Lucy, our rescued cattle dog, is an angel... April 21, 2014

[Fishslayer]

Lucy has a booboo....

Lucy has a little sore on the inside of her rear leg. Not a cut. No bleeding, just a couple drops of ooze. Right now it just looks like a little pink bit of skin. Doesn't seem to be bothering her.

It looks like it is in the scar tissue left over from her dog attack. The skin there is paper thin & tight. No hair, either. It almost looks like the skin just split a little.

Do I need to be super worried about infection with a diabetic dog? If that booboo was on one of my other dogs it wouldn't really worry me.

Ya know, it occurred to me that if Lucy had the sudden weight loss to make her skin & bone like she is, wouldn't there be a lot of loose skin?

She's kinda been a layabout today. She'll get up & walk around & play a bit but she really has spent a lot of time laying around on the patio & in her crate.

I took her with me to visit vets today & see if we could get a deal on spaying. Nobody in town offers rescue rates but I did get a couple of numbers to call. I also found out that San Diego HS possibly offers vouchers that can knock some $$$ off the bill. I'll be checking on that.


Rick

[eyelostit]

Re: Lucie has a foster home!! Yes!! Thank you Rick!!

Rick

I don't think Lucie would get alot of loose skin, I am trying to put weight on Niki whos lost quite a few pounds, can't say any loose skin on her, maybe this happens with older dogs don't know, Niki will be 12 this year, usually what I see with older dogs is they gain weight from less exercise etc, not all do but some

hope this helps

[Fishslayer]

Re: Your dog's diet, insulin, and meter used

Great idea. I'm keeping a log on Lucy but always nice to have stuff stored online.

Also nice to have info posted where experts can have a look.

Dog's name: Lucy
Breed: Australian Cattle Dog
Dog's weight: 1/12/09 28#





Diet: 1/12/09 1.25 cups W-D/1.25 cups Kahoots x twice daily


Insulin: 1/12/09 Vetsulin
Number of units per injection and injections per day: 7 x twice daily


Brand of BG meter if home testing:






Curve by vet 12/26/08

1 - 442 @ 10:30 AM
2 - 406 @ 1:30 PM
3 - 450 @ 4:30 PM
4 - 454 @ 2:30 PM
5 - 300 @ 4:30 PM

HUH? OK. They totally hosed the time entries. What else did they screw up? I'm guessing the times should be every two hours, but which is which?

Vet initially advised 5 units twice daily on 12/20/08. This was the curve that made them advise going up to 7 units twice daily. No check was done after that.

Not confidence inspiring...

[k9diabetes]

Re: Your dog's diet, insulin, and meter used

That is weird! Well, it's obvious it wasn't enough insulin so at least it was useful that way.

I'm looking forward to all the testing supplies reaching you so that hopefully you can do some testing of Lucie and see what's really going on.

If she will let you handle her lips, that's a really easy place to test. They have very few nerve endings there so it doesn't bother them and it usually gives a nice big drop of blood very easily. Vets sometimes suggest ears but in dogs that's more often difficult. Works better with cats.

I've mentioned a few times that we actually didn't test Chris in the position in the video but adjusted to make it easier to film.

I usually had him lie on the floor his side and then I'd flip his lip up so had a nice flat mostly horizontal surface to work with. Patting it dry makes a big difference - keeps the blood from mixing with saliva and spreading.

Places like the vet's office that wasn't usually feasible so then I did it with him in a sit.

I'm so anxious for her appointment tomorrow! Finally will get to settle a few questions.

Natalie

[eyelostit]

Re: Lucie has a foster home!! Yes!! Thank you Rick!!

Thanks for that reply Fishslayer, anytime you are up late & have a question I am usually somewhere on online.

You on Pacific time?

[k9diabetes]

Re: Lucie has a foster home!! Yes!! Thank you Rick!!

Thought you might like to know that Lucie's insulin has been increased to 8 units as of a couple of days ago. She had a fructosamine test, which came out at 631 (HIGH) with a reference range of 180-320 for normal so her regulation has a way to go yet.

Rick is working on getting some weight on her too so she's probably eating more than she was.

The meter arrived so he's going to be digging into home blood glucose testing soon. The urine strips have been running in the 2,000s on a full bladder and more like 500-1,000 on a fresh sample at mid-day.

Natalie

[Fishslayer]

First BG test. WOOHOO!

Received the One Touch Ultra 2 meter today. Thanks very much Marianne!

Instructions were dead easy. Setup & coding was no sweat.

Did the control fluid test.

Now...

Hold still, dog!

Actually, Lucy was not the problem, I was. The hard part was setting the lance to get enough blood.

First poke... no blood. Turn the lance up a notch. Second poke... AHHH! plenty of blood! Filled the strip... hmm... machine turns off if you don't test after a certain time... GRRR! Let's give poor Lucy a break.

Anyway, only botched two strips. Had the wife help me at 6:30 PM & got a successful test! The lance was set at 5 & I got the sample from her lip.

She tested 283 10 1/2 hours after her morning meal & injection of 8 IU.

Her activity was low today. She played with the pack a bit this morning & layed around most of the day. She was in a pretty good mood this evening.

I did a urine strip at 2:30 today & it was around 1000.

So we are on the way to getting her regulated!

Rick

[eyelostit]

Re: Lucie has a foster home!! Yes!! Thank you Rick!!

Yeah !! you did your first test

Sometimes with the urine strips you just can't rely on them, for instance if you would be in the negative area alot you don't know where BG is at during the course of a day. and with high bg urine stored in the bladder for sometime will show hi on strips with a diabetic. With my thought seeing a constant negative on the urine strip is more worrisome to me than seeing the high.

But hey looks like you are doing a great job.

Congrats on your testing !!

[AlisonandMia]

Re: Lucie has a foster home!! Yes!! Thank you Rick!!

Maybe you could practice your technique on yourself (or your wife if she will co-operate) and then once you've got that down pat you can let yourself loose on Lucy.

Alison

[Fishslayer]

Re: Lucie has a foster home!! Yes!! Thank you Rick!!

Maybe you could practice your technique on yourself (or your wife if she will co-operate) and then once you've got that down pat you can let yourself loose on Lucy.

Alison

I wish I could. The problem I'm having is getting repeatability with the lance.

I got a good drop set at 5 on the good test. I changed the tip & tried to get another test 2 hours after her meal & got no blood at all. Set it to 6 & got a good drop but the blood wouldn't draw up into the window. Poor Lucy had had enough & so had I. I was SO frustrated.

I'll try again tomorrow.


Rick

[Fishslayer]

Lucy's test 1/17

Used a Diastix on Lucy's second pee this AM before her meal & it read 1000. Quite below what I had been seeing before we upped her dose and has been fairly consistent.

Got a good test this AM. 351 at 10:00 AM 2 hours after her meal/injection.

hehe... I took Allison's advice & tested my technique on my wife this AM.

Actually, the lancing device was Dingo's dewclaw but I think I have a good handle on drawing the blood up. Gotta get juuuuust the tip of the window on the blood. Works great when the "animal" is holding still.

Now I have a 102 BG in the memory...

So far it takes the two of us to get Lucy to hold still enough for the test. Hopefully I'll be able to do it myself eventually.


Rick

[eyelostit]

Re: Lucie has a foster home!! Yes!! Thank you Rick!!

I don't use the thing you are using, i just twist the top off the lancet, then slowly push in to her tail, milk it abit, if no blood i use lancet again and turn it a little, when i started years ago i did the quick prick but never got any blood its the thick skin.

It does make you a bit weary till you get, but you'll get there.

[AlisonandMia]

Re: Lucie has a foster home!! Yes!! Thank you Rick!!

With the holding still for testing, this might be a very good opportunity for using the clicker. You know, start out with a split second of stillness and then shape it up to thirty seconds (or whatever you need) of sitting rock still.

I used this with cleaning my lively and reactive ACD's teeth - not something he innately enjoys at all - and now he sits and allows me to do a thorough job although it has taken a while to get to this point. I couldn't use the clicker as such (don't have enough hands) but I had previously conditioned him to respond to the word "good" in the same way so I could use this instead. I'm sure Lucy would catch on a bit faster than Zac as she sounds a lot quieter and more compliant and maybe (dare I say it) a bit brighter - or more of a "thinker" anyway!

Alison

[Fishslayer]

Re: Lucie has a foster home!! Yes!! Thank you Rick!!

Oh, she's a "thinker" all right.

She gets most of her meal as rewards with a clicker. We're doing "come, sit, stay."

After a couple reps she has learned to run back to the start & "sit, stay" without being told.

Keeps me on my toes as I have to constantly vary the routine.

Rick

[Fishslayer]

Re: Lucie has a foster home!! Yes!! Thank you Rick!!

Oh, she's a "thinker" all right.

She gets most of her meal as rewards with a clicker. We're doing "come, sit, stay."

After a couple reps she has learned to run back to the start & "sit, stay" without being told.

Keeps me on my toes as I have to constantly vary the routine.

She tested 363 at 6:09 PM tonight 2 hours before her meal.

Rick