LBass

Your are so right about the importance of a vet you trust and like. Managing Piper's epilepsy would be a complete nightmare without a vet whom I trust and who works well with me. I am grateful for my vet and his great staff on an almost daily basis. Glad that you've found a good vet and that Cougar is healing well. Lucy

Sending prayers for Bodie and for you.

What wonderful news! He has such a sweet face, even when dreading the hydrotherapy session.

I'm so sorry for your loss. Thanks for sharing a bit of Sonny's personality and character with us.

I'm so very sorry for your heartbreaking loss. Your heart will tell you when you are ready to open your life to another grey.

I'm so sorry for the loss of your very special girl.

I agree, FWIW. As I recall, the DVM's article on fly biting indicated that there is no consensus on exactly what causes fly biting--perhaps seizures-related and perhaps obsessive behavior. It sounds as if figuring out what is going on with your pup and how to help may take some diligence and a willingness from your vet to be open to all possibilities. If your regular vet is as rigid as the substitute, you might want to look elsewhere for veterinary advice. If you decide you want a neurological consult you can look for veterinary neurologists at this site...www.acvim.org Don't be surprised it the labs and physical come back as as "normal and healthy". Neither OCD nor epilepsy will show up in any test or lab result. Underlying health issues that might be causing seizures will turn up in can be treated. Good luck to you in finding answers and treatment that will help. Keep us posted and do let me know if you want any web links to seizure information--my life revolves around Piper's epilepsy and I've found some great resources that I'd be glad to share. Lucy

I'm so very sorry for your loss. Thank you for sharing the story of how Buzz joined your family and for letting us have a glimpse of his charming personality and his beauty of body and soul.

I'm so sorry for your loss. What a lovely wise old face she has.

Oh no. I'm so very sorry.

I'm so sorry. You and Buzz will be in my prayers. If it must be, I'll pray that the experience will be a calm and peaceful one for him and for you.

It think you are wise to take your hound to the vet for a thorough physical. There are so many possible causes for his symptoms. I'll mention yet another... He may have been having a type of seizure called "fly biting". Here is a link on that topic Fly Biting . Good luck and I hope you find an answer and a solution for Tigger. Lucy

I'm so very sorry for your loss. Link is extrodinarily beautiful and I'm sure that beauty is an outer reflection of the special soul who shared your lives and your love.

Hurray for the excellent news!

Well, I generally just assume that its a fire ant and will bite me unless its one of the big black ants. If the ants swarm furiously out of the mound, on the attack, they are fire ants. Check out Fire ant info for good fire ant info. There is a weekly radio program on SC Educational Radio--I think you can get the podcasts at bugs.clemson.edu--by an entomologist and a pesticide regulation specialist. Their advice for the least toxic and most effective way to treat fire ants is to use a broadcast bait a couple of times a year followed by mound treatments if needed. I use Amdro but there are other baits as well. You broadcast a relatively small amount of bait over a fairly large area and, if you put it out when ants are foraging (see web link for info) they will pick up almost all of the bait within a few hours. That leaves nothing for the hounds to get into. I usually treat once in the spring and again later in the summer if I see mounds. I tried putting out the mound treatments that you water in. The problem I had with them was that, even after watering them in, there was product on the mound that Piper tended to get into. The baits solve that problem. Oh and yeah, welcome to the South.

I'm so sorry.

I'm so very sorry. No second guessing...you did your best and you loved Link. That is all you can do and all that you should expect of yourself.

I'm so sorry. I too have lost a beloved animal companion who was part of my life for so many years that I couldn't envision life without her. There is happiness beyond the grief and the love does go on. Please accept my heartfelt condolences as you grieve Cleo's loss.

I'm so very sorry for you sad loss.

I'm so sorry for your loss. Sadie's such a beauty! Grace the Bridge with your lovely presence, Sadie

Welcome to GT and welcome to the south! Try not to worry too much about the bugs with respect to your dog. As Rosebudd mentioned, the most important issue is to treat year-round for heartworms. My guess is that you didn't have to worry much about that in Toronto but mosquitoes are possible here even in the winter, since they hatch out with any little bit of warmish weather. Chances are that your dog will quickly learn to recognize fire ant mounds. If you've got a yard, I'd recommend treating for them--I've tried the live-and-let-live approach and I've got the scars to prove it. Use the state extension service for help in figuring out the safest effective ways to deal with various pests. In SC the extension service is at Clemson University and I think in GA it will be University of Georgia. Since SC and GA are neighbors you could just refer to bugs.Clemson.edu. They've got great fact sheets on pests, gardening info, cooking and canning info, etc.--choose the "Insect Information" link. The times that fire ants cause serious injury and death are in very young/old/sick creatures who can't get away from the stinging swarm. A few bites will be painful but generally nothing to get too worried about. Lucy

Oh I'm so very sorry that CinCin's life was so short. It was a true blessing that her last days were filled with the presence of people who gave her extra special loving attention.

Oh no! I'm so very sorry that Pudding had to leave you, though the image of her joining her beloved skin-Dad at the bridge is incredibly poignant. There is just nothing quite like those Cavalier faces, is there?

I'm honestly not sure which I think would be easier. I've experienced both situations and they seemed to me to be equally hard and, for me, not particularly different in terms of grief. I can look back now at myself with a bit of amusement over this...as my beloved dachshund, Claire, aged into her mid to late teens (she died just before she would have turned 17) you'd think I'd have been prepared mentally and emotionally to lose her, but I really wasn't. I just telling myself, "Well, you know you'll probably just have another year or so with Claire. She's getting pretty elderly and frail." I was still just as shocked as I could be when I finally lost her--I'd really expected that I'd have "just another year" with her. Love is sometimes blind and completely illogical.

Sending healing prayers and good thoughts for you and Chancy.