mbc1963

Hi, all, A lot of you remember my old boy Buddy from when he was younger and much more difficult. He came up sick Monday night - just a bit lethargic - and then yesterday it got progressively worse. I took him to the vet this morning. He is so sick he can hardly stand up or move; he can barely turn himself over in bed. He stopped eating yesterday, and vomited up the food he had eaten Monday. My vet did x-rays (no abnormalities), and bloodwork that showed his platelet count was very low. Apparently, there are three possibilities: infectious disease (tick-borne), autoimmune dysfunction, or cancer. I'm not going to spend thousands on tests for these things or treatment for cancer; the vet sent me home with prednisone in case it's autoimmune and doxycycline in case it's an infection. I'm really torn right now - Buddy is really, really miserable. Just lies on the bed like the shell of a dog. I've resigned myself to letting him go if he gets to the point where he's in pain, but having just come from the vet (to the tune of $900), I feel like they were neutrally optimistic about his improving. They have another blood test scheduled for him in a week to check on his progress. Has anyone ever faced this illness before? Have any stories of dogs this ill who came back and thrived? I'm worried that I'm letting the dog suffer because the vet gave me false hope - that I should have asked to have him put down, if he's going to feel this way. Truthfully, I'm worried that I'm going to come home from work tomorrow and find my dog dead in my house. That's how bad he looks. Would love some advice or words of wisdom or maybe just sympathy.

This may not be the best idea, but... We've always just let dogs off-leash in my family. We walk them on-leash in neighborhoods with leash laws, but in the woods and fields, they go off. I think I let Buddy off a couple days after I brought him home. (Mind you, he was an adult. And now that I think of it, I did try a ball field first.) I don't remember any dog ever leaving a certain radius away from me; they've always seemed to keep us in their sight. I guess I've never owned any dog who was prone to bolt. I kind of assumed dogs generally stayed with their masters. Mary

I don't have any real specifics to offer, but a generality I picked up after living with my fearful dog: when I pushed him to his reactive zone, it was too late, and he left the point of being able to hear me or learn from me. If I could keep him under threshold, he could learn. I had to learn to completely slow myself down and lower my expectations for the dog; progress came over the course of months and years, not hours and days. Sounds like your dog immediately goes from calm to over threshold when the leash goes on. It might be a matter of taking it waaay back: getting him to a point where he can see the leash in your hand, then being able to tolerate it being clipped to him, then just stepping outside the door and back in, then eventually sitting in the driveway with the leash on, etc. etc.. (Maybe he can't get used to sitting in the driveway with his leash on because he is already over threshold the entire time.) For my guy, I often found it was "one step forward two steps back," as well: a small, unpredictable event (a bike zooming by, or a man leaning over him suddenly) could set him back, and I'd have to bring him slowly forward again. Here is an article about threshold by a trainer who helped me A LOT in my early days with Buddy: http://suzanneclothier.com/the-articles/understanding-thresholds-its-more-under-or-over Good luck! Mary

Just to clarify: I do not think the cousin is a dog-hating monster. I do think she really doesn't like dogs, and absolutely doesn't understand the bond in any way. But she could have just left the dog at the animal control, and he would have been given to the local shelter and rehomed. She paid for him to be kenneled for some months, and also paid for his neuter surgery. And she's somehow the contact/caregiver for a cantankerous, stubborn old man, and I absolutely get that it's a thankless, difficult job. I suppose I'll leave it up to the new family to decide what to do; they're the ones who have to live with the choices. (A background worry for me would be that the old man - in his stubbornness - might decide to try to get the dog back, and might end up back in the hospital again in the near future. And then what? PTS?) Mary

The year I got my dog, an old man in my neighborhood got Joey, a husky puppy. Joey's owner was probably 70ish then, and that was 9 years ago. Since then, he's walked Joey twice a day past my house. Joey and my Buddy became friends, and I always knew when Joey and the old man were coming down the street, because Buddy has a very specific Joey-bellow of excitement. A few times in the last year, the old man fell in my driveway when Joey tugged him too hard. The old man is too frail and unbalanced now to restrain Joey or keep himself up - Joey's gotta be close to 100 lbs. of strong dog. So... this winter... the inevitable happened. The old man slipped on some ice and fell, breaking his hip in several places. The man's cousin is a fairly wealthy local businesswoman who doesn't like dogs. She's his only relative. Joey went to animal control, and then the woman put him in a kennel. The old man had surgery, pins put in his hip, and then a month of rehab. He's home now; it's been 3 months. Now... all the dog-walking neighbors know this man, and his dog, and have been very concerned about the whole thing. A daughter of one of my neighbors (lives a couple miles away) called the business woman and offered to adopt Joey. So, he was neutered and rehomed, but still in this area. Meanwhile... I stopped by the old man's house yesterday, and he's doing quite well. He stood and talked to me for about 15 minutes, leaning only on a cane. He's walking fairly well. Not well enough to control Joey, I'm certain. (And he's cantankerous enough that if he got Joey back, he'd be right back to trying to walk him.) So: Old man has no idea where his dog is. I know exactly where his dog is - I found out immediately after visiting the man, when I ran into the mother of the woman who adopted Joey. We could probably broker a reunion or visitation at the ball field where Joey and all the local dogs have met every day for 9 years. The old man could probably visit the dog on a fairly regular basis if the local dog-walkers worked it out. But the question is - yes or no? Is it better to let Joey settle in his new home and get to love his new owners, and to let the old man learn to cope with this loss? Would it be more painful to have them see each other, then have to separate again? I can see both sides, but in my heart it seems very, very cruel that the old man and the dog can't see each other. It's like a terrible dog movie with a sad ending. ::Sigh:: Mary

Opposite. My dog will not poop in his own (fenced at great expense) back yard. Nope. No way. Sometimes, if it's extremely cold or I'm sick, he doesn't get to go for long walks, and he will hold it like a champion - up to 36 hours, I think. I'm not sure which is better. I hate carrying poop bags, but I like that I never have to worry about stepping in poop in my yard. Mary

On Friday, we had an inch or two of fluffy snow on top of slick conditions from a thaw and freeze. I was walking my dog on campus at the local college, feeling confident because I was crossing a grassy field, when my legs went out from under me. Turns out I was on a sheet of ice. One leg went forward, one went back, and I ended up on the ground in agony from a hip injury. It took only about four minutes for some local do-gooders to come by, cover me with a blanket, and phone an ambulance. Meanwhile, my reactive dog Buddy was growling at all comers and generally freaking out. I couldn't stand up, but couldn't get in the ambulance because I needed to secure the dog at my house first. None of my dog-walking neighbors was home from work, and Buddy wouldn't go off with any strangers. In the end, the ambulance guys got me upright, the do-gooders drove me and Buddy to my house, and I was able to get a ride to the hospital with my brother. It ended up being a bad hamstring pull or tear - immobilizing, but likely not so serious it'll need surgery. I had always worried about this - what would I do if I got hurt when out with the dog? Not sure there's a lesson to be learned here - unless it is to keep the numbers of lots of dog-loving contacts in your phone. (Though, come to think of it, the local animal control officer probably could have brought the dog home.) In the end, just a revelation about the value of community: the strangers who drove us home, my friend up the street who came and took off my wet boots and socks and put on dry socks and shoes for me, the next-door neighbors who came and shoveled out my walks and sanded them for me the next day. Mary

Buddy seems to break or tear a nail right down at the base about once a year. It's good when it happens during the daytime and my vet charges $40 to trim it down and patch it up. It's bad when (twice) it happens on a weekend night, and the e-vet charges $188 for the same service. But you're right - it really, really hurts them. When my guy has a torn nail, all he will do is sit and lean Very Hard against me. (His posture of pain.) It's absolutely pathetic, and I can't let him go through the night in that much pain. ::Sigh:: Good news is that as soon as the nail is trimmed, Buddy is back to normal. Mary

This is a photo of Charlie Brown, the first dog of my life. He lived fast, burned bright, and died young. I had been asking for a dog for years. My mother refused to get one until my youngest sister stopped eating everything that fell on the floor. That finally happened the summer I turned seven. A family in town had a litter of unwanted pups, so we drove out to look at them. The teenage daughter of the family was nuzzling a little brown thing, and nudged the little black and white one out of the way, saying, "Get out of the way, Charlie." I chose him, and we drove home, where my brother redubbed him "Charlie Brown." I remember dressing him up in dolls' clothes. I remember parading him around the neighborhood on a leash, even though all the dogs ran free in those days. He was a very bad dog. My parents never had him neutered; it wasn't the culture of the time. He roamed free, impregnating females at will. The neighbor's little black dog came into heat, and Charlie broke through the basement window to get at her. Another neighbor had an expensive little miniature Schnauzer who nearly died giving birth to too-large puppies who looked suspiciously like Charlie. He was picked up by animal control many times. One of the favorite family stories is about the time my brother, about 9 at the time, came home and said, "Charlie Brown is stuck to some dog up the street, and the lady is really mad!" He was incorrigible. I remember him treeing cats, and sitting at the base of the tree for HOURS, barking. I remember trying to get him home one night when he didn't want to come home. He lay down in the middle of the street, still as a stone. My neighbor came out to comfort me, thinking he'd been hit by a car. I had to explain that no, he was just being a very badly behaved dog. I do think he bit me a few times. We didn't worry so much back then; I deserved it. He did get hit one time, chasing a car. He yelped and ran off into the woods. The man knocked on the door and was very apologetic to y mother: "I think I just killed your dog." My mother said that it was our fault; we knew there was a leash law. Charlie came down out of the woods a few hours later. He used to run off with a pack of males a few times a year. He would be gone for days and days at a time. I used to lie in bed and pray for his safe return. One summer, our family was planning to go to camp in Maine. Charlie had been missing for several days at that point, so we left dog food and a chain, and asked the neighbor boy to chain him up and feed him if he came home while we were gone. Sure enough, he did. When we finally returned in our station wagon, Charlie jumped into the back seat and refused to get out. Chastened. The summer I turned fourteen, Charlie got sick. We had no money to spare on any heroic treatments, so my parents just let things go. Finally, he got very, very sick. My father and I drove him to the vet, who told us he had heartworm and, most likely, cancer. We drove him home. The delivery men had just delivered the piano I had been yearning for. For forty-five years, every time I smelled the woody interior smell of that piano, I thought of the day I learned that Charlie was going to die. He went a few weeks later. My father buried him out back. I went to see "Star Wars" at the local theater... and still when I hear the opening anthem or smell that particular movie-theater butter smell, it brings me back to that strange sad summer. They told us he was a Russian wolfhound. We used to laugh about it. But maybe he was my first border collie. When I brought my current dog, Buddy, to my mother's house, she slipped up and called, "Charlie Brown." I fully expect to owe him an explanation for the dolls' clothes when I meet him at the bridge. Mary

When I brought my dog home, he had been in shelters with small outdoor pens for several months. I took him out to the woods where I could let him off-leash without worrying about other people or dogs, and was surprised when he immediately started running FAST and HARD in a straight line away from me for about 15 feet, and then back at me. Repeat, repeat, repeat. I think my young dog got the zoomies at the shelter, and had trained himself to just run back and forth, back and forth. Very sad. He also used to sometimes just spin in circles when he got very excited. First time I saw that, I thought, "What have I gotten myself into!?" It only took a couple days for Buddy to figure out that he could run more than 15 feet at a time, and he soon graduated to long, joyous running. Mary

When I brought my dog home, he had been in shelters with small outdoor pens for several months. I took him out to the woods where I could let him off-leash without worrying about other people or dogs, and was surprised when he immediately started running FAST and HARD in a straight line away from me for about 15 feet, and then back at me. Repeat, repeat, repeat. I think my young dog got the zoomies at the shelter, and had trained himself to just run back and forth, back and forth. Very sad. He also used to sometimes just spin in circles when he got very excited. First time I saw that, I thought, "What have I gotten myself into!?" It only took a couple days for Buddy to figure out that he could run more than 15 feet at a time, and he soon graduated to long, joyous running. Mary

My dog is 10 or 11 now, and his hips aren't what they used to be. I've just started blocking the stairway at night, so he won't try to climb up here and jump into bed with me. (The climbing and the jumping are what makes him sore.) It's 2:23 a.m., and I can FEEL him sitting at the bottom of the stairs, staring at me - willing me to either move the barricade or come downstairs to join him. I'm 50 years old and I'm trying to Ferberize a border collie. ::Sigh:: Mary

My dog used to regularly react to other dogs by getting into intense fights with them if they got near him. He's better now, but I had a lot of discouraging days and a couple vet bills to pay. I got to a point with my dog and his reactivity where I had to say to myself, "He's not a different dog this afternoon than he was this morning. You just know more about him." Every time we had an incident, I learned more about how Buddy responded to the world, what scared him or set him off. So... your dog is exactly the same loving, happy dog she was before you realized she's not a great sheepdog. The only thing changing here the picture in your head. And the great thing is, you can make a new picture, for free, and never even let your dog know she disappointed you. Mary

My dog is getting older and his hips are achy sometimes. The vet put him on Dasuquin tablets, which seem to have loosened him up some. I've read online (Amazon, maybe?) about people who buy the powdered horse version of this supplement for their dogs, because it's much cheaper. Does anyone have any experience with this? I've got another month or so of pills left, and want to take care of the reserve supplies, but would love to have a less expensive way to get the stuff. (I've also heard that the human version is cheaper and equivalent. Anyone done that?) Thanks in advance! Mary

My childhood dog used to run out of the kitchen and hide under a bed when my mother took out the frying pan. Why? Because some very rare times, the frying pan led to smoke which led to the smoke-detector noise. Ditto when my mother took out a new jar of mayonnaise or similar jar - because my mother was going to whack the cover upside-down on the counter to loosen it. I suppose Dusty was acutely aware of the kitchen environment because it was the most interesting (foody) room in the house. Mary

What I've always wondered is why we believed dogs were color-blind in the first place? Why did our culture tell us they only see in black and white? Since color vision is an evolutionary advantage, and since WE have it, it would make sense to me that our assumption is that other species see color as well, though maybe not in exactly the same way. Once online, a grown-but-young person strongly expressed her knowledge that we dream in black and white. I'd never heard nor imagined that before. Why would my brain dream in black and white when my visual experiences my whole life have been colored? Didn't make any sense at all to me. I've never heard that "fact" presented again - but the OP was completely certain. I love to freak out my own students by explaining that red objects aren't really red in their essence - they are just objects that absorb all other colors of the spectrum except red. So, the red light is reflected and makes it to our eyes. If you shine a light without the red segment onto a red object, it looks entirely black. Ditto with the other colors. My favorite old lab was taking the kids in a darkened room and shining specific wavelengths of light onto colored objects. Shine a yellow light on a baking soda box, and all the other colors become black. Shine a blue light on an apple, and it's black. It's very cool. Also, same unit: Play the color-blind test. Find a middle school student - boy generally - who sees the world utterly differently from his peers, and hasn't yet figured it out. Showed a boy two folders once: blue and magenta-to-the-point-of-pink. He could not see a difference between them. Had been walking around all his life pretty much red-blind, but in 14 years had never realized it. So... yeah, it's entirely possible that what I call "red" and what you think is the same color is not the same color. As opposed (maybe) to college students, eighth graders LOVE this stuff! This is the year when their brains are first awakening from their concrete, black-and-white world views. The Big Bang (and the absence of time and space before it) blows their mind. The notion that they are incredibly tiny in a gigantic expanding universe. They eat this stuff up, revel in it, take it home and tell their families about it. Unsettling them is one of my greatest joys. Those classes are often animated, loud, and emotional... but I think that's an illustration of the truest kind of learning: brain revolution. Mary

Thanks so much for the prompt replies! Good news - the soreness seems to have faded quickly. The tail went back up to its normal position, and Buddy stopped leaning on me and fussing - he crawled under the bed just now to go to sleep, as usual. (When he's in pain, he literally comes in the bed with me and lies as hard against me as he can.) So... bit of panic on my part, I guess. I can't stand when they hurt and they can't tell you what's going on! Mary

So... my dog has only seriously growled at me twice. Once, when I went to pull the screen door shut against the snow, and caught his tail in the door. And then again today, when I went to shut the car door and caught his tail in it. Poor baby! Anyway, he's now kind of pacing and leaning on me - the things he does when he's in pain. Is there anything I can do? I think it's down near the tip, and he's got a LOT of tail fur, so there was some padding. There is no blood or cut; I think it's just a big OW like when we shut our fingers in a door or something. Anyone had experience with this? I'm $2500 into a tooth repair for myself, so can't be running to the vet willy-nilly. Thanks, Mary

Um... Resistance is Futile? (Someone had to say it.) Mary

Yeah - the only reason I read the "lie-wait-look" thing as nonthreatening is because I watched my dog read it that way. It seems to me as though the lying dog was giving my dog some space and room to figure out if he wanted to engage. In that way, it seemed to feel much safer to Buddy than the "normal" approach of dogs we met off-leash: sudden, bounding, boisterous invasion of space. I almost want to say that the lying dog was "testing the waters," and that he didn't initiate play until he got some kind of a signal from Buddy (slight 'play bow' dart?) that he was willing. I wish I could engage the behavior again, to watch both the lying dog and my dog. I do know that for my dog, a "down" posture from a human, dog, or cat is much less threatening than an "up" posture. When strange humans come in my house, Buddy just wants them to SIT DOWN, dammit. If they'd lie flat on their backs on the floor, he'd be even happier. Sitting means no looming, and I'm guessing that for my former street dog, it means less chance of getting grabbed or hit - humans just aren't fast enough to get up from a sitting position to catch a loose dog. Having said that, though, I've only seen maybe 4 or 5 dogs do that "lie-wait-stare" thing over the course of eight years. So, it doesn't seem to be an essential canine skill. Mary

Excellent update - and yes, we all want to see the videos! FWIW... my dog used to be quite fearful, but his method of responding to strangers in the house/yard is to bark, LOUD and NONSTOP, while they are here. I might prefer a dog who became a quiet lump. Mary

My sympathies! I had my rescue dog about 5 weeks, when suddenly he fixated on one particular ceiling fixture in my house. He would sit and stare at it and growl and BARK for hours on end. It went from afternoon into the night, and started up again the next morning. I actually called my trainer and begged him for a solution - and he had nothing to offer me. In the end, I yelled really loudly at the dog and put him in the other room. He tried to do the fixating and barking a couple more times... but I yelled and removed him. He never started up again. Go figure. Not much help, probably... but I wanted to give you my support. It's a terrible feeling to not know what to do! (My dog now acts like your dog if there's a fly anywhere in the house. He cannot be called off and will not stop obsessing about it. Luckily, it's an easy fix - let the fly out - and only happens 4 or 5 times a year.) Mary

Exactly, Rebecca - that "stand with lowered head and stare" thing is very intimidating, I think. The body language difference in the lie down clearly says something different to MY dog at least. Mary

When I read the subject line, I was thinking about how my reactive dog would go ballistic if another dog stared at him. Direct eye contact is very threatening to him. BUT... when you described your dog's behavior, I thought, "Oh, Buddy would like that dog." The approach-lie-down-stare-wait thing seems to be a very indirect invitation to play, and Buddy generally responds with a rolicking round of play when another dog acts that way. (Or... he did when he was younger. He doesn't play much now.) Seems like your girl has started enjoying dogs enough to want to play with them, which is good. I'm not sure I'd discourage the behavior if it doesn't seem to be causing trouble, and she's only doing it with dogs she has played with in the past. If my dog can interpret it as happy-friendly-safe, I'd think a more "normal" dog could, too. Just my interpretation. Smarter folks may have deeper insight. Mary

I agree with Gloria: if you're planning on having kids soon, maybe hold off on another dog. Many people successfully juggle dogs and babies - but a LOT of people give up their hobbies and outside interests for a while when their kids are very small. Children are a huge lifestyle-changer, and people frequently underestimate how much their lives are going to change when they have kids. Sheepdog people can answer the question: how many are able to be fully committed with small children? Mary