Trudy

That's entirely up to you, but I do highly suggest insurance on your package Depends. Some do one entry per dog and others do multiple dogs per entry. Often times when I participate in exchanges, I put Jet and Ryan together. The package to them is a total of $20 to be shared by them

Cancer is more common in large breed dogs, so NGA and AKC would likely have similar instances of cancer. Before really hearing a complete history on Ryan, his neurologist was already pretty much set on him having cancer... because of his age and his breed. She didn't know if he was AKC or NGA at that point.

as long as you see them under my packages, you should be good to go. From what I remember, we stopped those confirmation emails... I think

Since so many nuts, I mean crazy people, I mean GreyTalkers have signed up already, I'll likely do the first round of matching tonight to get those weekday GTers a chance to enter.

I'm pretty sure he meant in the house... unless any of you are that crazy. I don't even think Diane's goes up this early

You need to have 50 posts to be able to join in this SS fun. If you aren't there yet, start posting in the greyhound forums and you'll soon find you have enough posts to join. You either need to be a 'member' or 'supporter' to play in these reindeer games As for what is this. Kind of like what was described. You enter a pet (or multiple pets on one entry) into the system. However many times you enter, is how many packages you will need to send. You sign up 4 times, you receive 4 different names to shop for. You will shop for the names included on the match you receive (once I do the matches) - that may be 1 dog or it may be 2 dogs, 4 cats, and a horse. The package you send contains a gift(s) that value at $20 - plus the cost to ship it (so overseas shipping will be more costly). some people decide to break that "package" up over several gifts sent at multiple times... but the gift limit is still $20. You are welcome to spend more, but you are NOT obligated to. You are only obligated to send something for that $20 gift limit. If you have 3 dogs, you can sign up once per dog or all 3 dogs on one ticket or split them how ever you desire. Entirely up to you. What it boils down to is you send out the same number of $20 gifts as the number of times you sign up. I'll be making matches likely 2 times this week... during the week and this weekend so that those wishing to ship overseas can get a gift packaged up and sent before November 1. If that is clear as mud... as for clarification on the parts needed

In case anybody needs some ideas.... seems there are a lot of humans on this board that are a wee bit crazy for cheese - the real kind that starts from a cow

http://forum.greytalk.com/index.php?showforum=33 Directions/rules are in the link above. Please keep all questions and such about secret santa in the secret santa forum. Thanks

Since you will be needing to ship overseas packages so soon, I will be making matches this month - I'll try to give you at least a week to get stuff for your package, so I'll likely do matches next weekend. If you sign up after the November 1, 2007 date for shipping overseas, please sign up with a 'same country' option, otherwise I won't be able to match you up and have packages arrive in time.

I CAN NOT STRESS HOW IMPORTANT IT IS TO GO BY THE INFO IN YOUR 'MY PACKAGES' TAB DO NOT GO BY WHAT SHOWS UP IN YOUR INBOX OR YOU MAY HAVE THE WRONG MATCH INFO GO BY WHAT IS IN YOUR 'MY PACKAGES' TAB Go to the Events tab just below the banner and have at it! If you sign up, you MUST send out your packages - ON TIME (if you can't for some reason you MUST let me know and let your person know as well) Sign up any number of times you wish - each ticket you submit will receive a gift (so you can enter one grey or 10 in one ticket) Package limit is $20 PLUS shipping (yes, you can spend more if you wish, but you are not obligated to) If you are shipping overseas, you must ship by November 1, 2007 (there are some issues with the postal service in the UK, so packages will be sitting there for a while) Packages MUST be shipped by December 10, 2007 if you are not shipping overseas. If you need to back out, let me know ASAP so I can make changes Packages can be for the greyhounds/pets or the humans You can sign up for non greys - if you are entering a non-greyhound, please indicate that in the comments Unfortunately, we are not able to match/not match based on the type of pet being entered, so it is possible you could be matched up to a non greyhound. If this is a very serious problem for you, let me know, but I won't be able to do much as I'm not going to go into the system and unmatch and rematch people by hand - leaves it far too possible for me to screw it up and somebody not get a gift PLEASE keep track of things in the events system - UPDATE it as you go I strongly suggest delivery conf and insurance if using the USPS - packages have known to be lost or missing Signups are open until Nov 20 - but can (and likely will) be closed early if the sign ups slow down greatly If you have signed up in the past, please CHECK your shipping information before signing up this year. This list of rules can be added to... so please check back often If you have questions, please post them here so I can answer them here and others can see the answers. The system should be pretty self explanatory, but in case it is not. Once we do the user to user matching, you will get an email, but in case your mail system is strict, check the events system once a day or so. When we make the matches, the status of your packages will change. Click MY PACKAGES to view them. What you should notice is this image. You need to click that image to acknowledge that you received your match info. Once you click the above, the status image will change again, it will change to this: Now start getting your package together, and obviously click that image when you have shipped the package. At that point you are waiting for the other member to receive it, so the status changes to: And once your match receives the package, and updates the system it will change to: -------- This also works in reverse. In the past those on the receiving end were waiting impatiently, and wondering if the other end knew they had a match or not. Not to worry, the status of incoming packages works very similar. When the sender acknowledges the match, you will see this image: And when your package ships, you will see this: And finally click that to get back to the all mighty:

Before I moved here, a vet tech took Ryan in the back for a blood draw. He was returned to me over 20 minutes later with both legs wrapped up. I said nothing and called when I had gotten home and spoke with the vet. All blood draws after that were to be done by him in the room with me there. Returning my dog to me with 2 bloody and wrapped up and later very bruised legs isn't ok in my book. And no way should it take over 20 minutes to get a sample of blood. He's been fine for blood draws since then.

Ryan was also on stomach protectants and had a snack with the doses we gave him. For him, it didn't help. Since my vet does not like to use oral steroids in greyhounds because of what he has seen in the past, I was asking to see how many people here have had issues with steroids in their greys as I know many people here have used pred. Other than Heather with one of her dogs, it doesn't seem like anybody had too bad of issues if they had any at all.

You should be able to select any number of choices for each question. With Ryan's happenings the last few weeks, we have found he is no longer a candidate for oral steroids. Not sure about injected ones anymore. Our current vet used to work with the track greys in England. His experience has been greyhounds don't do great with oral steroids, so he avoids using them unless there is no other option and only then if the dog hasn't had past issues and he's on pins and needles to see how the dog does. He has no issues using injected steroids, so Ryan had a couple of injections of cortisone. They didn't help. When we went to the neurologist and she gave us oral prednisone, we told her that our vet didn't feel comfortable giving oral steroids as his experience hasn't been good with oral steroids and greys. She said she has no problems doing so and told us to go ahead and give them. Since I was unsure if he meant all steroids or just oral prednisone and she said it would be fine... we gave it to him. Less than 24 hours later on the table for the MRI, Ryan let her know he's one of those greys our vet has problems giving ALL oral steroids to. He had blow out bloody D from his newly acquired bleeding ulcer from the prednisone. Just wondering what others experiences have been.

Yes, Ryan is on 225mg of Tramadol. My understanding is 400 mg is the max dose, though I've had our vet and neurologist say what they said was the max dose. He's also on gabapentin to help block pain receptors in his brain and muscle relaxants. A chiropractor was an option for ryan given to us - but not to help his pain, only to help him move his neck. We passed on that option and he's moving his neck now more on his own. Ryan's problem - nobody has seen what his MRI is showing. So we don't know. He likely has blood clots or pieces of tumor in his venous sinuses. Nobody knows how they got there and what caused them to begin with. Surgery isn't an option now, even if they are pieces of tumor. And since oral steroids caused a bleeding ulcer, we can't do much for him. On the bright side, his pain seems to be more controlled now and his range of motion is improving. His MRI results and some of the images have been sent to people around the country and they all say the same "weird, never seen that before, no idea what it is or why it is there." The only thing to help is if it goes away on its own. Which still leaves us the question of what caused it and how do we prevent it from happening again. Our task is his pain management and we seem to finally be making headway in that dept. If surgery were an option for Ryan, it would be a very difficult decision because they don't know what they'd be trying to remove and what his prognosis would be after surgery. But none of the neurosurgeons at the hospital are willing to touch him and several others consulted agree that this is a nature takes its course. If you do surgery, I'd make sure you have a surgeon that has done this many times before and can tell you what they think are the outcomes for his case. Ask your surgeon - if this was your dog, what would you do? How risky is surgery in the area he needs it. Would both discs need to be fixed and can that be done at the same time. What other options do you have besides surgery. If Ryan's neck problem was a disc problem, we'd probably do the surgery to fix the disc. But it isn't a herniated or ruptured disc pressing on his cord, it's clots or pieces of tumor that can't be removed surgically. Good luck and don't be afraid to ask for other surgeons to talk to about it or bring him for another opinion if they are only pushing surgery. This is your dog and you need to be comfortable with the option you provide for him.

I personally am not a fan of chiropractic care for back/neck problems when you don't know exactly what and where the problems are. Tramadol is not a very strong pain reliever. Ryan is currently taking 225mg a day for his neck problem. I asked his vet yesterday if that could be the reason for him being able to move more now and he said "not likely, it isn't a very potent pain reliever" Surgery on the spine is tricky - it's on the spine and very near to the cord. Nick the cord and you could have serious problems. What are the disc problems that he has that would require partial removal? MRIs for a dog are expensive, but it will show disc problems an pinpoint what and where they are if that isn't already known. Have you talked with anybody about surgery? What was the surgeons thoughts? Sometime surgery won't really get you anything as the scar tissue that builds after the surgery will put you right back where you were - so you had the risk, rehab, recovery and expense to be no further than you were.

I missed the pee problem... what does it entail? When I was doing raw feeding for a while, I was doing a suplement that contained kelp powder. I kept asking the vet if it could be something I was feeding. She kept saying no. Kept having me test him and then came up with all sorts of crazy things it could be that I 'had' to test for. Somebody mentioned their dog had issues with kelp powder. I removed it from his diet and he was fine. His issue was he'd just start peeing. In the middle of the night he'd be walking around the house just peeing. Never knew he was doing it. Did it during the day as well.

Lyme Disease in man and canine http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/...osaic/lyme.html

This is the first time I've needed to dose it. Instructions given by Ryan's neurologist was to dissolve it in 5ml of water and give it to him. He's not so thrilled about this stuff. Can we put it in something else that makes it a little less nasty to take?

Ask the vet for other meds to try. I can't help with cortisone as our first and last round with steroids for Ryan was not a good one. He's now nursing a bleeding ulcer (2 cortisone injections and then started on prednisone pills). Good luck.

Well, after a week and our vet and a neurosurgeon and MRI later, we know just as much as we did when we noticed he was having issues. Nothing. Oh wait, I'm sorry, we do know something. Ryan can't have steroids. Prednisone (at a medium/high dose) left him with a bleeding ulcer in less than 24 hours that we now have to fix before we can even think to try much else. Nobody has seen what is going on with Ryan. Several Neurologists have been consulted and nobody has ever seen such a thing, don't know how or why it is happening. At the moment, there is nothing that can be done other than keep treating his pain. He seems to be getting around a bit better and able to finally rest - we don't know if it is him getting better or the meds finally starting to help him or a combo of both. Once the ulcer is healed, we will likely try a "blood thinner" approach, but only with asprin, to see if we can move these 'clots' along to remove the pressure. From his neurologist: The MRI was very unusual. There was evidence of enlargement of the venous sinuses in the spinal canal. These sinuses sit underneath the spinal cord within the canal. They are dilated to the point where they are causing compression of the spinal cord -enough to be painful but not enough to disrupt nerve impulse transmission. I've talked to a few neurologists in the US today and none had ever encountered anything like this. Our thoughts brought us to the things I had discussed with you: is there a tumor showering blood clots, or even pieces of itself, into the blood stream causing this problem? Does he have a medical reason to be hypercoagulable (Le. prone to forming blood clots)? Ryan has no evidence of any medical problem that could make him hypercoagulable at this time. Even if he did, showering clots just to the venous sinuses would be profoundly unusual. These clots usually cause problems in the tiny vessels of the lungs and brain, not larger structures like the venous sinues. There was a small area underneath the spinal cord in the upper 1/3 of the neck that may have a small mass in it, but this could not be confirmed with the study performed.

Looking for some ideas here for some possible causes of the following: healthy, normal greyhound one morning later in day seems a little stoic and yelps when bumped from the front (normally non vocal for pain) next day seems stiff and walks the speed of a 158 year old person Not able to really move neck much eats fine, but has issues due to not being able to move neck much Goes to vet for large injection of cortisone - doesn't do much. Another injection of cortisone the next morning - improvement in range of motion, but not lots and only for a short time until cortisone wears off. In lots of pain even with pain meds. possible causes given so far: pinched nerve herniated disc cancer (several different types) What other causes could lead to such a pain in the neck resulting in not being able/willing to move it much?

You got her there quick, so they vet should be able to staple it all back together again with minimal skin dying Jet did her's with the dog door. Jeff was kind enough to take a pic before taking her to the vet a week later back at the vet for a look It healed really nicely - she has a scar, but consider what she did, it looks great. Keep her bandage dry. We had to carry Jet out to potty for a little while as stairs were not her friend for a few days after. Good luck and hopefully she mends well

Good luck with Peter. It sounds like he is making small improvements. And it is great that your vet is contacting you to keep giving you updates. Sounds like they have a hand on things and are doing what needs to be done.

We do heartgard from April - Nov here. Flea/Tick stuff when we know we'll be in heavy flea/tick areas, otherwise we don't use it.

You fix it to meet the guidelines. For over a year, it has likely been not within the guidelines, we just hadn't noticed until recently