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JJNg

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  1. This dog's leg is already healed and it looks like repair isn't needed or recommended at this time, according to two greyhound-experienced vets, one of which is an orthopedic surgeon. Since it looks like it's been 3 or 4 months since Alfie stopped racing and the adoption group apparently wasn't involved in any treatment for his leg, it looks like the trainer or racing owner were the ones who treated his broken leg, probably with a splint or cast. Even with surgery, not all fractures heal perfectly and result in a normal gait with no lameness. If there is no instability in the hock, maybe he would improve with some physical therapy. The x-rays the OP sent a link to don't look bad at all.
  2. Greyhounds absolutely do not race with broken bones, and they certainly don’t race again days after a hock fracture and finish within a second of the winning time. I’m 100% sure that Alfonso Verboten did not break his hock in that race on Oct 11. There are some cases where a dog with a well healed fracture can race competitively again after months of treatment and rehab, but that’s not what we’re talking about here. This dog ran again 4 days after the race where he fell, and again 6 days after that. And his finishing time was within a second of the winner in both races. No way a dog with any kind of fracture could have done that. Most falls at the track actually don’t result in injury, despite what the anti-racing groups want you to think. One of the anti-racing groups compiled a video showing greyhounds falling in races, making people assume they were injured. I looked each one of them up, and I think all but one of them were fine and raced again a few days later. And I can assure you, greyhounds with broken legs are not allowed to race, nor would any trainer even try.
  3. Wiki was the second greyhound I adopted, but he's the first greyhound I've lost. He joined our pack in November of 2008. I half jokingly said I got him as a friend for my first greyhound Willow for her 4th birthday when I decided to bring him home as a foster with intent. He filled the vacant 4th spot in my pack after my IG Casey passed away 8 months prior. I picked Wiki for all the reasons we tell people not to - his color and appearance. I'd always liked white and brindle, the color of the first greyhound that caught my eye but I wasn't able to adopt due to timing. It didn't hurt that he had a friendly, outgoing personality to complement Willow's shyer temperament. Wiki was a goofy little boy who loved everyone. He'd try to jump on just about anyone he met and give kisses. When I got more involved volunteering with the group, Wiki was my companion for home visits and meet & greets. He especially loved kids; toddlers were the perfect height to kiss, and he enjoyed all the attention he got at meet & greets. He was silly and clumsy and brought some humor to a pack of more serious dogs. When he arrived, Wiki wanted to snuggle with all the other dogs. They never got upset with him, and occasionally tolerated it, but they would usually just leave when he tried. Wiki loved to roach, excelled at 'bed fails', and often preferred the little beds, even bullying my older whippet out of his favorite small bed when there are plenty of other options available. Wiki wasn't the brightest dog, but that often just made him more endearing. The entire time I had him, there were certain things in our daily routine that he never quite caught on to. Most of my dogs quickly learn to sit for treats. And most of them would sit automatically whenever the treats came out. Wiki learned to sit pretty quickly, but for the entire 8 years I had him, he had to be prompted for that sit, every single time, and he'd be the last in the pack to get his treat. In almost 7 years at our current home, every time we went to go out into the yard, he'd go behind me to the wrong side of the door, and watch longingly through the windows in the door as the other dogs went out. And it'd take him a few seconds to finally walk around me so that he could go out too. Wiki had a decent career of about 90 races at the pro track, starting in New England, and then finishing in Orlando, running mostly in the mid to lower grades. After retirement, he had a brief stint lure coursing but was plagued with toe injuries. So I mostly just let him do straight fun runs and amateur racing on the sand track in Jacksonville. Although he loved chasing the lure, Wiki had the least prey drive of all my hounds and was gentle with any little creatures he met. He was always patient with Willow pestering him to play. And when I brought my whippet Terra home as a 4-month-old puppy he played nicely with her and helped teach her the house rules. Wiki's passing less than a week after starting a brave fight against acute myasthenia gravis was sudden and unexpected. I'm glad he got to experience a couple of his favorite activities in the preceding weeks. He accompanied me to Greyhound Crossroads' home show meet & greet in Greenville in early March, and then got to enjoy one last fun run after the lure at our amateur racing meet in Camden just days before he got sick. Video of his fun run: Wiki and my mixed breed Gracie, adopted as a senior, who passed away at 16.5 years old last summer. Wiki was a special little guy. I'll miss his sweet, endearing personality and soft, plush coat which made him especially lovable and huggable to all who met him. I love you, sweet boy. Rest in peace. And for anyone interested, a link to his tribute album with lots more photos on Facebook (account not needed to view): https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10154490766677253.1073742022.578697252&type=1&l=35c6ebceb0
  4. As others have said, there is no right or wrong answer. What the 'best' choice might be will differ depending on the individual family and the individual dog. There is never any specific time limit - every case is different. Listen to your dog and let her tell you when it's time. If she is still happy and enjoying life, I don't think there's any reason to euthanize right away. Each individual's pain tolerance and response to medications is different. I've known dogs that did well for over a year after diagnosis without amputation and just pain management. I've also known others where the kindest option was to let them go within days or weeks of diagnosis.
  5. AKC greyhounds are a whole lot more inbred than racing greyhounds. They have their own problems, some of which are worse than osteosarcoma. Look up greyhound neuropathy. And from Nancy's post above, it looks like AKC greyhounds aren't immune to OSA. There are no genetic studies I'm aware of that have confirmed certain bloodlines being more prone to OSA. Very few dogs just die of "old age". As a vet, most of my patients are euthanized due to things like cancer, kidney disease, debilitating arthritis, heart disease, etc. In the past week, I've had 2 young, healthy patients just drop dead at home in their yard without any warning. One was a 10-month-old lab, and the other a 4-year-old greyhound. You just never know, and there are no guarantees in life.
  6. One of the details that none of the stats I've seen look at is a breakdown of the age at which osteosarcoma (OSA) develops. All dogs are going to die of something, so I think it makes a difference to know what percentage get it in their middle-aged years vs their senior years. There has been no proof that any specific bloodlines carry more risk of OSA. Some of the sires that have been named are ones that have a huge number of offspring, so you're naturally going to hear about more cases from those lines.
  7. If the original GI panel bloodwork included a TLI and it was normal, then your dog doesn't have EPI. In dogs that have been diagnosed with EPI, with an appropriate dose of enzymes, you see a pretty fast improvement in the stools. It can take longer for them to gain weight and feel better, but in the cases I've treated, the stool volume and consistency have improved quickly.
  8. Please update after your 2nd opinion with the vet in Gainesville. If she really does have bladder stones, then she very well may need to be on a special diet for life to try to reduce the risk of forming stones again. Did the vet point the "chipped pelvis" out to you on the x-rays? It's possible that everything the first vet did was appropriate and they just didn't do a very good job of explaining things to you. Bladder stones and dental issues aren't particularly specific to greyhounds, so whether or not the vet was greyhound-savvy shouldn't have really affected that.
  9. I got my whippet puppy at 4.5 months old and also had 3 greyhounds, a senior whippet, and a geriatric whippet mix at the time. My other dogs did surprisingly well and practically raised her. Definitely a good idea to use her muzzle for the initial meeting to be on the safe side. My dogs are crated when I'm not home so I didn't worry about the puppy pestering the others, and I also crated her in my bedroom at night (all the other dogs are loose in my bedroom with the door closed).
  10. Not often that we need to dose a dog that small, but I'd probably go with a proportional dose. A smaller 50 lb greyhound would typically get 500 mg of Amicar, so I'd probably aim for 100 mg per dose, and go with the same protocol of 3x/day for 5 days. No need to start it 3 days prior to surgery. Amicar (aminocaproic acid) and tranexamic acid work by stabilizing clots, so it really doesn't need to be started any earlier than the morning of surgery. I'm assuming the 650 mg tablets you have are tranexamic acid. If you feel that pills will be easier to get into her than liquid, I'd find a compounding pharmacy that can make them into 100 mg capsules for you. I'm not sure how well the injectable form would work if given orally. I'm also not sure how well it is absorbed through the mucous membranes or nostrils. I imagine your vet had you do that after the extractions to get it directly to where it was bleeding, but I honestly don't know if it really works topically/locally.
  11. In my experience, clearing a case of persistent hooks is more about timing than the product. Hookworms have a life cycle of 2-3 weeks, and chronically infested dogs often have inactive larvae in their tissues. When you deworm them and get rid of the worms in the intestines, those dormant larvae re-infest the intestines - a phenomenon called larval leak. When I suspect that this is happening, I deworm every 2 weeks with any product that kills hookworms. Pyrantel pamoate (Strongid-T) tends to be the most cost effective. If using a heartworm preventative that treats hookworms, that can also be counted as one of the 2 week doses. So you could just deworm with another product in the middle of the month between doses of heartworm prevention. Using the 2-week protocol, it can still take an extended period to clear hookworms. I usually do a minimum of 3-4 months, and some cases take longer.
  12. Coming in late to this thread as I've been too busy to check this forum regularly, but acepromazine can be quite appropriate for greyhounds when used in low doses as preanesthetic sedation. This is the *only* time I routinely use ace in greyhounds. I would never *not* use it as a pre-med for one of my own greyhounds. She tends to get very sedated with both acepromazine and butorphanol, so I tried doing a dental on her once with only butorphanol as a preanesthetic. Much rougher anesthetic episode with muscle spasms that required me to give her additional sedation when she was recovering. When I include acepromazine in the protocol, the patient is more relaxed and the procedure goes much more smoothly. That said, I would never use acepromazine alone for anxiety. It has no place in behavioral medicine, except perhaps in extreme cases that are at risk of self-injury. And even then, I would use it in conjunction with a true anxiety medication. I also wouldn't use ace to sedate for simple procedures like nail trims or x-rays. There are reversible sedatives that are much more appropriate for that use.
  13. I would guess the "hazardous waste disposal" fee is charged to offset the cost of paying for a waste management service to collect and dispose of biomedical waste as required by state law. I doubt it's being charged to be a profit center for the clinic. Services are cheaper here in the south. I shared a 6" x 6" square on a dog's back today to clean up a nasty hot spot and charged $20 for it. Nail trims here are $12. Suture removal has been free at every clinic I've worked at, including the ones in Boston, but that was over 15 years ago.
  14. Yes, all the clinics I've worked at have charged for bandage changes, usually only around $25-35, though. You're paying for the time, material, and service by a trained professional.
  15. Calling Gentle Giants a "dubious rescue" is quite generous. Somehow they manage to constantly have rare breeds and mixes available that are almost never available through their own breed rescues nationwide. Among the dogs they currently have available are a "Woodle Doodle" (Irish Wolfhound/Great Dane/Poodle) and a Tibetan Mastiff/Great Pyrenees mix. You do the math...
  16. Depends on how much the dog weighs. If closer to the low end of the range (ie. a 50-60 lb dog getting the 51-100 lb Heartgard), it's pretty close to what you get with the standard 1 cc/10 lbs using Strongid.
  17. Assuming it's Heartgard Plus, I use the same protocol. Since Heartgard Plus contains pyrantel pamoate, you're essentially deworming every 2 weeks when you add in the Strongid in the middle of the month.
  18. Most of the internet dog food ranking sites just reflect individual opinions about various ingredients, and are not based on any kind of scientific or nutritional research. This article is no different, and I find it contains a lot of inconsistent and inaccurate information (as well as misspellings). The article claims to be providing "consumer rated" rankings, but then it mentions that "Beneful is one of the top selling brands for many nation wide retailors". If a product is a top seller, how is it also one of the worst consumer rated foods? "Purina Veterinary Diets" is in their #8 spot. How can an entire line of food be rated like this? There are over a dozen different products in the Purina Veterinary Diets line, formulated to treat different medical conditions. The bag pictured in the article is a feline formula, and I'm not sure if that's the formula the ingredients listed is from? In one place in the article, it says, "Corn is an inexpensive and controversial cereal grain. Aside from its energy content, this grain is of only modest nutritional value to a dog." But then, it claims - "Ground Yellow Corn: No nutritional value." I'd love to see their references for their claims that: 1) Salt "causes bloat in dogs if consumed in high doses." 2) Beet pulp "leads to weight gain, hyperactivity and feeds arthritis." 3) Brewers yeast "can become very toxic to the liver and can cause allergies and arthritis." Despite all the bad-mouthing Purina gets on the Internet, the company has more nutritionists on staff and does more scientific research than most of the other brands popular among pet owners today. I see dogs that had been doing perfectly well on their previous food develop problems when they're switched to a different food that the owner read was 'better' on the Internet. Bottom line, feed your dog a balanced diet that you're comfortable with, can afford, and your dog does well on. Don't let others' opinions make you feel bad or guilty about what you feed.
  19. The foods closest to the Kirkland's Lamb & Rice will probably be Diamond Naturals Lamb & Rice or 4Health Lamb & Rice (available at Tractor Supply). All 3 foods are made by Diamond and are pretty similar.
  20. Not yet. I'm supposed to be getting some samples from our rep to try over 4th of July for my girl who has storm/fireworks anxiety. My tech has a couple dogs who are also noise phobic, so I'll see if he wants to give it a try too. One of the perks of working in a vet clinic. My dogs get to be guinea pigs. LOL
  21. I'm a little concerned that your trainer didn't advise taking Phil to the vet. Did your trainer see him in person after his injuries today? Especially if his face is swollen, he might benefit from some pain meds. Your vet will hopefully also be able to help advise you on options for anxiety medication.
  22. The drug company claims that it is non-sedating. As an alpha-2 agonist (like clonidine), it probably does have some anti-anxiety properties, so it would be better than sedating with something like ace. I've just seen dexmedetomidine used as an injectable, and even when used as a preanesthetic medication at just a small fraction of the label dose, it can knock some dogs out. Maybe the oral route limits absorption enough that it really is non-sedating. I'm going to wait and see what kind of responses other vets and owners get before considering carrying it. But then, I'm like this with just about any new product.
  23. I'm a little skeptical of Sileo. Knowing how the active ingredient is used as an injectable sedative, and seeing the effect of even low doses, I have a hard time seeing how it would reduce anxiety without having a sedating effect.
  24. I'm sorry you had a bad experience with the oncology consult. My local referral center doesn't do a lot of tests without first having an in-depth discussion with the owner about options and prognosis. Some clients go in just for the consult to help them make a decision and elect not to do any further testing or treatment. Also, a general comment on chemo in dogs. It in no way compares to chemo in humans. I've had a number of patients receive chemo, and most of them have few to no side effects. Chemo is dosed lower in dogs than in people because the focus is on quality of life, not trying to achieve a cure. In people, they use as high a dose of chemo as possible to increase the chances of getting rid of the cancer. In veterinary medicine, the goal is to slow down the cancer while maintaining the pet's quality of life. Because of this, most dogs will still die of their cancer, but you may be able to get some additional good quality time. This may only be 6 months or a year, compared to a few weeks with no treatment, so it becomes a very personal decision whether that's a route you'd want to go.
  25. Glad your vet is working with Dr. Couto, and I hope everything goes well.
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