LBass

Poor thing! I hope the vet can sort out what hurts and give Casey some relief soon. --Lucy

I drop a capsule of fish oil in with breakfast and dinner for the dogs. I think the dose per capsule is 1200mg. I get fish oil from Costco (Kirkland brand) and the dogs and I share a big bottle. The vet has blessed this dosage. All 3 have nice shiny coats. I really don't remember how long it took to see results--I've been giving for several years. --Lucy

Great news! You are so right about that face--she is beautiful indeed. --Lucy

MoMo's toe amp was ~$500. That included antibiotics, pain meds, and a goodly supply of bandaging materials. I've been struggling to keep Mo's toe since March though, so the total from all of that has got to be around $2000. I don't want to add up the totals because I just don't want to know. --Lucy

She looks so nice and relaxed and comfy!

Piper takes both KBr and Pb for his seizures. His seizures are not mild ones so not medicating him has really never been an option. After 8 years on these meds he does have noticable hind end weakness and general clumsiness--some balance issues, a bit of a struggle to get up. My memory is that all this was worse in the early days of being on the drugs and that there really was an improvement after a while. Certainly the side effects have not gone away and certainly they affect him on a daily basis but I don't see them as making him miserable. He happily prances around in the yard, runs a bit, and loves his life. He discovered the couch about a year ago and hops up and down quite happily. My recollection is that it took longer than two months to see the initial really bad side effects diminish. You may actually want to consider giving it up to 6 months to see how his body adjusts, adapts, and balances itself on the meds. I've also found that sometimes Piper needs an adjustment in the dose of KBr. When I see his ataxia increasing and when I see him begin to dribble pee I know that I need to talk to the vet about pulling back a bit on the KBr dose. It really is a carefully orchestrated balancing act to get enough meds to provide decent seizure control and yet keep the side effects manageable. I hope things work out well for you and your hound however you decide to approach the medication and side effect issues. --Lucy

I'm sorry you and Beth are having such a hard time. MoMo's toe amputation was about 2 1/2 weeks ago. At this point I'm keeping her crated while I'm at work, though I'm not sure it's necessary. She is very good about protecting her foot herself--careful about not putting weight on it. She has been hoping up on the couch and bed on her own and it looks to me like she is using only her sound hind leg to do it. She lets me put her front end into the car and then lift her rear and, until this week she has waited for me to lift her down from the car. I have been using a leash as we approach the car to keep her form just bounding up. Would that work for you with the car and the bed to give you time to help her up? Situation and surgeries and dogs are different...my vet had me do bandage changes twice a day the first week and once a day since then. The stitches have stayed in really well. One of them came out last week but the others are still holding and the one that went AWOL caused no issues. I was afraid that the bandage changes would be hard to do or too "icky" for me to handle on my own, but I've been pleasantly surprised. MoMo is such a sweetie about it, though she is getting really tired of the bandaging process at this point (she had several week of it before the amp as we tried to save the toe by removing the corn and a chunk of the pad first--sadly, a failure). Would your vet maybe let you do bandage changes yourself with a weekly chek in for him to see her foot? That would decrease the number of lifts in and out of the car. Anyhow, from a couple of weeks further along in toe amputation healing, I'll just hope to cheer you up. Things should really begin to get easier for both of you pretty soon. Best wishes for full and swift healing. --Lucy

I'll echo the advice to take heart. My middle hound, Spirit, came to me after being found too shy and scared to be a good racing candidate. I've had him for almost 3 years now and he has blossomed beautifully. I've also had to learn to "read" him since he is not affectionate in the same way that my other two hounds are. With Spirit there is no kissing and no tail wagging; he is more subtle than my other hounds in the ways he shows his affection--wanting to be where I am, always meeting me at the door, the contented eye squint when I'm petting him. Learn to accept and treasure those subtle signs of affection and give your boy time. Four months is really not a long adjustment period. Spirit is not universally delighted to meet everybody and I have had to learn to respect that. If he is not happy being petting or approached by someone I intervene and explain that he is my shy boy and I don't push him to accept attention he is uncomfortable with. My other hounds will gladly absorb all the attention from strangers that Spirit doesn't want. Re: the accidents in the house...talk with your adoption group about house training techniques. You can also find loads ob posts here on GT about the tether method and other ways to approach house training. In the absence of a medical issue, accidents in the house with a fairly new dog is most likely that they just don't yet fully understand the concept. Try to relax. Watching them blossom is an absolute delight and it can go on for years! Spirit rarely plays so when I see him grab a toy or prance around asking for a romp it feels like a moment to treasure. He has become completely shameless when it comes to demanding petting. He is the boy who starts agitating when meal time is here and I'm not up and doing about. He vociferously disapproves of my use of the snooze alarm. Several weeks ago I saw him sprint across the backyard and peaked out to see what had caught his attention. I found him standing up on the fence to be petted by my neighbor's large son-in-law. My Spirit, who has always been leery of men--the larger and louder the more terrifying--has come so far. --Lucy

Another option is "Cushy Paws" from the Therapaws people. Cushy Paws The fit in the photo is quite generous but the booties come in S/M/L and a smaller size gives a sleeker fit. The booties have a grippy textured soul on the outside but the inside and the "sock" part of the boot is a lovely soft fleece. The fit is controlled with a Velcro and elastic band so they stay on fairly well. The top of the boot will fold down over the elastic band for a cute little cuff look. --Lucy

The vet who saw him and put him on antibiotics is a "locum" (I think that's the term--she doesn't work full time in the practice but she and a couple of other vets cover weekends for my regular vet while he is the only vet in the practice). I talked with our "real" vet this afternoon about Piper while I was there getting MoMo's amputated toe checked one week post amp. He thinks it may be teeth issues too. I am certainly hoping that teeth are the problem since that is easily fixable. Anyway, Piper is due for the big round of tests we do every 6 months. I'm going to take him in next Monday--he'll have just finished the 2 week course of antibiotics then--and he'll get a thorough check up with the vet who know him best and we'll send out his labs. Will get urinalysis, and fecal to r/o any parasites. I always get a full 6 panel thyroid and blood chemistry so that will be covered. I'll get the vet to check for any mechanical issues with swallowing though I've not seen any evidence of difficulty swallowing. Chris, I had not really thought of food preference as being an issue because he's just never been at all picky before. Still, that's worth a shot. They are on their 3rd bag of lamb and rice after years on chicken and rice so I'll get Piper back on chicken and rice and see if that makes a difference. I'm also adding a rotating array of enticements. Pepcid...how much and how often. please? Neither the vet's nor I are dismissing the possibility of painful teeth being the issue. His teeth have always been in pretty good shape. He had a dental (not a good one, unfortunately) when I adopted him 8 years ago and has not needed one until perhaps now. Thank you all so much for the thoughtful input. I don't know why this has me in such a panic. I don't usually borrow trouble, as they say. But this is Piper The Perfect and he is incredibly important to me. --Lucy

For the last couple of months Piper has been occasionally not finishing a meal, usually breakfast. He's lost about 4 pounds. I'm concerned because he has always been an enthusiastic and very non-picky eater. He is 10 and takes 2.5 grains of Phenobarbital twice a day and 320 mg of Potassium Bromide twice a day for idiopathic epilepsy and .6 mg of Soloxin twice a day for hypothyroid. His last thorough labs, in November, looked great. I'm going to have those repeated in the next couple of weeks (Pb & KBr levels, full thyroid panel, serum bile acids, CBC, etc.) He saw the vet on 5/7 because I wondered if the appetite issues were due to issues with his teeth. He does have a couple of teeth with some infection but his teeth, per the vet, are really not in terrible shape--she said, "I've seen greys with far worse teeth eating just fine.". He was given 2 weeks of antibiotics to take to see if that helped with the teeth and thus his eating. So far, a little over a week into the antibiotics, there has been no improvement in his appetite. I am worried about him, though I can't see anything other than the intermittent loss of appetite and resulting weight loss that I can put my finger on as a symptom. My question for the collective wisdom of GT is this: when I take Piper back to the vet what are the things I should be sure to have checked? What are the possible/likely causes for his loss of appetite? TIA, Lucy

So very glad that this is GONE! So very glad that this is GONE!

I am so very sorry that your sweet hound is gone. As others have stressed, you didn't fail him in any way. You did you r very best for him. Be as kind to yourself about this as you'd be if it had been someone else's tragedy. Warm thoughts for you as you grieve. --Lucy

Why waste words when there are perfectly good emotis to use? --Lucy

Checking in to see how Merlin and you are doing. Sending warm healing thoughts for your wizard.

Sending you and Merlin warm thoughts and healing energy. What a miserable experience.

I had such a hard time dealing with the idea that Piper could be having seizures when I was at work and I might never know and that I wouldn't be there for him if he clustered or got in trouble somehow. I still worry about that, but I finally just came to grips with the fact that I have to work and I can't bring him with me so I just have to find some measure of "trust in the universe" that he is going to be OK. For me, that has been one of the hardest part of managing Piper's seizures. I wish I had a solution for that tough issue but I don't. When he is clustering--and that has not happened in nearly 2 years--I stay with him. When he clusters he usually has a seizure about every 3 hours for 36-48 hours. Grueling, draining and horrible for both of us. Wishing you all the best in managing your girl's seizures. It is true that the vast majority of dogs with seizures manage the meds well, get decent seizures control from them, and live normal long happy lives. Your Nike and my Piper are going to be those nice average dogs. --Lucy

Wonderful news about the ultrasound!

Checking in for news and hoping its good. Kerry, it sounds like you have a wonderful vet and that helps so much with sorting out difficult and complex health mysteries. When will they have the results of the ultrasound? Don't feel too bad about checking with the desk after your long wait. I am way too passive and accepting and was once forgotten in the waiting room of a specialty vet practice for most of an afternoon. They were very kind and apologetic and all that, but it was a valuable lesson to me--a polite question at the desk would have saved me hours and spared poor Piper an exhausting afternoon. --Lucy

Piper has been taking Phenobarbital (160 mg) twice a day for his seizures. He takes Potassium Bromide as well. One of the typical side effects of Phenobarbital is that it can make dogs a bit clumsy (ataxia) and weak in the rear end. It also often increases the amount that dogs drink and thus pee out and can make them quite ravenous so you may also need to watch for unusual chewing activity as you see how Pb is going to affect your dog. Sometimes, after a couple of weeks the dog's body adjusts and adapts to the medication and problem side effects my decrease a bit. I noticed that when we were still increasing Piper's meds, looking for the optimal dose for him, that he had an adjustment period of a couple of week or more with each dosage increase. For Piper, I've found a bit of wobbliness is a price we have to pay for decent seizure control. Since you are new to dealing with seizures, I'll post my favorite links to excellent seizure info and support: http://www.canine-epilepsy-guardian-angels.com/ http://www.canine-epilepsy.com/ This site also hosts a great email list for owners of epileptic dogs Good luck in managing your hound's seizures. --Lucy

Just catching up on this...Kerry, I hope you can get some rest while the vet cares for Merlin. Poor sweethearts...both of you. Sending warm healing thoughts for Merlin. I hope he'll be home with you tonight. --Lucy

Piper made the dog door easy for me, as he has made most things easy, bless him. He just seemed to "get it" and after a couple of days of holding the flap and tempting him with treats, he was fine. I think it helped him to know that I was on the other side of the flap even more than that there were treats to be had since he likes to be where I am. The other two hounds have picked it up immediately from watching Piper. Perhaps occasionally confine the indoor cats and prop the flap open a bit so they don't have to push so much? I like JAJ2010's idea of blocking the magnet for a bit if possible to make the process easier for them. Maybe manually help by moving hte flap just enough to break the magnetic seal and try to get them to push it the rest of the way and gradually reduce the assistance as they aget comfortable with going in and out? In terms of needing to see through the flaps--my dog doors have double flaps that are flexible and slightly see-through in that light comes through but they really don't allow the dogs to see through them in any meaningful way so I'm not sure that improved visibility will help, unless you think that is really throwing your crew for a loop. Do you have one hound who seems closer to "getting it" than the others? Maybe concentrate your training time and effort on that dog in the hope that s/he will train the others? Good luck! Piper says to tell them the "Get wif da program you guys! Try it. You'll like it!" --Lucy

I am so very sorry for your loss.

I have a similar situation--hounds and a cat. I uses regular baby gates (adjustable, pressure mounted and easy to take up & down). I stack one on top of the another across a hallway entrance to keep the cat in his part of the house when I'm away. At night I use a single pressure mounted baby gate across the bedroom door but I mount it about 8 inches up off the floor. This permits my cat to come and go at night and if need be to nip under the gate if one of the hounds is feeling playful (sometimes in the morning). baby gate link I uses these, though I don't have the extra tall or wide ones. They are sturdy and last very nicely. Sounds like you and Baron are doing great! Just as an explanation, I baby gate the dogs into the bedroom with me at night because I don't want epileptic Piper to leave the bedroom and have a seizure where I might not hear him. --Lucy

MoMo's healing is going pretty well. The stitches are holding so far and there is no discharge or foul smell. However, I'm having the dickens of a time keeping her off that foot. Daily bandage changes continue to reveal a small amount of dried blood on the gauze padding, so I'm afraid she's being too bouncy and active. The trouble is that she does it even in the house. She was spinning and jumping up on me this morning. I'm trying to keep a lid on her exuberance because I really want this pad to heal well. I may have to resort to keeping her leashed up even in the house. --Lucy