Border collie Jack passed away on February 28, 2022

[pgcor]

Re: Jack the project!

Natalie - as much as I love animals and dogs in particular, if I had to, I would give up ownership to only you!

[buddingartist]

Re: Jack the project!

I'm sure Natalie is thinking <wow, back the truck up here< cause there's a lot of people who think like you Pam.

Louise

[CarolW]

Re: Jack the project!

If we're not careful, Natalie could end up with 947 dogs.

Hehe!

Sun, 9 Jan 2011 20:34:42 (PST)

[pgcor]

Re: Jack the project!

Carol - I just couldn't help but laugh at your comment....I love Pip but I would also love for Natalie to take him and then send him back to me "all good and trained". LOL

Are you listening Natalie?

[buddingartist]

Re: Jack the project!

Natalie has left the country out of earshot.

Louise

[k9diabetes]

Re: Jack the project!

I'm so sorry to be so absent. Honestly.... I am not sure when my life started running completely amok but I just can't seem to find enough time to give anything the attention it needs lately. I think it's an overrun of little things combined.

So don't be sending me any of your dogs! I could lose track of a dog just on my desk right now! Especially a Pip-sized dog!

I just talked to the neurologist after seeing the vet, a new vet, yesterday. Jack started shaking his head and scratching at his ears so that gave us a push to get him in to the GP vet for the blood panel.

He's got a yeast infection in both ears with an assumption that it started with an allergy of some kind and the yeast just joined the party later. Maybe wheat flour that was in some new treats or perhaps environmental.

Because I try very hard to avoid the Gentamycin that comes in so many topical ear products (it can cause deafness - see the sticky thread in this forum), he's taking oral Ketaconazole for the yeast and we are talking about putting him on prednisone for the inflammation in the ears and for the back problem both.

We plan to discontinue the Gabapentin after he goes through a washout of the Metacam so he can start the prednisone. (That kind of sums up the craziness, doesn't it?) Just in case he is getting some pain relief from the Gaba that he will lose while off of Metacam.

It's not clear how much pain he is in moment to moment but he exhibits signs of pain on very short walks. Moderate speed - no running, no jumping - of 15 minutes and his tail starts to tuck and he limps. If he chases a ball or runs at all, then he's in a lot of pain.

That's a significant reduction from this summer, when he could go 25 minutes and do some running and jumping and be okay. He really wants to play out there and will do it even though he winds up in pain. But then will be subdued and appear to be in pain all evening afterward. I think he got worse during the acupuncture visits because of the weekly 35 minute car rides one way and the extended appointment, where he was tense.

And even one day without Metacam and he seems much more painful.

So it wouldn't surprise me if he is in pain even when not exercising. I think he's pretty stoic. And the pain we can see is restricting his exercise significantly and generating pain when he does exercise.

So I'm waiting on the blood panel results before stopping the Metacam. I should have them later today. If liver and kidneys, etc. all look good, then I will stop the Metacam for 3 days and we will try the prednisone... please cross all of your fingers that the prednisone doesn't set off anything...

Natalie

[k9diabetes]

Re: Jack the project!

Interesting... the bloodwork came back with low thyroid. Not borderline but quite low. She's adding on a Free T4 with ED to see if it is a fluke or persists with the more sensitive test.

Natalie

[diggydog]

Re: Jack the project!

I guess I better unpack Alfie's bag and cancel his flights then

Fingers crossed on the prednisone!

[Margaret Boyle]

Re: Jack the project!

Interesting... the bloodwork came back with low thyroid. Not borderline but quite low. She's adding on a Free T4 with ED to see if it is a fluke or persists with the more sensitive test.

Natalie

Hope everyting is alright with Jack Natalie.

Hugs
Margaret

[pgcor]

Re: Jack the project!

Oh boy, of course everything is crossed that Jack will be okay with the prednisone. I'm so sorry you're having these issues with Jack. Plus, you're so busy now....when it rains it pours. We're your umbrellas Natalie - so don't apologize for not being here as often!

Pam

[k9diabetes]

Re: Jack the project!

Although I think the chance is exceedingly small, it is possible that he found one of Katie's Tapazole tablets for her hyperthyroid.

I'm careful and I would have had to drop one and he would have had to have found it the night before or that morning and eaten it.... I really don't think that's what happened but if the Free T4 with ED comes out low too, we might have to draw another blood sample just to be sure. In which case I'll probably just cover all of the bases and do a full thyroid panel as it was not easy to get blood from him yesterday. I'm hoping not to have to do that again right away.

I'm hoping the Free T4 with ED comes out normal.

Natalie

[Patty]

Re: Jack the project!

Poor Jack, Natalie. I hate he's having to go through so much pain at such a young age. I know you do too.

Ali had problems with yeast in her ears for a while. I think I've told her story several times about when we moved from IL to NY in '08. Once I latched onto the homemade ear solution for her, I've used it ever since with great results. In case you're interested, here's a couple of links with it:
http://www.k9diabetes.com/forum/show...ndar#post22628
http://www.k9diabetes.com/forum/show...ndar#post35744
I only use it about once every 6 weeks or so now.

I do hope the thyroid function comes back normal! And praying the pred treatment doesn't set anything off.
Hugs to Jack
Patty

[k9diabetes]

Re: Jack the project!

Thanks Patty for information on the ear solution - I am definitely interested in it as I will do almost anything to avoid using topical Gentamycin.

I wish they would come up with a better product. She said there are some new ones but nothing that tackles yeast and bacteria and inflammation. Fortunately there were very few bacteria in the smear.

Apparently the vet's border collie went deaf temporarily from Gentamycin (I know it can sometimes be reversed if dealt with right away and Sue's Zoe from the Cushing's forum got some of her hearing back) so she totally understood my concern and I didn't get any lectures about how that never happens as I have with past vets, which was a relief.

He's never had an ear problem before so I'm not sure what brought it on now. He does sometimes get his ears wet when he swims but hasn't been in the water much at all recently (and has the odor to prove it!). And he hasn't shown any previous allergic tendencies.

Our backyard is very muddy and I'm sure there's a lot of mold and fungus about so maybe it's one of those that's causing problems.

Natalie

[k9diabetes]

Re: Jack the project!

I checked Jack's bloodwork... his panel in April 2010 did not check thyroid levels. The one done in February 2009 did and his level then was 1.7. Low end of normal but well within normal of 1.0-4.0.

Now his level on this new blood panel came in at less than 0.4.

I'm always suspicious of any grossly and suddenly very abnormal test result.

I had a cat when I was in my early 20s who was tested for feline leukemia by a vet who was not her usual doctor. She had a mouth infection and he had agreed to clean her teeth and let her come home the same day instead of keeping her overnight so I let them do it... a dumb decision on my part that I would never ever do now.

They tested for leukemia based on the mouth infection, running an in-office test of some kind and I saw a note on the chart when I picked her up that the result was +++, kind of screaming in red!

They wished me luck rather unsympathetically, handing me a cat with a death sentence who was still woozy from anesthesia and a bottle of vitamins and no further information about what this meant for her or any suggestion about double-checking the result.

So I balled my eyes out while she stumbled around in a fog and then I went back to her usual vet the next day to talk to her about the test. She said she had never ever seen a perfectly healthy looking cat with feline leukemia and that the test was tricky to do properly in-house so she always sent hers out to a professional lab. That my cat could happily gum her food toothless for another 20 years because she didn't believe for a moment that she had leukemia!

So we redid the test, had it sent to the big professional lab, and it came back negative. Gandy lived another 15 years and never lost another tooth.

So if you suddenly get a test result that seems really at odds with the picture your dog is giving you, it's worth investing in running the test again. Especially if the first one is run in-house with perhaps old chemicals or faulty equipment.

Right now, Jack's vet is saying more or less the same thing about Jack.

He's too young and too healthy looking to have such a low thyroid level. Doesn't make sense. So if the Free T4 with ED comes back low, we will undoubtedly wait a week or two and run a new one to be sure there wasn't some problem with processing the sample. Probably wait until he's washed the Gabapentin from his system too.

Natalie

[peggy0]

Re: Jack the project!

I had abbys test sent out as well Natalie after the in house came back with low thyroid. It did come back at .5. I'm having her tested again though in 30 days to see where it is. While she definately has dimentia, she has no low thyroid symptoms at all.