Trudy

Jet didn't race. Her muscles, at almost 9 years old, are still much more defined and bulky than several greys I've seen. She's a muscular girl and it wasn't from steroids. I'm sure there may be some willing to risk it, but the random urine testing is pretty good at discouraging it. Penalties for being caught are pretty hefty.

Secret Bunny 2008 is now open. Go to the Events tab at the top of the page to sign up. I will set up the Secret Bunny forum, please keep questions and posts about Secret Bunny in there. I'll also start a vendors specials thread as well. Easter is March 23 this year. Package MUST BE SHIPPED by March 13. Entries will be accepted until Feb 15 (unless sign-ups are so slow, then we'll close it early, so sign up early if you are thinking about signing up for this event). The value of the gift you send should be $20. If you can not afford to do that, please don't feel badly, but please, do not sign up for the event. Event Rules & Terms of Service * One package will sign you up one time, two packages will sign you up two times, etc. * SAVE the email responses you get from each entry - they will include links back to each package and will allow for easy tracking * The gift should value $20 plus your shipping charges * If you are unable to participate for ANY reason after you have received a match, click the SUPPORT link provided on each page at any time and submit your notification. Until you do so, you are still responsible for event completion. * Check the event system for updates. You should receive an email, but it may end up in your junk folder. The event system will let you know the status of your package(s). * Update your package status, there are 3 levels. Acknowledge Match, Shipped Package, and Received Package. * Gifts don't have to just be for the pets, they can be for the humans too. Packages must be postmarked by March 13. Make sure to use a method of shipping that will have your package arriving on time for Easter (March 23). * We will accept entries until February 15. Matches should be made at least weekly, more often if there are enough names to work with. If you are signing up late, be aware that you may need to send your package using a priority shipping method for it to arrive in time. * Matches are automated and made at random. Requests for personalized matching can not be accommodated. Historically we have had a few entries each year for other pets; non Greys, non dogs, etc. If you do not want to participate for 'any' matched user, it is best to not participate at all. * We reserve the right to close the event signup at an earlier or later date that specified above. * Failure to complete your obligation will make someone and their pets very unhappy. Greytalk reserves the right to remove access to those who fail to meet their obligation without reason. DISCLAIMER: Greytalk is organizing this gift exchange but is not responsible for anything related to the delivery or non-delivery of any items between members. Participants agree that the exchange is between other participants and Greytalk is not liable in any way shape or form.

I've never had a dog that clustered. Growing up we had a Border Collie with seizures controlled with Pb (he'd have a breakthrough now and then, but very rarely). Now I have Ryan who is on KBr and PB, but he doesn't cluster. Without meds he'd have a very bad and rather lengthy grand mal followed by another a week later. He's better with meds, but still has breakthroughs every now and again.

I understand frustration, but he's your dog now. They told you when he was just a foster that they were only doing steroids, which is what it sounds like is going to be the treatment anyway. You can ask them for help, but I would not expect any from them. Dogs from adoption groups are not normally adopted out with health guarantees. MRIs are expensive (Ryan's was just under 2k) and I can understand adoption groups not doing them if they don't feel they have to. good luck with a definitive diagnosis

Seizure diseases are a long road to diagnosis. Epilepsy is the diagnosis given by process of elimination. You may never know what causes the seizures. You may never figure out what triggers the seizures. You are a slight bit ahead of the game in that she has pre-seizure behavior that you can pick up on to know one is coming on. They also sound mild. keep a log of her seizures and if they get more frequent or more serious, you can give it to your vet to look over as you decide what to do. The yellow foam mucus stuff is bile - that may just be a coincidence that she is puking bile before a seizure or it may be a good indicator that she will have a seizure. Jet pukes up bile when her stomach is empty, she's never had a seizure. Ryan has violent grand mal seizures and is medicated and still has breakthrough seizures - I've only ever seen him puke up bile once and it wasn't anywhere near any of his seizures. Ryan's seizures would be a very violent one followed by a still violent but not nearly as bad seizure within the next week. With meds, that second seizure doesn't always happen now. I still think the initial seizures are pretty violent, but don't really know if they are less so than before meds. A drop in meds or very stressful situations will lead to seizures now as well as just a random breakthrough still happens with him. Keep track of them and what's going on at the time and keep your vet in the loop.

I had a border collie growing up with a heart murmur - wasn't ever a problem for him and he was about 382342 times more active than any grey I've ever met or heard about. Don't worry about it yet as it may be nothing to worry about. Talk to your vet and go from there.

Steroids 'should' help a disk problem within 24 hours. An x-ray will not show issues with discs, you'd need an MRI to see that clearly. Worth doing an xray to see if anything with bones shows up as the issue though. Is he in pain? On any pain meds?

You will need 50 message to join in the Secret Bunny fun. I won't start it until SS is wrapped up and we are still waiting for 3 packages to arrive.

She may have been hit or run into something over the weekend with some internal organ bruising which caused the leak, but I'd expect that there would have been some blood cells in the fluid if that was the case Good that she's shrinking though

Yep - make sure you are going somewhere with a good quality ultrasound (expensive unit that most regular vets won't have on hand) that can get good looks at everything in there - and have them look at it all. You might also want them to do a urinalysis to see if there is anything that is showing up in the urine (blood, etc)

Did they send the fluid out to see what it IS? Organs can 'ooze' and cause a fluid build up in the abdominal cavity. This was one of the last problems we had with Ryan - his abdomen was filling up with fluid. We had to do a "super" ultrasound as my vet doesn't have an ultrasound that would give him good enough resolution to see much - we did a color flow ultrasound which showed the flow of blood though veins and whatnot. What we saw from that was a LOT of clotting in Ryan between liver and spleen and stomach. Blood was not flowing well (70-90% occluded) so his organs just started leaking. Once the clots started to break up/dissolve, the blood was able to flow as it should again and his organs stopped leaking and the fluid was absorbed.

As Judy said, get some bloodwork to check levels for the Pb and KBr. Those meds may not be at a high enough dose to control now or you may need to try another medication. For another reason, Ryan was on gabapentin for a while which is a seizure drug. I don't know how much 4ml is, but Ryan was taking 2000 mg of KBr a day for quite a while before we had to drop the dose because he was way too "drugged" at that amt. Also check to be sure the meds for incontinence are ok to take with the Pb and KBr - and if seizures are a side effect, I'd not be giving them to my seizure dog.

Ryan had a seizure while on it because his seizure meds were not making it to his liver to be processed due to all his clots around his liver. Vets were told about the seizure and there were no changes to any of his meds. As far a as a max dose... I'm not really sure what that it. I was told at 50mg 3x a day was a max dose. Then our normal vet said to up it and then the specialist said to go ahead and up it again to the 100mg 3x a day. Putting him on gabapentin helped him more with pain than the tramadol was... with the added benefit that he had another seizure drug in him while he was all clotted up, so we had a bit more getting processed.

Both Ryan's regular vet and specialist were fine with him taking Tramadol and both said to up his dose to where he was at 100mg 3x a day. He was on that for over a month. They both know he's a seizure dog and we ask about all new meds to see that they are ok for him to take with his seizure meds.

trying again

Poor Ryan was getting meds every 1, 2, 4, and 6 hours The carafate should be at 2 hours before the antacid or 1 hour after... or maybe it was at least 1 hour before and 2 hours after. I forget... check with your vet

It happens every year, several members see the package has arrived in the system, but never hear a word of thanks for the package that was received. We are mostly adults here and common courtesy should be easy as pie. All it takes is a couple minutes of your time to send a PM. If you don't know the GT name of your SS, let me know, I have that info. A post, PM - I've even had some people ask me for real names so they could send out snail mail thank yous. People put thought and effort into packages (normally - I can't say that for everybody... I know I did and I know the person that sent my package put a great deal of thought into my package as well) and it would be nice for them to hear that you appreciate their thoughtfulness. We have 3 people still waiting for their package to be received. But everybody else has likely already opened their packages and know who sent it. A quick message of "thanks" will make the exchange complete

Good thing I looked now... Easter is early this year... March 23 Once the last of the Secret Santa packages have reached their new homes.... we'll start working on setting up Secret Bunny.

Check your PMs

yep

Rimadyl is like any other drug in the sense that you need to figure out what the possible side effects are and is the chance that they could happen worth the good the drug could do. Many drugs for humans have a side effect of death. I did a poll a while ago about Prednisone. A very very common drug to be given to dogs on GT. My vet was against giving it to Ryan - he's seen too many bad side effects in greyhounds. Ryan's specialist had no issues giving it to Ryan and said he really needed it. So we tried it. One dose and Ryan had a nasty bloody ulcer and for a month he had to take Pepcid and another one as well as 10 days of carafat. Ryan can not have pred again - and he wasn't even started at a super high dose, but many dogs also have no issues with it. It is a chance we take by medicating our dogs. You know the side effects and know what to watch for.

if you don't know who your SS was... send me a PM, I can look it up for you. Please make sure to spend a minute to thank your SS - either via post in the SS forum or via PM (see above line if you don't know the GT name)

Sounds painful If you have to do surgery, I'd go for the scope option... less recovery time and should be an easier recovery as well. See if you can schedule the surgery on Wednesday and if you don't need it, you can cancel it - but it would get you in that much sooner.

not bad, but this is why we have the early shipping deadline - that way on Christmas Eve everybody would have their packages (opened already or under the tree waiting).

No more were marked as received today Receivers have been contacted to be sure they have not received the package. Senders will be contacted to track their packages once we can confirm the packages really haven't been delivered. Of those 9, 1 we know is missing and the sender is working to resolve that. The other 8 are still unaccounted for make that 8 now