HeidisMum

I'm sorry to hear you all had to go through that. Heidi had the shot in Decmeber when she was vomiting. The vet warned me that she might scream as it would hurt. She never made a sound and didn't seem any more stressed than she normally is at the vet. I think they do keep it in the fridge though. It did work great. I don't know if the pill would work if they can't keep anything down.

I don't really have much useful info to add, but wanted to send extra hugs to both of you . I know having a sick pup can make you physically ill with worry. We're going through some odd, unexplained medical stuff with Heidi right now (loose stools, dropping blood proteins, swelling in only one foot and small amounts of fluid in abdomen, but healthy appetite, no weight loss, and normal activity level). A round of doxycycline (just in case of hidden TBD), metronidazole, and predinsone seems to be getting things back to normal, but it's been a VERY stressful 7 weeks and we still are not positive what exactly is going on or what will happen when we try taking her off the meds. The cost of xrays doesn't seem too far out of the ordinary, especially if they have to use a sedative. We did 5 xrays of Heidi's shoulder/front leg (limping/ suspected arthritis) and 2 of her back foot (random swelling). Those cost about $350 without sedative. The specialist vet here did an ultrasound of her abdomen to see if her kidneys/liver/stomach/intestines/etc looked at all unusual. That cost $350 (no anesthesia), $225 for a complete tick panel, and $180 for a bile acids test. I don't know what your vet will suggest, but that might give you an idea of how much some tests cost if they suggest any. I wouldn't rule out worms completely without a fecal recheck (unless you did one and I missed that post). Betty came to us with hooks. She was on Panacur when we got her. Didn't work. Did a round of Dontral (3 doses = $77), didn't work. Did a second round of Panacur ($31) and a dose of Strongid ($12). Still had hooks. My vet talked to the scientists at IDEXX (where the testing is done). They said to do 5 doses of Strongid 3 times with 3 weeks between each set of 5 ($70). That finally got rid of the hooks. Worms can be very difficult to get rid of even using the best meds. We had a hard time getting any weight on her while she had the hooks. I'm sending lots of good thoughts your way.

We tried melatonin for Heidi's anxiety (rain, wind, noise, imagined things). Unfortunately it didn't help her fears, but I know others that have had success with it. The dosage per my vet was up to 9mg 3x/day.

I'm very interested in this thread. I have been talking with the vet about Heidi's arthritis. She was on Dasaquin w/MSM. That seemed to be helping for a while, but she is in need of something more now. We have talked about NSAIDs, acupuncture, physical therapy, additional suppliments andHills J/D. The vet said they have seen a big improvement with some dogs on the J/D food. I also know someone that swears by it with her dog. I haven't decided which route to go, but I too am one that will try a food over long term NSAIDs.

Hi! We are from Maine too (Buxton).

She's beautiful! I love her coloring.

The AWS has a contract with Becker College in Massachusetts to place greyhounds at the end of a semester. Each semester the vet students do their spay/neuter, dental and agility training with them. Becker drops them off at AWS with any medications they need (which are passed on to adopters), food and gives AWS grant money to help defer the cost of placing them. It seems to be a win for all involved.

Hi From another Mainer (Buxton) . I saw Anna on the AWS site. She is beautiful. We adopted our second greyhound, Betty, from AWS in December. Our first greyhound was adopted from MGPS in Dec 08. We too went to AWS to get a cat. We had lost our two cats within the past year (old age) and thought we wanted another kitty. We went to AWS with a cat carrier in hand and came home with Betty who is not cat safe. Our years of having a cat are over, but we love Betty and Heidi to pieces. Congratulations on your new pup. Watch out- they are addicting. We thought we would only have one...

This was a great thread from past years- linky. I find myself re-reading it each year. Being in Maine, we don't get too many hot days (although more than OP), so people tend to be a little less knowledgeable about the dangers of the heat. I'm especially cautious this year with our new black hound. Our fawn doesn't like to be outside a lot, but our black girl would lay in the sun all the time if we would let her.

It's getting to be that time again. We just had 92 degree weather in Maine this past weekend (in May!). I went searching for this thread as a refresher for myself. These random hot days can be just as dangerous as a sustained heat wave. I'm bumping the thread in case there is anyone else interested in reading it for the first time or a quick reminder on the dangers of heat.

Exactly--but if you spend enough time on Greytalk, you'll find LOTS of people horrified by the notion! Dogs that are home alone, specially greyhounds, tend to SLEEP all day. My two girls are fine being at home 9-10 hours a day on a regular basis. We are occasionally gone 12 hours and there is no problem. We let them out as soon as we get home, but they are never running for the door as if they couldn't hold it any longer. I often have a webcam on and watch them during the day. Greyhounds really do sleep ALL day. I look at the time between bathroom breaks when we aren't home as being a lot like going all night without a break. They happily go out at 8pm and don't go back out until 6am (or later on the weekends). They sleep all night and sleep all day when we are gone. As said above- you will find a lot of people horrified by the idea of leaving them all day without a break, but there are a lot of us that have hounds that are fine with it. Just do whatever works for your hound and all will be good.

Poor Jet. I hope she leaves it alone while it is healing. Her ears are adorable.

Kerry please let me know if there is anything you need. I'm not far away. Hopefully Dr. Katie can get him fixed up quickly.

Poor Merlin (and Kerry). I'm sure Dr. Katie will figure out what is going on. Hoping for good news soon.

Heidi is my gobbler. We've recently started adding water to her food. That has slowed her down a lot. It has also helped with her coughing them back up from eating too fast. We do this when she is eating from a regular bowl. Before adding water I had started feeding her in a muffin tin. Just seperate the food into the different muffin pockets. That slowed her down a lot too.

I'm so sorry. Run free baby.

Heidi will do almost ANYTHING for peanut butter. I either put a little pb on my finger and stick the pill to it. She will lick it clean. Or if I don't want the messy finger I will make a mini pb sandwich out of any kind of bread we have on hand and stick the pill in it. The hardest part is getting her to stop bugging me for more sandwiches after.

My Heidi was quite spooky when we first got her almost two years ago. She still doesn't care to be around unknown people, but she is a very different, more-outgoing dog when she is around other hounds. While I agree that we shouldn't tramatize spooky (extremely shy, not true spook) hounds I also believe we shouldn't shelter them and feed into their fears. I truly believe Heidi would still be afraid of the entire world if we hadn't pushed her to slowly come out of her shell. We have always gone to any kind of gathering with the plan of leaving if Heidi seems to get too upset. It sounds like you have a great plan in place just in case Layla needs to leave. In the beginning when people would come over to talk to us I would ask them to just ignore Heidi and talk with us. She quickly got more comfortagble with people just being near and would sniff them without feeling scared of them touching her. Other times we would just stand off to the side and let her watch the gathering from a distance. You will be able to tell when Layla is just outside her comfort zone and if she gets panicked to the point of shutting down. Just keep her from escalating into panic mode and she will be fine. We all need to get out of our comfort zones occassionally to obtain any personal growth. Slowly showing her the world isn't such a scary place could be a good thing. I would say take her and see how she does. Please let us know how she does. I'm always interested in hearing from other people with extrememly shy dogs.

Heidi paces if it thunders, the wind is blowing, or if she thinks it might be raining within a 50 mile radius. She's very sensitive to weather changes. We've tried many things to calm her down and nothing has really worked. Sometimes she will calm down if DH puts her on his lap in the recliner, but usually we end up just having to ignore her. Last night it was sprinkling, so she paced most of the night. Earplugs can be your friend at night.

Heidi can swim quite well. She doesn't like to do it, but is a beautiful swimmer if I bring her out deep enough to not have her feet reach the ground.

Run free Sweet Rachael

I have no doubt that Heidi would be absolutely no help in the face of danger. In fact, she would probably trip me trying to get away. I would find her in the nearest corner pooing on the floor in fright. Of course, she is kind of spooky, so she probably isn't the best judge of the breed.

I'm so sorry. Run free Sweet Poppy.

I'm so sorry. Run free Tetley.

Heidi used to vacuum her food so fast she would throw it back up. We started using a 12 cup muffin tin as a bowl. Eating out of the seperate muffin cups slowed her down a lot. Some people also have good luck with this bowl.