ahicks51

I had a buddy whose postpartum bitch wouldn't eat; like NevadasMom says, I poured "Ensure" on her kibble to entice her into eating. Don't know is they have it in Oz- it's a "meal replacement" originally designed for cancer patients, but bastardized by marketing into a high-fructose corn syrup geriatric nutrition-in-a-can thingie. If I had the same problem, I'd try beef blood- if for no better reason, I have plenty on hand from beef heart. Our guys would eat sawdust if it had beef blood mixed in with it.

To be fair, there are some so-so studies indicating a link between lymphoma and Roundup (glyphosate) use in humans. There's also a decent link between the selective herbicide 2,4-D and various cancers (including lymphoma) in dogs. I'm not aware of any studies linking lymphoma and glyphosate in dogs. Compared with other herbicides, glyphosate is a real sweetheart.

Grass can be effectively killed by covering with clear or black plastic- cut off the water, and cook the plants alive in the sun.

The glue is either 2-octyl cyanoacrylate or 2-butyl cyanoacylate. The "SuperGlue" at the store is 2-ethyl cyanoacrylate. These compounds polymerize in the presence of water, forming acrylic (Plexiglas)- which is why the bond can be broken with a bit of acetone. They work very well on bleeding wounds, and are even used in commercial spray blood-stoppers. The big problem is accidentally sealing in dirt or other forms of contamination into the wound; if kept anaerobic, some very nasty bacteria can grow. When Coco split the skin on his feet, I simply irrigated daily with dilute Betadine and wrapped very thoroughly. I taped the toes together to try to prevent the wound from re-opening, and then covered the entire foot in a sock. I checked it every 8 hours for any sign of infection. Had to do that for about a week, but it worked. I was surprised it healed over at all- it was in a very bad place, deep between the toes.

What's the timing on your dosages? If you only have to give it once a day- maybe wishful thinking in your case, but anyway- give it early in the morning.

We've had Minerva eat an entire loaf of bread (WITH the wrapper on) at least twice despite her wearing a muzzle. I now no longer consider anything impossible even with the muzzle on.

Back in the Stone Age, when I was an EMT, I aways favored the Plano tackle boxes. They're really very nice for the price, and have everything all laid out when opened. The newer EMT kits always seem to come in these Cordura Nylon bags, which is fine- except for when it rains, or you put one in a puddle and all your sterile bandages are ruined.

Something I've done is made a shield out of a plastic bag, like a ZipLoc baggie. It's not intended to fit around the part (it has to breathe, after all), but the bag is taped around the joint above the wound- and that's it. It flares out at the bottom, where it is unsecured. They can lick the outside of the bag all they like, but can't get it off. Your little Houdini may be able to circumvent that, from the sounds of it. Maybe the leg of an old pair of sweatpants?

And if the snoot is pink, don't forget to apply sunscreen there, too. Any of the lip balms with sunscreen should be safe for any pink spots there!

We used to use a 50/50 mix of eucalyptus oil and... something else. Maybe "Skin So Soft"? In New Mexico and Utah for field work, we used that to keep the gnats off of us. See also: http://www.ehow.com/how_2090046_.html

Almost forgot- there are beneficial nematodes for spraying on the yard to keep populations down.

AAGI (second largest adoption group in the country) says Preventic is OK: http://www.arizonaadoptagreyhound.org/health/ticked.html Googling for Preventic and greyhound comes up with a number of groups who say Preventic is safe. The active ingredient (amitraz) paralyzes the feeding mouthparts of ticks- no effect on fleas. Some other formulations use compounds that are unsafe.

What's your geographic location? Perhaps there's a local vet someone can recommend. As for fish oil- our guys go NUTS for the "Costco" fish oil capsules. They like them so much we use them as treats after the nail/ear/teeth cleanings they get- as well as for squawker training. They love 'em.

Rattlers are found all over the country; my grandfather had a board with rattler tails nailed to it, snakes he had killed over the years, in western Pennsylvania. The western snakes are a bit different- they're larger, for one thing, and more common. I never saw a rattler growing up in Pennsylvania, but I've seen some doozies out here. They're prone to retreating. The "vaccine" has to be given annually, IIRC. You might find rattlesnake aversion training to be more useful, although it's apparently not the sort of thing the owner would want to watch. The ones I am familiar with use shock collars, although perhaps there are other forms of aversion reinforcement I am not familiar with. And as has been pointed out to me by someone on here, there are subspecies whose venoms are primarily neurotoxic (versus hemotoxic) for which the vaccine is not effective. The crotalids are generally a mix, leaning towards heavy on the hemotoxic, light on the neurotoxic. The northern populations of the Mojave, IIRC, lean towards the neurotoxic- and the vaccine won't help quite so much with that.

I guess now would be a good opportunity to mention that if anyone knows of any greyhounds with osteo that are not good candidates for amputation, there is an alternative therapy that is experimental. The product itself, because it would be for investigational use, would be free- but one would have to find a vet willing to administer it. I can't put any more information here as it would be considered "promotional." Send me a PM.

When in for the annual inspection, I showed the vet some dots in Coco's groinular region [sic] of which I was suspicious. Turns out it's dermal hemiangiosarcoma, or whatever the proper name is for the normally-benign growths that can sometimes form mets and be very bad. Price estimate for removal: $550-650, including gas anesthesia, lab analysis, etc. So, I figure I'll take him to the "go-to" greyhound vet in Phoenix on Monday (two days later), and I'm glad I did. Over the weekend, someone posted to the greyhound mailing list they had had a hound with recurring dermal hemis, and they treated in a different manner- local anesthesia and removal. I take him in to Dr. Yocham- who is about as no-nonsense as they come- who agrees with the diagnosis, but disagreed with the general anesthesia. When I asked him to pen me in, he said, "We can do it right now." Out-the-door cost? $90, including $38 for the office visit. Admittedly, I don't have a biopsy- but the way I figure it, benign or not, it's not as though I'm going to stop looking for new ones. And if for some reason it has formed mets, there's nothing I could do anyway- except stay on the lookout. The big difference, I suppose, is that the second doctor has been doing this probably since greyhounds were invented. The first doctor works at a hospital building a nice, big, fancy new wing. This is the same hospital, BTW, that wanted $800 worth of work to figure out Coco's tongue growth- but I was able to talk them down to a much lower cost for antifungals (and some antibiotics, which he clearly didn't need), which did the trick.

While milk may be a problem, many people use yogurt as an add-in to their greyhound's food. Properly prepared yogurt has little to no lactose. With that in mind, if the lactose is the problem, then lactase (the enzyme) can be added- as "LactAid" or whatever it's called- or lactose-free milk would work. Provided the vet agreed, of course.

Your vet probably wants to test for myasthenia gravis. http://www.marvistavet.com/html/body_myasthenia_gravis.html You might want to join the Yahoo! group for megaesophagus: http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/megaesophagus/

What type of cancer is it? Another option may be Coley's fluid. There's now a company in Canada who is manufacturing it, and giving it away (free as in beer) in order to collect data on its efficacy. It's nowhere near 100%, but when it works- it really works. The whole idea is to give the immune system a slug of bacterial toxins as a rude wake-up call. At that point, there's a high fever and (with considerable luck) the body does the heavy lifting. If you're interested, and (more importantly) have a vet who is open-minded to this approach, drop me an email and I can give you a contact at the company. They're aiming for humans, but willing to help with dogs; in correspondence with the company, they note curing a 120 pound "corso mastiff" of lymphoma last fall, and that therapies in dogs involving Coley's fluids date back to 1907.

The petroleum jelly base is safe enough (Robert Cheesebrough, the guy who patented Vaseline, reportedly ate it by the tablespoon daily, and lived to the age of 96), as is the lanolin. The 8-hydroxyquinoline (0.3% in Bag Balm) has a very high LD50 in mice- no data for dogs, but at 0.3%, he'd have to eat several kilograms to be in danger from the 8HQ alone.

Just saw this today on the greyhound mailing list: http://www.vetsnyc.com/NewsLetter/VetStem/...lNewsletter.htm

Is there any circling? The eye movements (nystagmus) suggest vestibular disorder.

Huh. There are people that sell it in eBay Stores, too. So- there's small, medium, and large- and the small works on all three- tail, leg, and neck?

When Coco had his weird mouth growth a few months back, we had to see another vet at the hospital we normally go to. Her response was to go with gas anaesthesia, biopsy, etc. to the tune of $800. All well and good- if it were a research facility and Coco were a lab rat. Instead, I talked her down to a handful of pills, a 'script for Diflucan (fluconazole), and a follow-up in a week or so. I should have skipped the oral antibiotics (it was clearly a fungal growth), and knocked it down to the cost of an office visit + $11 in Diflucan. But they did say the Fry's supermarket had the unbeatable price on Diflucan; their own pharmacy couldn't beat it, so- go up the street and get it filled there. Sometimes the tests just aren't necessary. Of course, knowing when they're not is the problem!

While waiting to pick up our foster Jake at the vet's, someone walked in with a pit bull-ish dog wearing a cast on a front leg. They were checking him in, and I noticed some dark-colored spots on the floor, which had been clean. The cast didn't look dark, so I suggested gently if they knew where the blood was coming from. Er, that's not blood, he said. Sure enough, it was a few drops of D- very dark, dripping off the dog. I asked if the dog had had his parvo shots, and with some amount of discomfort, he said no. I went outside to warn some fellow who was getting ready to bring in his K9 unit that there could be a small problem, and ducked back inside to get Jake. I let the vet tech know the drops on the floor were from a dog that hadn't been vaccinated for parvo, and then took Jake out to the car and cautioned the K9 guy to avoid any dark spots on the floor because of the risk. Never seen parvo before, but I've read horror stories and there are warnings of vaccinated dogs catching the newer strains; didn't want to overreact, but could this have been parvo?