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ZoomDoggy

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Posts posted by ZoomDoggy

    They Still Can't Get An I.v.!

    in Health and Medical discussion

    Posted

    I'm sorry. :( As a "difficult draw" myself, I can attest that sometimes the patient just has challenging veins. Too small, too "roll-y" etc. If she's a bit dehydrated, that can also add to the problem. I usually go through most of my limbs and several nurses before they get a proper stick on me. <_< I hope Nelly gets the treatment she needs soon. :goodluck

    I Need Some Advice

    in Health and Medical discussion

    Posted

    Judy, I posted this a while back for someone else who was having trouble getting their sick pup to eat:

     

    I can tell you that if no foods can tempt your pup, and you don't want to shove food down her throat, syringe-feeding is not as bad as you might fear. Your pharmacist can give you an oral syringe (cut the tip off to make the opening a tiny bit wider so it doesn't clog as easily), and you can puree the dogfood in a processor or blender with chicken broth until it's a nice smooth liquid. Then, one syringe-full at a time, slowly squirt the food into the side of her mouth, between her teeth. With Marla, once the liquid food hit her tongue, she started just licking and swallowing. I adjusted the speed of my syringe-plunging to accord with the speed of her swallowing. She didn't seem to mind being fed this way at all, even though there was no food left on earth that she would eat on her own.

     

    The advantage I found to doing this rather than continuing to scour the earth for more novel foods for her to reject (after four weeks, you run out of ideas), was that this way I could return her to the consistent diet that worked well for her, and it cleared up the diarrhea she got from eating so much weird stuff all the time. The downside is that it is time consuming, and it takes a lot of syringe-fulls to equal the amount of food a dog must eat daily in order to maintain weight. Many small meals daily, is what I did.

     

    I hope this helps. :goodluck

    Arthritis?

    in Health and Medical discussion

    Posted · Edited by ZoomDoggy

    Does he seem to limp more on particularly rough surfaces? Like gravel or concrete?

     

    Take a flashlight and very closely scrutinize each of his toe pads. Look for small flat shiny spots, or raised hard areas, or a tiny pinhole... anything that is not normal paw-pad texture. It may be a corn developing. If you see anything like what I described, take the affected pad between your fingers and give it a gentle-but-firm squeeze from the sides of the pad. This may elicit a flinch or a yelp (may want to muzzle before this exam). If so, it's very likely a corn.

     

    They can be hard to spot, especially if you've never seen one before.

     

    If it is, there are a few options for treatment which can be found here in H&M by doing a keyword search for "corns."

     

    :goodluck

     

    ETA: It's not unheard of for vets to misdiagnose corns, so don't let the fact your vet hasn't brought this up make you dismiss the possibility out of hand. Might save you some xray expense...

    Weight

    in Health and Medical discussion

    Posted

    You can syringe-feed him if need be. It's not nearly as traumatic as it sounds, I promise. Presoak his prescription kibble with lots of water overnight in the fridge, then liquify it, adding enough water that it's syringe-able in a food processer or blender, and syringe it into the side of his mouth. Your pharmacy can give you an oral syringe. I suggest cutting the very tip off to make the opening a bit larger so tiny food particles don't clog it too easily. You'd have to do this multiple times daily to get the full amount of servings in. When I was feeding Marla this way, I pre-prepared two days worth of kibble at a time, storing the "soup" in the fridge, so I wasn't constantly working in the kitchen. It's painstaking, but it will work. :goodluck

    Prayers For Miz Foxy - We've Come To The End

    in Health and Medical discussion

    Posted

    ...I gave her some pain meds to see if that gets her fever down. She won't recover from this, but it does my heart a lot of good to know she will likely pass at home, here where we love her best.

    ...

     

    Cool compresses helped with my girls' fevered times. If you don't have actual cold packs, wrap a bag of frozen peas in a soft towel and gently apply to areas of her body, chest, abdomen, etc, just for a couple minutes at a time.

     

    :bighug:

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