I mentioned it to the vet he said if it persists we'll have to look into something that could cause trachea inflammation or paralysis but he said typically dogs with that have a hard time breathing and he seems to be breathing just fine, even able to take big deep breaths. I plan to mention my theory of something possibly stuck in there to the vet tomorrow but in the mean time wanted to see if there is any advice anyone here can provide. I did a few searches and wasn't able to find anything similar. I truly appreciate any info as I'm quite worried about him. He's 11.5 and so far most people are just trying to chalk it up to him getting old but this is a sudden change not a gradual change over time, I know my dog and I know something just isn't right.