Puppy update a few weeks down the road

We've had Sebastian almost a month and a half now. Here's updates:

• We're now giving him 5 mg of prednisone once per day, not twice, and it seems to still be fairly affective at stopping the itching. He's still itchy, though, so we may end up having to take him to the vet anyway. Sebastian is also way less manic and ravenous. Usually. He gets super annoying around bed time or when he's tired.
• We've started him on one pill of fish oil per day. Hoping that might help with the itching too.
• He's finally losing his puppy teeth. He's very bitey still.
• He's pretty well house trained at this point. Messes are rare.
• He really likes squeaky toys.
• Oscar tolerates him much better, but I still wouldn't call them buddies. There are brief moments when I think it looks like Oscar wants to love on Sebastian or play with him, but it doesn't last long, and usually ends with Oscar hissing and/or swiping at Sebastian.
• Abby and Sebastian have finally started to play some in the evenings. They never play outside, though, which is weird. And most of the time Abby doesn't want anything to do with Sebastian; it's just sometimes at night when she gets a wild hair and decides it's play time.
• He sleeps really well at night. He's great in the crate. :D
• The diarrhea cleared up after a week or two when we first got him.
• We messed up and didn't continue his deworming meds like we were supposed to, so now he has worms again, and we're treating all the animals this time. Ugh. They'll all get a second dose in two weeks. And we'll continue treatment as directed this time.
• He's learning his tricks pretty well (sit, up, down, spin). He might be pretty smart!

Puppy Update

Quick bits:

• Sebastian seems to have come to us already crate trained. Yay!
• He's not house trained. Several messes, but he might be slowly starting to get it.
• He's very very itchy. We've tried benadryl with no luck. Oatmeal baths didn't help much either. So we're trying prednisone (5mg twice per day at the moment). It helps with the itching, but the Sebastian is very thirsty, VERY hungry, and is pretty manic ALL THE TIME.
• Abby doesn't like him much. She's not aggressive towards him, but she also doesn't want him messing with her. So, of course, he's constantly trying to get all up in her business. He wants to play. She does not.
• Oscar isn't a fan, but Sebastian is VERY curious about him.
• Sebastian came to us with diarrhea, probably due to a combination of intestinal parasites, changes in food, and stress. 

Abby + Benadryl = Crazy Dog

So apparently there are a small percentage of people and dogs who don’t get drowsy when they take Benadryl; they experience hyperactivity instead.

Such is the case with Abby.

It’s why she has been constantly pacing and acting nutty the past couple of days. Travis even slept in the living room with her last night so that she could pace freely around the house (he slept out there so he could prevent her from barking all night).

Fleas Bite

We visited Travis’ dad last weekend, and apparently their dogs had fleas. After we got home, we discovered that our dogs also had fleas. Great.

We gave them flea baths with some kind of “natural” flea shampoo, but I don’t think it did much. After a few days, Travis got the dogs (and Oscar) flea collars but it seemed to have very little effect on the dogs. So yesterday Travis washed the dogs with a new flea shampoo (Hartz Ultra Guard Rid Flea & Tick Dog Shampoo, active ingredient Phenothrin 0.27%).

The bath seemed to help Samson, but Abby has been manic ever since her bath: constant panting, pacing, and itching. She seems to only find a little relief outside.

We tried giving her enough benedryl for a 150lb dog, but it didn’t seem to help much. She got a little bit better over night, but she is still very uneasy, and she kept us up a lot of the night with her restless behavior.

The last time she acted like this was when we put some of the flea medication on her. It’s got to be some kind of allergic reaction to the medication. Hopefully she’ll get better soon.

Aural (Ear) Hematoma II

The good news: Samson's 1st aural hematoma healed without any problems or deformities. :)

The bad news: Samson now has another one. Same ear.

We haven't taken Sam to the vet yet, but since we had some of the meds left over from last time, we're treating his ears for an infection and hoping that it fixes itself. We first noticed it three days ago, and it hasn't gotten any worse. The hematoma isn't as large as the first time he had it, and we're monitoring him closely to try to minimize how often he shakes his head.

We'll keep an eye on things for a few more days and hope that it starts to get a little smaller as the blood is reabsorbed into his body. If we continue to see no change in the size of the hematoma, we'll just have to take him back to the vet. We hate to do this because Sam is getting on in years (he'll be 8 in August), and we would really rather not risk putting him under anesthesia. We'll do whatever we have to do, though — Samson's health is priority #1.

Aural (Ear) Hematoma

We had to take Samson to the vet for an aural hematoma today. Apparently he had a mild yeast infection in both ears (likely due to his seasonal allergies) which caused him to shake his head enough to cause the hematoma in his ear. A hematoma is basically a pocket of blood that forms in the ear; it's usually caused by excessive head-shaking or by trauma to the ear. People who box often get ear hematomas too; it's what causes cauliflower ear. Samson's wasn't too bad. The vet had to drain the blood by using a syringe, and we were given meds to put in his ears to fix the yeast infection. If the hematoma fills back up, we'll have to consider fixing it with surgery. Hopefully that won't happen.

Trying a New Prednisone Regimen

As of January 15th (about three weeks ago), we've had Samson on a new regimen of 20 mg of prednisone twice per day in the hopes of "resetting" any immune problems that may or may not be causing his continued limp. Travis decided to give it a try because his progress has pretty much plateaued. We'll likely keep him on this dosage for about eight weeks or so.

Before we put him on the prednisone, he was itching A LOT. The itching has been a little better since then, but not nonexistent.

Samson's also been pretty ravenous since he's been on the prednisone. Those steroids make him hungry ALL THE TIME! lol

Probably unrelated, but just in the past few days, he's been acting a little more lethargic than usual. According to other stuff we've read, prednisone usually increases energy, not decreases. And two days ago, he had a bit of diarrhea. Don't know if that's related to the prednisone, the lethargy, or if its just nothing at all (probably nothing lol).

We may end up taking him off of the prednisone earlier than planned if he doesn't start acting more like himself soon. A trip to the vet might also be planned if we can figure out how to get him in the SUV...

Prednisone Kicks the Limp

A week ago we started Samson on a short-term regimen of prednisone with the hopes that his limping is due to autoimmune arthritis (a.k.a. Lyme disease). In theory, giving Samson a round of pred will "reset" his body and get rid of the inflammation and limp. After two days his limp was mostly gone; he hasn't limped at all in a couple of days now. His allergies have also settled down (for a while there he was trying to get a few hot spots).

We're continuing his antibiotics, glucosamine+condroitin, and fish oil. We'll get two more weeks of antibiotics before he finishes these so that he'll have a full month's worth before it's all over with. As a side note, we're supplementing his diet with plain yogurt to help his digestive system while he's taking the antibiotics since they can sometimes upset dogs' stomachs.

Summer Summary

Abby Stats: 1.5 years old
Samson Stats: almost 5 years old

Just a recap of how the dogs have been this summer. They've been really itchy most of the time, especially the past few weeks; I think it's the changing weather and pollen in the air. Of course there's also the usual amount of shedding, not better or worse, just pretty consistent.

The past few nights, we've noticed Samson limping a little and favoring his right back leg. He did this a couple of months ago, too, and it eventually went away. I wonder what it could be...

Abby Likes TV

Abby Stats: 1 year and 7 months
Samson Stats: 4 (almost 5) years

Abby is becoming more affectionate, and slowly but surely she is calming down. She likes to get up on the couch with us sometimes, but she usually only sits still for a few moments then tries to play or just won't sit still.

We've been getting a couple of weeks of free the National Geographic channel, and it turns out that Abby's favorite show is the Dog Whisperer. lol She'll sit right in front of the tv and watch it for the longest time. It's pretty funny.

Abby and Samson have both been shedding a lot. We gave them both good baths last week and the week before. It's really helped, especially with Abby, but Samson is still shedding a fair bit.

Speaking of Sam, we need to get him some more allergy pills. He's been itching a lot due to the dry weather, pollen, and loose hair. I wish the vet wouldn't make it so hard for us to get the pills. I mean, at this point it's just something that we have to deal with when it comes to Samson; I don't see why the vet thinks he has to examine Sam every time we ask for a refill on his Rx, especially considering how long it takes us to go through the a single batch. Oh well...

We took Abby and Samson to visit the nieces while they were in town staying with the nephews who now live here. Abby did really well with all of the other dogs and all of the kiddos. Samson, as usual, mostly just hangs out. Abby on the other hand, likes to try to play with the dogs and kids. She did really well, and was especially gentle with Millie, the new Boston Terrier puppy that my nephews now have. I wish we hadn't forgotten the video camera when we went to visit.

Itchy Puppy

• Ellie has gotten really good about going in her crate. Barely using the leash to guide her in any more.
• Started giving Ellie allergy pills for all the itching. Seems to help during the night.