KF_in_Georgia

Is anyone cooking lamb? Some dogs react badly to the smell. Otherwise, something he's hearing. Don't ignore ordinary noises, either. My two are fine with the landscapers and their industrial-strength blowers--will go right up to the landscape crew (the humans are not as thrilled by the company). But if they can hear the blower but not see the landscaper, my girl insists on going in the house because the blower sounds like an enormous buzzing insect. (The sound sets my teeth on edge.)

Have you lost any socks lately? My Jane was about 8 years old, and she'd been with me less than two months when she started vomiting after every meal. More than a month after the first episode, she barfed up a sock. Not a full ankle sock with a cuff; just one of those foot-covering little things. Ten days later, she barfed up a second one. (Lesson learned: I no longer drop my socks in the floor.) After the first sock came back, she stopped vomiting her meals. Apparently, with my footwear in her stomach, she didn't have room for a cup and a half of kibble at mealtime. An ultrasound had revealed "something" (small, badly formed and unidentifiable) but the vet was concerned that he might be seeing a cancerous growth. She had kept eating the cup and a half every meal: the spirit was willing, but the stomach was...crowded. I was so worried about the weight she was losing that I had started feeding her less, more often. Instead of a cup and a half at mealtime, I cut her back to one cup, three times a day, and she was able to keep that down. And once she returned both socks, we went back to a cup and a half at mealtime. The vomiting had been her only symptom. Peeing and pooping normally, and her appetite only declined after weeks; I think she was tired of vomiting all the time. But she got very affectionate. She was a broodbitch/queen-of-the-castle type in her first home and very independent, but once she started feeling bad, she got clingy and I'd wake up in the morning with her head on my shoulder. She recovered completely--although she became a total mama's girl. She's still going strong and had her 14th birthday last Friday. Amy might not have eaten a sock, but it's possible she got into something she hasn't digested well. Perhaps try feeding her less food more often and see if that helps at all. Good luck to you both.

And, despite the name, stud tail isn't gender-related. My girl has it, my boy does not.

I've been using Bravecto on my dogs for years with no complications. I'm using it on my girl (13 years, 9 months old) and boy (9 years, 5 months), and have been using it on these two for as long as I've had them--six years. None of my dogs have ever been prone to seizures. I'd avoid Bravecto (or anything like it) if seizures were a problem in this household. But I did therapy dog events for years with the two dogs I lost in 2016 (osteo in the boy, hemangio in the old lady), and I wanted "pet-able" dogs around seniors and kids--not dogs with a toxin on the back of their necks. P.S. I've never had a vet try to sneak any pesticide on one of my dogs.

It could be something treatable. It could be a pulled muscle that she keeps tweaking, and restricted activity might be helpful. (Especially since she's injured it before.) It might at least be something that won't get worse. I would try to push for the trazadone unless the vet can give you a good reason not to do it. You may have to insist--asking why they're in so much of a hurry they can't make Daisy comfortable.

If he's hearing something that upsets him--humming machinery or something--there might be something in the office that masks the upsetting sound. Did the behavior change happen when you turned on the furnace?

Best thing a vet once told me: If there are potentially complicated cases, they get done first. The no-problem cases get shifted to late in the day. This was his message when I dropped off two dogs at 6am and didn't have any word from him by 3:30. Both dogs were fine. When I picked them up, the girl was still so looped that I had to carry her to the car. She wouldn't step over the threshold from one kind of floor to another because her depth perception was screwed.

https://www.allivet.com/

Jen, I'm so sorry to read this. You'll find the strength to do what's necessary because you won't let your girl suffer. Give her a Reese's peanut butter cup before she sees the vet. One vet has said no dog should have to die without having had chocolate; my inclination is to step it up to include peanut butter.

You need to use a buckle collar; a martingale is a closed loop, and you need a collar that only becomes a closed loop once you buckle it. Feed one loose end of the collar through the strap of the muzzle, then fasten the collar. If she keeps trying to lick or chew her stitches, use duct tape over the relevant holes in the muzzle to keep her from reaching the stitches. If you don't have a buckle collar, you can use a piece of ribbon or something like that. (Just tie a bow--not anything you'll have to cut loose.) The goal is to keep her from pulling the muzzle's strap over her head. If you can't slide the muzzle off once you've tied or buckled it, she won't be able to, either.

I can't really give advice. When my Tigger had osteo just below his knee, we euthanized him as soon as the diagnosis was clear. He already was unsteady on his feet--that's why we went to the ER on a Friday night after he fell in the living room and couldn't get back up without help. I had a therapy dog visit with my other dog scheduled for Saturday, and I had a horror of Tigger hurting himself while he was home alone. (I had to drive my first greyhound to the ER when she broke her leg, and she screamed in the car all the way. I intend to avoid ever doing that again.) But I saw a suggestion on Facebook: A vet said no dog should have to leave without ever having tasted chocolate. (Their vet's office has a jar of Hershey's kisses labeled "Goodbye kisses.") Ernie will let you know when it's time. Give him a yummy Reese's peanut butter cup and a kiss before you say goodbye. I wish I'd done that for Tigger. I did feed Sam (sausage-egg biscuits from McDonald's) and Silver (cheese burgers; she spat out the pickles). Oreo died in surgery (embolism) and Jacey was enormously sick at the end.

My boy once hooked a canine on a wire in his crate. He panicked, jerked his head, and broke the tooth up by the gumline. Emergency surgery to remove the tooth, lots of swelling, soft food for two weeks, and now an eternal derp opportunity out the gap.

I have a healthy 13-year-old former brood bitch in my home. I've had her for 5 years, now. She's lovely. She sleeps all day, but she does it next to me. Sometimes, she leans her head on me and appears to be watching Braves baseball with me. Your girl would be unlikely to play with your kids, but greyhounds generally don't romp with children. But I bet your kids could read to her. (My angel therapy dog Silver sometimes "listened with her eyes closed.") I'm in a condo with a two-pet limit, and I'm maxed out at that, but I wouldn't hesitate to take in an older dog.

Sounds like SLO: Symmetrical lupoid onychodystrophy See here for a Facebook group that addresses this problem: https://www.facebook.com/groups/131575517003777 Also see: https://www.dvm360.com/view/pivotal-pedicure-understanding-slo

My two get trazadone for thunder. It really knocks them out. The problem is that I need to get it into them before the first clap of thunder. (Q goes nearly rigid, and prying his jaws apart to get a pill into him is difficult.) They don't have good hiding places here. In the past, I've played a white noise app on my cellphone for a dog, and that seemed to work. (She put her head down on the phone and went to sleep.) Sometimes I have Alexa play thunderstorm noises in hopes that the inside noises will beat the outside noises, and sometimes that works. (Works better when my electricity isn't flickering.) But my two are so stressed, and I'm afraid one of them will literally die of fear. I have a 67-pound boy and a 53-pound girl (she's 13 years old). The vet prescribed 1 to 1.5 pills (100 mg pills). I've never given more than one pill per dog. (Oh, jolly: the weather forecast for Marietta, Georgia, is thunderstorms Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. We're expecting bits of Elsa.) You can try cotton balls in Nate's ears and louder-than-usual television or music. Sometimes you need something over the dog's head to keep the cotton in place; try cutting the top "tube" off a tube sock; that should be stretchy enough to be comfortable. (Some people have used ace bandages.) My two are thunderphobes, but they were okay with the fireworks last night. I had the TV on CNN, where they were showing firework displays that had muffled thumps for sound--in between music performances. The fireworks in my neighborhood sounded much like the TV thumps, and my guys ignored them all. I went out last night with the trash at 11pm, and the folks a few blocks away were still at it.