KF_in_Georgia
-
Posts
2,906 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Gallery
Store
Articles
Posts posted by KF_in_Georgia
-
-
He's shaking off the covering, not chewing it--right?
If so, tie gauze around the syringe barrel, then tie a loose loop around his leg. Leave him room to swing his tail six inches or so, but not so much he can spin it like a propeller.
Keep an eye on him, of course. Make sure he's not chewing in the gauze or scraping his leg raw with the gauze. There's no guarantee this will work, but it might.
-
I'm so sorry for your loss. He sounds like a wonderful boy.
-
Oreo was my first dog...ever. I was single, in my late 40s, living alone in a condo, and I wanted a dog. I wanted a companion, but I wasn't interested in the idea of a little lap dog. And I didn't want a dog that needed a "job" (Aussie, Border Collie). I wanted a couch potato--like me...interested in walks, but not needing lots of running room or lots of "wearing out" at the end of the day.
Then Animal Planet aired the Breed All About It episode about Maggie McCurry and Go, the greyhound.
That did it. I did my breed research and found a local adoption group. On 17 November 2001, I went out to them. Filled out paperwork. Looked at the dogs. Chose one.
Why Oreo? Well, she was a bounce. She appeared to be in better shape than the off-the-track dogs, and I thought a dog who had lived in a home would be a good starter dog for a new dog-owner. It never occurred to me that she might have issues that triggered the bounce; just as well, though: she was a wonder dog for a new owner.
We think Oreo might have been MPS Theresa. Oreo's ear tats were unreadable on several digits, but the readable "117G" and the requirement that the dog be black with tuxedo markings narrowed the paper search quite a bit. MPS Theresa looked like a good match. If that's right, then Oreo was 3 days shy of her fourth birthday when I adopted her. She had a dismal 6-race racing career ("bumped twice," "crowded early," "muzzle loose," "no threat," etc.).
At my house, she settled in nicely. She didn't like obedience training--she'd go lie down in a corner when I tried to work with her--until she met clicker training, which she adored. (And she forever-after greeted the course trainer by sniffing the trainer's pockets.) She didn't try to get on my bed, but contentedly slept on hers in my bedroom. (Actually, I slept on the downstairs sofa her first two weeks, until she learned the spiral stairs.) I boosted her onto the sofa her first night and she just leaped over the back--didn't like the footing. She wasn't interested in the crate I got her, but she was willing to be confined in a smallish area; later she was muzzled and had the run of the house.
My first picture of Oreo.
That later was because of Sam. Oreo had been such a wonderful dog, that I was looking for a second greyhound less than a year after I brought her home. She and I fostered three boys before Sam. (Oreo wanted to be a dominant female, so I was advised not to bring another female into Oreo's house.) Oreo was fine with the boys, let them eat from her bowl if they wanted, behaved nicely with them on walks.
But Sam was the foster that didn't leave. He was half Oreo's age, fearless, brainless, incorrigible. Sam wouldn't be confined--he'd torn up a crate at his first foster home, and he consistently climbed out of x-pens at mine--so he had to be left loose, muzzled (with a poop guard). That meant giving Oreo more room, too, and I muzzled her so she wouldn't have an unfair advantage if there was a scrap. The first day she was muzzled, I came home, took off both dogs' muzzles, and Oreo whipped around and grabbed Sam's ear in her teeth. He just stood there, wide-eyed--having lost part of an ear in some incident before I got him. I suspect Sam had been harrassing Oreo during the day--figuring that the muzzle would save him--and she was just reminding him that muzzles come off--eventually. She let go a moment later and didn't leave a mark on him.
Sam never met a sofa that wasn't his. Same thing with people beds. At this point, Oreo decided she'd like to be a sofa-dog, too. And a mom's-bed-dog. Fine with me.
Oreo roached contentedly. She'd stick one front leg out for balance. If you gently folded that leg down to her body, the other front leg would pop out to keep her balance.
Oreo was a smiler--a huge smile, wrinkled nose, and propeller tail. She liked grown-ups, but used to hide behind me if there were noisy kids around. Her ears didn't stand up when she was interested in something; instead, they swiveled forward. I loved it.
Oreo was great at meet and greets, until after Sam had been around for a while. At that point...maybe she was worried that I'd find another dog to bring home, one that would be a threat to her, but she started to bark and growl--hackles up--anytime there was another large dog around, greyhound or not. And Sam was so high prey that nothing but grown greyhounds were safe with him. And I had to change jobs, and the new job meant I worked weekends--prime meet-and-greet time--so the meet and greets came to an end. Oreo and Sam got along well together--food being the one thing that could spark a disagreement once Sam discovered that Oreo was more bark than bite--with him, at least.
On 29 March 2006, I came home from work and greeted both dogs. Then I went out to the car to get the groceries. While I was there, Oreo screamed.
When I went back in, Oreo was standing in the middle of the living room floor, on three legs, with her front right leg swinging free. She'd broken the humerus bone. (Later, I wondered if Sam might have been doing zoomies, and Oreo could have stepped in front of him without seeing him coming. I'll never know.)
I got Sam into his car harness and into the car. (Sam wasn't a stay-home-alone dog.) I backed the car out of the carport, turned it around, left the passenger door open, and went back in. Oreo had moved some in the living room--probably hopping along, poor baby. I carried her to the car and put her in the front seat--her usual place to ride. Normally, she'd lie down; for this trip, she sat and tried to hold her balance with just three functional legs--and my hand for help.
On the whole trip to the ER (this was 7 at night), I cried. I'd been on enough greyhound message boards to know that dogs don't generally break their legs in their own living rooms. I was thinking osteosarcoma. After they took Oreo into the back, the e-vet came to ask some questions, and I mentioned the "O-word" first.
Eventually, we had x-rays--and no sign of cancer! It was a nasty spiral fracture, and would need a pin implanted to heal properly. They sent Sam and me home after I got to see Oreo, who they'd finally persuaded to lie down. She was panting and whimpering, casted to her shoulder, and didn't seem at all aware of me when I spoke to her.
Early the next morning, I was back at the ER. In the same building as the ER is a veterinary surgeon. I'd heard of the doctor--he'd done excellent surgery on friends' dogs--and I met with him and we discussed surgery for Oreo. Go in, implant a pin, should heal well, gonna cost a fortune (of course). "Fine," I said. What else do you do? I wanted to see Oreo, but they were reluctant to let me in. They'd had a hard time getting her to settle down during the night, and they didn't want her disturbed. I got a peek from across the room--I'll never forget the neon green vet wrap--but she shifted her weight and tried to get up, yelped, and I got out of there before she could see me. That was my last look at her.
In the surgery that afternoon, they got the pin implanted. Then Oreo started having trouble. She wasn't getting oxygen into her blood, even though she was on O2. Her heartbeat became erratic, then stopped. They started CPR, and the vet called me. And the call that I thought would be "She's out of surgery and you can pick her up tomorrow"--turned out to be a totally different call. The CPR wasn't working, and I told them to let her go.
She was 8 years, 4 months, and 10 days old.
The picture of Oreo in my signature was taken only a couple of months before she died. There was very little white in her face--much less than 6-year-old Sam had back then. She never looked or acted like an older dog. She was just a lovely, calm, silly, smiling, goofy companion, wonderful greyhound ambassadog, and much loved friend.
And I still miss her like crazy.
Love you, sweet girl.
-
I'm so sorry you've lost your boy. I lost my Oreo three years ago today, and I've been thinking of her constantly today.
Jock was your companion, perhaps the one being in your life focused more on you and your happiness than on anything else. And didn't you spend more time every day with Jock than with anyone else? Of course you'll grieve for him--long, hard, and forever.
But soon the stronger memories will be the good ones, the funny ones. The bad last-days memories will not be the first thing you think of when you think of him.
Take care, and come here when you need to talk.
-
I think I met her--and you--at some SEGA events not long after you adopted her. I'm glad you had as much good time together as you have had.
I'm so sorry you've lost your girl.
-
1. Hydrogen peroxide tastes awful. I won't go into details. Just take my word for it. But she'll forgive you.
2. ASPCA's poison control: Have a credit card handy, with room to charge $60. That may be a lot to spend, but it may be your best resort late on a Saturday night. (My vet's Saturday night recording advises trips to the ER for an emergency. Their starting fee is $94.)
I think it's part of dog rules for these things to happen after dark.And after vet's hours.
-
I'm so sorry for your loss.
-
I'm so sorry to hear this. We'll all be thinking of you--and Merlin.
-
Do you think that I should ask about IV or subq fluids? I am so afraid that he is starting to get dehydrated.
The "hydration" test: Pinch up a fold of his skin, then let it go. If it quickly goes back to normal, then he's not dehydrated.
My first girl was given sub-q fluids during one bout of diarrhea. About 12 hours later, she woke me, whining and crying. She wouldn't lie down. After an hour, I started worrying about bloat or some other disaster, so I took her to the ER. The e-vets x-rayed and found no signs of bloat. What they did find, though, was that she was all "slosh-y" in her chest. The fluid had responded to gravity and settled in the bottom of her chest, and she couldn't figure out how to lie down without putting pressure on her chest and being uncomfortable.
I took her back home, piled one dog bed on top of another, pulled her close to me, and tipped her over onto her side. She gave a great, huge sigh and went straight to sleep.
So, if Billy gets sub-q fluids, expect his chest to get slosh-y. It's not dangerous--just uncomfortable.
-
Has anyone ever used a trashbag to protect the inside of your dog beds? After washing the poo off of Cougar's cover, I wrapped the bed in a trash bag before recovering with the cloth outer cover. It may get wadded into a little ball in there, but thought it might help if we have more explosions tomorrow.
Our rescue group does it when necessary. Most of the dogs at the group's kennels are just on slotted rubber mats in their runs. But sometimes we get a special-needs dog--say, one needing long-term treatment for heartworms--that will be at the kennel for a long time. (The kennel is in the lower floor of an animal hospital, so the kenneled dogs have easy/fast access to the vet as needed.) The group will set up an ex-pen in the kennel office (more room in the ex-pen than in a kennel), and a dog bed in the pen. So the group puts a dog bed covered in a trash bag inside a cloth cover. Volunteers have made extra covers, too. A kennel volunteer would drop in daily, change the soiled cover, and take the old cover home to launder it.
ETA: If the crinkly sound of the trash bag distresses Cougar, put a blanket or old beach towel around the trash bag, under the cloth cover, to muffle the sound of the bag. You'll have to wash the blanket or towel, but the bed will still be protected.
-
3/24/09 Update
For the first time in as long as I can remember we have dodged the bullet on both Isabella and Gus. Bellas x-rays are clear, he's going to follow the gimp and see what comes of it. Bella is NOT too happy with me at the moment. I snuck in a dental when she wasn't looking today along with the x-rays. Thank you all for the prayers and good wishes over the last two weeks with Gus and Bella. I will take the good results for both and be grateful for it. Thanks again
Leslie, Gustopher P Jones and Miss Isabella
Oh, goody! I love good news!
-
It could be a bit of leakage/incontinence from a sleeping dog. My girl had that trouble once--it was the only visible symptom of a UTI.
You can take urine samples from both dogs to the vet for analysis...or just keep an eye on who's sleeping where and check the bed or blanket when the dogs get up, then take that dog's sample to the vet.
But do your dogs drool in their sleep? And is this too much liquid to be drool? My guys often drool in their sleep--or even just lick the pillow or bed in their sleep. I often find wet spots when the dogs wake up--but the spots are under the dogs' heads...and I can catch them both licking in their sleep.
-
I keep canned chicken on hand. I think a small bit of tuna instead might be okay. Yogurt (or sour cream or cottage cheese), too, if you have it. (I have to feed yogurt with rice because Sam literally inhales plain rice...then chokes, sneezes, etc. With yogurt in the rice, he seems more willing to eat the rice than just breathe it.)
Both of mine are battling diarrhea. Both went "liquid" on Friday (my day off, fortunately, so I was home to get them outside). Saturday, I fasted them--and picked up Metronidazole from the vet on the way to work. Rice Saturday night, Sunday night, all day Monday, and tonight. I tried kibble this morning--bad idea.
You might want to fast Cougar tomorrow, and just bring home something safe tomorrow night--i.e., not much food tonight, dash out tomorrow without feeding him any breakfast, then rice tomorrow night.
-
Here's hoping Isabella's x-rays are as fun as Sam's last batch.
The vet put the x-rays up on the screen, took one look, and burst out laughing. Then she hollered to the back, "Y'all, we need to get that boy outside to poop!"
(And speaking of poop, we're going through our own raining/pouring scenario here: both dogs have diarrhea.)
I'll be hoping Isabella's x-rays are all good.
-
Romeo trusted you to do what was right for him--and you did it. Please do not feel guilty for sparing him from further discomfort.
Yes, his heart was strong--but his heart wasn't where the cancer was...where the pain was.
Romeo counted on you and you did not let him down.
I'm sorry it hurts so much. The only dog I've lost died unexpectedly in surgery, so I've never had to make that very hard decision. But I never got to say good-bye to her, either, and at least you had that--that opportunity and that very long life of fun, goofy memories to hang on to.
I want to cry for you...and with you. Your Romeo looks so much like my Sam, that this is like seeing into the future. I just hope I'll have the courage to say good-bye to Sam when he needs me to.
-
blue came over to me this morning at the computer & laid his head on my thigh. i told him 'thank you, i love you too', looked down and he'd gotten his rear leg hung up on his pajamas & couldn't put it down. he was asking me for help. straightened it out, he went looking for a stuffie.
This got a big laugh out of me. It's like Sam coming over in the morning to give me a big kiss--and "accidentally" managing to dip his tongue into my orange juice.
-
I'm so sorry to hear this. Sending best wishes for Rocky and Pam.
-
We'll all be thinking of you both.
-
Oh, hurray! Take care, Maggie!
-
We'll be thinking of you and Stanley.
-
Geez. I had the same problem with Roscoe on Saturday. Posted up a couple questions, barely got a response. Aint that great.
It's often very quiet around here on weekends, I think, especially now that the weather is better for many of us. For lots of folks, the weekend is the time to get out with the dogs. (For me, it's work on Saturdays until 10pm and Sundays until 6pm. Today is my day off.)
You asked about preventing further pad injuries. Watch how Roscoe plays. Pivoting roughly on his feet--sudden direction changes--can cause trouble. Also, sudden stops, where he plants his feet (almost like a preparing for a super play-bow). And how "tough" are his pads? If he doesn't get lots of romping play time that toughens them up, then the first bout of rambunctious play can do some damage.
I'm in a condo, with no yard for my guys to run in. My two get regular walks, but I'm sure their pads would not be able to tolerate any extended running around. Fortunately--or not--they're such bad-mannered dogs (Sam is massively high-prey and a head-butter; Jacey is a 51-pound, mega-alpha-wannabe) that I'm not tempted to let them romp at the dog park. My two--and the other dogs--are much safer if I keep Sam and Jacey on leash and just walk them.
I've heard two theories about preventing damage. Of course, the ideas are diametrically opposed to each other, and I don't know which is more useful.
One--lots of walking on asphalt/concrete to toughen up the pads. Or, conversely,
Two--lots of bag balm or other "softener" regularly applied to the pads. The theory here, I think, is that the pads then are softer and more likely to "give" under pressure rather than to break/crack/tear and bleed.
You might get more advice if you can hunt up folks who lure course their hounds. They'll have lots of experience with pad issues.
As for Soul's pad--poor baby--it's amazing how such graceful-looking dogs can be such absolute klutzes. Poor Soul getting damaged just trotting around his own back yard isn't surprising. I think most of our dogs get damaged doing things they do safely nearly all the time. (Sam sliced his foot open on the riser of stairs he'd climbed multiple times a day for six years. And it was a deep cut exposing blood vessels--and it happened at 10 o'clock on a Saturday night.) If you have any EMT Gel, it will speed healing on Soul's foot. Just "secure" whatever part of the pad is dangling so that it doesn't get caught and torn more. In a day or so, I think you'll know whether it's going to reattach itself or not--and by that time your preferred vet should be available.
-
And I want to know, too. I have a friend whose dog has corns...
-
My Oreo's ashes came back a few days after her death, nearly three years ago.
I bought a special tiny urn so I could keep some of the ashes permanently. I intended to spread the rest of the ashes outside, around the yard and the creek bank, and around the area where we used to sit outside and watch the birds and squirrels--Oreo, Sam and me.
But the ashes sit on the shelf, still sealed in the box they came home in. The tiny urn sits next to the ashes--unused.
There are some things we just can't deal with.
I adopted Oreo's successor just 9 days after Oreo died. In many ways, that made things much easier: when Sam came hunting for dinner and I automatically looked past him for Oreo--at least there was a dog there, even if it wasn't the right dog. When I hugged Sam, that other arm had a second dog to hug. And Jacey lived with me for more than a year before I ever called her "Oreo" by mistake. (Oddly enough, Jacey grows more like Oreo every day--pushy alpha bitch attitude with strange dogs, and all.) I didn't put away any of Oreo's things (except her collar and muzzle--they've never been used for Jacey) because I knew I would adopt another dog quickly. I had an ex-pen set up around a bed in the living room--the place where I had planned for Oreo to spend her recovery time (she was having surgery to implant a pin in a broken leg, but she died in surgery of a pulmonary embolism); that ex-pen became Jacey's hide-away, where she could get away from Sam and eat her meals in peace without him drooling on her head.
And when Jacey demonstrated that she was not my perfect Oreo--most spectacularly, when she pooped in her crate, rolled in it, kicked it out of the crate where Sam stepped in it and scratched an itch...so that both dogs needed baths when I came home from work--when that happened, I sat on the curb by my two soaking/shivering dogs and bawled and told Jacey, "Oreo wouldn't have done that to me!"
They're all loved. They're all irreplaceable. And unforgettable. And so horribly, dreadfully--missed.
Watch for a sign from Lewis. You'll get one. One day, he'll nudge you--a little message that says "I'm okay. And so are you, mom." The sign might come from one of Lewis's old housemates, or it may come from a new dog. At my house, it was the day a muzzled Jacey raided the pantry and I came home to a trail of destruction: creme-filled cookies smashed into the floor and the carpet.
Oreo cookies.
-
My guys get their Thyroxine with meals. I'm about to have to get a refill, and I'm going to ask my vet specifically about Soloxine (vs. Thyroxine) and about with/without food.
Is there a link to Dr Dodds' recommendations?
Lizzie
in Health and Medical discussion
Posted
Fingers crossed.
(But you know we all hold our breaths when we see a limp of any kind...and most are fine.)