Dogs At Large trial - Kenna MJDC

We were at another local trial recently where both girls ran fabulously. All of the errors were mine - I messed each dog up once with my handling... Kenna on her Masters Standard run (not videoed) and Kili on her Challenge.

Kili was a very good girl but the entire day I felt like she was a bit slow. At first I wondered if she is just getting older and needs to be dropped down to Specials. She's also had a bunch of time off for that toe injury, but I did run her at the CKC trial last month and she was wickedly fast. Finally after the final run of the day, as I was running her back to her kennel my trainer noticed that she was limping on her back left leg. I couldn't find anything significant with it and she is right back to normal again, so she must have just tweaked something.

Kenna finished her Master Jumpers Dog of Canada title as well on this final run. Good girl. We really need more Gamble and Snooker runs to enter as we're falling behind on those. She still needs one of each to get out of Advanced... we just haven't entered any trials offering them lately!

Back x-rays

On our way to Vancouver we stopped in Calgary for an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon. Kili had seen Dr. S a few months prior for a check up and to discuss her chronic back problems. Dr. S couldn't find anything obviously wrong with her and had recommended full spinal x-rays as the next step. Kili is a huge drama queen about medical procedures so I knew she'd require heavy sedation. I decided that if I was going to put her through sedation then I wanted to make sure the x-rays were done to Dr. S's liking the first time, so I took her back to have them do it.

On the x-ray table, sedated and getting supplemental oxygen.

One chemically induced good dog, and one naturally good dog. :)

Perfect greyhound hips. You can see the slightly more open SIJ on the left compared to the right.

Jury is out. Dr. S saw some early degenerative disease in her lumbar spine, and also thinks that one of her sacroiliac joints (SIJ) is fused compared to the other. I appreciate these changes, but the big question is how clinically important are these changes? They are not severe changes, and while there is more degeneration than one would expect in an average dog her age... it may not really be more than one would expect in a SIMILAR dog her age, i.e. another agility dog. For now I have started her on Cartrophen, an injectable joint support product, and will continue her with chiro and rehab. I have also asked my rehab tech to develop me a conditioning and stretching routine. I am also trying to watch how many weave poles I ask Kili to do. In courses that don't require us to do the weaves I will avoid them completely, and in practice I will be decreasing how many times she does them per session.

After our appointment we loaded up to hit the road to Revelstoke. This is what Kili looked like... stoner puppy!

So sleepy!

At first she refused to lay down in the truck, but she was very unsteady which made driving a bit of a problem. It was pretty funny to watch her falling asleep standing up though!

Agility Fun Match

Kili and I attended a fun match this weekend. It was at the same location as the last one we were at. We had probably an even better day because there were fewer people, and we also got to practice our teeter, dogwalk, frame, and weave poles. This facility is difficult for the bigger dogs. The ring is very small, probably about a quarter of the size of a regulation ring, which means the equipment really gets packed in there, making the turns tighter. The large dogs land so far out from the jumps that they are practically on top of the next jump, and if it's a row of jumps on a curve... well, that's tough. You'll see in the video that when there's a row of jumps, Kili is basically just bouncing between them as there isn't even enough space for her to put a single stride in. The landing of the first jump is the take off for the next.

Handling in a small ring also brings some challenges. It's hard to take your eye off your dog to check where you are before you are on top of where you need to be! There are a couple of little errors that we make simply because I pull too far without realizing where I'm at.

The second run was a competition. We had all run it once already to get a feel for it. Then they ran 3 dogs, fast dog, a slow dog, and a medium speed dog, and timed them. We then each had to guess what our dog's time would be, and run the course a second time being timed. Which is why you can see me rushing Kili! I had guessed 36s, which allowed for probably one small mistake... but unfortunately we made 2 small mistakes and our time ended up being 42s. There were two "winners" of the competition. The person that had the closest time to their guess, and the person that was the furthest! This way it was fair since not all dogs are fast! We didn't win any prizes in the competition but I was really happy with our run!

In other news, I got cold feet waiting for Kili's second heat. I was expecting her to come into season somewhere between the beginning of February and beginning of May. The further we get the more I started to regret not spaying her over the winter. I was really thinking I'd like to let her have a second heat and then spay her this coming winter, but now she's headed into spring and I can see our whole summer going down the drain. Last year after she went out of heat she became a completely different dog for the next 2.5 months. It was really awful. She wouldn't go on walks, she wouldn't play with toys, she wouldn't run... she'd barely even eat. She had absolutely no interest in anything that happened. She was just NOT my dog. After 2.5 months she slowly started to return to normal, and by fall she was back to herself. The problem is we lost basically the entire summer. And summer is when it's the most fun to train and do stuff outside... especially in Edmonton where the summers are so short. Well, I got cold feet thinking about doing that all over again, so Kili is being spayed this week. I'm not looking forward to it as she tends to be a huge drama queen about procedures, but at least it'll be over and done with and we won't have to worry about it in the future.

Dental Health

Someone recently asked about dental health on a forum that I frequent. Her question was whether or not a "dental" was necessary for her young dog (had been recommended by her vet). This young lady is a great dog owner and has always demonstrated that she will do whatever is needed for her dogs, so I knew she was asking genuinely.

Dental health happens to be one of my big pet peeves, both as an owner and a veterinarian. There are two sides to my feelings on this matter. The first is about dental cleanings, the second is about prevention.

As far as dental cleanings go... yes, they are necessary. But that need is on an individual basis. Unlike humans, veterinarians don't recommend a cleaning every 9 months for every pet. Would that be ideal? Hell yes! But the fact is that our patients are not nearly as cooperative and they have to be anesthetized. If I recommend a dental cleaning for a pet, it is because that animal NEEDS it. What blows my mind is the number of owners who don't see this need... no matter how I try to lay it out for them. I show them pictures of severe dental disease (if their pet is just in the early stages), I point out that if a person's mouth looked half as bad as their pet's... they'd be at their dentist months ago. I point out that if we break a tooth, or get a cavity, it really hurts and we are at our dentist... like yesterday. It continually blows my mind that owners can say "well I don't think he's in pain". His teeth are almost falling out! His gums are red and bleeding! His breath smells like something crawled in there and died! Excuse my hysteria... but have I mentioned how it blows my mind?

What boggles my mind even more? Prevention is simple. It doesn't mean we can avoid cleanings in all pets forever, but it certainly helps a lot! I know some people think they can't brush their dog's teeth. I'm here to tell you that most dogs can learn to accept brushing. They're not all going to let you just stick a tooth brush in there, but with a bit of patience and high value treats you can convince almost any dog of almost anything. Then we have the owners that just plain don't want to do it. And that is totally fine... as long as the anesthetic cleanings are done when needed. What baffles me is the owners that don't want to do the work to maintain basic dental hygiene, and yet also won't spend the money to have the teeth cleaned.

While we're discussing money, I think my biggest pet peeve of all is "Dentals are so expensive!" in response to a $500 quote for a routine cleaning (or you know... $2000 for major dental surgery because they didn't do the $500 cleaning 3 years ago like they were recommended). I hate that word, expensive. The implication of that word is of overcharging. Here's what I don't get about this situation. Has no one ever looked at their own dental bills? I recently went to the dentist and had a cleaning, x-rays, and a wisdom tooth extracted. My bill? $1100. Sure, after insurance I only paid about $250, but that's not what it actually cost. If I didn't have insurance I'd be paying the full amount. And pet insurance exists, some plans even cover routine dental cleanings (I know because my plan does, although I haven't needed to use it). I could offer the same procedure that I had for probably $800-900... including bloodwork and anesthetic! Maybe the big problem with this analogy is that people think dentists are too "expensive". I'm not a dentist, but we have a lot of similar equipment and it is NOT cheap. Is $500 (or $1000 or $2000) a lot of money? Absolutely! Is veterinary dental care expensive? I argue (passionately) no.

At the end of this discussion, the original poster asked me about my own dogs' teeth. I am proud of their teeth; they are in great shape. I brush teeth every night before bed. I use Healthy Mouth in their water. I give dental chews from time to time, but I don't rely on that to do much. The fact is... you need to brush daily to maintain good oral hygiene. This shouldn't be a surprise... after all, your own dentist has been harping on TWICE daily brushing since you were 5 years old. So far neither dog has needed a cleaning. Partly that's due to my diligence with their oral care, and part of it is just pure luck with their genetics.

Kili's pearly whites are pretty much perfect. No tartar for this girl!

Summit's teeth are tartar free, but he does have a bit of staining from age.

If you're not sure how your dog's teeth are doing, visit your veterinarian and have them evaluated! Happy brushing!

All the rehab

It's all rehab, all the time now. Recently I took Kili in to another clinic to see a certified rehab technician who was recommended by my trainer. The consult was almost 2 hours long and was really enjoyable. We watched some videos of Kili running courses and she got her hands on Kili to see where she seemed sore. For her first session we decided to do laser and massage to help relieve some tension in her back muscles. We tried to do something called IMS, but unfortunately Kili is too much of a drama queen to tolerate someone sticking needles in her muscles. If we need to do the IMS in future we will have to sedate Kili for it. At this time we're just going to see how she does with some other techniques.

Trying IMS on Kili.

Laser therapy

I am fortunate that right now we have a laser unit at home. It is a slightly different type. The Companion laser that is being used in the photo is a class 4. It is a little hotter than the one we have at my clinic and therefore has to be moved around constantly. That makes it great for covering a broader area, but not as good at concentrating on one small problem spot. Our laser just sits in one spot, so doing a large area is a bit tedious, however if you are working on a small area you don't have to worry about burning the skin.

Kili is booked in again in a month for chiropractic and rehab. I haven't had her out for agility practice since then, so we'll have to see how she's feeling next week!

Getting back on track

Management of Kili continues, somewhat successfully so far. We had a great practice this week where she didn't give me any indication of being sore. We had some trouble with our weave poles, but I think that's just a bit of rust. And interestingly, all of the dogs in class seemed to have trouble with the weave poles in one direction in particular. The problem for us in the winter is that we can't get any extra practice in. In the summer we would work on any trouble spots in the backyard, but that's just not possible with 2 feet of snow on the ground.

I've also made the decision to train a running A-frame with Kili in an effort to reduce stress on her back. When she comes to the bottom of the frame for her 2-on-2-off behaviour, there is sometimes A LOT of momentum that she has to stop to make it. With a running frame she would simply just keep going and wouldn't be slamming all of her weight into her front end. Greyhounds have really straight shoulders, which makes them relatively weak. Coupled with a bit of a back issue, I think the running frame is the way to go. We will keep our stopped contact as well, as there are bound to be some situations where a running contact is less than ideal, but I'd like to reduce the frequency. To train the running A-frame we will use a wicket. The one we used at practice is actually a little too high. The idea is to force the dog to drop its head to get under the wicket, thereby preventing it from leaping from high up. This wicket allowed a little too much head space. Hopefully my own wicket will arrive soon.

Still not better

Kili's two weeks of intensive rehab and slow return to exercise culminated in an agility class on Wednesday. I had taken her jogging a couple of times, then taken her hiking off leash a couple times, and then the Friday before I took her to an agility practice and just ran her through 2 quick sequences. Everything seemed good. The plan was to do agility class on Wednesday, and if she seemed okay then we would go to our agility trial this weekend.

The first run at agility class went amazing! I had been more concerned with warming Kili up than running the course, so I was a little discombobulated, but Kili looked great.

Then we had about a 15 minute rest while other people had their turns, and then we went again. She still did well, but I got a bit of the feeling that she was holding back a little. And then by our third turn, which was just a short sequence of Gamble (distance work) she seemed hesitant to do the weave poles. She's still sore. Big sigh. I went home and pulled her from the trial this weekend.

My trainer and I had a long discussion after class because I was feeling quite dejected. We're talking about a, not even, two and a half year old dog that repeatedly "injures" (or just tweaks) her back to the point of being unable to run agility. Is it something in her structure? Why am I continuing to run her if she consistently hurts herself? Am I ruining her long term health by continuing to do agility with her? If I stop doing agility with her, is that detrimental to her long term quality of life (she LOVES agility, clearly)?

What we ended up deciding is that I'm going to take her in to see her chiro more frequently. I'm going to take her in to see some other rehab specialists to get more opinions and eyes on her. And I'm going to contact an animal communicator and see if she can tell me more about what's going on, how she's hurting herself, and maybe how to help prevent it. I'm not sure how much I believe in the whole animal communicator thing. I wouldn't go so far as to call myself a skeptic, and trusted people have used this one and really liked her. I'm willing to try anything at this point.

Kili has a good week and a half off starting Monday as I will be out of town. I'm going home to Toronto for a conference and vacation.

Kili the strange, the injured, the ghost whisperer?

We had a very strange and alarming night with Kili recently. She was behaving very strangely and nothing seemed to add up.

We'd had a very nice day on Monday. I was off so we did some training, relaxed at home, and I ran some errands. Kili seemed completely normal and was really on her game during training. We all went to bed around 11:30 that night, only to be woken up at 1:30 by Kili pacing and staring out over the baby gate of the bedroom. I'd used some hot dogs for training which she hadn't had in awhile, so I figured she probably had diarrhea. I got up and let her outside. But 15 minutes later she was up and pacing again. I took her back out figuring she hadn't finished what she needed to do. Once again when we came back in she refused to settle. This is very unusual for Kili when she has diarrhea. She may wake up several times a night, but she will always go back to sleep after she's been out. I let her out again but she just stood at the door. I tried crating her, but instead of settling she just cried and cried and cried (again, very unusual for her). I let her out one last time, but again she had no interest in doing anything.

Back in the bedroom she would pace back and forth. I invited her up into bed with us, which she normally loves, but she would just sniff our faces and wag her tail before going back to pacing. It really looked like she was searching for something. She was looking around and had her nose in the air sniffing. Finally we let her out of the bedroom hoping she'd find whatever it was she was looking for. Instead I started to see her "startling" and slipping on the hardwood floors. She seemed suspicious of everything and sometimes surprised that things were where they were. I checked her vision and that seemed perfectly fine. I did a neurological examination, and that too seemed fine. She persisted in this behaviour until 6:30 in the morning before I finally convinced her to lay down in bed with me and go to sleep.

Naturally I decided not to go in to work as I was exhausted. I took the day off and we slept until 11 AM. When we got up Kili seemed perfectly normal. She went out to use the facilities then came in and laid on the couch for about 15 or 20 minutes. She then got up and went down to the basement where we train. She appeared to be searching for something, but without the agitation and suspicion of the night before. By the time Jarrett got home from work she wasn't even interested in searching anymore. I figured whatever it was had passed, that perhaps there had been an animal in the walls or something like that. But then I went out for a few hours that evening and when I came home she started to exhibit the agitated behaviour again. This time was milder as I managed to convince her to lay down in bed with us and she slept through the night.

Bloodwork done the next morning was perfectly normal. She seemed absolutely fine all day at work. But that night I took her to agility and she refused every obstacle in sight. She was happy to chase her frisbee and to run around, but she refused any jump set higher than 10", balked at the tunnel, and bailed off the dogwalk. The strange, agitated searching behaviour did not occur again, however.

The agility can be explained by soreness or an injury. But it doesn't explain the odd behaviour, nor does it explain why the behaviour stopped before we started treatment. She's had a visit to her chiropractor and she is getting laser treatments on her sore areas. Her chiropractor didn't find her much worse than usual (except it had only been a month since her last adjustment when normally we do 3 months between), and she only needed to be adjusted in the same spots as usual: her pelvis, her middle back, and her upper neck. For laser treatments she is being treated in her middle back, her pelvis, and also her left iliopsoas muscle which another doctor certified in rehab believes is sore. We are also doing stretching exercises at home. She's had a couple of days of pain medication and muscle relaxants and is doing very well. The plan is to continue to rehab her for another week and a half. I'll then try her out at an agility class and if she seems okay we have a trial the following weekend. If she still seems sore at class I'll pull her from the trial.

Here are some of her rehab exercises:

1. Stretching
1. On the peanut. This stretch is for her middle back. I am having her bend herself over the peanut in a way that opens up the spaces in her spine in the trouble spot.
2. A variation of the stretch on the peanut using the stairs instead. The idea is the same.
3. Side bends. Same idea except opening up the disc spaces in the horizontal instead of vertical direction.
2. Traction
1. In the first exercise I'm feeling for the dorsal process of two different vertebrae in the problem area. I am then holding them in my fingers and pushing them apart. Again, we're trying to relieve tension and tightness.
2. Tail traction. Kili hates this one so I'm not sure how effective it is. The idea is to pull (gently but firmly) on the base of the tail, while pushing the front end forward (you can't see it in the video, but I have my arm behind her elbows and am pushing forward against them). Same concept as the previous exercise.
3. General strength and balance
1. Balance and core strength on the peanut. I'm asking Kili to change positions and move around on the peanut. This works on her balance and core strength.
2. Pushing the peanut. Right now we're just working on learning to push the peanut with our front feet on it. Later we'll also learn to push with our hind feet on it. This works on strength of the legs on the ground.

Greyhound Orthopedics

Greyhounds and their orthopedic issues! Actually, I shouldn't say that. Aside from bone cancer most greyhounds are very sound in structure. They do not escape the usual age related changes though. And I should not compare Kili to most greyhounds as she has already proven that she's a bit of a lemon!

Kili's hock has been doing well. We have been in a deep freeze so aside from agility class once a week we have done almost nothing. While I hate the insanely cold temperatures because it reduces what I can do, it has been a blessing as it has made it exceedingly easy to follow my own orders for strict rest. Kili has essentially done no exercise except for agility class. The class gives me a bit of a chance to evaluate how she is doing each week after having had full rest. This week's class was pretty good. She had a few moments but overall it was better. And I wish I had a video of her 2x2 weaves because this week she was flying through! Love the speed and accuracy we had this week.

Kili has finished her medications, though I occasionally throw her a pain killer if I feel it is needed. She is getting laser treatments on the hock whenever I can afford to bring her to work (if it is a slow day or I know I have a gap in appointments).

I also bit the bullet and bought more Back On Track gear. For Kili I bought their hock wraps and for Summit I bought the leg (carpal) wraps. Of course they sell the wraps as pairs and my dogs couldn't decide to both have hurt front legs or both have hurt back legs. So I had to buy a pair of hock wraps and a pair of carpal wraps. Money! Here they are on the dogs. I am hoping these will help both dogs... Kili to rehab her hock faster and Summit to reduce his arthritis.

Kili's hock wrap

Summit's carpal wrap

16 months - Still not right

Kili and I had an agility class today. This was the first class since I noticed something was wrong with her leg (but remember the class just prior to identifying the problem she had definitely been off). She has been hiking and running on the leg and showing very little sign of any discomfort, however today at class it was evident that the leg is still an issue.

The first half of the class went really well. She was speedy, she was interested, and I was able to engage her in tug. Near the end of the class though I lost her speed and she became reluctant to play tug with me, though she only missed one jump. At that point we stopped doing jumping exercises and worked on introducing the chute and we worked a bit on our weave poles.

As you can see from the video, the first few clips she is very fast and is interested in tugging. We even raised one of the jumps up to 24" which is just under her competition height of 26". We want to start throwing in some higher jumps to get her used to it as it changes her strides. The last clip she avoids the second jump on our first run and from there is just pretty sluggish although she does all the jumps. The big "OOPS!" near the end is because I did a front cross instead of a blind cross... but with her being less than enthused I was not 100% sure she was going to do any given jump and was watching and babysitting her a lot more than normal, which didn't give me the time to do the blind cross. She was also moving slow enough that a front cross was easy enough to substitute.

Well, here's to hoping another week of rest will solve the leg.

White Christmas

It was a very white Christmas this year! We took the hounds to visit my in-laws in northern Ontario (as we did last year). There was tonnes of snow, though fortunately most days weren't too cold. I did leave Summit at home when we took Kili hiking, which we did almost every day, as he has been having some trouble with the cold this winter. Leaving Summit behind meant I could put some of his clothes on Kili

Kili drowning in Summit's clothes.

 

She made me nervous near this cliff edge!

And so did he! Bad boy! Old enough to know better!

 Kili had to go for long hikes every day in order to behave nicely in the evening when company would come over for dinner. Of course I forgot my camera until the very last day, and then she didn't want to do her crazy zoomies for the camera! She was probably still tired from all the previous days of hiking. It did warm my heart though that she kept an eye on where I was. She was perfectly happy to leave Jarrett behind to die and follow me, but reluctant to lose track of me and go with daddy. I felt loved. It's nice to have your bond with your dog reaffirmed with physical evidence.

Whisker icicles!

After long hikes all day Kili needed to take some naps in the evening. She was not allowed on my mother-in-law's leather couch but she was sort of allowed on the old furniture in the basement. Her favourite were these little round chairs.

Of course, monkey see, monkey do. Except Summit is quite a bit bigger than Kili! He could just barely squish himself into this chair!

Once her chair was stolen Kili figured a regular couch was as good as any when she was as tired as she was!

By the end of our trip Kili had been on her antibiotics for about a week. She was not showing any indication of being painful or uncomfortable, however the thickness in her leg seems to have stopped decreasing. It is much improved but it is not normal. I am hoping it will just take some time. Fingers crossed.

Normal right hock.

Left hock still thick. Note the lack of light coming through the leg.

Side by side comparison.

16 months - All clear

The x-rays were all clear at any rate. As you can see below the left and right hock look identical except for the soft tissue swelling in the left, but all the bones look good.

Lateral comparison. Left leg on the left, right leg on the right.

Oblique view comparison. Left leg on the right. Note the swelling in the soft tissue by the Achilles tendon.

Getting these x-rays was not easy. I was extremely unimpressed with the theatrics that Kili put on over the whole thing. Considering how well she behaved for procedures when she was younger I did not expect to have to deal with a thrashing, screaming, biting dog. It was actually ridiculous. And pain is not an excuse. I am sure the leg hurts, however, she started her dramatics when we just tried to hit a vein to give her a mild sedative. As a result of her thrashing and carrying on, her leg now looks like this:

Epic bruise caused by dumbassness.

Even with the pain killer and sedative she was an absolute drama queen, so I ended up hitting another vein to give a heavy sedative so we could avoid further bad experiences for her and get the x-rays easily. I did not originally use this sedative because it makes the heart work a lot harder and Kili has a heart murmur so it is generally advisable to avoid its use. However, I'd had enough with the ridiculous scenario that was occurring and decided I was willing to risk complications. Ironically, she actually handled the sedative better (from a cardiovascular stand point) than a lot of dogs in the sense that her heart rate did not drop as low and her gum colour stayed quite nice and pink.

Fortunately, after 2 days of antibiotics and anti-inflammatories and cold laser therapy I am seeing a marked improvement, both in the size of the swelling and also in Kili's overall demeanour. While there is still some thickness it is vastly improved. And Kili woke up this morning full of vim and vigour, with no hesitation to walk outside and jump into and out of the truck. She will continue her medications for about 2 weeks at which point I hope the leg will be completely healed. We are leaving on Saturday to visit Jarrett's parents for the holidays but I will be doing her laser therapy every day until we leave.

After some thought I think I have uncovered the mystery. 2 weeks ago today I went for a hike with some friends of mine. I brought both my hounds and they brought Kili's best friend, Cole. The path had farmer's fields on either side and in a few spots the fences were damaged. Summit is a good boy and never really strays off paths. Kili and Cole were gallivanting around. I noticed blood streaming down Kili's back leg so we headed home. After giving her a bath and cleaning the wound I found it to be a small puncture. She also had a superficial scratch on her front leg. I cleaned both well and didn't think anything of it as it healed over beautifully. However, the leg that is now a problem is the same leg that she had the puncture wound on, so I think bacteria got trapped and traveled up the leg. Interestingly, the original wound is completely gone and the swelling is a fair bit higher up on the leg, however I really have no idea what else could have caused this to happen.

16 months - Not too cool for school

Well, I should have known better and listened to my dog. I thought the cold was bugging Kili and that was why she was so reluctant to train. Wrong.

Took the little dog to the barn today to work on her weave poles and could not get her excited or running for the life of me. I was acting like a total fool and getting really frustrated with why I couldn't get her going. It wasn't even that cold out. Well, when I went to take off her jammies I had to pick up her back feet in order to get them out of the leg holes. Her left hock was massively swollen. Now, I know for a fact that it wasn't that swollen prior to training because I had to pick up her feet to get her INTO the jammies. However, it has obviously been bothering her since at least Sunday when we had agility class.

The joint is absolutely massive. She has been quiet and reluctant to exercise on it. I noticed recently she's been a little slow to jump out of the truck but just figured it was the cold. But otherwise, she has not been lame on it in the slightest. I do remember that on our hikes on Saturday and Monday that she had been holding that particular leg out of the snow slightly more than the other one, but since she was doing it with both, it was cold out, and she was not otherwise favouring the leg I didn't even think anything of it.

Very swollen left hock.

Normal right hock

 Well, naturally I feel like a pretty crappy owner. And a vet too. But until the swelling showed up today there was really no obvious indication that this joint was a problem. she'll have to have the leg x-rayed tomorrow in full. I took her into the clinic tonight after discovering the swollen hock to get one quick picture just to make sure nothing was obviously broken, but tomorrow I will have to do all the views. Kili has become an increasingly bigger pain in the ass to do anything medical to so I will probably sedate her heavily for these x-rays. Since she is not favouring the leg really at all and only showed pain when I was really handling that leg and manipulating it I am hoping that there are no fractures. I did notice a purple area on the inside of the joint and I am wondering if she had a wound there that has become infected and spread through the soft tissue. I started her on antibiotics as a precaution.

12 months - Chiropractor

I had been noticing some unusual behavior from Kili recently that I had initially attributed to a growth phase. She had been laying around at home a lot, not eating super well, not really wanting to work. She was still playing like a banshee with her friends but unless there was another dog over she mostly just wanted to lay on the couch. In fact she was very insistent on laying on the couch even when there was no space for her there. She didn't seem to want to lay on the very comfy dog beds that have. I had also noted recently that she seemed reluctant to sit. At first I thought maybe with all her growth that she was having more difficulty with a comfortable sit as some greyhounds can, but a couple of times she would sit and kind of whine at me. The last straw was at her agility class this week when she kept running around jumps. We thought she just wasn't far enough along in her training to understand that she should be taking them, but then I set her right in front of a jump and she just stood there, then tried to run around it. We dropped the jumps to 8 inches and she did agreed to do them. I had also noticed that night that she was not a bullet through the tunnels like she normally is. And by the end of the class (which she did not complete as I decided something was wrong with her and switched her out for Summit to finish the last exercise) I noted that her gait was very careful. She was not obviously lame on any particular leg but she just seemed cautious all around.

Our agility trainer uses a local animal chiropractor so she gave me her name and contact information. I called her that night and was able to get Kili in the next day after work. I was a little anxious as I've never become completely comfortable with being adjusted myself and have actually stopped going for the past 2 years since my problems had somewhat resolved (I am now trying massage therapy instead) and I have never had a dog adjusted before. My trainer had assured me that this chiro was very gentle with her adjustments and good with the animals which reassured me a little. The chiropractor found that Kili's left hip was very tight and Kili also seemed to be sore on that side compared to the other. We got Kili partly adjusted before the chiro elected to stop early so that she wouldn't be overwhelmed (big brownie points for her in my books!). We are going back in a week for another adjustment, but even last night following the appointment I noted a HUGE improvement. She wasn't just laying around on the couch anymore but she was poking around the house and being a general pain in my butt. When she did finally settle for a nap she did so on her dog bed and not on the couch even though there was space for her. Hurray!

We are going back on Monday so we will see how her second appointment goes.

Week 30 - Broken puppy fixed?

Well, this week has been overwhelming, exhausting both physically and emotionally, and very expensive.

Kili finally went in for her cystoscope. The whole day turned into one thing after another. Where to start? How about with the early morning drive? The photo below was taken BEFORE Summit decided to attack Kili while I was driving down the highway in heavy traffic. I'm not sure what happened. Maybe she stepped on him. From now on, muzzles on in the truck.

Kili's heart murmur has still not resolved at almost 7 months old so I had her heart ultrasounded so we could figure out what was causing the murmur, and therefore whether she could be put under anesthetic and, on a more important note for her long term future, whether she can run agility. It was found that she has mild mitral valve dysplasia. She was given the go ahead for surgery and agility, but I do have to keep a close ear on the murmur every year to make sure it doesn't change. I am relieved that she is still allowed to run agility as that would have been a devastating diagnosis since I cannot afford a third dog and I bought her specifically for agility. The stairs up to the cardiologist are open backed. Kili had never seen backless stairs and I was really pleased with how well she handled them.

It was also great for her to meet so many new people.

Summit was not super impressed about having to wait around ALL day for his baby sister.

A great idea for training and food motivation for a food motivated hound that has to be fasted for surgery is the "Lickety Stick". It is a liquid treat. Kili wasn't allowed to have food but she was also being manipulated onto her back and side for ultrasounds. Those are things she does not enjoy and I try to make it all as good an experience as possible. Normally that means stuffing her face with kibble and treats. What to do? This worked out great! I highly recommend it for anyone with a hound needing to be fasted.

The Lickety Stick!

  Next she was put under for her cystoscope. On the scope they found that she has a persistent hymen. It's a piece of tissue in the vagina that should normally be broken down. If it doesn't break it can cause urine to pool after urination which can allow bacteria to grow and ascend up the urinary tract. That was broken down during the scoping. They also felt there was evidence that she might have an ectopic ureter. That's when a ureter (the tube carrying urine from the kidney to the bladder) opens in the wrong place. That is another factor that can cause urinary tract infections and also incontinence. It was recommended that she have surgery to determine if there was an ectopic ureter and to correct it if one was found. Fortunately they were unable to locate an ectopic ureter at surgery so they just took some samples for culture and closed her back up. She was not spayed at this surgery. I will not be spaying her until she is about 18 months old, but it sucks that she'll have to have another surgery. While she was under general anesthesia I also had a little nip tuck done on her vulva. She had "drapes" (or a hooded vulva) that may have contributed to urine retention. It wasn't severe and I have seen dogs with far worse conformation not have any problems, but considering all the issues she has had I felt it safest to fix it.

Waking up from surgery.

Morning after surgery at home.

 The first night was pretty tough. She'd had an epidural and wasn't able to walk outside to pee, so I had puppy pee pads set down under her in the crate. At a high fluid rate she had to pee every few hours all night. Fortunately by the morning she was able to walk gingerly out and even more gingerly squat to pee. By the morning after she was back to normal and trying to jump around (which she is absolutely not being allowed to do). I was very happy that even on arriving home from surgery and feeling very sorry for herself she was still very happy to accept food.

The toughest part about her recovery from surgery is that she has to wear her muzzle with a stool guard to stop her from licking (which she tries to do even with the muzzle). It means I cannot leave her with Kongs and food toys as I normally do. I feel sorry for her bored and alone.

All these shaved spots mean no conformation show in April as we had been planning. Next show will have to be in June. Here is Kili after just her abdominal ultrasound and cardiac ultrasound.

I hope that this nightmare is all over and Kili is fixed. She will have what I hope will be her last specialist appointment in a month for another ultrasound to re-evaluate her kidneys and bladder. Wish her luck because right now she's roughly a $7000 puppy!

20 weeks - Cystoscope

As those of you who follow my blog know, Kili had a urinary tract infection that we started treating at about 12 weeks of age. What I did not update you all on is what happened with that.

I placed Kili on a 2 week course of antibiotics that saw her clinical signs resolve. We were sleeping through the night and everyone was happy. Well, a few days after coming off the antibiotics she started having to go out every 2 hours at night again. Blasted! Re-tested and found that the infection had relapsed. I put her on a higher dose at a more frequent schedule. Again, she did very well. To be safe though I ran bloodwork to check her kidneys and called in my ultrasonographer to ultrasound her urinary tract. Bloodwork was normal (yay!) and the ultrasound found no sign of ectopic ureters. Ectopic ureters are when one or both of the ureters coming from the kidney end in the urethra instead of in the bladder. Usually this means a puppy will "leak" or be incontinent (which Kili is not) but not always. He did find that she had a little touch of a kidney infection. He recommended that we keep going with the antibiotics for another 2 weeks. Which we did. A couple of days after coming off the antibiotics she once again started needing to go out more frequently. At this point I was about ready to cry. Another urine sample showed that the same infection was back... again.

Right now she has been back on antibiotics for a week and a half. She is doing well. Last night she slept through the night, which I really needed. As you can imagine, I'm exhausted from being woken up once or multiple times at night for the last 12 weeks. She will be staying on these antibiotics for 8 long weeks. If antibiotics can eliminate the infection 8 weeks should do it. I have also started her on Paxon, a cranberry supplement for dogs and cats. There is really no hard evidence that it really helps but it also doesn't hurt. And at this point I'll try anything. I have decided to take her to Toronto on Monday to have a cystoscope. They will anesthetize her and put a little camera up her urethra to check out her urethra and bladder for any structural abnormalities that could explain why she keeps relapsing. They will also take a piece of her bladder wall for a culture and histopathology to determine if it is healthy and if there are any abnormalities. Hopefully all goes well!

17 weeks - Teeth

I posted about Kili's broken canine tooth awhile back. It has not caused her any problems and is finally starting to get loose so I am hopeful it will fall out and I can stop worrying about it. Unfortunately she went and decided to have other tooth issues.

My boss' dog bit Kili in the face and one gash was bad enough that I decided to stitch it which required putting her under general anesthesia for a short period of time. I used the opportunity to take some photos.


 The damage.

And the following are pictures of her teeth. There is only one upper baby tooth left, however as you can see the tooth on the right of the image looks like 2 teeth that are conjoined. My boss says he's seen weird things happen with teeth, but I'm a fresh grad and I've never seen any puppies yet with any issues with their teeth. Of course it would be mine who I wanted to show for a little bit before agility training started.


Normal lower teeth. Two adults almost fully in. 2 just coming through.



"4" adult teeth and one baby. See how the two on the left are separate but on the right they are stuck together?

Sigh. What else can go wrong with this puppy medically?

Pet Insurance

Given recent events I thought this might be a nice time to discuss pet insurance. I know there's a lot of opinions on pet insurance. I used to think I didn't need it. I could put some money aside every month and that would be sufficient. I have changed my mind.

My technician's lovely 15 month old dog was hit by a car and over $5000 later we still ended up having to say goodbye to the sweet boy. After coming in and seeing me as an after hours emergency, I sent him to the local emergency hospital where he could have surgery to stop internal bleeding. Once stabilized he was supposed to have his broken femur fixed. The details aren't particularly important for the big picture here. What it made me realize is that my guys could have an accident or crisis, or even a complicated disease that requires a referal hospital. Even as a vet I do not get any special discounts at other clinics or specialty hospitals. And I sure don't have $10, 000 lying around at my disposal. So even vets need pet insurance.

You definitely need to do your research and find a company where the policies work for you. I do hear a lot of people saying that they don't get their money's worth from insurance so it's not worth it. I'd like to encourage you to look at it from a different angle. You don't need to "get your money back" or "claim more than you pay". To me, at least, I am paying for peace of mind. I am paying for a guarantee that I will be able to take care of my animals. So if something were to happen I don't have to think "Can I afford that? Where will I get that money?" and I can just say, "Yes, do it".

However, I think I WILL get my money's worth on this calendar year. On top of the UTI, Kili decided today that she was going to break with explosive, bloody diarrhea! Good thing I got the highest level of insurance on this one... she might be a lemon! She's also got an ultrasound booked for tomorrow. Fingers crossed that we don't find any weird anatomic abnormalities!

15 weeks - Medical disaster

Of all my animals, I think Kili is already the medical nightmare. In 8 weeks she has had a UTI which failed to respond to one course of antibiotics and now kind of looks like it is failing to resolve on a second course. She also broke a canine tooth back at about 13 weeks.

13 weeks when I first noticed the broken tooth.

15 weeks - discoloured and worrisome

 Fortunately so far she has no reaction to the tooth being touched, to eating, chewing on bully sticks, or playing with toys. She's also been on antibiotics the entire time for her UTI though. I am worried when we finally clear her UTI and she comes off her antibiotics that this tooth may become infected and cause me some headaches.

Definitely getting insurance on this one!

In other tooth news, Kili lost her first tooth this week and has 2 more that are VERY wiggly!

11 weeks - UTI

I think we have finally gotten a handle on the housetraining problems. Kili was doing really well during the day when I could take her out every 1-2 hours, but she was having a lot of trouble overnight. So I set her up in her long term confinement which is a large crate. In it she has a bed, toys, and a pee pad. I did that because I was getting up 2-3 times a night with her and often still finding an accident in the morning. At least with the pee pad I figured she wasn't going on her blankets. The biggest draw back was that she would sometimes play with her pee pad and then still pee on her blankets.

Long term confinement

When 11 weeks rolled around I thought "well maybe now she's old enough to hold it longer overnight" and put her back in her small crate for the overnight. Set my alarm for 2:30 and figured I'd just get up once with her. Sometimes no accident, sometimes she'd have an accident.

Finally I ran her urine and found that she has a UTI. I was honestly quite surprised because although she was having accidents she never peed small amounts, always a full voiding of her bladder. And she didn't have trouble with 1-2 hours during the day. I started her on antibiotics and the last two nights have been great. In fact, last night she woke me up at 1:45 and I took her out. I think she woke me up because she had to poop, not because she needed to pee (although she did while she was out there). I didn't get up and take her out again until 7:30 AM! Yay! I hope this solves our problems!