ahicks51
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Posts posted by ahicks51
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Our Pug and Yorkie never had any problems, I always waited until it was dry to let them out, but I realize Greys are a different story.
Note that there are acute effects, and chronic effects. An acute effect would be when the dog gets a fairly large dose of a toxin, and there are immediate results- panting, vomiting, illness. A chronic effect would be how, 2-4-8 years down the line, a serious illness results from low dose exposure. While the former would be very easy to blame on chemical poisoning, the latter would be extremely difficult. The chronic effects of compounds like 2,4-D are more insidious, as well as contentious in the literature.
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Just hose down the mower when moved from front to back. Not a big deal; the main component you'd be trying to get rid of is the 2,4-D, which has proven to be a bad actor when it comes to pet health, depending upon whose studies one wishes to believe- there are links to leukemia, but it's gone back and forth in the literature. I don't know where the funding comes from, so I can't speak as to how biased the work may be. Anyway- it's pretty insoluble stuff, so a water stream is going to bust loose particles, rather than dissolve it. I can't speak to the other pesticides as I'd have to know what all else is in there.
Fertilizer doesn't bother me at all; the salts are pretty much harmless unless ingested in very high concentrations. Herbicides- stuff like 2,4-D, anyway- have acute and chronic effects. The pesticides I'm split on, as most are very clever these days, focusing on pathways that are specific to insects, and the ones that a consumer can buy are short-lived in the environment. But there's that creepy thing about how the new stuff we use today has some weird toxic effect we won't know about for twenty years (and the results will be kept under wraps by the agriculture companies anyway), so I prefer to minimize exposure.
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Medical errors are forgivable, if for no better reason than that we're human. But for standard stuff in the lab, I use a spreadsheet; when I used to work in multi-person labs, everyone involved initials the part of the work they perform. I've always been surprised at how cavalier the approach seems to be in medicine, which may explain the rate at which dosing errors occur. The moral would seem to be- ask that someone double-check the numbers before administration.
If it's any consolation, in some cases low-dose chemo is as good (or better, from a side-effects standpoint) as more aggressive therapies. Here's hoping that everything turns out for the best.
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According to the USDA's Nutrient Analysis Lab website, crude wheat germ is mostly carbs (51.80% by weight), followed by protein (23.15%), and fat (9.72%). So, it'd get a sizable chunk of its calories from carbs, although wheat germ (literally the part that "germinates,") is higher in protein and fat than the rest of the seed. I have a strong bias against triticum species (i.e., wheat) as they're chock-full of lectins that are probably not good from an inflammation standpoint anyway.
If you are compelled to add carbs in that form, use cooked rice instead- low on the lectins. Alternatively, use "honest" oats, something like McCann's Irish Oats (can or box), which are processed on equipment that is used only for oats. My idea of low carb fat balls would be something like this:
80/20 hamburger
Chicken or turkey necks, chopped
Raw egg (shell and all)
Chicken livers (or beef liver)
Ground beef heart
Beef or pork kidneys
*mash* *mash* *mash*
If one is compelled to add vegetable matter, use cauliflower- the most versatile of the vegetables. Raw, cooked, cooked and mashed (like mashed potatoes), steamed, boiled, roasted with chicken, whatever.
Carbs are entirely superfluous. With relatively modest exceptions, our two greyhounds and Tito the FUOU have been fed extremely low carb, raw food for months, even years at a time. As I noted previously, Coco developed one tiny new dermal hemangio some 22 months after his first two were removed- a rather long time period for new growths, and it was very small (I missed it- the vet caught it). Anecdotes, anecdotes- but I suspect the low carbs reduces the incidence and growth rate.
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Add in chicken necks if you care to. Locally they're about $.69 a pound, and while they still swallow them whole, it's a little less distressing than watching a tom turkey neck the size of your forearm going down the gullet.
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Watch for pancreatitis, but depending upon what you're putting into them, fat is very nutritious- as is meat. Carbs are superfluous- entirely unnecessary from a nutritional standpoint, although they will help with weight gain.
An interesting food note: pemmican is a 50/50 mix of powered dried meat, and rendered saturated fat. If prepared at a low temperature, the vitamin C is not broken down, and as a result a human can live on pemmican with no additional supplementation for weeks at a time. With some small addition of vitamin C, a human can live on this indefinitely. I have one correspondent who has lived on nothing but raw ground meat, supplemented with pet-grade organ meats- for four years. Yes, I know- a little disturbing, but it's cured him of a wicked stomach ailment. No joke.
Anyway- dogs (like almost all other animals) produce their own vitamin C, so this is not even a consideration. I mean, I'd throw in some organ meat- liver, kidney, brains (if you can get them)- and mix up the species if you can: mostly bovine, with some chicken and turkey, maybe with a bit of pork if you care to. Meat is exceedingly nutritious to carnivores like dogs- pretty much the only supplementation I'd do is with a bit of kelp (to add some iodine, ensuring sufficiency of that element), and fish oil (to help bump up the omega 6 to omega 3 ratio, as corn-fed beef is too high in omega 3's).
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Never asked Dr. Y if he does these, but if anyone would, it would be him:
http://local.yahoo.com/info-19997696-yocham-gary-d-dvm-southside-animal-hospital-phoenix
Otherwise, ask the folks at AAGI:
http://www.arizonaadoptagreyhound.org/contact.php
Otherwise, heck- Dr. Stack isn't TOO too far a drive.
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What is the age of the hound, and do you have any bloodwork that would include things like C-reactive protein (CRP) and sedimentation rate (sed rate)? I don't know if they even do these for dogs or not. The flow cytometry is an excellent idea.
If you can't make it to OSU directly, it sounds like you need to find a vet with an oncology specialty in your area. ACVIM will help you find one locally:
http://www.acvim.org/websites/acvim/index.php?p=3
A quick search shows 8 in Massachusetts: Boston; 3 in North Grafton; 3 in Waltham; and one in Northborough.
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What if they're mortar-and-pestled into a fine powder, and added to something creamy like yogurt?
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Provided it's fertilizer and JUST fertilizer (no pesticides, no herbicides), the main risk is methemoglobinemia- "blue baby" syndrome in humans. Adults don't get it quite so easy because they have better mechanisms for dispensing with the nitrogen. Here's the chapter from the Merck Veterinary Manual on nitrate poisoning:
http://www.merckvetmanual.com/mvm/index.jsp?cfile=htm/bc/212300.htm&word=methemoglobinemia
Look for:
Rapid, weak heartbeat with subnormal body temperature, muscular tremors, weakness, and ataxia are early signs of toxicosis when methemoglobinemia reaches 30-40%. Brown, cyanotic mucous membranes develop rapidly as methemoglobinemia exceeds 50%. Dyspnea, tachypnea, anxiety, and frequent urination are common.
However, as a chemist who deals with nutrient solutions for plants every day, I would say he probably didn't ingest much, if any. If pesticides or herbicides are involved, all bets are off, however. Most of the modern household pesticides are exceedingly safe, so while careful monitoring and a call to the vet/poison control is in order, panic is not in order.
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There's one treatment I've considered, but there's no proof it'd work. No idea if it'd work in a hound, no idea if it'd work on SLO, but it's being advanced as an experimental treatment for a variety of autoimmune conditions in humans. Very low doses of the opioid inhibitor naltrexone, administered right before bedtime, can 'right' the immune system. See also:
It's inexpensive, the side-effects are just about zero (problems sleeping the first week), but most doctors- let alone vets- aren't familiar with it.
So- you wanted off-the-wall alternatives, and that would be one of them. Not recommended, but- to be frank- I've wondered what it would do for SLO.
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the dorsum of that vertebrae was completely detached and you can clearly see bony sections were crushed and causing spinal cord compression. Chaos was totally paralyzed from waist down for about 6 months.
I've been staring at X-rays of barium swallows for the past two weeks, trying to tell healthy patients from the ill, and can't make heads or tails of 'em. But- if a radiologist looked at that and couldn't see that fracture, I'd say they need to get their eyes checked.
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Squamous cell carcinoma affects the skin; has it metastasized?
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Well, the muscle atrophy/wasting is apparent in the picture from this view. His thighs are much less muscled than usual. So, possibly muscle loss due to lack of mobility and stress of trying to heal have caused this weight loss. Hugs to both of you!
I was going to say the same thing; while the atrophy may be distressing, it's not necessarily due to some underlying pathology.
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Out of curiosity, which vet are you using?
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Dr. Stack is on the greyhound email list. If you join and pose your question there, she may answer it directly.
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Maybe I am just paranoid but I would be afraid of a Canadian pharmacy. I love Canada but I know a human that gets medicine from a Canadian pharmacy but the drugs are actually imported into Canada form India! That makes me nervous.
What?
Entocort EC is made in Sweden, FWIW.
Antibiotics are commonly used in plant tissue culture; my suppler informs me that nobody in the US makes them anymore- except perhaps the extremely high-end, still-under-patent stuff. They have to buy them all from China.
What do you think happens to all those Chinese and Indian and Pakistani graduate students in American schools? They go back home and work as chemists, chemical engineers, etc., and crank out the same pills that the Western countries do. Provided somewhere someone along the lines someone runs them through qual checks to make sure they're not 50% melamine, it really doesn't matter: you're going to be taking foreign-produced drugs at some point in time. Heck, pretty much ALL your vitamins are made in China these days.
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Entocort (note the spelling- I don't want anyone's dog getting some weird drug that happens to be named Endocort) is under patent for a specific type of release, which is called Entocort EC. The price discrepancy is presumably due to the patent; compounding pharmacies work around the patent, while out-of-country pharmacies don't need to worry about that- they're either under government price protections, or you don't get the enteric coated stuff. There's also Budenofalk, which is (from what little I know) equivalent to Entocort EC.
This is one of the downsides to patent protection, obviously. We end up paying a boatload more for a relatively inexpensive drug that is re-packaged with some sort of coating that's cheap enough to do- but the patent allows them to charge pretty much whatever they want to. Ampyra, produced for folks with MS, is 4-MP, a chemical so cheap it's sold as an avicide, i.e.: to poison undesirable birds. Slap a time-released coating on it, and it goes from $60-some a month to over $1000 because of that patent.
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No need to use antibiotics.
Bag Balm works OK for minor stuff. I like EMT Gel, but it's harder to find. Lastly, for punctures- do nothing. Creating an anaerobic environment (or, worse, creating a necrotic, anaerobic environment by treating with peroxide) is bad juju. The vet should manage punctures that are worrying.
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You know, while mulling over breakfast (and Crohn's "Regional Ileitis" from 1958), I thought- is there a reason both can't be taken at once, and then taper off the pred? It seems like you could start the budesonide, and then drop to 5 mg of pred, then 2.5, but steroids are a big blank spot for me. I've never studied the subject in any depth, but I don't see why it would be contraindicated.
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Is your dog seizing right now? How long has it gone on?
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Phew. Nothing but dumb looks here, but I can opine that you'd be swapping one steroid for another; provided he's on such a low dose of pred, it may be a straightforward adjustment. I take it Beau is on Imuran as well? Anything else?
Hopefully Dr. C will have corroborating evidence that the switch would be safe.
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Pastiak has fended off Oven Dog twice more today- once while he was right behind me, where I couldn't see him. I keep forgetting I can't turn my back on this dog because he'll either be in the trash or talking trash to Oven Dog.
Has he ever reacted to your other dogs? How did your other dogs react to this?
Well, Minerva got a bite on her head that we can't attribute to any of the other dogs. I'm surprised Pastiak survived that event, but I can't find a mark on him. (Two days ago, he was SCREAMING out in the hallway, and wouldn't stop for about a full minute; best we can guess is somehow he offended Coco, who must've warned him- there was a tiny wet spot on Pastiak's shoulder, with no sign of blood. As the rule goes- the volume of complaint is in inverse proportion to the actual injury.)
As for how the other dogs react when Pastiak goes off- they don't do much of anything, surprisingly. The UPS truck or a doorbell is like the storming of the beach at Normandy, but Pastiak warning the pack that ZOMG THERE'S A DOG IN THE OVEN AND HE'S TRYING TO KILL ME doesn't even register with the others.
I gotta get video of this, followed by a dish towel for the oven door.
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Could it be too much conditioner?
Raisin Bread
in Health and Medical discussion
Posted
The Merck Veterinary Manual says the quantity associated with developing signs ranges from 11-30 grams/kg. For a 30 kg (66 pound) dog, that would be 330-900 grams, or 11.64 ounces. Even if greyhounds were 1/4 that, it'd take almost 3 ounces of raisins to cause problems.
We used to feed our fox terrier grapes now and again when I was a kid. He wouldn't eat them unless they were split open, which was a bit odd considering how he'd eat anything else put in front of him, edible or not.