MerseyGrey

Thank you all so much! I’ll ask the vet about a blood test tomorrow, I think we might call it a full blood count but I’m sure he will know. Your posts have cheered me up - I have spent much time this week making ‘mmmmm tasty!’ noises and sharing the odd handful of shreddies with him. I’m pleased to report that he has had half a can of wet food for tea, and is currently munching happily on some broccoli stalks. We’ll get ourselves down to the pet food place nearby and pick up some more wet food tomorrow, and pop some soft cheese on the shopping list. I’m sure a Buddy would want me to thank you from him too - my greyhound epicure!

Well hello again, I’m here asking for some more advice. For almost two weeks, Buddy has been quite picky over his food. At first we thought he was holding out for tasty treats, as he would half eat his tea / breakfast in order to get the goodies at the end (chew stick or toothbrush), but usually he would return to his food and finish it off after the treat. Then he started to turn his nose up at things he would normally eat- we put kefir and yogurt on his food because he loves it, and mix a small amount of wet food into his breakfast for a bit of variety. So at first, he pretty much stopped eating his tea. After his evening wee, he gets a hairy rabbit ear (his all-time favourite treat) and he will still eat that - even to the point of asking to go out for a wee to get the treat. But no tea, and no supper. Then breakfast has started to tail off and basically now, he is not eating his kibble at all. I’ve tried being inventive and adding small amounts of extras that he normally loves (please don’t judge me, but I’ve tried most things from honey to salad cream!), and something that works one day won’t work the next. He hasn’t really eaten anything much for the past 48 hours - he had a couple of ears yesterday, a few treats (which he is still taking) and he has had a couple of weetabix soaked in watered-down kefir. He is tired - tired like I have never seen him before, but it’s hard to know if this is the effect of the acupuncture, the fact that he is barely eating, or if age has finally caught up with him . I don’t think that the acupuncture is causing the eating problem - in fact, at his Tuesday appointment he scoffed a puffed pig snout. I’ve considered that his teeth might be playing up but he turns down soft food but will happy have his usual chews. I made a kind of chicken soup which he ate one day but wouldn’t eat the next. He hasn’t had diarrhoea but we‘ve had one episode of vomiting - more like regurgitation but it was about 8 hours after his previous meal at breakfast. That was Tuesday (before the pig snout and acupuncture appointment), and I wondered if so much hair from the rabbit ears is bunging him up a bit, although he is still only having 2-3 a day, and it has never been a problem before. He can be a bit of a scavenger but neither of us think he’s eaten anything he shouldn’t have. His walks have been very short, mostly by his choice for the last week. We have another appointment at the vet tomorrow so we can see what he says. At the minute I’m thinking about getting some wet food too see if that interests him at all, and see if he perks up a bit. Buddy is very food oriented and even if he’s been sick before, he’s never gone for this long without eating properly, and he’s still interested in the prospect of food, as he will have a sniff of it, but he just doesn’t seem to want to eat it. Unless it’s chorizo Has anyone been here with their senior dogs?

Oh AnnIE . We discovered an unexpected bonus when Buddy lost a couple of teeth - his ball keeps falling out of his mouth, which gives him more opportunity to hunt it as it he often kicks it away as it drops. May you also find an unexpected bonus too!

Nope! I see conclusive photographic evidence of a success here!

A cow hound x Dalmatian! She is beautiful. Looking forward to hearing your stories as she comes out of her shell

Those faces . I love how AnnIE always rests her head on Punkin. It’s so sweet!

I love her face! She looks like she is winding up for another spin in that photo

Fantastic!

I’d also recommend legless clothes. Even before Buddy was old and arthritic, I could never get those long sticks to bend into something with legs, and if you decide to leave the clothes on for turn outs and you happen to have a boy, he will pee all over them! Something you can drape over your dog’s head and wrap under their belly is ideal.

That could be true. The vet was saying that nobody fully understands why it works in some cases and not in others. Let’s hope he’s one of the skilled ones!

For good results. Those floor tiles look so much more comfortable than your average floor tile. I can see why AnnIE would want to stretch out on them.

Thank you all! We have skipped the fries as a treat but he did get some sausage instead so he hasn’t missed out. We also had a moment last night where the crinkling wrappers almost - almost - interrupted the chewing of the pig snout. The needles were bright at the end so no chance of any getting lost in places where they shouldn’t be. Our vet was also a skeptic initially which made me even happier to have gone down the acupuncture route before trying conventional medicines. I’ve also got a few aches and pains mostly from my posture at work and am considering trying it myself. The vet said that he practiced on human to learn how to do it so I might ask him to stick a few needles in me when we’re there next time! Its great to hear all your success stories. Hopefully I’ll have one of my own to tell too!

…was a success! Well, it was only a couple of hours ago so it’s too early to tell if it’s worked, but we are currently at home with a very chilled gentleman who has just woken up and looks a bit spaced out. We took a bed with us, and a couple of treats (puffed pig snout and peanut butter stick) and he munched away and paid zero attention when he was made into a purple-spined porcupine. We had the acupuncture at a different vet surgery from our usual one, and the new vet was lovely with him, and patient with our questions and stories about Buddy. We have two more sessions in the next two weeks, and the vet has been honest and said that if we don’t see an improvement by the third session, this might not work for Buds. He also told us what to expect this evening and Buddy is behaving to form as if he has read the ‘Acupuncture for Dogs’ manual. Interestingly, the vet thinks that Buddy’s problems are probably related to arthritis further up his spine - in fact, just below his shoulder joints as this produced the biggest response when he massaged alongside his spine, and he said that this was fairly common to see problems with trapping of the nerves from the brachial plexus causing back leg issues. He was impressed by Buddy’s muscle tone around his butt and said that he wasn’t showing signs of using his muscles to take his weight, rather than his bones (he said that this would manifest as a kind of kink in his back legs and wobbly limbs). As an extra bonus, because there is only one vet at the surgery who offers this service, it means we will always see the same vet which hasn’t been the case at our regular vet. So if this does work for Buddy, we will definitely consider changing vet. Here are a couple of photos from the session and a post-session shot of him…KO’d! https://www.instagram.com/p/CxYq5POI8x1/?igshid=NzZhOTFlYzFmZQ==

Happy gotcha day ladies! Sorry I’m late with the greeting, but it looks like you are so busy enjoying the good life that you didn’t notice. The only response to the remark ‘they look funny’ is ‘YOU look funny!’ before walking away, pretending to cry. She would have been mortified and you might have got some cake delivered to your door as an apology

Happy gotcha day Willa! You’ve packed quite a lot into that first year so now it’s time to be a bit more boring and uneventful!

Buddy doesn’t get on the furniture which means I have to get down on the floor with him, so I suspect (from the side eye I get when I slide off the sofa onto his bed) that he feels exactly the way Ellen does!

I’m sorry for your loss. Run free sweet boy

Earsies indeed! She is a beauty

AnnIE looks soooo comfy…I don’t think I would move either. But Punkin…did you put a mirror in front of her snoot to make sure it’s still steaming up?

She is a diamond - hard as nails and beautiful too! Buddy has the same harness and even with a full compliment of noodlesticks, it twists a bit. We could tighten it a bit but I don’t want it to be too tight, so we just let him wear it at a rakish angle.

Yay for Punkin! And Annie, the Queen of Chill

I’d do the same. I’m a picker too.

They are both doing so well! Willa needed to kick cancer’s butt so she could carry on being Doolin’s therapy dog.

Her scar looks like it’s healing really well. Who needs four legs anyway?!

. Glad to hear she’s doing well