KellyandKris216

Indy managed to dislocate his toe this morning while running around the backyard. According to my husband, he spotted Indy going full tilt on three legs, and when Indy finally came over, one of the middle toes of his back right foot was at a wonky angle (FWIW, he broke the outside toe on the same foot a year ago, but it's healed nicely). After determining the toe was just dislocated and not broken, my husband popped it back in place, and Indy took off for another lap on four legs before my husband could stop him. It doesn't seem to bother him much if he's running on it like a crazydawg, but is there anything we should be doing for it post-recovery? Or are things fine as-is?

Sounds like a working drawstring is key, I'll modify the pants to add one. Thanks!

I don't mean to hijack this thread but I tried toddler pants once and for the life of me couldn't get them to stay on more than five minutes (they kept sliding off one way or another even with a fitted elastic waist). What's your secret? I was contemplating doggie suspenders which would certainly add to the ridiculousness of the monster pants!

Glad Dino's okay! Both Indy and Renny have been coughing this season; their vet says it's allergies. Seems to be a bad year for it.

Today I managed to visit River's greyhound-data page a little more than a month after losing him. There I discovered that an incredibly kind person had added a note about how he had passed and how much we loved him. It brought tears to my eyes to remember the joy and happiness he brought us, which now mostly overwrites the terrible pain of losing him. To whomever added the note, thank you so much for your kindness. And to those who helped us in the dark hours of his crisis, thank you for your words of advice and support. It has all meant so much to us. I wish to share with the world how much we loved him. Though he was shy at first, River never met a person he didn't like. "Sweet" truly was the best word to describe him; he was quiet and gentle, and had such soulful eyes that reflected the depth of his love. He had mastered the adorable bitey-face and was quick to employ it when he wanted attention. Rawr rawr rawr said he! Out in the yard he thought he was a horse, trying to pass between our legs but getting stuck because he was so exceptionally tall. His ears were amazing to watch; perked up and bouncing like a coyote on walks, or half cocked when listening to you. But they were best when he was asleep; he'd be out cold, but one ear would be straight in the air like an antenna, listening to what was going on. He loved to have them rubbed and tugged and itched, and would put his ears in your hand if you dared start petting somewhere else. He loved scritches and brushings, leaning so heavily into them we thought we might fall over ourselves. And the grunting! That's how you knew you'd found the right spot. River adored chasing squirrels. Fortunately he was so inept at it that we knew he’d never catch them, so we let him have his fun because it brought him so much joy. He’d go bouncing across the yard like the squirrels were there to play, and I’m pretty sure they knew he was no threat as well. He would have been an excellent Drama student. We hear he’s infamous for coming off the hauler and crawling under a picnic table to collapse until he could be coaxed out with water and a little food. He also excelled at going kersplat in the cool sand after a good run at playgroup, worrying everyone for a moment until he’d pop back up and want to go again. Our lovey, overdramatic dork. River’s favorite pastime was laying in the grass under the sun. He would bask in its glow when it was cool, or in the shade when it was warm. He got so excited any time it snowed and would romp through it like the puppy he was. This year’s big snowstorm was a late Christmas present for him; he forged his own trails through the snow, alternately pushing like a ship and bouncing like a bunny to make the trail he wanted. But the most beautiful part of River was his soul. He had a quiet way of expressing his love, be it sitting with you when you were sad, or giving you a big toothy smile when you got home from work. It was the look in his eyes that said over and over, "I love you. I love you." On his last evening we took River for a beautiful walk through the grass at sunset, amongst the flowering cherry and pear trees to enjoy a breath of the wide wide world. We followed his slow pace wherever he wanted, his ears perking up at a skittering leaf or his nose catching the scent of someone who had been there before. He was at peace with the world. We spread out his bed for him inside and he lay down with a big sigh that said, "Thank you. I'm done." We lay with him for awhile, and sang him nonsensical songs about how much we loved him as he passed. Thank you for everything you gave us, sweet boy. Our hearts are in pieces missing you, though you've sent reminders that you'll never be truly gone. Run free through the grass until we meet again.

Last night we had to say goodbye to our sweet, sweet River. He was diagnosed with disseminated mast cell cancer which originated in his organs rather than as a skin tumor like it typically does. It had quickly invaded his spleen, liver, and blood, and it was advanced enough that any treatment options had just as much of a chance of killing him with each dose as they did of making him feel marginally better. We just couldn't put him through many bad days with the hope of getting one or two good days, it just wouldn't be fair to him. We took him for a beautiful walk through the grass at sunset, amongst the flowering cherry and pear trees to enjoy a breath of the wide wide world. We followed his slow pace wherever he wanted, his ears perking up at a skittering leaf or his nose catching the scent of someone who had been there before. He was at peace with the world. We spread out his bed for him inside and he laid down with a big sigh that said, "Thank you. I'm done." We lay with him for awhile, and sang him nonesensical songs about how much we loved him as he passed. Hug your hounds, they bring us such joy and love in their short time with us. We are so very, very sad.

Sounds like he's much the same this morning; no improvement but no decline. He's still not interested in food with one exception: he has the note in his file, "Loves cheese". They've been using it to get pills into him. Maybe I'll take my cheese hound on a cheese tour when he gets home. The exact schedule today is still being worked out so we'll wait to hear some news. We'll go visit him this afternoon when everything's done so we don't interfere with what's going on. His regular vet called this morning after looking over the forest of paper on the fax machine. He re-emphasized that until the oncologist confirms it, it's not necessarily cancer. Mistakes happen, and it's a very real possibility that this could still be TBD or some other kind of infectious agent. We should start getting the tick results back today and in full by tomorrow (it went out Saturday afternoon before he went into decline). And we should hear from the oncologist and internist today too. Cross your fingers for good news; I'm not expecting it, but I sure am hoping for it!!

Fantastic news! I'm so glad he's doing better!

Thank you everyone for your kind words, thoughts, and prayers. He's looking much better, and is feeling well enough to be anxious about being at the vet. It's a little bit twisted I know, but it's a silver lining! He'll be getting something to calm him enough to get some sleep tonight. He also has itchy ears again too! When feeling well, he loves to have the insides of his ears itched with a knuckle so that's a good sign too. Still not perfect, but making progress. Unmentioned in all of this is our second grey, Indy, whose tail has stopped wagging for the first time since we brought him home two years ago. Poor buddy's pretty depressed. We're trying to give him lots of love, and he got to play with a bunch of kids earlier today while we were off visiting River. Now we're just keeping him close; he didn't feel like coming upstairs so we carried all 80 lbs of him up to lay at the foot of our bed. Don't want him to be alone. I hope we can bring River home for his sake as much as ours. Edited because I can't spell on two hours of sleep.

Boy, what an up and down day it's been. We've gone from the verge of saying goodbye, to cautiously optimistic that River will get well enough to come home from the hospital to be spoiled rotten from however long he has. Here's the whole story now that my brain can process things again. Skip down to the bottom if you want to see where we're at now, but I want to put the whole story out in case it helps someone in the future. Last Saturday River vomited 3X during the day, a few hours apart. We administered 20mg of pepcid and a bland diet of rice and boiled chicken which he ate with gusto (he loves chicken and rice like people love ice cream). He seemed normal until Wednesday morning when he didn't eat his breakfast, so we made an appointment with the vet that afternoon. We treated for worms (rule out the easiest thing first). By Thurs morning he'd vomited another 6X so back to the doctor we went. He had no blockages but his symptoms and x-rays indicated pancreatitis, so we sent out a blood test that came back negative the next morning (all other blood work was normal). He was stable all day Friday and I managed to get some ham baby food into him (thank you to anyone who has ever posted a suggestion of things to feed a picky dog; with the exception of satin balls, I went through every last one of them). Saturday morning he was regurgitating (different from vomiting) even at just the smell of food so back to the vet he went. His x-rays and ultrasound showed his spleen had increased in size from Thursday's x-rays, the lymph nodes in his abdomen were enlarged, and his platelet count had dropped, though all other blood work was normal (surprisingly so, given his condition). He was also running a fever of 103.5. Given his symptoms we suspected tick borne disease; cancer always hovers in the back of your mind, but he was so young that TBD seemed like the much more likely cause since TBD (especially Bebesia) shared many of the same symptoms he was displaying. We went home after an injection Cerenia and Metronidazol (both of which he'd been on since Thurs), as well as a shot of Baytril. He was supposed to start feeling better, but he kept regurgitating small amounts through the afternoon and evening. At about 10:30pm what was coming up changed from clear fluid to a rusty brown/red. We took him into TLC for what we thought would be a vet check, but quickly turned into a fight to keep him from deteriorating further. He was heaving up massive quantities of rusty liquid, his blood pressure was measured at 220, he was breathing really heavily, had fever of 104.1. I'm friends on FB with a staff member at our vet office, so sent a message out into the ether (I expected her to be asleep) asking if there was any way to get a copy of River's records (online or otherwise) since so many of the tests the e-vet was about to run had been done only 12 hours before. Next thing I knew his records appeared on TLC's fax machine; she and another staff member had gone into the office at 11:30pm just to get his records to us. I still can't believe their kindness; they are absolute heroes. We waited for a couple of hours before the doctor was able to give us an update. They still were working to get him stable and were running with the Bebesia theory since it still made sense. Our doc had been optimistic about being able to treat Bebesia earlier in the day and had done so successfully in the past; the ER doc was far less optimistic and told us we should start preparing to say goodbye. In hindsight I guess I feel this was a little premature given that there were still good signs he was trying to fight it; he was in a bad way, but he wasn't yet considered "grave" and hadn't given up. I can't fault her for calling it as she sees it, though perhaps there's such a thing as too blunt (and please, vets on here, don't tell a client multiple stories of all the different patients you've had this week who suffered because their parents didn't put them down earlier, no matter how true it is. We don't want him to suffer either. Or maybe I'm just too sensitive.) Regardless, she was damn good at her job and ultimately got him stable despite the challenges. But it put us in a pretty bad state then and for the later in the day. The critical care specialist took over at 7am and immediately started running tests. At 10:30 she called with a prognosis: she had found systemic mast cells circulating in his blood indicating cancer in his system. She wanted (and still wants) the oncologist to look everything over before it's official, but everything is pretty well pointing in that direction. There were still glimmers of hope though including clear lung x-rays despite his trouble breathing. She started him on a new round of drugs and treatments. At this point he was on oxygen, was intubated to pull the liquid out of his stomach, was on an IV, and his blood pressure was still pretty high. This is where I started the thread, and we packed up to see him and to decide if he was suffering and we needed to say goodbye. When we arrived he looked pretty pitiful with all his tubes, IV's, oxygen, etc. But they gave us some good news - he hadn't been vomiting, his blood pressure was slowly decreasing, and his breathing was getting better. His eyes were brighter and he'd recently been on a walk to do his business. We quietly sat with him for an hour and asked the vet to call when she had a few minutes (sadly, they were crazy busy today). We each left a t-shirt with him and told him what a sweet boy he was. At 5pm I received another call from the critical care specialist. River is an entirely different dog from this morning, even from when we'd seen him a few hours earlier. He was no longer on oxygen, they weren't pulling any more fluid from his stomach, and his blood pressure had steadily decreased throughout the day. He's approaching the point where he no longer needs a critical care specialist and will probably be transferred to the oncologist and internist in the morning. Things can always change, but she's cautiously optimistic he'll eventually come home. He has an appointment in the morning with the oncologist, and it sounds like she's brought Dr. Couto into the loop to consult. (Bonus points - River's normal vet knew exactly who Dr. Couto was and was glad he was being brought into the fold). Hopefully tomorrow we can start piecing together a plan of attack of where to go next. I know things can change without notice (that's how we got here, after all), and am trying to manage expectations, but we've progressed so far from where we were at 3am that I'm filled with a lot of hope. All I want is to get him well enough to come home; then whether he has 10 days or 10 years left that will be enough. Just some time to show him how much we love him, give him that extra walk we skipped because we were tired from work, drive him through McDonalds for a hamburger just because we can. NeylasMom was right, we are in amazing hands at TLC. I can't emphasize enough how grateful I am for them and all for all they've done for River thus far. I'm also so grateful and amazed at the wonderful doctors and staff at Towne Animal Clinic; pretty much the whole clinic has been checking in all day to know how River is doing (I've been passing info along to one person who's been disseminating it, and the doctors have been checking in throughout the day). River's just as much their buddy as he is mine, and they're absolute rock stars over there. I'm sorry for the novel, but I wanted to get this all down in case it helps someone in the future. I'll update here when we have more news; we're headed out now to go visit him for a few minutes and give him a scratch behind the ears.

Our beloved River went to the e-vet last night after persistent vomiting/regurgitation despite multiple vet visits over the last few days. The call came in this morning that they've found systemic mast cells in his blood. Devastated isn't even close to how we feel. The resident oncologist and pathologist are being given a heads up to take a look and will be in tomorrow, but in the meantime I'd like to send them to Dr. Couto for his opinion. Normally I could look these things up, but I'm such a mess right now it's all I can do to type this. Can someone tell me the best way to contact him, how to pay his consult fee, and what I should ask to be sent to him? Are physical slides sent to him, or just a write up of the findings? I guess their microscope doesn't take pictures of the slides; I don't know if that's normal or not. I didn't even think to ask what kind of cancer, or if they knew. I know his platelets are low and his spleen is very enlarged. Please, please help. If it matters, he's at The Life Center in Leesburg, VA. His normal vet is Towne Animal Clinic, who are heroes for going into to the office at 11:30pm last night to fax his records and test results from the last week over to TLC. Happy Easter, Cancer. I hate you too. He's only 4.5.

If he's chewing on the bandage can you try putting his muzzle on with a stool guard? A stool guard is a plastic cup that fits inside or outside the end of the muzzle that keeps them from sticking their tongues through the holes. This was the only thing that kept River from going after his foot when he injured it, and we tried everything! Good luck!

So the bad news is his last full wellness exam needed for insurance was over a year ago and doesn't qualify. But the good news it the vet aspirated it and said it was just a cyst, nothing to worry about. Yay! The next time he's under anesthesia for something else like a dental she'll cauterize it to keep it from growing back; in the meantime I can just call him Lumpy

I was looking at Healthy Paws today too; he's 3.5 and would require an exam sometime in the past year. The last "true" wellness exam he had was when we adopted him about 13 months ago (figures), but I'll ask the vet if the check they did before his dental in Feb would count towards that.

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll see if I can get a vet appointment to check it out. I hope it's just an injury too, though if I can't have that I'll cross my fingers that it's benign and not malignant. Ironically, I was contemplating the pet insurance question last week but put it off with the other things that we had going on. This'll teach me...

I noticed a lump on the underside of Indy's tail this evening. It's about half way down his tail and is probably about the size of the first segment of my little finger. Any idea what it might be? His tail is going 24/7 and thwaps against every surface imaginable so it's possible he hit it against something (especially given his dislike of last night's fireworks). Seems like an odd place for that though. It doesn't seem to really bother him so maybe I shouldn't be concerned, but thought I'd ask anyway. I tried to get pictures of it with my phone; they're not the best but might help. Thanks!

Bonding/affection/protective makes a lot of sense; they're pretty close, so maybe it's just their way of being affectionate without actually curling up together. It's never seemed like a dominance thing for them anyway; if it is, Indy's doing a really bad job of it because River never gets up! Me too! That's why I was curious what this behavior might be, it's fascinating to try and figure out why they do what they do.

This is more of a curiosity than anything. Periodically, when River is laying down somewhere Indy likes to come and quietly stand over him, getting as far into River's bubble as he can without actually stepping on him. River doesn't seem to care one bit; if his head's resting on the ground it'll stay there, if he's looking at something he'll keep looking at that thing. Sometimes he'll lick Indy's legs, sometimes he'll just look up at Indy or look over at me. Indy will stand like this for a couple of seconds or a couple of minutes and then go find something else to do. There doesn't seem to be a rhyme or reason to it; it doesn't seem like an act of dominance or seem to happen in one specific location in the house (like on a bed or anything). Do anyone elses's hounds do this? Any idea why?

We went through this recently with River. It takes a long time to heal, but eventually it does. Our vet had us doing a betadine soak daily, neosporin, and keeping it covered with a sock (breathes better than vet wrap). She also gave us some antibiotics for him to take because as others have said, it's tough to keep infection free. The most important thing was getting him to take it easy on that foot; we took very short walks and kept him from running around the yard for several weeks. If he did too much you could see bruising develop around the toe. We used a Medipaw (medium) to keep it mostly dirt-free outside. We had the hardest time getting him to leave his foot alone though; given the chance, he'd pull off whatever boot, sock, bandage, tape, homemade foot-cone-of-shame, etc that I put on there. I put his muzzle on and he became an expert in getting his tongue through the holes in the muzzle. Then when I bought a stool guard he kept me up half the night smacking his muzzle against loud objects in retaliation. Rotten dog! Kinda funny though. I hope Jasper's much easier! Good luck!

River says, "Oh goodie, I love chewing on leashes!" Glad the news is good and Dino's okay! Funny you should mention lure coursing; there's a local group with a meet this weekend at Oatlands that we were planning to check out. You're welcome to join us if you like! http://www.champlurecoursing2.org/CHAMP_EventsPremiums.htm

I haven't had experience with murmurs with greys, but one of our cats, Bruce, was diagnosed with a murmur and recommended to a cardiologist. We suspected stress (to say Bruce hated this vet would be to put it lightly), so didn't go to the cardiologist. A couple of years later we found a vet who we (and Bruce) liked much better; she couldn't hear a murmur at all and explained that sometimes you can hear a "false positive" if he's really stressed out and his heart is beating really fast. I only bring it up since you said Dino was really stressed out during both visits; maybe it could be a factor? River and Indy are sending lots of scritches Dino's way! Or at least River is; Indy is looking for someone to pet him as usual

I tend to agree with Greyt_dog_lover in that he knows you're planning to leave and doesn't want you to. Our two went through this phase briefly; to get past it, we feed them in their crates shortly before walking out the door. Now it's a race to see who can get in first! As as result, their crates are now their favorite place in the whole house, and it's very common for us to find one or both lounging in there while we're watching TV or cooking dinner or something. If it's the crate he hates and not you leaving that might be a different story, but it doesn't sound like that's the case here. Just my two cents.

Plush squeeky toys go over really well here. Fluffier toys get pounced on, stuffingless toys are flung around and shaken like crazy, and those long dog-shaped loofa toys are gleefully carried as they do zoomies in the yard. I'm fortunate that our boys aren't toy destroyers, instead they'll happily sit there and just chew on the squeeker for awhile. For some reason (I can't figure out why) octopus-shaped toys seem to be their favorite; Indy's even taken one on a walk before, and only set it down for mom to carry about 2/3 of the way through. (Ever seen a greyhound carrying a bright green octopus on the trail? It's rather entertaining!) I've also had some success with the all-rubber squeeky toys depending on what mood they're in. River usually ignores them, but Indy will sometimes go nuts because they make really loud noises. Mostly I just raid the clearance bin at Petsmart to see what toys are there to bring home Their love of plushies means I have to be diligent about keeping anything fluffy out of their reach; Indy's lion mane for halloween was a recent victim of the "crazies" when it didn't get put away. Just means he'll look like a scruffy lion next year

Shortly after bringing Indy home, we took him on an excursion where he took ~50 outdoor stairs without batting an eye. Stairs inside were a totally different animal though, and we had to teach him how to climb those by enticing him with cheese. He still won't go down into the (finished) basement because those stairs are closed in and scary to him. I'd recommend spending a little time teaching your boy how to walk up and down the stairs, moving one foot at a time if necessary. Some dogs pick it up in 5 minutes, some take several days/weeks. Before you know it, he'll be going up and down with no problem!

New stool guard came in the mail last night, and River's found his vengeance. I got home late last night and didn't get to make the socks, so he got to wear the new stool guard instead. Holy cow, Batman! In the middle of the night the brat River comes upstairs, lays on his bed, and proceeds to make the loudest crashing/clattering sound ever! Turns out, he discovered that the stool guard sits loosely inside the muzzle, and if he shakes his head he can make a noise loud enough that mommy almost falls out of bed. I turned on the light and he gives me his best "Who, me?" look. Finally got back to sleep, and an hour before my alarm goes off he decides he needs to scratch his face. Well, his aim is terrible in all his endeavours, so instead of his back foot scratching the itch, he proceeds to use it to bang on his muzzle, causing even more clattering. (DH sleeps through all this btw; I'm jealous). I swear, he had a doggie smile on his face and was laughing at me. He was doubly laughing when the cat discovered I was awake and insisted it was attention time! The vet's asked him to come in tonight for another recheck; she and I have been very happy with how it's healing. Perhaps one day soon he'll be back to running around the backyard like a maniac with Indy again!