Busy Busy

March was a crazy busy month. Koira went in for a dental cleaning and ended up getting her two bottom canines removed due to wear and fractures. They weren't causing her problems yet, but were almost certainly going to soon. Also found out her heart murmur was upgraded from a 1 to a 3. Not good with anesthesia, but the cleaning needed to happen, and better sooner than later.

She started coughing the next day, which led us back to the vet for another x-ray (we did two before surgery to make sure her heart wasn't enlarged) to make sure fluid wasn't building in her lungs. Luckily, the cough appeared to be tracheal irritation from the surgery, not something more serious.

But then she just wasn't recovering. She seemed like her mouth was, if anything, getting more sore. Back to the vet, and we left with instructions for eating only super watery, mushy food, and getting the extraction sites rinsed out after each meal. She did not approve.

And she didn't improve either. After rinsing blood out and observing something white that just would not rinse out of her mouth, back in we went for another follow up. Vet wasn't happy with how things looked, but Koira's mouth involves lips that basically flop in over her teeth, and with how sore she was, she just didn't want to cooperate very much. The vet was able to get a look and do some flushing, and got the white piece out. It was a piece of gum tissue that had died. Gross. The sutures had come open.

So, I was given two options. Keep flushing and hope it got better. Or put my ten year old dog with a grade three heart murmur under anesthesia for the second time in two weeks and hope that there was something they could do to fix things, knowing that there might be nothing they could do any different than the original closure once they got in there. I made the call to go with surgery, which was horrible and the hardest call ever, and then I sat in my car in the parking lot, too shaken up and worried to be safe driving to work, let alone functional at work.

In the end, surgery was the right call. The original extraction had missed a piece of the root of the canine, and it was causing a lot of the irritation. They were able to clean up both extraction sites, flush everything out, put in tiny biosponges, and re-suture her gums back together. She did good under anesthetic.

That was a week ago. She is doing great. Much less painful since the second surgery, though still sensitive. She has been eating three cans of food a day for something like three weeks now, which exhausted my backstock of canned food pretty quickly. We'll be using canned food for at least another week before switching to soaked kibble. Probably over cautious, but I don't think me or Koira can take another trip to the vet at this point (other than a final follow up at the end of this week, at least).

All this to say, I've had a lot on my mind, and a lot on my plate. I totally forgot to do any kind of reviews for Chewy.com like we were supposed to in March. I'm not always the most on-the-ball person, but not normally this spacey about things.

So I'm trying to play a bit of catch up. Koira stayed with my mom over the weekend (with a flat of canned food) while I went to Canada for a flyball tournament.

While at the tournament, I did some trying of the Honest Kitchen cups. I actually tried them for Koira as well when she first came home from the first dental, but they didn't work great. They were too full of chunks, which got stuck in her extraction sites, and she wasn't all that excited about the food. So I decided to use it for the trip instead.

Honestly, it was not the best choice I've ever made. I fed it to two dogs, one of whom was racing for the weekend, neither of whom had eaten Honest Kitchen before. Both of them ended up needing to poop roughly ten thousand times the next day, all of it green and chunky, looking exactly like the Honest Kitchen did going in. Needless to say, I didn't repeat that the following day. Actually, I went to the store and got canned pumpkin instead, to try to fix what the HK caused, luckily with good success and only a tiny fraction of the number of poops.

I should admit that I am probably not in a super positive and upbeat mood as I am reviewing this food, due to Koira's dental issues. My honest reaction to these travel cups was that the cup took up a lot more space in the bag than just a ziplock baggie of the food would have, though it would probably be really nice while traveling and in a hurry, assuming your dog eats exactly the amount in each prepackaged cup. None of the three dogs who tried it seemed super excited about it. The smell actually kind of grossed me out a bit, it smelled kind of like a blended salad with lots of kale once water was added. It didn't work as a smooth/soft food for Koira, because the chunks never really re-hydrated, so it was just chunks and green water.

Like I said, I'm really probably not in the best head space about this product in general, and was somewhat underwhelmed. BUT- I should also say that I don't feed Honest Kitchen on a regular basis and got this product more to just try it out. I think the cups are good in theory (if you don't mind the extra garbage they create), but unless your dog happens to eat that exact amount per meal, the regular Honest Kitchen boxes are probably reasonable enough unless traveling or specifically needing a small amount for some reason. They were easy to use, just open, add water, let sit, and then feed. No measuring needed, and you could feed right in the same cup if you wanted, no bowl required, which could be really nice while traveling.

Here's to no more surgery, and only one more vet visit for the foreseeable future.


We did receive this product for free in exchange for our honest review. Pretty sure it is obvious we were completely honest about our experience with this product. We were not compensated in any other way.

Spring Beach Trip

Yesterday, on the first day of spring, me and the dogs got up early and met my mom to go to the beach. The weather was cloudy, but dry, and the wind was mild for the Oregon coast.



The beach we went to has some really interesting rock formations as well as big, open, sandy areas. Both of my dogs know a "feet up" command, which comes in useful for this type of picture.



You can see how big this rock formation is here, with the scale of the dogs with their feet on two of the smaller bumps up above. The green is some kind of sea moss or something, I think.



This is down at the end of the beach near a river that stops you from walking any farther north. It is mostly a big, open expanse of sand at low tide, but has a few patches with rocks.



Here is Pallo in that sandy area, this time closer to the incoming water. He stopped to look around, and when I said his name, he just looked at me and posed. He's good like that.



This is a close up of some kind of anemone that we found under a big rock, partially in the water. They really were this pinkish/purple color in person, which was cool. You can kind of see how when they are underwater, they have all these purple fronds sticking out, while above water they are closed.



And one of Koira as well. I asked her to down on this rock. She thought it was too wet and cold to actually put her chest on the ground.

And the shaved area on her leg is from a vet visit two weeks ago. Years ago, she broke the tip off her canine. Over the years, more chips have come off here and there, and recently, one chip went down below the gum line. So Koira went in and had a full dental cleaning and got that canine removed all at the same time. The shaved part on her leg is where they gave her fluids during and after the procedure. She is recovering well, though still not allowed to chew on things, play tug, or play with toys like balls. We're trying to do fun things that don't involve food or toys.

Pallo

I discovered an all new level of terror today. Your dog having a seizure is bad enough. When they have a seizure while you are floating down the river, with no way to get to the car quickly and no cell phone, that is an entirely different kind of terror.

Pallo is fine. We went down to the park to float down the river. I parked at the boat ramp, then walked to the south end of the park and got in the water with the dogs. Pallo was a little reluctant to get in, so I held the handle on his lifejacket and supported him while he got in, which normally helps him and makes him fine. But the second I let go of his life jacket, he tipped forward and his head went underwater. I pulled him back up and to shore immediately, but he was totally unresponsive. Whole body rigid, blank stare, drool spilling out of his mouth and down his chin even though his jaw was clenched shut. I didn't really have any options- I couldn't carry him all the way back to the car like that, certainly not quickly. We sat on the bank for quite a while, then finally I got on my float, loaded him on my lap, and floated down the river back to my car, figuring it was the fastest way to get back. Pallo came out of it gradually, first gazing around a little, making some noise, etc, then slowly having his muscles relax. By the time we got to the point to get out, he was feeling chipper and bouncy and back to himself.

I will say, I am extremely glad that I drove across town to buy a second life jacket for the dogs before going down the river, because had both dogs not had good life jackets on, I would have had no choice but to either sit on the river bank until Pallo came out of it, or try to carry him back to the car.

FitDog Friday: Koira Update, and a Conditioned Labrador

Koira's injury recovery is going really well. This past week, I reintroduced her to two flyball exercises. The first one is a recall over jumps, sometimes referred to as a runaway. Basically, one person sits on the flyball box and holds the dog, while the dog's handler runs down the jumps to the other end. The dog is released to go over the jumps and is rewarded by their handler at the other end.

Recalls are a big part of the training game to get the dogs used to going over the jumps every single time. The pattern is always the same: flyball box, then fifteen feet away is the first jump, then each of the four jumps are placed ten feet from each other. We also use recalls as a warm up before running the full course. They are something we can easily do in a tournament setting during our designated 1 minute warm up time, so they also translate easily to competition.

For me, they are also one of the first things I reintroduce a dog to after they have had an injury. My teammates are all aware, of course, of Koira's injury, so watched her very closely for me for any signs of her looking not right. Koira looked just fine to everyone, if a little overly happy at being back! I am cautious about rewarding her with a tug now, since her injury was to her neck. I know when dogs tug a lot of pressure and force is put on their neck muscles. So I am trying to come up with alternate ways to reward her that Koira still finds rewarding. Food doesn't work in flyball for her- she just doesn't find it rewarding enough. On Sunday, I rewarded with a tennis ball, which seemed to work well. On Thursday, we did a few quick runaways as well, and I rewarded with a toy, which she seemed to like even more than the tennis ball.

While we cut practice short on Thursday this week (I was still feeling a bit under the weather from a bout of food poisoning on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning), I did do a few wall turns with Koira on Sunday before practice was over. I took it easy and tried not to do too many, but Koira seemed happy, had high, snappy turns, and looked good both during and after.

I do think that Koira will be back in flyball, and sooner than any of us thought when she was first injured. But, I don't want to push her. The absolute earliest time she would be in a tournament at this point is July, and that will depend entirely on how she is doing leading up to that point. It is much better to miss a few tournaments (or even a lot of tournaments) and have a healthy dog than to bring her back too soon and injure her, possibly worse than the original injury was to begin with.

In the mean time, we will continue with a slow, steady reintroduction of activities. Along with flyball recalls and wall turns, I plan to start reintroducing fetch this month as well. Koira has been doing free running (that is, running without it being controlled by me) for the past month. Her muscling is coming back in nicely, though she is still a bit on the light side. We'll start with light, short sessions of fetch with plenty of free running before and after to make sure she is moving loosely and warmed up. My current plan, if everything goes smoothly, is to start full runs in flyball in May.



As a final note, unrelated to this particular post but certainly of relevance to my post last week, a flyball friend of mine who runs a lab agreed to send me a few photos of her dog. Labs seem to be one of those dogs that everyone wants to see fat. Even when people think their lab is in shape, they tend to be fat. This is a purebred lab, not a mixed breed. And she is in beautiful working condition. This is the most singularly impressively in shape lab I have ever seen.

Notice in the front views that she has a distinct separation between her neck and her shoulders. They do not just meld one into the other. Her chest is gently curved at the bottom, not straight across, and it doesn't extend down below her elbows. Dips and bumps along her chest are obvious but not huge, showing anatomy that is well built but not skeletal. Her muscles are well developed and visible, even when standing.

In the straight on picture above, you can see a bit of her well muscled hips/thighs showing around her shoulders, but no stomach fat. At this angle the chest is still well developed, muscles are still obvious, and the neck and shoulders are still distinct from each other.

And now the full side photo. You can see well developed muscles all over this dog. Her shoulders are well defined enough to separate the main muscles in the area just by looking. Her last couple of ribs are lightly visible. She has a distinct tuck up after her rib cage, leading back to a well muscled rear. While you can't see the spine or hip bones, they are both felt easily without having to dig around or search.

THIS is what a well conditioned lab should look like. Another pound or two would even be okay, though this dog is certainly not underweight. But an extra pound would make maybe the last two ribs lightly visible instead of the last four, which wouldn't be a bad thing. When you have a highly conditioned sporting dog, you spend a lot of time wondering if they might need to gain another pound or two, or lose a pound or two. But their weight, when actively competing and in condition, should not vary by significantly more than that. Five pounds would be way too much for this dog to either lose or gain.

In closing, I will clarify that not every dog needs to look like this. This dog is an active and very successful flyball competitor, and does other sports as well I believe. Your average pet lab doesn't need this kind of conditioning or definition in the muscles. But the pet lab should not be significantly heavier than this, either- the main difference shouldn't be in the visibility of the ribs, tuck up, etc, but in the definition seen in the muscles. A pet lab isn't jumping and twisting in a way that another few pounds adds tens or hundreds of pounds of pressure on the joints on a regular basis, so can be a couple of pounds heavier. A senior should reasonably kept in shape but with a few more pounds, in case of injury or illness where a bit (a small bit!) of extra weight acts as a buffer if they can't eat for a few days. But it should never be enough extra weight that the joints are being put through tremendous extra pressure or the heart will have trouble pumping blood through the increased mass.

Quick Update

I was super busy all weekend, but wanted to post a quick update on Koira.

She is doing great on the steroids. The effect wasn't immediate from them, but she is moving much easier and wanting to be active. She isn't allowed to be, though. Vet's instructions are for her to remain a mellow house pet until she is finished with the steroids. At that point, we will be able to slowly increase activity. Even swimming, normally the only activity an injured dog can do, is out, since she would still have to keep her neck and head above water, which might stress the injured muscles. She doesn't really approve of this plan. I have no way of explaining to her that it is for her own good. I am hopeful that with the proper rehab she will be back to her old self and be able to do all of her favorite things again.

Pallo is doing good as well. His flyball practices have been showing the occasional spinning before the start line, but overall he is doing pretty good. Which is good, since he now gets to fill in for Koira in California this weekend. Everything might fall apart, but we'll hope for the best and we'll have fun, and that is what really matters with it, right?

Also, this is the week that I slacked badly in the photography department. The only thing I took a picture of with my actual camera is the broken latch to my new dog crate (well, broken latches, plural). The shots above are from this weekend, but were taken with the rather questionable camera on my cell phone, simply because the dogs were being cute at the time. I even had a whole plan last week for a cute Valentine themed photoshoot on Thursday, but it all fell apart when Koira got hurt. The pups did get a new bed yesterday, though, so maybe I'll catch some cute pictures of them curled up in that.

FitFriday: Not So Fit

Koira went to the vet today. This morning she was very down, obviously distressed, and yelping in pain randomly. She couldn't settle at all through the later part of the night and kept moving around, adjusting, and whimpering a bit, quietly. Sometimes the yelps were when touched, sometimes when she was just standing or laying still with nothing touching her. The vet thinks Koira injured her neck somehow.

Best guess is that Koira chased something in the yard in the middle of the night and ran into the fence. Other possibilities though are that she hurt herself jumping back up on the bed, or some other stupid way.

For now, she is taking steroids. They should show serious improvement within 24 hours and do appear to be working. We will likely be adding therapeutic laser treatments as well as a tapering dose of steroids in an effort to get her to heal as quickly and as completely as possible.

Of course this means she will not be competing in either of the flyball tournaments coming up. She won't be going to flyball practice. She won't be going to the park, or on walks, or playing with the flirt pole, or any of that. Her job for now, and probably for the next six weeks or so, is to rest. She gets to be a couch potato whether she wants to be or not.

I am hoping that Koira recovers and can eventually get back into doing the things she loves. But with a serious neck injury, there is a possibility that she will never play flyball again. We just have to see how things go.

End of Year

And now, the year is drawing to a close. Here's some little wrap up from the last few weeks.

Recently, we have had some excitement. In the past couple of months, Koira's box turn finally seemed to click with her. We collected about a bazillion Christmas cards from fellow bloggers. We did a gift exchange with Mason, and sent him some treats, a collar, and one of the tags I started making. He sent Koira and Pallo a selection of tasty treats that they have been enjoying since Christmas, including two adorable gingerbread man treats. There is a picture on my mom's camera of them with those balanced on their noses by the Christmas tree.

Koira's nail seems to be healing slowly. I really probably shouldn't have run her at practice yesterday. I am sure it did nothing good for her toenail. But she was so happy about getting out and being there that I just can't feel guilty for taking her. I do need to make sure her nail gets healing, though, or else she will end up out for a lot longer than a few weeks.

Pallo has his funky flyball behavior. I'm not sure what is up with him still, but we are playing our different games, changing our behavior, and bringing some thinking back into it. We'll see if it gets us anywhere. I am relatively sure it isn't a physical problem, but now that the holidays are over and life has a chance to calm down some, I will try to get him in for a massage and see if the massage therapist spots anything that the vet missed.

Flickr is still doing its weird thing of not letting me share my own photos, so I've been using the Blogger upload. So expect few photos until Flickr gets its act together, probably, since the Blogger upload kind of hates me.

Here are a couple of photos of Koira's healing toenail from tonight. It isn't gory or anything, but you can tell how much it must hurt. Her other toenails are a little long, yes. They needed clipping when this happened, and I have been avoiding doing it since her foot is pretty sensitive right now. I am planning to take her to a groomer to have them done.

Black and White Sunday: Cave Bed

Here is the photo of poor Koira, deep inside her (new) cave bed with her poor hurt foot. You can kind of see her wrapped foot in there even. I'm glad I got her this cave bed for her birthday, because she loves it, and I think everyone needs a cave bed for when they aren't feeling well.

Gimpy

Poor Koira had a rough day yesterday. At roughly 3:30 am, she asked to go outside to pee. She came back in seconds later on three legs and with a blood trail. Somehow she managed to catch her toenail in or on something (possibly the door jam?) and rip her toenail partially off. This caused the quick to be exposed and start spurting blood, and was probably incredibly painful for her.

I quickly flipped a light on and examined her foot. A light tug on the nail proved that it was still pretty firmly attached despite being at a right angle to how it was supposed to be. Instead of messing with it more, I wrapped her foot in gauze, taped the gauze down, then wrapped her whole foot and lower leg in vet wrap to keep the gauze on. As painful as I know it had to be, a broken toenail (or even a broken or dislocated toe, which were both slight possibilities) is not an emergency vet visit.

Luckily, my vet is awesome enough that they were able to get her in that afternoon despite a fully booked day. I dropped Koira off and they sedated her, did an x-ray (no breaks or dislocations, yay!), and removed the toenail. The toenail, despite being broken, was still attached firmly enough that sedation was necessary for removing it without some pretty intense pain. The vet was impressed with my 3 am wrap job (I guess all that wrapping at flyball really does pay off!). I picked Koira up a few hours later, still a little groggy from the sedation (and myself a little woozy from spending an hour at the dentist). She had a newly wrapped foot and leg, complete with chickens on it.

The nail should grow back on its own over time. Koira will be on antibiotics and pain meds for the next week, and leash walks only for at least a week. After that first week is up, we will have to play it by ear and see how she is healing. If the toenail starts growing back/hardening quickly, we can get back into things sooner. If she plays hard enough that she makes it bleed or break open again, we'll have to keep with lower activity until the nail is more advanced. After a few days in the wrap, we will be starting epsom salt soaks a couple times a day, which is supposed to both help prevent infection and promote hardening of the nail.

In case anyone is dealing with this same issue, or has it come up in the future, my personal experience so far tells me that if the nail were to completely come off, or be loose enough to easily be pulled off, a vet visit wouldn't be immediately necessary. However, if the nail is still pretty firmly attached, as Koira's was, it would be best to have a vet remove the rest of it under sedation, since it will be very painful. Also, if you don't immediately go into the vet, you should make sure the nail area is clean and contact the vet at any sign of infection. If treating at home, clean the nail area and wrap with gauze and vet wrap for at least three days, keeping the wrap clean and dry and checking for signs of infection such as swelling, increased pain, etc. Then start doing soaks in epsom salts twice a day for a week to harden off the nail and help prevent infection. Please keep in mind, though, that I am not a vet or medical professional of any kind- this is simply my own opinion and what I would likely do in the future.


I did have an adorable photo of Koira curled up in her bed with her little foot all wrapped up, but Flickr is apparently refusing to let me grab the html code on any of my photos. So you'll just have to picture it (and join me in hoping that flickr fixes this problem quickly!).

Farmer's Market

First off, we got the lab report back. And, I am probably just more confused than anything else. I was told the lab report said the lumps were hemangiomas, which are benign tumors. That is good news, of course. But, the vet also said that hemangiomas need to be removed so that they don't develop into hemangiosarcoma, which is pretty much a death sentence for dogs (with a 6-8 week expected survival after diagnosis.) When I came home and started doing research, though, I didn't find any warnings about hemangiomas turning malignant, except for one reference, which states "[Hemangiosarcomas] generally arise spontaneously, but in dogs with short, often white coats, chronic solar injury has induced a change in the superficial vascular plexus, which initially appears as a hemangioma and then progresses to a malignant vascular tumor. The breeds prone to actinically induced angiosarcomas are Whippets, Italian Greyhounds, White Boxers, and Pit Bulls."

So, I am making a list of questions to ask the vet on Friday when Koira goes in to have her last stitches removed. We actually did go in today to see the vet, pick up antibiotics for Koira's foot, and have the dangling knee stitches taken out, since they aren't doing much.

I bet this booth selling sausages is where Koira would like to start shopping

Koira is very ready to get back to being more active. She especially would like to swim, I think, since it has been pretty warm and even downright hot around here for the past week or so. But she is restricted to on leash walks or non-enticed exercise (no fetch, flyball, lure coursing, etc) until the last of the stitches come out. She is just so driven that she would not stop if the stitches pulled out or the wounds caused pain, so she doesn't get to play.

We did stop by the Farmer's Market on Saturday morning though. I had decided to stay home (rather than go take pictures at a lure coursing event) to give my ear infections a chance to heal up. I thought a walk at the Farmer's Market would be just the thing for both me and Koira, though I decided to leave Pallo at home because I wasn't feeling up to wrangling two dogs.

The wide view of the market

It was another hot sunny day, but we headed out early enough in the morning that it was cool enough walking around. It started to get a bit hot right as we left.

Market goers 

I mostly went with the sole purpose of walking around, seeing the sights, exercising the dog's mind and body, and just plain being somewhere other than home. I did also want to pick up some kind of a treat for the dogs from the local farmers though. One woman who sells chicken, rabbit, eggs, and occasional other things as well has discounted meats every week, just whatever is older than she wants to sell for people, and sells them as pet food. I picked up a whole rabbit for the dogs and cats to split between them.

The place we bought the rabbit

I was excited to see that our favorite local lamb farmers were at the market too. They previously have only been at our Wednesday markets, which are sometimes harder for me to get to. I didn't pick anything up from them this time, but did stop to talk for a little bit, and made a plan to go visit their lamb processor with them sometime. I would love to have a tour of the place, since I both feed my dogs her lamb and eat it myself. I think it would be interesting to see how the entire process works.

Our favorite lamb people also produce fiber as well

We also stopped to listen to some of the performers.

A small band getting ready to play

I just liked this next picture because it kind of shows a perfect picture of what your dog is seeing when in a crowd of people. It can be hard, I think, to really understand why some dogs are timid in crowds, or scared of people. This picture really shows, to me anyway, what they are seeing. And really, no wonder some dogs are weirded out by it. And for that matter, no wonder young children sometimes grab onto the wrong person, thinking it is their parent. People pretty much all look the same from that low down, at least, if they are wearing the same kind of clothes!

A dog's-eye-view in the crowd

And, a final photo as we were leaving for the day. The sun was getting high enough to make it hot, Koira was getting tired of carrying a backpack with our purchases (I picked up some zucchini for myself and to even out the weight of the rabbit in Koira's backpack), and we were ready to head home. This picture is one of the reasons I seriously love the GoPro. I might delete 3/4 or more of the photos it takes, but every once in a while, there is a photo I totally love.

Koira's Toe

This is the sad face I have been getting for the past few days.

Koira had surgery on Tuesday afternoon to remove a lump on her toe. Now, I don't believe in removing every lump a dog gets, just in case it is something bad. Most lumps are benign and are safer to leave in place than to risk the complications of surgery to remove. This lump, though, had all the earmarks of a not-good kind. It was on a toe, which is probably the number one worst spot to find a lump, as they are much more likely to be something bad when located on a toe. In addition to that, it grew pretty quickly (though it is still pretty small, really), is black, and is an irregular texture. The best way I can describe the texture is like cauliflower- just sort of rough and lumpy. Not one of those things is a good sign, so we decided to get it taken off.

This little lump is causing all this fuss.

Unfortunately, because of the holiday in the middle of the week, we haven't gotten the pathology report back yet. I'm hoping we get it on Monday, but it might not be in until Tuesday. Which just means more waiting and wondering and worrying.

Koira is just a little depressed about wearing a cone, but at least she isn't doing any worrying about the path report.

There was also a similar lump farther up on the same leg, up on the front of her knee. So we took that off at the same time while Koira was under, just to be safe. We figured we may as well, since it lessens the probability of her needing to be put under again. The vet also made sure to get as wide of margins as possible, so that if it is something bad, we will have (hopefully) already gotten rid of all of it.

If you are squeamish, you might not want to look at the pictures below. They aren't of anything too bad, but are of Koira's stitched wounds as of today.

This first one is of her knee. I think a knee is a stupid place to need stitches, and the stitches obviously agree, since they have pulled out on the top side and are now sitting there doing absolutely nothing (except annoying Koira with their itchiness, I bet). Luckily, they stayed in long enough that the wound seems to be healing fine. She'll probably have a pretty obvious scar right there though.

Useless stitches, just hanging out

Her toe I'm not really sure what is up with. It seems a little angry, to be honest. And I'm not sure if the stitch in it is where it is supposed to be, doing what it is supposed to be doing, or if it actually pulled out as well. Her foot was actually wrapped for two days after the surgery, so I didn't get a look at it from the beginning. It just looks strange right now.

I'm thinking I will call my vet and ask, and possibly bring her in for a quick recheck. In the mean time, Koira has destroyed one cone (the clear one in the pictures above). I am now trying her in the Bite Not collar, since I happen to have one laying around. She doesn't appear to be able to get to her foot with it on, so hopefully that works for the rest of the week until the stitches come out.

Metal Allergies in Dogs

Edited to add: For an update on how we are doing with the metal allergies Koira has, check out my more recent post about it. It includes some products that we are using and love, such as collars without exposed metal, which can be hard to find otherwise. http://mylifewithflyballdogs.blogspot.com/2015/03/dealing-with-metal-allergies-in-dogs.html

First off, I am in no way an expert. I am not a vet, dermatologist, or anything else like that. What I am is the owner of a dog with an allergy to metal. If you suspect your dog has an allergy to metal or anything else, you should bring it up with your vet.

Long time readers will recall that Koira has some metal allergies that cause issues with collars, other dog equipment, vet appointments, and other sorts of fun stuff. Most likely this allergy is not to metal in general but to nickel. Nickel is the most common source of metal allergy in humans, though it is more common in women than in men. Exposure to nickel, such as by having your ears pierced, can increase your chances of becoming allergic to nickel (which is possibly why this allergy is more common in women). Once you have the allergy, you are likely affected for life, though you may go through periods of increased sensitivity, most often due to exposure.

Most of the information I have found while doing research is about nickel allergies in humans. However, there is no reason to believe that dogs have any lower rates than humans. It is possible that many dogs with this allergy go un-diagnosed because their fur prevents contact with nickel, prevents their owners from seeing the rash that occurs, or because they simply aren't taken to a vet.

I am 100% positive that Koira has an allergy to metal. I am relatively positive that this allergy is specifically to nickel, though this is a theory based on my research into human metal allergies, so may be erroneous.

When Koira was younger, she developed a really nasty rash on her neck and chest. The rash was red and very obvious due to both her fur in the area being both very thin and white. Thickening of the skin and oozing blisters came and went, occasionally getting a bit better, and sometimes getting very bad indeed. At one of the bad turns, someone even asked me if I fought my dog (as in organized dog fighting) because her neck looked so ravaged. In addition to the sores and rash on her neck, Koira's ears were affected. The tips of her ears were literally falling off in chunks. The fur and dead chunks of skin would come off in my hands when I pet her or investigated the funky looking areas on her ears. Though the ears improved and regressed as much as the rest of the rash, they were bad enough at times that I seriously thought about having her ears cropped.

As you can imagine, I tried a lot of things to help her. I put her onto an allergy formula food (Natural Balance). No improvement. I started home cooking meals for her so I could carefully control every ingredient added. No improvement. I bought her a leather collar, thinking it might be irritation from the nylon collar she was wearing. No improvement. I even took to putting a bandanna on Koira instead of a collar, but since I dangled her tags from that, there was still very little improvement. During this time, Koira also got a staph infection on her neck, chest, and belly. The theory of my vet at the time was that she had cut herself on grass and developed a staph infection from those cuts. Koira also had bad dandruff, especially on her neck and shoulders, but pretty much all down her back.

Finally, one day, completely out of the blue, a friend of mine suggested that Koira might be allergic to metal. It was like a light bulb going off. I pulled off Koira's collar and tags. I purchased plastic and ceramic bowls to replace the metal food and water bowls. I coated the hook snaps on my leashes with clear nail polish. And Koira's horrible running sores and rashes went away. Her ears (which I can only assume were coming into contact with her tags when she shook her head) improved immediately. Within days, my beautiful girl had clear skin, with nothing but a few healing scabs left over.

Since that time, I have made Koira's collars myself using heavy duty nylon hardware instead of metal. I do not put tags on her. For a while, I did try using fabric bags to hold her tags, but I never found one that kept them secure and prevented them from touching her completely. Since she is micro chipped (she did have a serious neck and face swelling in reaction to being micro chipped, but has not had any continued problems with the chip after the first couple of weeks), I have decided that her well being and comfort is more important than her wearing her tags.

When we have to go to the vet for shots or other procedures that might involve contact with metal, I make sure to dose Koira with Benadryl before we go and again later in the day. It mostly prevents site reactions. (And, yes, stainless steel DOES contain nickel.) I honestly do not know what I would do if Koira were to require something like pins to hold together a broken bone. I just hope we never have to find out.

I am bringing up all of this because I have been looking longingly at some leather collars. I really wish I could get Koira and Pallo nice matching supple leather collars to wear. But leather collars come with metal hardware. Brass does not always contain nickel. But, since I don't know how to find out if the hardware being used contains nickel or not, and I don't know for sure that it is only nickel that Koira is allergic to, I don't know what to do. Do I buy a couple of really nice dog collars, test the hardware with this nickel testing kit and then just not use them if the test is positive? It would certainly be a lot of money to spend on the collars and the test kit only to find out I can't use them.

I will admit that in the past few weeks Koira has been occasionally wearing a new collar that has a stainless steel D ring on it. The collar is an LED light up collar that she only wears out to the park and so far I have not seen any reactions. I am not, however, so foolish as to hope she is "over" this allergy- that doesn't happen. I am sure that if she were to be exposed to more metal, the full reaction would come back relatively quickly. And I don't really want to risk that.

In any case, I didn't really write this post just because I want a nice collar for my dog. I wrote it more because, while doing all of the reading and research about metal allergies this evening in an attempt to find some kind of hardware that might be safe for my dog to wear, I came across almost no mention of metal allergies in dogs. And those that I did see were mostly passing mention of it in a forum thread.

So, if anyone has a dog they think or know has a metal allergy and wants to ask any questions or share any knowledge, I would love to hear from you. If you stumble on this blog post by searching the web for what could be causing the oozing rashes your dog has, I hope this can give you something to try out to help your dog.

Update

A quick update. Koira's bite is healing quickly. The vet gave her antibiotics for both the bite and the swollen lip, which we think may be a staph infection brought on by itching the side of her face enough to break the skin. If that is the case, we are not sure why she would suddenly have decided that she needed to scratch her face that much- an allergy would be the best guess, though to what we aren't sure.

We are also using some anti-fungals on the round spot on her leg near the bite. It may be part of the bite (I didn't notice it beforehand at all). However, it looks suspicious as possible ringworm. It did not glow under the special lights (90% of ringworm will glow, according to my vet), but I decided to go ahead and treat for ringworm with a topical just in case, since it won't do any harm.

So, we're hoping the antibiotics clear up the lip swelling and keep the bite from getting infected. Other than some whimpering at bedtime the first night of the bite, Koira doesn't seem to notice or care about any of this. She enjoys the extra treats she gets for taking her pills and for standing still to get sprayed. In her world, this is all good. She even LOVES going to the vet, and got to see some of her favorite people there.

PS: Thank you for all the well wishes on the last post. I figure our week just has to get better and better from here, right?

Oh Joy... Or not

Today is one of those days that I would very much like a do over. First thing this morning, I checked on Koira's lip. It was swollen and sort of red as of yesterday morning, and I was hoping it would have gotten a bit better by today. I gave her some benadryl and iced it a little before going to bed. Unfortunately, it appears to be just as bad.




I worked this morning, then headed over to the Friends of the Library book sale at the fairgrounds when I got off work. It was super sunny and clear out, so I didn't spend long there because I wanted to get home and take the dogs out.

Leaving the fairgrounds parking lot, someone backed into my car. It was hard enough to crack the bumper, and my shoulder has been hurting a good bit since then, but overall I am okay, and the dogs were not along thankfully. After getting the other driver's insurance information, I headed home to take the dogs out.

The park was great and sunny, but it meant there were a lot of other people out with their dogs. Most of the people and dogs are regulars at the park, so we knew most of them. This isn't a dog park, but rather, a large park with sports fields, trails through the woods, and picnic areas, most of which allows dogs to be off leash this time of year. It is popular with dog owners around here, and has way fewer issues than designated fenced dog parks. Unfortunately, on our way back to the car after an hour of playing, Koira got bit by another dog. I am pretty sure what happened is that Koira and the other dog were chasing the same ball and the other dog bit Koira's rear leg to get to the ball faster. They were a good distance away across the field, and all I saw was a short spat, and then Koira came back to me when I called her. We went on our way, but noticed a little while later that Koira had been bit. She wasn't limping or giving any other indication of being hurt though.





So, we are basically okay. But, we could certainly be better. I wouldn't mind a do over for the day!

Show off that figure!

Well, we are still around in 2013, despite being absent for a week. Today we are back, and participating in the Show Off Your Dog's Waistline Campaign. I am pretty proud of the amazing shape my dogs are in, and think that this is a major issue. So many people think my dogs are too skinny, while they hold on to the leash of a dog who could probably stand to lose 10+ pounds. So many vets don't tell owners when their pets are overweight, or downplay it if they do. I always make a point to ask my vet twice about my dogs' weight. The first time, I ask if their weight is good. She always says yes. Then, I say, "My dogs compete in dog sports, including a lot of running, jumping, twisting, turning, and physical activity. How is their weight for that?". Sometimes, the answer is the same, that they are at a good weight. But, I've had her suggest taking off as much at 5 pounds from the dog she just said a minute ago had great weight! Being athletes changes things, but shouldn't all dogs be kept at the weight that best keeps them safe while running, jumping, and being active?

For a great, short read about dog weight, I will refer you to one of my favorite sports vets and writers, Dr. Zink. Her article Corpulent Canines is a great easy to read article about the weight we keep our dogs at, in sports and in conformation, and how those may affect the dogs.

Here are my dogs. Pallo, as a corgi mix, has a naturally stockier build than many dogs. His bones are thick, his skin is thick, and while he is technically short haired, he has plenty of fur on there too.

From the side, Pallo has a very obvious tuck up behind the ribs. His ribs are not visible, but can be easily felt. His shoulders, back, and rear are well muscled and defined.



From the top, Pallo has only a slight waist. His hips are obviously wider, but he doesn't have a big dip in. His spine is not sticking out, and his ribs are not visible. This is appropriate for a dog of his coat and build.



Koira is leaner and more muscular in build. Her bones are thinner, her skin is thinner, and her coat is near non existent. Yes, if a lab looked like this, it would be severely underweight. For Koira, this is perfect weight. I might even try to put a bit more muscle on her.

From the side, Koira has a defined tuck up. (It was cold outside when we took the pictures, so she was hunching a little bit from cold.) Most of her ribs are slightly visible. Her muscles are outlined and defined, though she could use some additional muscle definition. Tendons are visible stretching across the outside of her ribs.


From the top, Koira has a visible waist. Her ribs are visible, but not sticking out (I will say again, though, that she was cold, so her ribs are a bit more sticky-out than they would otherwise be). Her spine is visible but not protruding. Her muscles are well defined. For a dog of her coat and build, this is an appropriate active weight.


To keep my dogs in this condition, I do a lot of things. We go out for a few hours at a time at least three times per week. We go to flyball practice at least once a week. Swimming, dock diving, lure coursing, skijoring, disc, hiking, and general off leash play are all part of our physical routine.

I feed my dogs accordingly for the amount of exercise they are getting. Spending a full weekend at a flyball tournament? The dogs get extra helpings of nutrient and calorie dense hearts, as well as additional snacks like dried meat jerky and raw or hard boiled eggs, on top of their regular raw meals. Spending a week sitting at home while I'm working a lot? The dogs will get just the base raw meals, with a balance of meat, organ, and bone.

The most important thing to make this work is that I look at and feel my dogs on a regular basis. I make sure they are in good muscle condition and that they are not gaining too much fat. Relying on a scale for my dogs is tricky, because my dogs can gain a lot of poundage in muscle if we are doing some really active training and conditioning. Three pounds gain of fat would be bad, but a three pound gain in muscle (or more) has happened more than once with these guys, and I would certainly not want to cut back their food because of the number on the scale!

The best example I can give of this is that, when I adopted Pallo, he weighed in at the vet at just over 25 pounds. He had no waist and was visibly chubby. He was around 9 months old then. He has since lost a lot of fat and gained a lot of muscle. Pallo is the same height (within an inch) as when I adopted him, but now weighs 37 pounds of healthy muscle!

So, anyone else have some dog waists to share?

Scary

Wednesday evening, I walked out of the bathroom and saw Pallo being weird. It was obviously not right. He was still standing up, but was repetitively slamming his head forward and into the ground, and pawing at his face and head with his paws. He was weaving while doing this, and every movement appeared drunk. Huge amounts of saliva were pouring out of his mouth in streams. I called his name to no response, and hurried over to him. He didn't respond or seem to notice when I touched him, when I placed him on his side (so he would stop hitting his head), or when I held onto him. I couldn't tell if he was breathing.

Thinking that these symptoms had three possible options, I pried his mouth open to check to see if he was choking on something. The pawing at the face was what led me to think it was a possibility. While all of Pallo's muscles were stiff in his entire body, I did manage to slowly open his jaws, move his tongue around, and sweep his mouth out with a finger. I felt no obstruction, even in the very back of his mouth/upper throat area.

With his eyes in a fixed stare, but steady, I felt pretty sure that Pallo was no experiencing a vestibular episode. Generally, a vestibular episode will present with nystigmas, or rapid eye movement, either side to side or up and down. Additionally, dogs having a vestibular episode normally respond to outside stimulation, at least somewhat, and Pallo seemed to not "be there" when I talked to him or handled him

Of the three possibilities, then, it left only one on the table. Pallo was having a seizure. And I have never encountered that before. In something along the lines of panic mode, I grabbed my cell phone and called a good friend of mine who also competes in flyball and has dogs. I blurted something along the lines of "Pallo is having a seizure, what do I do?" at her as soon as she picked up the phone. She very sensibly told me to go to the emergency vet.

I picked up Pallo, who was still completely tense in his whole body with the occasional violent twitch of the head or front legs and ran out to the car with him. I jumped in the car, holding onto Pallo, and drove down the road toward the emergency clinic. My phone rang and it was Greta, another good friend and fellow flyball-and-dog person, who Nicole, who I originally called, had asked to call me. Putting the phone on speaker and balancing it on my shoulder, she asked me what happened and I explained. She was most worried about Pallo still being stiff. Most dogs come out of seizures quickly, but sometimes a seizure can last and last until there is brain damage or death. Pallo had been stiff for 5-10 minutes by the time I pulled into the vet (who is thankfully just down the street).

As I pulled into the vet, still on the phone with Greta (who has a border collie with epilepsy, making her the perfect person to be talking to), Pallo's muscles relaxed and he started breathing more normally. He lifted his head and looked at me, and began to respond to my touch and voice. The emergency vet would, at that point, not be able to do anything for him, since he had come out of the seizure. With Greta's advice, I felt okay following my own inclination to give my personal vet a call and skip the emergency vet, unless Pallo went into another seizure.

My vet called me back within 20 minutes (it was about 9pm when this all happened). She agreed that it was safe to wait until morning to bring Pallo in and we scheduled an appointment first thing in the morning. I was told to keep an eye on him over night, keep him from hurting himself if he had any additional seizures, and go to the e-vet if he had a seizure last longer than 5 minutes or if he had more than three seizures during the night.

I had a restless night, but by the time I went to bed, Pallo was acting normal but tired. I had him sleep on the bed with me (which he normally does anyway) so that I would be woken up if he had another issue. Every time he moved through out the night, I woke up and checked on him. He had a good night with no more problems and we headed to the vet in the morning.

We decided that the only real thing to do was to run some blood work (mainly for kidney and liver values) to rule out a poison or organ failure as a cause for the seizure, and wait and see how he does. The blood work came back this morning as completely normal. Which is good, of course, but it leaves me in a bit of a limbo, since I have no idea what caused the seizure, whether to expect more, or what is going to happen. Pallo is doing just fine, with no apparent lasting issues.

At this point, we just play the watch and wait game. The hope is that the seizure was idiopathic, with no real cause. Pallo will not be getting Comfortis (the oral flea medication) ever again, as it has a possible side effect of lowering the seizure threshold. Other than that, there is nothing we can really do except wait, watch, and hope.

'Tis the Season

The flea season, that is! (Don't worry, I think fleas are way too gross to put pictures of them on my blog!)

As much as summer's heat and sunshine is welcome, with it comes the fleas and other bugs. I hate using chemicals on my dogs to prevent fleas, so instead, I've come up with a series of things that work for me to keep fleas out of my house and off of my pets.



The number one most important way to prevent flea infestations in a house is to vacuum. I always put a cheap flea collar into the canister of my vacuum so that any live fleas sucked up will be killed by the nasty chemicals in the collar (though I would never put one of these collars onto my dogs or cat). As a flea preventative, I try to vacuum every couple of days. If there is active flea activity that I have noticed, I will vacuum at least once a day and sometimes up to three times per day. I also sprinkle borax on the carpets about once a week or so before vacuuming, as the borax can help destroy the fleas and flea eggs.



For the dogs, I have a few tricks as well. After every bath, the dogs are rinsed with a diluted vinegar solution. This supposedly changes the pH of their skin and makes them less appealing to fleas. I don't know about that specifically, but it does seem to help discourage fleas. If I have noticed any fleas on the dogs, I will bathe them with a pure castile soap, with lots of suds, that they soak in for five minutes. That is followed by a second round of soap with some neem oil mixed in (I want to try the Neem "Protect" Shampoo from Ark Naturals, but it isn't currently carried at my local store), then conditioner (which they also soak in), then rinse, with the vinegar rinse as the last step.

I also will mix up a flea spray using neem oil, a tiny bit of soap to dissolve the oil, and water. The spray is then used on the dogs, cat, pet beds, and carpet. The brand of spray I use is Ark Naturals, and I have tried two of their sprays. The neem oil spray, I add a little extra neem oil to it each time, as I have heard that neem can become less effective if mixed with water for very long. Neem oil by itself smells pretty nasty, so the spray helps the smell be much better, as well as using additional essential oils to discourage flea activity.

The last important step in my flea preventative regimen is to check over the dogs and cat often. I flip them over in front of me and, with good light, pick through their fur with my fingers. I check carefully not only for fleas themselves but also for signs of fleas such as flea poop and red spots. The best places to check are the belly and around the base of the tail, as these are the places fleas like to hang out. Even my cat lets me do this grooming on her and happily lays on her back while I pick through her fur.



If we end up with a bad infestation, such as we had when I first moved into my current apartment, I am not opposed to using a very limited amount of chemicals to try to get ahead of the flea problem. The flea medication of choice for this is either CapStar for a quick flea killing action or Comfortis for an edible month-long flea preventative. I still find, however, that vacuuming the house and the use of borax on the carpet is just as effective, if not more so, as using chemical flea killing bombs, and without the nasty deadly chemical residues left over. All the on-the-dog treatments, however, are much more effective at preventing fleas than at treating an active infestation. The important part is to not let it get out of control!

How do you treat for fleas in the summer?

ETA: The area I am in does not have a lot of ticks, and those that we do have do not carry lyme disease, so ticks are much less of a worry for me and my dogs than people in other areas. In my lifetime in this area, I have had ticks on me twice total. 

Me and the Flyball Dogs are off to Salem, OR for the weekend for a flyball tournament. If you are in the area, you should stop by and check it out. We'll be at the Marion County Fair at the State Fairgrounds, just follow the sound of the barking!

Flyball Pictures and a Weekend Recap

This past weekend, I headed over to Redmond, OR for the Mt. Bachelor Kennel Club Dog Show. I was there for two days of lure coursing and one day of flyball.

Trix, experience flyball dog, running at our weekly team practice

Both dogs were signed up for lure coursing on Friday night. They each only needed one more Q to get their Coursing Ability (CA) title. I figured that achieving that title would be enough of a goal for the lure coursing part of the weekend. Both dogs pulled it off Friday night on their runs. Their titles are now updates in their names on the side bar. I have to say, I LOVE getting new titles on my dogs.

Bear, a rather large mini Aussie, is debuting in a week in Friday Night Racing

Saturday, I just helped out with the lure coursing, answering questions, bringing pieces of paper back and forth from the judge to the secretary, that kind of thing. It was fun to watch all the various breeds and types of dogs run. Cairn City was erected on Friday, which was two large tents full of kennels and x-pens full of cairn terriers, all competing in lure coursing. They were kind enough to shelter my dogs' kennel under their tents when we had a major downpour later in the afternoon.

Bear runs so much like a lab, flipping his feet up over the jumps and not caring in the least if he barrels straight into anything or anyone.

Sunday was all flyball, all day. My team hosted their first tournament ever as a fun, one day, outdoor, small scale tournament in Eastern Oregon. It rocked. I think everyone enjoyed themselves, the tournament ran smoothly, and overall it went off with no problems. I spent most of the day line judging (sitting at the start/finish line writing wins/losses, heat times, and flagging mistakes such as dropped balls, early passes, and skipping jumps). A team mate was kind enough to run Pallo for me.

On our team, Chester the corgi achieved his Flyball Dog (FD) title. He ran part time on the team at this tournament, and in only one heat at his last. He rocked it.



Also, he has the cutest little bunny butt ever.



Now, me and the dogs are off for a weekend at the coast. My sister's birthday was this week, so we are doing a family camping trip. Pallo unfortunately seems like he may be hurt as he was skipping jumps and bailing out on running at flyball practice this week. He is going to be so mad at being on crate rest while camping!