Rickiesmom

X-rays are a given. If they are not definitive, then what next steps make the most sense? As I understand it, the options (not mutually exclusive) are: - CT scan (would confirm lesion more clearly, does it provide enough clarity for lesion type to be diagnosed?) - FNA is the Dr. Couto recommended alternative to a bone biopsy, but is often not definitive. Is there any way it can be done to improve accuracy of results? - Bone biopsy - if it is done with a 14-gauge needle, how risky is it, and what effect (pain, aftercare) does it have on the hound. It doesn't sound very appealing and has often been recommended against on this board. - Is there any bloodwork or cytology of fluid in the joint nearest the affected bone, that can be done that is indicative of the three likely lesion alternatives (osteo (or other bone cancer), Valley Fever (not sure if there are other likely fungal issues) or bone infection). From what I have read fungal is unlikely unless the dog has spent time in the Southwest, and bone infection is unlikely unless there has been a previous trauma to the affected bone. Also, in greyhounds, it seems if it's cancer, it is overwhelmingly likely to be osteo. Your knowledge and experience would be greatly appreciated.

What a beautiful girl, with a special story and a loving way. My heart breaks for you.

Love the big boys. I am so sorry for your loss.

My Jaynie has very sensitive skin and is prone to this problem. We avoid collars with metallic threads on the inside and for walks she wears a harness. Her tag collar is made of soft suede with a boomerang tag on it. Velvet would probably be fine too. Collars come with a variety of linings, you might want to experiment and see if some linings work particularly well for your Daisy.

Latest update: No vomiting or diarrhea for...5 days now, woohoo! I'm hoping this means he's done with the bad parts. We're still getting very minimal poops, his last one was on Thursday, small, kind of soft, and dark. We are transitioning him from the chicken and rice to the Hills I/D tonight. Why that is prescription food is beyond me, the ingredients list looks terrible. /: He is still on Prednisone twice a day, and I think it's working. His energy is basically back to normal, including barking at passing dogs when he's on his walk. Here's what we may have available in our local pet stores that we can consider switching to: Natural Balance California Natural Wellness Simple Royal Canin Pinnacle Nutro Natural Choice Anyone have any experiences with any of these food, or other limited ingredient foods? We're most likely looking at dry dog foods.

Take comfort knowing Scotch is now at peace. I am so sorry for your loss.

Some time back one of my hounds (weighs 62 lbs) had very bad shoulder pain and she was prescribed the following 3x per day: - 100 mg tramadol - 300 mg gabapentin I am not a vet, but based on the above experience, it seems to me that if you are giving him less, you could move to this regimen as quickly as you can phase it in to see if it gives him relief. If you are currently doing this or close to it, and he is still in severe pain, I would strongly suggest that you find a neighbour or anyone on this board who is close by, to help get Scotch into the car (muzzle him when you move him) and get him to your vet, or the e-vet if your clinic is not open on weekends. The vet can assess the current situation, and together you can decide what is best for Scotch. I am sure everyone would agree that Scotch should not continue to suffer ongoing, severe pain

Toni I am sure "his" Arlie was there to meet him at the Bridge. {{{{{ Hugs! }}}}}

Here is the most recent update, from early this morning. ************************** After spending the morning at the vet's that Monday, Kidogo was sent home feeling slightly better. The vets want to switch him to an allergen-free food. But we're not sure what in his food he could be allergic to. They haven't ruled out inflammatory bowel disease yet, so he's on Prednisone twice a day. I say vets because this is the surgeon that is prescribing all these medicines and advising all these tests, and I've also spoke with our regular vet, but she's also at a loss and agrees that these are the measures we should be taking, considering our finances. His most recent blood test came back normal again. He is still on chicken and rice, but we would like some suggestions as to what is a good least likely to cause allergic flare-ups dry dog food we can try to get him on? No vomiting or diarrhea for 2 full days now, but yesterday he didn't poop at all, and today he pooped one tiny nugget. His recent patterns have seen him go up to 3 days without throwing up, so hopefully the calm sticks around for a LOT longer this time around. He is eating okay (I think he's no longer interested in the rice) and still not drinking a whole lot. Energy level is higher than it has been but not quite back to his normal. Thanks again, you guys.

OMG no! Judy my heart is breaking for you.

I am not sure if the owner will have time to post today - here is the latest update He started having diarrhea last night. ): I guess it's back to the vet for us later today. I am terrified of leaving him for about 6 hours because I have to leave at 8:30 for work and the husband only gets back between 2-3. Between going to Washington and the vet trips with Gogo both of us have taken way too much time off and our work places aren't very pleased with us. /: I will ask the vet about re running blood, and the other stuff today. Hopefully it's something we can afford. I will also ask about the prednisone and why he's on it.

So glad you are here! There is a lot of love and experience to help you!

Thank you all for your responses. I don't have answers to any of your questions but here is the latest update from the owner: **************************** He went back to the clinic today, but didn't see the vet. He went to get an anti nausea shot, and it should work for at least 24 hours, after which they gave us some anti nausea pills to continue him on. He seems okay, alert, but very clingy. He ate some rice and boiled chicken tonight, and I added water to his rice because he is still refusing to drink. He at it all, then went to sleep. It's been quite a few hours and he is still keeping it down, so that's good. We put his surgery on Care Credit, but I wonder if we could try to pay some of it off right now so we have more room to pursue the tests and such. The vet is great, she knows we are low on funds and that is why she prescribed the medicines that she did, so that we can try to figure out what is going on by process of elimination. If the combination of medicine is working to make him feel better, she will wean him off each one, and if he gets sick after removing one, then we will have a better idea as to why he is sick. Thank you all so much for being so encouraging. This really is a great community.

I am so sorry for your loss of Joey to this hateful disease. May he and Walter race the wind together.

Jan, I am not the owner, but your suggestions are good ones, thank you!

I am cross-posting with permission. Owner lives in Eugene, Oregon. This 1 year old dog is very sick, time is important so I hope it is OK to post here vs. Off Topic. I will give the owner a link to this thread. Thank you for any ideas or suggestions. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Two Saturdays ago, my husband called me while I was in Washington visiting his dad, and told me that Kidogo was throwing up. I told him to take away food and water and monitor him, if he throws up one more time to take him to the emergency vet. Sunday morning, the dog threw up a couple more times. My husband took him into the emergency vet and they took him back for xrays and IV fluids. They told us that he had a section of dilated small intestine, consistent with a foreign object, but they could not see the foreign object on the xrays. The next day, we were referred to the regular vet for an ultrasound, but they still could not identify a foreign object. The surgeon (who had performed multiple surgeries on whippets and other sighthounds) said she wanted to do the surgery for foreign object removal anyway, that if she didn't find anything she would take some biopsies. We agreed, and she ended up actually finding some small pieces of rubber in his system. We could not identify it, and wonder if he had chewed something while staying with a family friend because we had been gone so frequently. The surgeon told us everything else in there looked good and sent him home with us the next day. That week, he did great. His incision was healing well and his energy started to come back to him. He was eating and drinking, and overall seemed to be making a good recovery. On Friday night, 3 whole days after surgery, he threw up again, just once. We called the vet and she said he very possibly could've taken the pain med when he didn't have quite enough in his tummy. He seemed fine Saturday morning, but started refusing food Saturday night. He didn't have anything to eat or drink on Sunday, so we left the vet a message saying we wanted to come in Monday morning. That night, he threw up three times and we ended up taking him to the emergency vet again. They took some xrays and told us that he had a lot of gas in his intestines (again). They said they'd feel more comfortable if his surgeon looked him over, so they gave him an anti nausea shot and some subcutaneous fluids and sent him home with us. We went back to his surgeon on Monday morning, by this time, we had accumulated over $4000 in vet bills, most of which we put on credit. Our emergency dog fund was nowhere near big enough. She said she was puzzled by his situation, and told us some possibilities: inflammatory bowel syndrome, pancreatis, I don't remember what else. She wanted to do an ultrasound and send in those biopsy samples that she took during his surgery. We can't really afford to spend more on just testing, when we're not sure that these tests will even give us a diagnosis. We took him home with some anti nausea pills and some steroids to see if that would make his intestines start moving. He did great all week, started eating and drinking, was more active and constantly demanded walks. He had lost 3 lbs in the last week, which is a lot considering they don't have much to lose to begin with. We were slowly starting to wean him off the bland food to his regular food, and he seemed to be doing great. Until yesterday night. He threw up again, and my husband said it was probably because he had waited too long to gave him his anti nausea pill. So we gave him another one, but he threw up again in the middle of the night, about 6-7 hours later. We've called the vet again and are now waiting for her to call back. Sorry for such a long piece of text. Does anyone have any guesses/suspicions as to what this might be? Any advice on whether or not we should keep pouring the money into trying to find out what is going on? He is only 1, which I feel like is way too young to be having this many issues, and I am extremely afraid that I am going to lose him. We don't really know what our next step is going to be considering our now limited resources. 2014 has already brought so much pain, and stress, and I am at the end of my line emotionally. So tired. Sorry to unload all of this on you guys. I just felt like I should let you guys know what's going on, and it all kinda came spilling out. /:

I am so sorry, Mimosa was beautiful. Osteo is an awful, indiscriminate disease. My heart goes out to you.

Matt sounds like such a wonderful hound. I am so sorry for your loss.

I'm so sorry Robin, this has to be so hard on your mom.

I have to say my heart stopped when I saw the first photo before reading the post. Happy Gotcha Day Freddy - you are looking great and very content !!

My vet has never done this, though I can imagine it happening in future for the time reasons mentioned above. The fee also blunts the benefit of going to a pharmacy, since they will also charge a dispensing fee. So prescription fee + dispensing fee + drug cost at the pharmacy would have to be less than dispensing fee + drug cost at the vet. Practically speaking, it would bother me if it was a prescription was for a drug the clinic didn't carry or was out of stock, i.e., no choice but to go to a pharmacy, but since the same work is involved regardless, I suppose it would still be OK.

I use the Royal Canin / MediCal reduced protein kibble for Jaynie. She likes it and to me the ingredients look way better than SD. I also give her an egg cooked in organic coconut oil each day as her kidneys, while compromised, aren't in full stage disease, and I wanted her to have a bit more protein. Got to watch the eggs though due to phosphorus. I have been meaning to look up the idea of grinding some of the shell and adding it to the egg - I think the calcium binds with the phosphorus. (Her daily egg was OKd by her internal med vet, it might not be right for every kidney dog.) Purina also has a line of prescription diets, but when I compared the ingredients of their kidney diet (forget what it's called) to the Royal Canin, I didn't like it as well. I will watch this thread for additional ideas. Hope you find something that will work for you.

Photos of Sequoia were a highlight of browsing the board whenever Chris posted them. Very sorry it was her time to leave, she will be missed by many people here. I am so sorry.

Holy cow! Jaynie had a hematoma on her neck one time after a blood draw - it looked like a golf ball. I iced it and there was some bruising, but nothing like this!

Orijen most definitely does not use fish sourced in China. A link to their website has been posted above, for anyone who is interested. This company sets very high standards for sourcing their ingredients, and they also have a very strict quality control process. I was sent the following some time back when I asked if they used beef products processed by XL Foods (some of you may remember that huge recall): "We do not purchase any product from XL Foods, so the beef recall from this company does not affect our ingredient supply. Our Quality Assurance department follows protocols for testing from the time ingredients enter our plant, through production, and packaging. Once the food is released to the warehouse it goes into a Quality Assurance Hold area. Our Quality Assurance technicians sample the product and send it to a Government Certified Laboratory for Microbiological testing. Every sample is tested for known pathogens: Salmonella, Listeria, Clostridium, and Enterobacteriaceae which includes E. Coli and other Coliforms. All of our finished kibble is held before shipping in order to have Nutritional testing as well. No product is shipped until all of our tests come back clear."