Lindy & other pugs

[Linda1]

Re: Emmitt & Lindy

Prayers that Lindy continues to improve.

[farrwf]

Re: Emmitt & Lindy

Kudos to you, Joan, ... for giving 12 disabled pugs a great life. Sounds like Lindy may be out of the woods, hoping & praying that's so.

[Shellie]

Re: Emmitt & Lindy

I keep reading your posts referring to how many pugs you have! Wow! I give you serious kudos for your caring for so many! It must be like a sea of puppies! Thank you for doing what you do!

[momofdecker]

Re: Emmitt & Lindy

Hope Lindy continues to improve.

One of the most important thing this forum taught me, besides diabetes management, is how to be the advocate for my pets that they need me to be. I will never understand why, when someone is willing to home test, that an educated and licensed professional would discourage them from doing so.

Thank goodness the transporter noticed something and that Lindy was able to get help in time. She will be a lucky pug to join you pack.

[Joan]

Re: Emmitt & Lindy

We picked up Lindy today from the clinic, and she is not in good shape.
Apparently diagnosed with DM in early Sept, and since then has lost so much weight, you cannot look at her without wondering how she has survived.

Luckily pugs are tough, and she will need to be. They sent her home on canned W/D, vetsulin 6U BID. We shall see. Don't want to change right away, but she needs better nutrition. She was 489 before dinner.......made Emmitts numbers look pretty darn good.

This will be a challenge, somehow I have to get her in good enough shape to repair an abdominal hernia which needs surgery in the very near future.

On the bright side, she is one sweet pug!! Snuggled right up to us, trusting and loving despite everything. Also by a true miracle she still has some sight! I will post a few pics of her in a few days, but you will need some tissue to look at them.

[jesse girl]

Re: Emmitt & Lindy

it sounds like your up to the challenge joan

glad shes home

[amydunn19]

Re: Emmitt & Lindy

Joan - you are a saint to take on these challenging pups when nobody else will! Patron Saint of Pugs!

[Joan]

Re: Emmitt & Lindy

You guys are all so kind, but not one of you would have refused to take this little girl and tried to "fix" her.
here is a link to some pics, you will see which is her, the others are of our new handicapped Teeto
He was so excited at the popcorn, and I was having fun taking the pics, till I noticed Emmitt had his head in MY bowl helping himself to popcorn. He needed an extra unit of insulin after that. I was too horrified to get any pics of that event!

https://share.shutterfly.com/action/...id=EM_sharshar

So vet sent her home on 1/2 can W/D bid and 6 units vetsulin
Fridays numbers

5:30am 331 6 units vetsuln 1/2 can W/D
10am 93
10:30 77 honey & chicken
11am 80
12pm 127
5:30pm 518 ugh 6 units vetsulin & W/D
7pm 528
9pm 164!
10pm 93 honey & chicken dropping too fast!
11:30pm 71 more honey
12am 110 went to bed

this morning @ 5:30 438 5.5 units novolin 1/4 can W/D & 1/3 c.chicken
trial and error at this point, but the vetsulin acts way too fast for her in my opinion. At least feeding extra as she goes may help the poor little thing,

[Judi]

Re: Emmitt & Lindy

you are a saint and your crew is adorable! poor hungry girl (and boy LOL)

[jesse girl]

Re: Emmitt & Lindy

looks like the 6 units maybe to much but glad she is in a much better range and should improve fairly well under your care

ill bet she will look like a different dog in a month strong and healthy

[Joan]

Re: Emmitt & Lindy

As you can see, I switched her to Novolin N this am, she is looking a lot better on that. Gradually coming down, instead of a steep dive.

The thing that I have absolutely no experience at, is knowing how gradually (or not) I should aim for her weight gain? I think a good weight would be about 18-19 lbs, and she is 15 right now. I have had so many pugs, but they all tend toward fat, and so am constantly weighing and measuring to prevent weight gain.

Now I need to know what is a safe and reasonable rate of increase. She is very hungry and will eat anything. Yesterday came into the kitchen and she was inside the dishwasher trying to help! I think for now I am just going to concentrate on keeping her at a reasonable level of bg, not worrying about level doses. So if anyone has had a very very skinny diabetic advice is appreciated.

BTW just found out that she has been diabetic for more than 2 yrs, and reportedly "uncontrolled" the entire time. The vet papers state her prognosis as "poor". But you know vets, and how often they are wrong!

[jesse girl]

Re: Emmitt & Lindy

jesse was very thin for awhile

took a long time to put weight back on

the way i looked at it as long as she was maintaining the weight she had i was in no rush

i was always a bit concerned with pancreatitis so i did not want to up her food by to much

of coarse the behavioral component is another aspect and try to keep her eating habits in a good state of mind or stomach as the pups prefer

[Joan]

Re: Emmitt & Lindy

To update on Lindy, she is doing well! She has gained a full half pound in the 2 wks we have had her. She is hungry all time, which is great as you can feed her anything and she will devour it.

She came to us from the vet on Vetsulin, which worked way too quickly giving her big drops in bg, and resultant spikes. We changed her to Novolin N, which was good except that she had a pretty good food spike.

She is doing really well on 1/2 U Novolin R & 6 U Novolin N bid. She gets huge meals compared to the other pugs, but still looks very very skinny, but the emaciated, scary appearance is disappearing. Her bg runs between 90 & 200 most of the time so I am very happy with that.

****************************************

Emmitt is still have some major complications, non diabetic related. He is on 4 meals limited ingredient diet 6 hrs apart and 2 1/2 U Novolin N with each meal. His curves have never been better, but other problems are interfering with his wellbeing.

I posted on the "other" part of this forum, re his collapsing etc. Vet diagnosed heart syncope, and he is on vetsulin. Had to discontinue the lasix as major problems with that much water. Our vet was closed since Thursday, have an appt tomorrow (Tues) to check him out again.

Have been researching his troubles too much probably, but I led the vet wrong last wk by saying he was vomiting. He has been regurgitating. Changed his food, changed feeding times, elevated his food dish etc that is working somewhat. Joined the magaesophaeous site, hope that is not what he is doing.

But the main trouble is now with water. He drinks, few minutes later (1-10) he regurgitates it thru his nose!! Cannot find a dog doing this, or even able to do this. With the megaesophgeous they regurgitate food and water, but thru the mouth. Can't be cleft palate at his age, he is 12. Anyway to see vet tomorrow, if anyone has an idea it will be him. Thats the good thing on having an older experienced vet, they have seen almost everything there is. It is a scary thing to see the 2 streams of water coming out his nose!! It scares him too, and if you cant get to him immediately he keels over onto his side. If you are close enough to grab him and hug him to calm him, he wont go down. It looks like pure water on the floor, no smell to it, but his face smells like vinegar after. Weird eh?

Emmitt is always coming up with something new! Through it all, he is happy and eating well.Has lost a bit of weight, but I wanted that because of his collapsed trachea. Will up his food to maintenance level next week.

BTW I have ordered some THICK IT, you mix it with water, and makes it more of a jelly-like consistency so hopefully will help with the regurgitation. Has anyone used this?

[jesse girl]

Re: Emmitt & Lindy

taras pup had some similar problems and had some success treating maybe reach out to her. she pops in now and then surprised she hasnt responded to your thread but not being here very much she may have not seen it . i can understand how these things can occupy so much time and energy

with jesses diabetes i am all in cant turn off the switch i accept that dont feel i received a bad hand its just life

glad lindy is doing better and making progress

[jesse girl]

Re: Emmitt & Lindy

i forgot to add her pups name is ruby