Meandmy

Awesome!!

I'll be thinking of you and Tucker today. My Tori had to get 2 small masses on her eyelids removed last month and while she was under I had the vet perform what will be her last dental. She is 13 and quite healthy, but the old ones are always a worry when it comes to stuff like this. I'm sure Tucker will be much happier without that icky thing there, especiall if it's leaking! Please keep us posted on how he's doing

Oh Lucy, my heart goes out to you. I'll be checking often today to see if there is an update. We all know how much you love Jabari and would never question any decision you make regarding his care. Every situation is different and there are so many factors to weigh. You know best what will be best for you and your boy. I'll be thinking of you and your guys today.

What a beautiful picture of the two of you! I'm so glad that 'bari is doing better.

Oh Jabari, hope you feel better soon little man! Lucy, I hope that this is just a passing thing and that he'll be on the mend soon. I'll be thinking of you both.

How scary! I'll be thinking of you both.

I'm sure Tori would love to walk whatever the weather, but I'm a sissy so we don't walk if the temperature or wind chill is below zero. That means no morning walks yet this week! I don't usually walk her at night in the winter because it's so dark where I live, but I'll be walking her tonight and tomorrow night - I feel bad that she's been cooped up all week!

Lucy, I hope Legs does well on these meds and they help him as the Dr. thinks they will. You all deserve a break!

My little old lady is about 54 pounds and I feed her 1.25-1.5 cups morning and night, with wet food in the morning and green beans with dinner. It's been hard to keep weight on her as she's gotten older (13!) but that's more than I fed her on Chicken Soup. I also go by appearance as well, as it doesn't take much for her to drop a bit and her ribs to get too prominent. ETA: I feed her BB Freedom, in case it makes a difference

I'm so, so sorry that Jilly Bean had to leave you. I hope you know that she took a little bit of all of our hearts with her - she was truly one of a kind. Hugs to you and your family.

I have no advice but I'm in the same boat. 13 years old, started peeing in the house when she had a UTI. UTI was cleared up months ago (we're definitely sure!) but the behavior stuck around. The best we've been able to do is keep it to one spot. We use potty pads and washable rugs and try not to make a big deal of it. It used to really drive DH crazy as he gets home first and always had to deal with it. Now that we have a system down and all he has to do is toss the soiled stuff down to the laundry room it's gotten much easier on all of us. Hopefully someone else will chime in with some helpful advice that we can both use!

He'll be okay. It just takes some getting used to. I know I shouldn't laugh, but his expression made me giggle. I saw it on Shadow when I made him wear pants after a surgery on his leg.

Come on! Could they possibly be any cuter????

So, umm, how did you do that? I ask because Tori won't even go on the steps if one of us is on them - never had. I tried tonight and stood on the stairs for over 15 minutes trying to wait her out and get her to come up the stairs behind me, but she finally gave up and went and laid on a dog bed on the first floor and wouldn't get up I'm guessing that if I stayed on the stairs she would probably just end up sleeping in the living room rather than have to climb the stairs behind me Edited for proper emoti usage

Poor Tori! She has always run up and down the stairs like nobody's business, but at almost 13 it's getting harder to do. She can usually make it after several false starts, but it makes me nervous as her hind end continues to weaken. I'd be happy to just carry her up, but she *hates* to be picked up. So how do I train her to walk up the stairs? Right now if she's at the bottom of the stairs, if I so much as touch her collar to try to guide her she either tries to sprint up the stairs or she runs away and lays on her bed. Our stairs are a little bit steep, but fully carpeted, with full walls on both sides. I'd love to hear your ideas - thanks!

Thanks for this info. Can you tell me how you determined that the Metacam was the issue? Was it just the symptoms or did you run tests as well?

Thank you for this! That's what I was wondering. My vet has a lot of greyhound patients and I do trust him, but I also don't want to put her on Doxy unnecessarily. I will certainly discuss this with him when he calls back. ETA: I just got off the phone with the vet and all of her values have dropped since her bloodwork was last done in March. While they are in normal range for greyhounds, he feels that the drop is significant enough to warrant the Doxy. I feel much better knowing after talking to him about it. Thanks again for the web site!

Just got off the phone with the vet tech and got a bit more information. She said several of the tests in the "platelet count" panel were low. The two she gave me over the phone were: WBC of 4.9 (normal levels 5.7-16.3) and Platelets of 116 (normal level of 164-510) She said all the other tests in the panel also showed lower than normal numbers and that she'd give me a printout when I come in. She's checking with the vet now but guesses that he'll want to start the Doxy regimen.

Last Monday Tori (who will be 13 in a few weeks) started acting like she was feeling a bit off. Nothing I could pinpoint, I just knew she didn't feel well. Still eating, still wanting to go for walks, just a bit lethargic. By Tuesday night she had gotten worse and didn't want to go for her evening walk. Tuesday night she was up panting quite a bit and couldn't seem to get comfortable, then Wednesday morning she refused to eat for the first time ever! I couldn't tell if she was in pain (she has arthritic shoulders and is on both Tramadol and Meloxicam) or if she was sick. Since she didn't eat breakfast I didn't give her either of her pain meds and took her in to the vet. She had a fever (103.6 and 103.8) but no pain that he could find. Did a Lyme test in-house, which came up negative. She's had a few ticks on her this fall. They sent more extensive bloodwork out to the lab. Thursday she was already feeling better and ate her breakfast. By Thursday night she was almost back to 100%. Meanwhile the vet called to say that her bloodwork looked fine except for her WBC count - he thought it was possible she could have a different tick-born disease (sorry I don't remember the numbers). His recommendation was to put her on Doxy for 2 weeks to see if she improves, then if it's making a difference to continue through the whole month-long regimen, assuming it's a tick-born disease. We decided to wait as she was back to her old self and seemed to be feeling great all weekend. Now this morning I could tell as soon as she got up she wasn't feeling good. She refused her morning walk and only ate breakfast when I added some cooked noodles and did a lot of coaxing. She's also panting off and on. So now to my question - since she's presenting with these symptoms again should I call the vet and get her started on the Doxy? I'm worried that I won't be able to tell if it's helping since the first time around she got better on her own. And at almost 13 I'm worried about what a month of antibiotics will do to her system if that's not what the issue is. Thoughts?

Sorry, Lucy, I just saw that you were interested in the pants. They are so simple to make! Just buy a cheap pair of jersey pants for little boys. Mine were For Tori I bought a girl's small, for Shadow (who was about 67 pounds) I think a boy's small worked for him. Lay the pants out flat and cut up the center seam, starting at the crotch, toward the waistband. When you get to the waistband don't cut through it, but follow it around on the side that you want to cut off. So you end up with one full leg and a full waistband. When they are on they don't get in the way of pottying and the waistband keeps them up. If the waistband is too loose you can pin it smaller and just wrap the pinned part in vet wrap so it doesn't accidentally open up. I'll see if I can get a rearview pic of Tori tonight so you can see better what it looks like. She hates to walk when her leg is wrapped, too, but she seemed to get used to this pretty quick.

Lucy, if it's just one leg, you could always put a half a pair of pants on him. I know it's hot where you are, but lightweight toddler pant work great and keep them away from the areas that are too difficult to bandage. Here is a picture of Tori in her toddler pants Hopefully the treatment that you are trying for Legs works, but if you want more information on making pants for Legs just let me know

Shadow wasn't a nervous dog, either. It was the one and only time he needed them. I resisted my vet's suggestion for a long time because he didn't seem stressed to me, but the change was almost overnight when he started the meds. He explained that they get into this habitual cycle (apparently it's pretty common in horses, too) and for some reason the meds help them break the habit.

Lucy, I thought I'd throw out a thought about the licking, if it's been going on for a while. When Shadow had major surgery on his leg he kept the incision open for months because of the licking. He wore sweatpants but would lick them and irritate the sores, we tried a muzzle with stool guard but he would keep pushing the muzzle into the sore and licking the inside of the muzzle - enough to irritate both his tongue and the sores. Every time we made progress in healing he would find a way to open it up. Finally we tried a brief stint of an antianxiety med and *poof* the licking stopped. We only kept him on it for about 3 weeks - just long enough to break the cycle of licking. If the sores are only staying open because of the licking, it might be something to look into.