DunesMom

Dune developed signs at 13, and we tried anipryl. It helped with him sleeping through most nights without incident, but he was also really unstable and logy -- noticeably more so than any normal 13-year-old greyhound (so yeah, it was bad). He fell over a lot. We decided to take him off it after a month, and just took turns taking him out at 2 or 3 am for the remaining 8 months of his life.

What would be the dangers (if any) of trying melatonin? I ask because DH & I used to use it for jet lag before the invention of Ambien (insert Hallelujah chorus here). If the side effects are minor or rare, I might try it for Baldy Boy, aka Kipper, who is missing about half his body hair (and is not hypothyroid, just right off the track).

Then if it doesn't hurt him, I'd guess it's one of the usual three: A tendon snapping over a bone, cartilage rub, or air popping in/out of the joint. I'm sitting her snapping my foot (forgot that one) by turning it in a circle -- it sounds like a super-loud snap/crack, as another tendon clicks over a metatarsal. I'm pretty noisy when I walk, so I feel for your hound!

RE: Human generics If it works for your dog, go for it. Remember that all generics, though, can vary in the amount of actual drug under FDA law, and you may not be getting the full dose, or anywhere close to it (or you may be getting more). So watch your dog for changes and talk to your vet about adjusting accordingly. If you stick with brand-name, try ordering from a mail-order house like 1800PetMeds or DrsFosterSmith. Dune's meds cost me half at DrsFosterSmith compared with the vet's office.

Haven't known a dog with this, but I have a knee and an ankle that do this -- the knee is cartilage, the ankle is a tendon that snaps over the bone with every flex. Neither hurt, so my ortho says there's no need to do anything until they do. If you rule out nails, I wouldn't stress about it but would ask your vet next time you're in.

Kipper just took a big bite of the fake tree (he is all puppy at 2). Then he promptly puked a small amount of yellow liquid with fake-tree "needles", which are some sort of soft plastic. Now I find a broken bulb on the ground by the tree, and can find only part of the bulb total -- a small portion seems uncounted for. What do I watch for? Should I just haul him in now? I'm afraid to make him vomit, in case he did swallow the bit of glass (it's tiny, but I don't know if that's good or bad).

Such a beautiful boy and he brought you so much love and joy. I'm so terribly sorry about your loss.

I was 27 and single when I first adopted; 11 years later I've lost my heart dog but am preparing to adopt again. I do remember thinking there weren't many 20-somethings with greys when I adopted, but then most of my 20-something friends weren't exactly responsible dog owners, so the whole leash thing and lifetime commitment might have scared them off (plus, lots of people think you need GIANT yards to own greys, and how many 20-somethings own their own houses?).

It happens nearly every day to me, too. Six weeks and two days, and sometimes I think I hear Dune's nails on the tile floor, and my heart pushes up and out like it's going to leave my chest. Then I remember that he's gone, and the tears start. Like now.

Dune barked maybe once a month or less, to let me know I was late in starting our afternoon walk. Unless you count dream barking; that's every day, every night. Same with growling (only time he's ever growled is asleep!). But once when he was young I took him to a lure course fun match, and the minute he spied the grocery-bag lure, he went nuts with barking and lunging. I had to get him out of eyesight to calm him down. Funny, he wasn't particularly high prey drive and lived happily with cats for years -- but that grocery bag was asking for it!

San Diego, CA -- small wood privacy-fenced (6 foot high) back yard, can take the occasional greyhound boarder. I'm even here for both Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. No cats/small furries live here; I work from home/home all day; currently no greyhound but should be adopting before year's end (lost my 14yo in August). PM me with questions

Thanks everyone for such wonderful support. I'm so glad I found Greytalk! It helps to send him off with such good thoughts. Here's a couple recent pics of him enjoying old age. Notice the roach in my office on top of TWO dog beds! He was the princess in the pea -- he liked the fluffy one to nest, but it wasn't supportive enough and he whined and groaned until so we stacked them, which was apparently "just right." Oh, how I miss him. And two beauty portraits, from his prime about five years ago (a photographer friend took these, there are more on his website but I don't know if I can publish the link?)

I keep trying to write a special note for the greytalk memorial board but just can't, so I'm posting my message to family and friends. Dune gave me 11 years of love, and I grieve every moment for the hole he's left behind. Friends, I’m writing to let you know that we lost our dear friend Dune this morning (August 13). Many of you were friends of his; most of you know at least parts of his story; all of you know his crooked smile and goofy, gentlemanly demeanor. Dune was born in 1994 to a breeder in Kansas. He raced until he was just shy of three. I first met him through a local adoption group, whose founder matched me with Dune’s exuberant, human-loving personality. I had wanted a small, dark-colored female. Dune was the largest blond male they’d had come through rescue, at 29” shoulder height and 80-some pounds . The rescue founder told me she loved that Dune, while staying in the kennels awaiting a forever home, always rolled over to ask for belly rubs when she came in, and didn’t have much interest in barking with the other inmates, though he was sociable with all breeds of dogs. As an apartment dweller in urban Kansas City with a host of dog-owning friends, this sold me. At our first meeting, Dune took me for a race at the PetCo adoption clinic, dragging me around an empty field next door. I had to brace my feet in the sand to keep from flying after him like a ribbon in the wind. Still, something in those deep brown eyes with their gorgeous Egyptian-kohl eyeliner urged me to take him home, even though he was nothing of what I’d pictured a greyhound to be: demure, shy, sweet, mid-sized, sleek-coated. He was exuberant, boisterous, friendly, outgoing, large and with a thick ruff and rabbit-like coat that shed and shed some more in hot weather. It took nearly a year for Dune’s personality to stabilize; he was a different dog almost every day. I coaxed him step by step, stair by stair up to my third-floor brownstone flat near the hospital that first Friday afternoon, and after he recovered from trembling fear, he raced down them with me and bounded back up as though playing a joyful game. (Though it took many months before he could be coaxed up or down the back steps, which had no backs and could be seen through.) At first, I tried crating him, as recommended by the greyhound rescue and any responsible shelter, until he was reliably housetrained and settled. The first work day I dragged and pushed him into the enormous wire crate the adoption group had loaned me. He was standing and squeaking at me when I came home from work, squeaking with that gentle, high-pitched “squeee” he used to demand attention for all of his 14 years, in lieu of barking. We went out for a long walk, me braced for a dragging and armed with a Promise Gentle Leader head halter, just in case. Dune raced down the stairs with me, peed on the front gate, then walked slowly and regally alongside me for miles, as though he’d always had the perfect manners of an elderly companion. He reserved shows of great tongue-lolling speed for dog parks and beaches and the few lure-coursing meets we attended, which were also the only times I heard him bark uncontrollably, from the moment he spied the lure. He never again dragged me or pulled on the lead, not after that first hair-raising turn about the adoption field, much to my – and the greyhound rescue group’s – surprise. A volunteer later told me he’d been in rescue for many months, dragging volunteers and potential adopters so horridly that no one would take him. After his single day in the crate, he refused to enter it again. Cat-like and spry, he eluded my efforts on day 2 of our first work week, and I finally gave in and left him loose in my apartment, sure I would return to hours of cleanup and repair. Instead, I came home to a sleeping hound, nestled in the old Bambi blanket I’d folded on the living room floor. He yawned, stretched, and we went for our calm gentleman’s stroll about the neighborhood. Dune’s wonderfully gentle soul and disarmingly trusting personality won us both friends. He learned from Ethan’s German shepherd Lady how to use his paws to hold rawhide and bones while gnawing them, instead of licking them across the floor and back again, as he’d been doing. He introduced me to Gary and Chief on one of our neighborhood walks, and Gary in turn introduced me to one of my best friends in the world, Jena, and her two cats, Missy and Steve (who then taught Dune how to live with cats when Jena Dune-sat for me). He won over my family and their Belgians Marlowe, Monte, and Merlin, and my friend Kent and my brother-in-law Delayne and his dog Murry. Much later, he won over Woody and the Harley-riding crew in San Diego, and even Steve, who believed dogs belonged outside, and never on the furniture. Dune was hit only once in his life that I am certain of, my final Christmas in Kansas City, during a break-in and robbery of my new house. I found Dune in my closed bedroom, huddled in a tight ball in the corner of my bed, shaking, blood congealing in a long brown streak along his face and neck and chest, thick and gnarled, still oozing from a dime-sized hole above his right eye. The robbers had whacked him with a wooden bottle crate containing an expensive bottle of Scotch (under the tree on Christmas, it still bore bits of hair and blood). The K-9 police who arrived later were so angry at a dog being hit that they dusted every surface of my house for fingerprints, in the hope that someone might match in their database. In 1998, Dune moved with me to Las Vegas, the start of a rough year for both of us, with long work hours for me and hours alone for Dune; a year that would leave both of us scorched and unsettled. On the drive to Vegas, we stopped to pee in a tiny rest area in western Kansas, and walked into a wonderland of Monarch butterflies, thousands and thousands of them on their annual migration, coating every leaf on the trees and landing lightly upon both our hides. Dune seemed to gaze at them in wonder, not once snapping at them as he did with houseflies and bees. I took it as a good sign, even though a day and a half later, when the lights of Las Vegas appeared in the bowl of a valley below us, I pulled over and cried bitter tears at leaving my friends and family and everyone I knew so far behind. Dune wriggled closer and rested his chin on my shoulder, deep in the curve of my neck, as if to remind me that I was not alone, that I still had someone with me, and it was perhaps then that I fell deeply, hopelessly in love with this creature whose soul seemed older than the Sandhills and river valleys of my childhood home in Nebraska. Dune started sleeping in my bed in Las Vegas, cuddling against me in the cold air conditioning, both of us wondering how we’d gotten to such a soulless place, doing such soulless work, surrounded by such a soulless culture. It was here that he began his hunger strikes when I’d leave town, so firm in his refusal to eat that kennels and vets called me routinely, fearing that Dune was seriously ill or might perish before I returned. After both refusing to eat and being bitten at a kennel’s day care, I stopped using kennels and began to rely on driving him with me on vacation or the generosity of friends and in-house caretakers, which seemed to have been Dune’s plan all along. Satisfied with this arrangement, he soon settled into a happy stream of housevisits from Ray and Lesley; Christyn; Trip & Jen and Max-the-poodle; Lisa, Dan, Maddie, Max and Libby; Pam and Biff and their three-legged rescue, Dolce; Melissa and her pack of Baxter, Madison and Kiley; Steve and Vicki and the golden Scout; John the vet tech and Devo the whippet; Dave and Anne and Misha; occasional walks from Nancy and visits with Hula; and eventually his final walk around Fiesta Island with Nancy, Sunshine, Hula and Scout. He even spent a glorious summer with us in Cape Cod with and Steve and Andrea. San Diego has been our home since 1999, and it’s been good to us both. Dune survived a series of graceless self-inflicted or dog-park mishaps—late last night as we snuggled in bed one last time, I cataloged the scars on his body, the ones I knew the origins of, and filled an entire notebook page—to land happily in the house on Mission Bay with Chris, who grew to love him deeply and who indulged Dune’s greatest pleasures: sunbathing on the porch and Tums before bed. After Chris retired, Dune never spent much time alone and enjoyed leisurely afternoon sniff-fests around the block, morning sunbathes on the front stoop, and joyous weekend romps on Fiesta Island. As age and injury stiffened his spine, his walks slowed and shortened and eventually he no longer could run off leash. But even then, he exuded dignity and waves of joy in the little things: The smell of a particular small patch of grass, the scritch of a good itching, the pleasure of an ear rub or chest pet, the tender bits of leftover fish from our dinner each night. And of course, one of his greatest joys: Monday Night Football. MNF was the happiest time for Dune; he loved nothing more than a house full of people, the noise and ruckus of laughter, and the unlimited well of petting that such a gathering tapped. There was also the prospect of snacking. Despite years of denying Dune human food and never feeding him while the humans were eating, he quickly discovered that many of us would break down during MNF, and grilled halibut and steak could be his for the asking. Though the results often cleared the room, he reveled in the procuring, and eventually even Chris and I gave up trying to change his elderly ways. Dune was lucky enough to enjoy seven seasons of MNF friendship, and for that, I am truly grateful. I realized yesterday that I have never in the past 11 years been alone. I have been without friends or boyfriends, without a home of my own while transferring jobs, without work, without money, without food. But I have not once been alone. Dune was a far better friend than I could ever be, and my heart will likely never heal. God rest your aching bones and gentle soul, dear hound. You were the best that ever lived.

If it's on one side, you can touch it/move it around and it seems fine, and she seems her usual happy self, take a deep breath and relax. If it's one side and she's feeling fine, it's not anything to worry about over the weekend. I went through this with Dune, twice: Once he had an infection that required antibiotics, but if that's the case, you know in a hurry -- they don't feel well, they decide not to eat or don't want their usual biscuit; within a day they're obviously ill. Second time it was a blocked salivary gland. We tried antibiotics just in case -- no change. This time around, he felt fine. I could squeeze the lump, move it around, and he didn't care. Still walked, ate, acted normal. After a round of antibiotics he hated, and several aspirations, we realized it was a blocked salivary gland. It eventually grew to nearly tennis-ball size (not really, but it looked like he had the mumps on one side ). Surgery on an old dog for something not dangerous nor painful seemed pointless, so we left it. He lived that way for three years, and the only sign beyond the obvious lump was that he drooled more than he used to -- I guess it had nowhere to go! My lapsed vet-tech certification says, unless she's acting sick or seems in pain, it can probably wait until Wednesday. Good luck!

Dune crossed the bridge five weeks ago and I still can't get through a day without crying multiple times. I'd lost dogs before him (Dune was my first grey, though), but no dog has been as close to me. Dune was my souldog. Well-meaning friends keep saying the sooner I get another dog, the easier it will get. The SO worries that any hound I get will compare unfavorably with my most-loved Dune, and I won't be a fair mom. He thinks I may need a long time to recover emotionally. He also, I suspect, is trying to delay the inevitable as long as possible -- before Dune & I entered his life as a package deal, he wasn't a "dog person." Dune won him over, and he's been grieving deeply, also. I don't know what to think. I'm so devastated, I swing wildly between adopting today and thinking I may need more than a year to be a stable dog-mom. Any advice? I know lots of grey owners have multiples, but in our house/life/situation, one is all we can do at once, BTW. (Several folks recommended getting two so that I never am left with only one hound, but we can't do it.)

Oh Elizabeth and Heather, I so wish I could hug you. This may be the hardest decision you will ever make, and I know it too well: Five weeks ago today I held my beloved Dune as his heart took its final beat. I'm sorry to those who think the language is harsh, but I cannot get over the fact that I chose to kill my soulmate. He was not in pain. His health was as good as any five-year-old greyhound's. But his spine required thrice-daily meds or it hurt, badly enough that if he missed even one dose he'd stop eating and drinking, and at 14 and down to 62 pounds (from a racing weight of 82), that meant hospitalization within a day. Like Isabella, Dune was still walking, eating, smiling, begging for pets and treats. He'd even managed to jump onto our bed four times in the last week that I'd been home, medicating and feeding him well so that he was pain-free, happy and was gaining weight -- six pounds in a week! I had the horror of scheduling it six days out, like someone else did. Was I sparing him pain and humiliation? No. As long as I was home and medicating him on time, he was doing well, following me around and eating ice cream (at 14 you can eat whatever you want, I say). But I was leaving town for three weeks, to visit my SO's father/family and help my SO plan his 92-year-old father's funeral; his father hinted that it might well be the last time we'd see him alive (his heart and spine are giving out, though not his spirit, either). And on my previous three unavoidable work trips this summer, NO ONE could get meds into Dune. No one. Not the vet tech we hired, not the SO, not the animal-first-aid licensed dogsitters, not Dune's beloved "doggie godparents" who tried everything. He was a master pill-spitter-outer (and liquid spitter-outer). I'd tried everything to help the dogsitters: special compounded liquids, showing them my technique, hiring other "med" specialists. Yet they'd failed, and he'd lost 12 pounds in those three trips, pounds I hadn't been able to recover in my in-between stays. My choice: Kill the dog I love more than almost any human alive, or fail that one human who ranks above Dune. The vet told me that, with meds on schedule, he might live another six months or a year -- everything else was healthy. Then again, the pain meds may have stopped working the next week. She supported either decision. Anyone who says you will "know" hasn't been in a rock and a hard place with an old dog whose body is failing but whose mind and spirit are as happy to see you as they've ever been, an old smiling hound who relishes smells on his one-block shuffles and snuggles up with a contented sigh on the bed with you, who is pain-free more than 80% of the time but who faces a possible pain-filled near-death or death due to the failings of humans. My neighbors, dogsitters, friends and SO all think I made the "right" decision, that Dune would likely have ended up in pain and starving when I was gone, just as he'd been in pain the last time I'd left and the dogsitters failed him in medicating. But as far as I'm concerned, I killed the greatest dog that ever lived just so I could do the "right thing" in the human world and see an old man who called to tell me he wouldn't be around by Christmas, and turned out to be doing just as well as he'd been for the past five years other than his hearing. There is no limit to the grief and guilt I feel. There are few friends who even vaguely understand; some of the ones I'd believed to be the biggest dog-lovers have actually said, "he was a dog, you'll get over it." The only comfort is in knowing that he didn't suffer, and that he died happily in my arms in his favorite bed, doing his favorite thing -- sunbathing on our front porch -- while the anesthesia took effect. I would rather have had a disease help me with this decision. It is, and was and I think will forever be, the worst thing I have ever done.

So if Home Again scanners can read Avid chips, and Avid is cheaper, why not use Avid even if you live in a "Home Again" area? :-) If you move a lot or think you are, seems like costs to change address might be a consideration -- but if Avid scanners can't read Home Again chips, I'd still vote for Avid, b/c then you wouldn't have to worry about moving into an Avid area where no one can read your Home Again chips.

Once, two years ago, when our housesitters fed him a whole package of raw hamburger over the course of a few days and some nasty preservative-filled "jerky sticks." Normally he eats a high-quality but bland diet with no "human" food (but supplemented with some veggies & lean meats). He recovered normal levels within a week and we haven't had another episode. But we are VERY careful and lecture our housesitters and dinner guests relentlessly, and this seems to cut down on their enthusiasm to give in to his begging.

My boy ruptured his eardrum several years ago, from a yeast infection so deep the vet didn't even see it on his exam two days earlier. We gave antibiotics to stave off any further infection. That was it. It healed and he still hears well out of it -- the vet said that unlike humans, dogs eardrums do heal and function again? Don't know if that's true, but he seemed fine within a month or two.

My vet is going to do the shots for me this afternoon! She's still concerned about side effects, but she understands that we're to the quality-of-life decision, so she's bending. Let's hope Dune is one of the lucky ones and gets some relief. She said we can continue the tramadol with the shots, if we can get them down. I'm calling the compounding pharmacy next. He is a champion pill spitter-outer, and despite his greyhound sweetness, if you're not fast, he'll clamp down on your hand to keep the pill out. Last night he somehow managed to get a pill up that I'd poked down a full finger's length, and it came up with enough saliva to fill a juice glass. DH stood nearby in horror: "That's just disgusting." No Mastiff could have out-drooled him last night! Dune happily went to his bowl to see what treat followed the pill.

Good idea. I'd been giving him a treat immediately after each pill, and he now looks for the special reward after the pilling, but he still runs from me when he suspects a pill is in the offing and fights the actual process. I didn't think about using the peanut butter/treat BEFORE the pill. Smart!

FWIW the Beef 'n More canned is made by Merrick in the same plant with virtually the same ingredents as Cowboy Cookout. Available at my Sprawlmart for an amazing .53 a can. Interesting. I've fed my 14-year-old boy cans of Merrick's Puppy Plate, Grammy's Pot Pie or Thanksgiving Dinner (the three with highest calorie & protein levels), along with Solid Gold Hundenflocken kibble for the past few years, and people are amazed at the quality of his coat. So soft you can help but pet him for hours. But it ain't cheap! I will have to find a "Sprawlmart" -- I'm in SD,CA and I think the nearest one is about 20 miles from me.

GREAT idea on the compounding -- that hadn't even occurred to me. I will investigate this immediately. We didn't do the MRI b/c of cost and that it wouldn't change our treatment, in the neurosurgeon's opinion. We have had numerous x-rays, and they show nothing but maybe a slight narrowing of the lumbosacral joint where you'd expect the stenosis to be. No other abnormalities. I wonder what the paste is that makes it so delicious? I'll look for something similar. Dune has exactly one thing that is guaranteed to be eaten immediately, and it's a chicken-flavor "Ripples" soft dental chew. I have no idea why -- he'll turn up his nose at real chicken and peanut butter and steak some days, but the Ripples he begs for nonstop. Wonder if I could turn it into paste....

Oh, I wish peanut butter would work! I'm afraid to try it, because he won't swallow anything unless he chews it (I know, he's odd, even for a greyhound). He's never been food motivated, not even for liver treats or cookies. When you place something in his mouth, he will lick and taste and spit it out to lick rather than swallowing. When he hits the pill, voluminous salivation and spitting ensues until he gets it out, no matter how sticky. Some of it must go in him as it dissolves, but not the whole amount. I think it might work for poking it into his throat, but he fights so hard (even biting the vet tech) that I'm afraid it won't help our dogsitters. If I could skip this trip I would, but it's not an option. I've cancelled everything I could for the last four months including a vacation, just to give him his medicine and try to make him comfortable until it's time. It's so hard when he's mentally fine but the pain is becoming an issue because we can't control it.