LBass

I have my 3 hounds in tag collars by NancyB and like them very much. They are satin lined velvet ribbon with no rings at all. They are sized perfectly for the flat engraved "tags" from Boomerang Tags. How annoying! I can't post the link from my work computer. I will do so from home this evening. --Lucy

I've got 3 hounds on Kirkland Lamb and Rice and have also happily use the Chicken and Rice. All 3 have shiny coats and nice firm poop.

This. Through almost weekly visits from March through June trying to resolve MoMo's corn issue, I was so grateful for my vet's thoughtful policy of not charging the office visit fee for follow up visits. I'd pay for bandaging supplies and meds but that was it.

Sending all good healing thoughts and prayers for your girl Gee.

Sending warm good thoughts for Bandit and for you. I hope the vet will find something treatable so that Bandit can have more happy active years with you. --Lucy

Chris, I'm so so sorry. Dorie Greyhound was clearly a special soul and I know that the memories of that specialness will be something you treasure. --Lucy

I'm so very sorry that your lovely girl is gone. Your tribute post and its photos moved me to both smiles and tears. I'm glad she found her special home with you and Burke. ---Lucy

I get Piper's Pb at Costco. Costco also had by far the best price on Gabapentin when I tried that for Piper. I do get his KbR from a pharmacy in California by mail. I generally order about once a year and get two bottles (liquid) at a time. Very reasonable.

Linda, I'm so sorry Molly is gone, and in such a sudden shocking way. I am glad that you were able to be with her--I am sure your presence was a huge comfort to her. --Lucy

Long distance hugs to you and Dorie. I so hope that the test results will point the way to an effective treatment plan. --Lucy

What great news the Dorie is home! I hope the results of the biopsy/scoping will be back soon with some answers.

Oh Chris, this diagnosis sounds frightening and I am sending warm healing thoughts to you and Dorie. I hope the vets will be able to get her stabilized. Having a diagnosis after a long spell of mystery can be such good news but this PLE sounds quite serious. --Lucy

I lived in the Charleston area for years but that was over 12 years ago now so I am not a great resource for current information. I do know that the emergency clinic there that is paired with a specialty practice is very good, as is the associated specialty practice. The vets I used were very good but their office is in Summerville and that may be more of a trek than your Mom wants to take from Mt. Pleasant. They have one of the nicest boarding facilities I have ever used. Westbury Clinic

This is not going to be a particularly helpful reply but your question made me laugh, so I thought I'd share my experience. Momo naturally hops into the car eager to go. Piper puts his front legs up and waits for me to lift his rear. Spirit used to make me lift his front end up and then boost his rear in. He started jumping in on his own during Sandy Paws this spring when it dawned on him that he could score the favored spot in the car if he hopped right up before the others beat him to it.

None of mine have been as resistant as your girl but this is what worked for me with the two who fought trims and the dremel: I bought nasty doggy junk food treats. They like Pupperoni. I break the treat sticks into tiny little pieces. My sister came over to help. She held each dog by the collar, sat behind their heads, and plied them with a steady stream of Pupperoni pieces while I buzzed the nails. They were pretty well distracted by the treats, so they let me do much more than usual to their nails without fighting. I didn't worry in the beginning about doing all nails or even about trimming that much. The focus was on making nail trimming a reasonably positive experience. As they got used to that (3 sessions with my sister treating them), I made a point of getting all nails, though maybe not going as short as I wanted. I was soon able to switch to doing their nails alone. I have a container full of Pupperoni pieces and give treats randomly between or during nails/feet. Good luck with finding a method that works for your girl. --Lucy

Sending healing thoughts and prayers for you and Steak and your poor frightened kids. What a ghastly time you are all having. I hope the vets will come up with something to get this cluster episode under control sooner. Lindsy, unfortunately I don't know the half life of oral valium as compared to the rectal dose other than to say its significantly longer. Perhaps the timing of Piper's dose is a bit of a guide. He gets it every six hours along with the extra Pb. Since the usual dose time for Pb is 12 hours and we're halving it to get and keep his levels extra high, I'm thinking maybe valium is about the same? --Lucy

I'm so sorry Steak is having such a hard time right now. Cluster episodes are exhausting and frightening. I apologize if I'm about to post something that doesn't relate to Steak but I want to share something I learned with Piper. I've not read through this thread as carefully as I should before posting. Every summer like clockwork Piper, whose seizures look much like Steak's video, would have a horrible cluster episode. Usually he had 10-13 seizures over a 36-48 hour period. His seizures were usually several hours apart. I dutifully gave rectal Valium (at the correct dose to help) after each seizure but nothing ever stopped the clustering until it seemed to have run its course, leaving us both exhausted. The more I read about rectal Valium, the more I began to realize that it is great for seizures that come very close together--say with in 30 minutes to an hour of each other. The quick absorption you get with rectal administration gets the drug right in there to block the next seizure. However, with seizures occurring farther apart than about an hour, the effectiveness of the rectal Valium is gone by the time the next seizure rolled around. My vet and I talked about this, he consulted a neurologist, and they came up with a different approach to stopping Piper's clusters. Now after each seizure I give him 1 1/2 grains of Pb and 10 mg of oral Valium. I give that same dose of both meds again avery six hours until he has been seizure free for 24 hours. These extra "cluster busters" are given on top of his regular dose of 5 grains of PB and 400 mg KBr daily. Since starting this protocol 2 years ago Piper has gotten through 2 years, including 3 summers, with no cluster episodes. Unheard of in the previous 5 years. Treating seizures is so individual and I know that what works for my dog may not help Steak at all, but I always want to share this hard won insight in to the wonderful usefulness but also the limitations of rectal Valium. Especially when things aren't working. Sometimes it is just time to try something else to see if it helps. Piper is about 72 Lbs, for comparison. Sending all good thoughts and healing prayers for you and Steak. This is such a rough condition to manage. --Lucy

Oh what a shock. I"m so very sorry for your loss. --Lucy

I find myself in just that situation with my 10 year old Piper and have been trying various add ins to his kibble with reasonable success. I like the sound of this doggy meatloaf and will give it a try. Thanks for sharing it. --Lucy

With Piper, I honestly am not sure whether it is the heat, longer daylight hours or something else, but I have noticed consistently over the last 8 years that he always has more seizures during the summer. In the past, I could count on at least one of his horrible cluster spells--13+ seizures over a 1-2 day period--every summer without fail. Eventually my vet found a combination of meds to give Piper when he has a seizure that has, blessedly, stopped him from clustering at all for the last 3 years. I've noticed that the "cost" of that control is that his single seizures come much closer together during the summer months. Sending both you and EZ good wishes for seizure control. --Lucy and Piper

The vet did a good recheck of Piper's mouth 10 days after the dental to make sure the site of the nasty molar removal was healing properly. Piper, bless his sweet heart, was very cooperative about letting the vet get a good look and his mouth was fine at that point. Because of his other health issues Piper does get really good thorough blood work 2-3 times a year and full thyroid testing as well. All that was done in the last 6 weeks. I'm not sure we've actually done a urinalysis though. I'd remember trying to collect pee. So I'll follow up with the vet ASAP about doing a urinalysis. I fixed Piper a stew of 3 pounds of hamburger, 3 bags of various frozen veggies, and rice. I've been giving him about a cup and a half of that mixed in with a cup of kibble twice a day and he has been eating all of that up with gusto! I'll stick to feeding that for a while and see how that goes. I think that the good stew does sort of "prime the pump", so to speak, of his appetite. I'm also going to watch him closely in the yard. When he was on the pain meds after his dental I saw him doing a lot of his happy dancing and cavorting and realized that I hadn't seen him that frisky in a while. I'll watch him a bit to see if he is still frisky now that the bad teeth are gone or if he's subdued again. That will help me sort out whether he may be having some underlying pain that the post-surgery pain meds helped relieve. If so, I'll talk with the vet about getting him something regularly for pain. Susan, I don't think he's eating out of my vegetable garden because I'm not finding flattened plants, broken branches, or seeing missing veggies that I was expecting to harvest myself. Thank you all for the advice and sympathy. Along with all the other things I'm going to check and watch, I'm to drop by the vet's office to weigh him about once a month. If his weight is pretty steady, I will try to relax and have faith that he'll eat what he needs. --Lucy

Chris, I've not tried giving Pepcid though I've wondered about it. I'll talk to the vet to make sure it's OK with his other meds. It has occurred to me that I may be fretting about what is just a rather normal change in his needs and preferences, as your Libby's appetite change was. I think that I could go with that theory if he can pretty much hold at a healthy weight. Piper is down about 6 pounds from his highest but about 4 of that was probably not needed. He weighed about 70.8 pounds last time he was at the vet's and that is lower than in the past but is still a perfectly healthy weight for him. Thank you for the encouraging possibility. He has had a very recent and very thorough blood profile and everything looks fine according to both of the vets who reviewed it. I'm sorry to ask but what is a UA? --Lucy

BiancasMom, you know he was on both antibiotic and about 5 days worth of pain meds right after the dental and the improved appetite lasted for about 9 days. The notion of underlying discomfort is an idea I'll certainly take to the vet. Thank you. I don't think its the heat because this decreased appetite has been going on since March when things were still nice a pleasant weather-wise. Abdominal ultrasound. That too sounds like something that might be worth looking into...with the fervent hope that it provide peace of mind rather than bad news. --Lucy

Piper turned 10 in May. Other than his epilepsy, he has always been in good health. He takes Phenobarbital and Potassium Bromide for his seizures and takes Soloxin as well for low thyroid. With that background... Beginning in March of this year Piper, who has always eagerly wolfed down whatever food was put in his bowl, has begun to skip meals or eat only part his meal several time a week. He's always been feed twice a day. Of course, I took him to the vet when I first noticed the change in appetite. He needed a dental and had one--lost 4 teeth. Three were just loose lower front teeth but one was an pretty grungy infected back tooth. The vet and I were both optimistic that the tooth and its infection were at the root of Piper's loss of appetite. Indeed, for a week or so after the dental he seemed to have his normal enthusiastic appetite back. However, now he is back to skipping meals. In addition to the dental, Piper has had a thorough physical exam and extensive blood work and testing his medication levels--everything looks quite normal. Through all this I've experimented with add ins to his kibble (sometimes they encourage him to eat and sometimes they don't). I've soaked his kibble in water so it was nice and soft with no consistent results. I'm looking for suggestions about what the vet and I might be missing. What else should be done by way of tests? I have a clutching fear that something physical is wrong but I don't know what direction to take next in trying to ferret out what. I can't successfully free feed because I have two other hounds and a cat who would help themselves to Piper's food leaving none for him. I'm going to try a complete change in food today but I'm not optimistic that a new food will make a difference. Still, it's worth a try. I may try cooking for him. I'm wracking my brain for anything that might help. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Piper The Perfect is precious to me and I am really very worried about my boy. --Lucy

I've got one vocal hound--Spirit. He's a little shy and does bark sometimes at unfamiliar people but not on walks, interestingly enough. His barking is mostly of a bossy nature. He barks at me if I don't immediately get up when the alarm clock sounds. He invariably knows when 6PM arrives and starts barking to let me know it is time for dinner. He barks or whines if there is any little thing that he wants or if there is any little thing he is unhappy about. He barks at my sister when she visits and is not actively petting him. He even has a funny sort of a pouty huffy noise he makes to get the attention of anyone who stops petting him. Now and again his demanding can be a small annoyance but mostly he just makes me laugh! because of that, I've never tried hard to teach him to be quiet.