ahicks51

Do you have a muzzle that you can put on her while you're gone?

If the dog in question is in Massachusetts like the OP, then Tufts has a program- but it's for horses: http://www.tufts.edu/vet/sports/pulmonology.html However, they may be able to point you towards someone in the state who would be the "go to" person for canine pulmonology.

Rabies is tough to contract without a direct bite. Even dried saliva is not a risk. I can't think of anyone who has contracted rabies in such a manner; it is almost invariably a bite.

If it's far enough down on the leg you can cover it with a sock, what I'd do is wrap the bandages with Vetwrap or an elastic bandage- not too tight, just enough to keep it covered. I'd then pull the sock up over it, and tape it around the circumference with some 1/2" waterproof tape about 1" down from the top. Then I'd fold the end of the sock back over the tape, and tape THAT the same way. If a sock isn't long enough to cover it, just cut off the toe, and do the same as described above, but tape it at both ends.

Gloves won't show up on an Xray as they're not radiopaque. Not much to do unless he shows symptoms.

If there's nothing medically wrong with him, and you can't find a kibble that firms things up, try beet pulp- add about 1 tablespoon of powdered or chunk beet pulp to each meal. Costs about $10 for a 50# sack at feed-and-seed stores.

For those of you that have hounds with autoimmune disorders- have you noticed any changes in the severity of their issues if they also got worms? In other words, were there any changes in their condition once they were also affected by an internal parasite? I'm betting not as in most cases they'd get wormed too fast to make a difference, but I'm curious.

Just to answer the question- Jake's urine showed no bugs, but that's not uncommon with UTIs. The doc prescribed a 10-day course of sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim (SXT); after the first pill- no more messes on the carpet. We finished the course, naturally, but it was amazing how fast it seemed to take hold.

Either will be effective; the question is whether the gut organisms that are helpful to humans are necessarily desirable flora for the canine. At this point in time, it doesn't seem to hurt- judging by the large number of people that give their dogs yogurt or other probiotics- but it's uncertain what sort of effect this has on the intestinal flora over the long run. Maybe none? I dunno.

Little tip: Get someone to work on the ears (as if cleaning them- get a finger wrapped with a wipe down into the ear and clean) in order to distract from what's going on with the mouth. It might give an extra few seconds in order to take a picture. See also the first image in this thread (unrelated to the gum disorder you're seeing, but a heck of a good pic, if I say so myself): http://forum.greytalk.com/index.php?showto...t=0&start=0

We had a foster that came through- and although we never saw it here, he presented with worms in his new home! Ack! Both of our "regulars" are on Interceptor, although Tito is not. None of them has ever had worms. Of course, out here the poop cooks at about 110F every day- in the sun- so I don't know how long they live under those conditions. But Interceptor is effective on hookworms, roundworms, and whipworm, not just heartworm.

We have a foster who recently started wetting the floor, even after he had *just* been let outside. We brought in fresh urine samples- nothing showed up. But after the first pill (SXT)- no more messes. We put him through the full course, but just because nothing is found in the urine doesn't mean there's not an UTI!

MRSA should be easy enough to do without biopsy- a swab followed by culture and sensitivity should be a lot easier, and say for certain if it's MRSA or not.

Sulfasalazine is a derivative of 5-ASA (Pentasa, among many other names). I was on 5-ASA as well as Pentasa, mentioned above, for Crohn's. The way I got off the drugs for Crohn's was by eliminating sugars and oligosaccharides from my diet- no wheat (among other things). There's also no dairy, unless it's fermented. The more I hear about IBD in dogs, the more I think it may be related to a bacterium called MAP that causes what's known as Johne's disease in ruminants (mainly cattle); people have suspected the same with Crohn's in humans since it was first identified- experts are split as to whether it's an autoimmune disease or infectious. But nobody can explain to me why, if it is autoimmune, I can make the symptoms disappear by eating a diet that eliminates most sugars and oligosaccharides. I passed along this information to Dr. Cuoto at the recommendation of Dr. Feeman; turns out OSU has a group that works with MAP. It would be easy enough to test fecal samples for MAP using a test that is already used in cattle- check 10-20 dogs with IBD for the presence of MAP and see if it's there. Anyway- my thinking is that if it's MAP, that explains why the diet works: eat the opposite of what a cow eats, in effect. The vegetable matter in the diet of a facultative carnivore doesn't go over well in some individual animals; get the corn out, get the wheat out. Just my $0.02.

Just a quick wander through the Merck Veterinary Manual online for the keyword "hypokalemia" comes up with some hits, mostly aiming towards different drugs or the occasional neoplasm- but this one stood out just a bit- chocolate ingestion (emphasis mine): "Clinical signs of chocolate toxicosis usually occur within 6-12 hr of ingestion. Initial signs may include polydipsia, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal distention, and restlessness. Signs may progress to hyperactivity, polyuria, ataxia, tremors, and seizures. Tachycardia, premature ventricular contractions, tachypnea, cyanosis, hypertension, hyperthermia, bradycardia, hypotension, or coma may occur. Hypokalemia may occur late in the course of the toxicosis, contributing to cardiac dysfunction. Death is generally due to cardiac arrhythmias, hyperthermia, or respiratory failure. The high fat content of chocolate products may trigger pancreatitis in susceptible animals." That's the only one I could find that didn't have other, overt symptoms (such as those that would be seen with diseases causing massive diarrhea, etc.). But surely some of the other signs would have been obvious as well.

So- there was fluid supplementation with the hypokalemia, but presumably that didn't include a slug of potassium as the test results hadn't come back yet? Any chance it was an arrest from an arrhythmia due to the hypokalemia? (Or, if there was specific treatment, delivering too much potassium too fast?)

And to summarize from Dr. Stack's article: "Greyhound total proteins tend to run on the low end of normal - T.P.s in the 5.0's and 6.0's are the norm." Total protein (greyhound norms): 4.5 - 6.2 Your value: 5.2 Globulin (greyhound norms): 2.1 - 3.2 Your value: 17 (are you sure this is in units of g/L? "Other dogs" normals are given as 2.8-4.2.) In any event, the point is that globulin is normally a little lower in the greyhound than in other breeds, and being one point lower than the reference values puts in in the "low normal" range for greys. A/G ratio (albumin:globulin ratio) will then be skewed because globulin seems so low. If albumin is normal, the A/G ratio would seem high. As for creatinine: Greyhounds: .8 - 1.6 Other dogs: .0 - 1.0 Again- different units. But the point is that relatively high creatinine is not unusual for the retired racing grey.

Did your vet make any mention of the vaccine for oral melanoma?

Looks like consumption from animal material is poorly studied. From the CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/westnile/q...v_dogs_cats.htm Q. How do cats and dogs become infected with West Nile virus? A. Dogs and cats become infected when bitten by an infected mosquito. There is also evidence that cats can become infected with the virus after eating experimentally infected mice. * That "*" references the following article: Austgen LE, Bowen RA, Bunning ML, Davis BS, Mitchell CJ, Chang G-JJ. Experimental infection of cats and dogs with West Nile virus. Emerg Infect Dis [serial online] 2004 Jan [date cited]. Available from: URL: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol10no1/02-0616.htm From the abstract: "An additional group of four cats were exposed to WNV orally, through ingestion of infected mice. Two cats consumed an infected mouse on three consecutive days, and two cats ate a single infected mouse. Viremia developed in all of these cats with a magnitude and duration similar to that seen in cats infected by mosquito bite, but none of the four showed clinical signs. These results suggest that dogs and cats are readily infected by WNV. The high efficiency of oral transmission observed with cats suggests that infected prey animals may serve as an important source of infection to carnivores. Neither species is likely to function as an epidemiologically important amplifying host, although the peak viremia observed in cats may be high enough to infect mosquitoes at low efficiency."

Well, raw isn't a solution to everything- it *is* a good way to help isolate potential allergens, in the sense that a bag of kibble can have 20-30 or more ingredients. Compare with raw food which can be 5-6 components a week, or less. Sometimes it's as simple as changing foods, be it to raw or to another brand of kibble. You might consider consulting with Dr. Gary Yocham over at Southside Animal Hospital. They don't take appointments- it's walk-in only, and they take a long lunch. Dr. Yocham used to be the track vet for Phoenix Greyhound Park, and he is the "go-to" guy for cryptic greyhound problems. At the very least, a tiny dose of pred might make all the difference until you can determine the nature of the problem. If you do decide to go with raw, I highly recommend von Hanson's Meats in Chandler, on Alma School. http://www.yellowbot.com/von-hansons-meats...handler-az.html I am still working on a 40-pound case of chicken carcasses I got from there, and between that and the 60-pound case of beef heart I carved up a few weeks ago, it's an effective way to feed if you can store that much meat. von Hanson's also gets in chicken necks, turkey necks (which are pretty expensive in relative terms), that sort of thing. Call first to see if they have what you want in stock. Last I checked, they had 5 cases of the chicken I mention above (chicken frames or something like that), which are largely de-fleshed bits of bone that still have considerable meat on them.

Howdy from Chandler! Any chance you know Margot's racing name? Coco was the same way when we first got him; he eventually got to scratching his eye so bad it would bleed. We tried a few things, and nothing really worked. While on "vacation," one of the good people with the adoption group took him to the adoption group's vet (we should have taken him ourselves, but we were so new to greyhound), and he was put on prednisone. He immediately responded- partly by stopping the scratching, but also by peeing the floor a lot! We tapered him down to 5 mg every other day, and I eventually got him to the point where I could give him half of a 5 mg tab every other day. We started feeding raw food, and I later stopped the pills entirely. That was several months ago. We occasionally feed Kirkland brand dog food, and he doesn't itch appreciably more when fed that. So- it may be environmental, in which case it seems to have diminished quickly. Or it could be a dietary allergy- in which case whatever allergen we were feeding has gone away. You can run allergy tests until you're broke and blue in the face, but quick-and-dirty elimination seems to be the route of least resistance; take out ALL corn and wheat, and see what happens. It gets trickier from there.

Implantable RFID chips are not "activated." They are simply radio transponders- they have been in use since World War II, albeit in greatly modified form from the relatively crude devices that were in use then. In short, the "wand" used to detect them throws some radio frequency energy at them, and the chip reads back a given number when energized in this fashion. The RF exposure is far less than most people would get from walking around with a cell phone next to their head for a few minutes- and implanted RFID chips in dogs are rarely scanned (once or twice a year, if ever). What makes them a potential tumor promoter is that they're INSIDE THE SKIN. They're non-native, so the body may react adversely to them, even though they are manufactured out of biologically inert products. Same as anything else that penetrates the skin- the body can react to it. The formation of local tumors is one potential response. They seem rare, and one has to balance the risk against that of potential recovery in the event of theft or loss.

Out of curiosity, was this determined by a study? If it was, who paid for it? (I'm not dissing Dr. Feeman- I'm just like to know from whence these data sprang!)

To add to the raw diet, every now and again I add in part of a can of Tripett, whose instructions should read like a hand grenade: pull pin and throw.

Petrodex enzymatic (poultry flavored) is a fave-rave here. If it comes with a free toothbrush, throw it away or use it for cleaning the BBQ grill. Get a child-sized, soft tooth brush instead. Works great.