Aerie

Recon's been going through heartworm treatment, so I'm sure that has her feeling a bit off. But...she's eating normally, now. I was feeding Chicken Soup dog food, but with a lack of a local source, I had to switch to Wellness. That's the only higher quality kibble I could find within a reasonable driving distance and for a price I could afford. (starving college student, remember) (whoops, pushed enter too soon!) Anyway. She's dropped off on the Wellness and nothing I seem to do is making her increase the weight. She's not overly active (in fact, she's not active at all because of the crate rest). I'm switching back to Chicken Soup, but I need to find a way to get some weight on her. I'm beginning to get concerned. I give her one cup of kibble in the morning and one in the evening. For the last few weeks she's been getting a half of a can of chicken soup canned food each evening. she gets a raw egg in the mornings and cottage cheese. I've tried those meaty ball things that are supposed to put weight on them, but she refuses to eat them after about a day. She's strange, what can I say. Any ideas on what I can entice her with? Do I just need to up the food amount? If I put much more kibble in there, she doesn't eat it. As a side note - she's been tested for worms and all that. She's otherwise healthy, just the heartworm stuff that we're in the process of kicking. Bleh. Thanks in advance.

When I went looking for a dog (for purposes of herding / moving 200+ dairy cows on a farm in Mississippi) for my stepfather, I was directed to a cattle farm in Norman, OK. The stud was Lockeye Zimmer who is by Lockeye Bronze, I think. I don't recall the name of the dam (I guess I could look at Recon's papers). Anyway, Recon's from that breeding. He used both dogs on the ranch. We got to watch Zimmer a few times - he was intense. Anyway, Zimmer was purchased by this guy from Lockeye. NO idea about the actual Lockeye breeder, though, just know she's in Oklahoma. Also can't really comment about any dog from her lines other than Recon - and Recon is, of course, the best dog that has ever existed

Hey everyone. Once again, I'm sorry for being absent. The semester is winding down and I'm having an awful time finding spare moments. Eilidh's testing all came back normal, again. She hasn't had any seizures for a couple of days so once again we're stumped. As RDM said, my Mother is in love. Well, she's in love between the times when Eilidh's not chewing something up, but...yeah. We're going to continue watching her, of course. The vet says he's seen a few cases in the past where puppies would suffer from seizures a while and then outgrow them with no real explanation as to why it happens. I am hoping that's the case. The seizures that she's had since that weekend are mild ones - nothing near as bad as the original ones. We weren't planning on keeping her, but after discussing things with the vet, it's probably best that she not be shipped anywhere. We don't know what's triggering the seizures or when they'll start again. On a good note... She's back to eating normally, drinking fine, and has gained back the lost weight. She's growing normally and appears to have regained the sight in her eye. She's moving easily again, too, no more stiff gait or dragging that leg. So, yeah, we're still just watching and waiting.

Well, today seems to be the same as yesterday. She's up and moving more, though. The hind leg is still weak and mom says she thinks the vision is still blurry in that eye, but other than that she appears to be getting better. The vet visit went well - Beanie's temp is normal and we've still had no seizures since the weekend. more waiting and seeing, I guess. and luckily, it seems I only had a 24 hour flu thing because other than feeling extremely tired I seem to be better. Now if I can just get Recon to eat, I'll be sufficiently content for the day.

Still nothing extraordinary to report. She's eating, drinking, and wanting to play a little, but is still weak. But, no seizures. So that's something. The vision issue seems to be somewhat better - she's noticing things on that side of her body again. Anywho. I've the flu, it seems, so I'm going to hide with Recon in my bed until the evil stuff goes away. I'll update on Miss B/Eilidh in the morning; mom's taking her in to the vet just to be checked out.

Congrats!!

Recon did that when she was a pup. I'm super lazy, and I figured, hey - she's the active one, she needs to work for it....(ok, i'm really lazy) anyway, if she brought the ball but dropped it far from me, i'd just ignore it. I'd pet combat or stare off into space or twiddle my thumbs. Sometimes I waited a LONG time. Eventually she started pushing the ball/toy with her nose towards me. Every time she pushed it closer, I praised her, but I didn't touch the ball till she pushed it all the way to me. It took about 3 days of this, but now she brings it all the way back. Sometimes she'll still drop it far off, but if I say to her "all the way", she'll pick it up and follow through. Anywho, dunno if that'll work for you, but it's worth a shot.

She's eating well - just plain chicken and some rice with broth at the moment. Mom's planning on giving her a mix of the chicken, rice, and some kibble tonight to try to get her back on a more complete diet. She is drinking, just not as much as we'd like. Mom says that this afternoon she's trying to run around and play, but that leg is still giving her issues. She lost the fever sometime earlier this afternoon between the time I talked to mom this morning and about an hour ago. And, we're still seizure free. Honestly, we're not ruling anything out at the moment. They drew blood enough to run tests, and we're supposed to bring her back on Thursday for more. Right now, though, it's a wait and see thing. She's improving, so hopefully she'll continue to improve. I really don't know what else to do at this point.

So far it's only been a fever, then the seizures, then weakness in the limbs. The vision issue was noticed the last day at the vet. It's only in her right eye. And only her back right leg is weak this morning. The front right is still shaking a bit when she sits up on it, but when you put pressure on the pad of her foot, she's able to push back - quite happily, I might add. I don't believe she ever vomitted. We had a day of loose stool but that has cleared up completely now. She's eating more, now, and more enthusiastically. Apparently at about 6 this morning when mom got up to feed the horses, B/eilidh felt warm and mom checked her temperature - it was a low fever, but it was there. So, mom's just keeping an extra close eye on her and she's already called the vet. Does anyone know if you can give pedialyte to dogs? Mom wants something that will stimulate her drinking a bit more and I don't really want to try the jello or kool-aid thing again - for all I know, she had a reaction to something in that. Best of luck to Fizzie and Tank. It's so hard watching and waiting

I hope it wasn't the vaccines. Really, I just want it to go away, whatever it is. The poor thing is just miserable. I called mom to check on her just a few minutes ago... I was talking to her for a few minutes getting an update and eventually mom said, "Hey, I have to go, we're disturbing Eilidh." I asked how the heck we were disturbing her... Well, apparently Eilidh wasn't happy with sleeping on her bed on the floor. She whined, so my mother picked her up and had her on the couch with her and since mom was sitting up to talk to me, Eilidh wasn't comfortable. On the couch. Eilidh was on the couch. My mother hardly lets her CHILDREN sit on that couch. It's the single piece of furniture in the house that dogs aren't even allowed to look at, much less think about being on. I asked her, very nicely, why Eilidh was on the couch. She said to me (in this snappy 'duh" tone), "Well, Aerie', she was -sad-." Um?

She had her puppy shots on the 9th, same day as Recon's treatment. I was thinking about maybe it being a reaction, but since it was a week later....eh. I did remember to tell the emergency vet about them, and we gave him a copy of the shot record. As of right now her vision is either blurry or gone in her right eye, her right side is weak, and she can barely lift her head half the time. She has moments of lots of energy and then she just crashes. But...still no more seizures. Mom's hand-feeding her bits of chicken and rice and she's eating well for the most part. She's also drinking. As long as she keeps that up, she won't have to go back to the vet till next thursday at checkup time.

Well, we were able to bring miss bean home today. She's lost a LOT of weight in just the two days and she's nervous and twitchy, but we've been seizure free for 24 hours now. They could not find any -reason- for the seizures. The vet is standing by his heat stroke assumption, but I really really really don't think it's heat stroke. She -never- got hot. In fact, even for the little while that she was outside, it was overcast and very cool and she was only out long enough to potty. We've been told to watch her and bring her back in as soon as the seizures start again - if they do. We're starting her on solid foods this evening - rice and chicken I suppose. Nothing too rich. Also, she's still super weak in her back legs and keeps falling over. Luckily, she doesn't have a lot of energy at the moment, so she's not tearing around hurting herself. I guess now we wait and see. Get some weight back on her and just watch to see what happens. At least she's alive. We really didn't think she was going to make it through there for a while. She's a fighter, though.

just looked over at your dog and just had a moment of utter "aww". I'm sitting in my recliner right now, catching up on some homework, watching food network, contemplating dinner, and worrying over Eilidh. But I looked down a few minutes ago and saw my Recon sleeping at my feet. She was flat on her side, snoozing hard, almost snoring. I was just quietly watching her, liking how relaxed she looked and how content she is. She opened an eye at one point and immediately focused on me, wagged her tail, and then went back to sleep. I've had her since she was a tiny little thing and I purposely didn't get attached because she was meant to be a working dog for my step-father's dairy. But a few weeks with her, training her, her training me....wow. She's just an amazing little dog and I'm so so so glad my family tricked me into keeping her. It just hit me, really. It's not a news flash or anything but the moment was just really sweet. I really love this dog. She's my heart, a best friend, and the reason I make myself get up every morning hours earlier than I have to because I want to spend the time with her. Anyway, sorry, I'm rambling. But I figured you folks would be ones who really can understand. I just really adore this dog and feel very special that she chose to love me.

Just a quick update - Eilidh's stable at the moment. hasn't had any more seizures since early afternoon. She finally wanted to drink some water but is still on the IV. She's going to stay overnight and probably all day tomorrow, so they can run more tests on Monday. She's still lethargic and such, though, and apparently has a weakness now in her back legs. We're just waiting. Taking it one step at a time. Hopefully we'll know what's going on soon.

Ugh. I had just purchased four of the little packets of Nutro Natural Choice from Petsmart to get Recon to eat her kibble. I've had to switch to Wellness and with her not feeling well I was just trying to entice her a bit. I decided against giving it to her last night, though. No idea why, really, just remember standing at the counter going "no, i'll give it one more day, we'll try it tomorrow." Still have the receipt. Thank God I didn't feed it to her.

I'm sorry I haven't replied, folks. It's been a bit of a doozy this weekend. We set out yesterday to take Bean to the airport to send her to RDM - but because of (Katrina) construction on the bridges, traffic was horrible. We left 5 hours earlier than the flight (it only takes an hour and a half to get there) and still managed to miss the flight. Eilidh was fine during the ride over, drank water, had a snack, played in the car with us while we were stuck in traffic. We got to my aunt's house finally (decided to go there since she lives close to the airport and we were exhausted) and spent a few hours there - Eilidh was stlil fine. But, on the way home, she started thrashing around in the crate. We took her out and held her and she had several more seizures on the way home. They seem to be coming in groups and she's had several more since being taken to the vet. She's a lot worse than yesterday and they still don't know exactly what's happening with her. I'm having to go back up to my apartment today, but Mom lives in Gulfport and that's where the Emergency Vet is. We got semi-lucky on that (as lucky as you can be in a situation like this), as Mom trained one of the vet's horses for him a while back on "credit" so...yeah. Vet bills are taken care of thank goodness. I will keep everyone updated as things progress.

Well, another day of fever for Eilidh and another day of achey pain for Recon. Recon's still eating and drinking well enough so I'm not overly concerned about her - she's better than she was yesterday so as long as she keeps improving, I'm satisfied. But, Eilidh's still running a fever. I took her to the vet today and she basically just poked and prodded and checked her gums and listened to her chest and that was that - I'm supposed to just watch her and see if she gets any worse. She doesn't think it's parvo, but told me to watch her water intake - because dehydration is the most dangerous part. To keep both dogs drinking, we've been flavoring the water with a tiny bit of kool-aid. Recon loves the stuff, and Eilidh is developing a taste for it. On top of that, my lovely neighbors played loud music till 5 this morning and I couldn't sleep - finally they turned it off long enough for me to get to sleep and then turned it back on at about 7:00 this morning. So, yes, I've had 2 hours of sleep. Recon's snappy. Puppy's whiney. We're such a cheerful group today. It'll get better soon, I'm sure.

I talked to the vet today, told him I was concerned. He said that, unless she's in obvious pain, it's a "good" thing that it's slowing her down. Her gums are pink again - earlier they were getting alarmingly pale. I dumped some cherry jello jiggly pieces in her water and she consumed quite a bit trying to get those out - plus eating the jello helped, I'm sure. So now she's pinkish again. And she ate a pretty decent meal - not all of it, but better than yesterday. So, I guess I'll just keep putting the warm towels on her back (which she seems to -love-) and giving her extra yummies with her dinner to entice her appetite. Meanwhile - Eilidh has decided to develop a fever. It's low at the moment - about 103. Her eyes are watering a bit and she seems sneezy. My vet in Gulfport was closed by the time -this- started, so I called the Emergency Vet close by my apartment and they said that if it spikes and she starts getting lethargic to bring her in, but otherwise just to watch her. She was fine at the vet check on Friday morning, he took her temp and all that good first time puppy stuff, so it has to be something new...perhaps a reaction to the shots? She doesn't seem affected by it all that much, just the sneezing, really. It hasn't stopped her from destroying yet another roll of toilet paper (thank DOG it's just toilet paper!) and she's running around like a nut. I'll check her temp again in a while and keep watch tonight. One day, I'm going to have a full week of absolutely no worries, and I shall celebrate by buying cake. A big chocolate cake. And it will have chocolate icing and chocolate filling and chocolate confetti pieces on top and perhaps some whipped cream or vanilla ice cream or...both. In the meantime, I'm going to sit in the middle of my living room floor with a thermometer in one hand and a hot towel in the other and nurse these dogs. Poor babies. This makes me feel like I'm doing a really crappy job at this whole being a dog-mom thing.

Recon's third heartworm treatment was Friday...it was the two injection one - one Friday morning and one Saturday morning. Her back on both sides where they did the injections is swollen and sore and she's having a hard time walking up and down stairs. She wanted to get on the bed today and I told her she could, but she didn't want to jump. I tried to lift her but she whined so I put her back down and eventually she just jumped up on her own, though - slowly. She's moving SO slowly and she's not really wanting to eat; she'll only nibble at her food. She won't lie on her side or curl into a ball - which is how she usually sleeps. She just snoozes on her stomach. I've been putting warm towels on her back but not putting pressure or anything and she seems to like that. She is still drinking (a lot, actually) and like I said she's nibbling on her food, but...she just seems off. More so than after the other two sessions. And, Dr. Gingles made sure to tell me that after this one I need to make sure she's very, very calm at all times - more so than after the others, because this was a more intense treatment. I can handle that part, but...I guess I'm just worried. Is there anything else I should be doing for her to ease the pain? I didn't think to ask for pain medicine from him, and I guess I should have Geez, this is just making me feel even more awful about the whole situation. She's been such a trooper so far and to see her like this just breaks my heart.

Happy Gotcha Day, Odin!!

Just wanted to pop in and say - after Eilidh's worming yesterday she's feeling -much- better in the tummy department. She has some seriously wicked worms going on in there. But she's already got a more deflated tummy that looks much more comfortable and she's not scavenging for food between meals (and believe me, I was giving her plenty per serving for a 7-8 week old puppy) She's now content with her meals and doesn't fall on each one like she's starving - though she's still a hearty eater. It's only been a day, I imagine it'll take a while for that to truly settle down. Anyway, Thanks to you two for donating. It's awesome of you, for sure.

Firstly, thank you so much for donating! That's incredibly kind of you. and you pronounce it Ay-lee (long A) like...Kaylee. Only, you know, without the K. She's answering to it, now. I just couldn't keep calling her "The Puppy" and one of Recon's toys is called "bean" because, well, it's in the shape of a bean.... So every time I'd say Bean, Recon would get excited and try to bring me the toy and since Recon can't play till the end of her heartworm treatment....well, yeah. So Eilidh it was. Anywho, i'm rambling, and I'm really supposed to be paying attention to this meeting (eek!) so, off I go!

I am so very, very sorry for your loss.

Miss Eilidh went to the vet today (for the record, I love my vet. Recon's 3rd heartworm treatment, a 6 month supply of heartguard for her, Eilidh's shots, worming and exam, and a one month dose of Revolution for her, plus an overnight kennel stay - $101.00. Oh yes. I love my vet.) She's checked out healthy, if a little wormy. Eyes are clear, ears are clean, heart and lungs sound great, good weight on her, flea-less (thank goodness!) ('cause she came to me infested), and I had him look at her eye even though it hasn't given her any trouble since day 1 and he said it's fine. She hears, she sees, she's vocal - we graduated from Puppy Exam 1. Yay! Now, those of you who followed the "It's a Puppy." thread know that RDM has staked her claim on Eilidh. She's going to be flying Bean out to the grand land of Canada. These kind of things get super expensive fast - flight cost, crate cost, health certificates, all that good stuff. You also probably know of the Border Collie rescue that RDM is associated with - That'll Do Border Collie Rescue. On this page there's a link to Make A Donation. RDM didn't have to agree to take this puppy, but she did. The financial burden to get her there into a safe environment is large, and I'm asking you guys to consider giving a donation to help her with that. If there's more donated than is needed, I am sure the funds will be put to good use - heartworm treatments for the dogs that come into rescue positive, transport fees for someone else, anything to help the dogs. No one -has- to, of course. I just felt it'd be a nice gesture and would certainly help. (Feel free to toss shoes and stuff at me, now, or to tell me to hush up.) Have a lovely day, folks.

How -cute-! Woo's right eye is brownish and his left eye is blue. Eilidh's right eye is blue and her left eye is brownish...with a blue speck. They MATCH!