Abby update

Recent news on Abby (July 15, 2021):

• Over the course of a few months, Abby began eating less. It started as a refusal to chew her bones and developed into eating less food.
• After a vet visit, we discovered Abby had dropped from 109 pounds to 90 pounds. The vet also noticed some swelling in her upper jaw/lip area.
• Abby was began a two week treatment of Clavamox for a suspected bad tooth. After two days, swelling was down and Abby began eating a little boiled chicken.
• Three days later, Abby was put under for a teeth cleaning and had two teeth extracted. The suspected bad teeth did not present any pus but the vet thought they were bad. Abby continued the Clavamox for another week and a half.
• During the week and a half, Abby ate very little and developed severe diarrhea. Even after her jaw had fully healed, Abby still was not eating.
• We stopped Clavamox and began prednisone to help with the diarrhea and appetite. Abby slowly began eating again and the diarrhea stopped. She also developed an increased thirst and regular incontinence.
• After three weeks of prednisone, we stopped treatment and the incontinence seems to have stopped as well. Abby is now eating again regularly and we are hoping she will gain some of her weight back.

Update (August 23, 2021):

• Incontinence continued so we but Abby on Proin XR every other day. She seems to be responding well to the drugs and not peeing in the house.
• Three months later, diarrhea returned. Immediately gave Abby 5mg of Prednisone. 36 hours later, Abby had a solid stool. Not sure if that is a coincidence or if the prednisone relieved an inflamed GI tract. We suspect IBS.

Tummy Troubles

On June 25, Samson had loose stool and messed on the floor. For the next five weeks, Samson continued to have loose stools. When taken off of Ol’Roy and given rice, stools would improve. The veterinarian placed Samson on metronidazole and propectalin and continued the rice meals. Stools improved within the week. Samson was slowly started again on Ol’Roy. As soon as Ol’Roy was re-introduced, the loose stools would begin. Also, we began to notice Abby having loose stools. I threw away the Ol’Roy, cleaned the food container, and bought and new bag of Ol’Roy but the loose stools continued. That’s when I noticed the bag read “Improved Formula”. We switched to Purina and stools immediately improved with both dogs. We suspect that a change in the Ol’Roy recipe caused the gastrointestinal issues.

Late Night Disturbances

Last night around 3am Samson woke us up head-butting the door and wanting out of the bedroom. It was at this time when Abby happened to barf twice on the floor in the bedroom (totally unrelated to Sam — he just wanted to lay in the hallway). That's the 2nd time she's done that within the last 3 or 4 months, and she's also had diarrhea on one occasion during that time.

Last night we ate bacon and pancakes for supper, and Travis gave her and Samson both a little bit of each, so maybe that had something to do with it. Another possible factor is that we changed to a new dog food (from Old Roy Large Breed to Iams Large Breed) within the last 6 months.

Anyway, just wanted to document.

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...

A Little Sibling Rivalry

Not my dog and cat. lol

Samson and Abby had their first fight last night. Here's how it went down...

We're renting out our house this weekend for the football game, so we're staying at my parents' house. I had taken the dogs and Oscar to my parents' house yesterday morning before I went to work because our renters were going to arrive at our house at noon. The dogs had been at my parents' house all day and hadn't eaten anything yet (which is like their usual schedule anyway - they tend to eat just once in the evening), so Travis gave them each a rawhide chew to tide them over before we fed them when we went to bed. They ate the treat without any problems.

The trouble came afterwards when Travis put out some of their toys; a couple of the toys were ones in which we often put peanut butter or other treats (they didn't have anything in them this time, though). I guess the stress of being in an unfamiliar place was too much, because as soon as Travis set them on the floor, Abby and Sam just went at it! A lot of growling and barking and showing of teeth, but they never really bit each other (which is usually how most dog fights go anyway). We were able to break it up pretty quickly so the fight probably didn't last 30 seconds. Once they were quiet, we put them face to face with their treats between them, so they'd accept each other and make up. They behaved fine after that, so we gave them some supper (on opposite sides of the room just to be safe lol) to quell the Hunger Monster.

It was quite an exciting evening!

Update on Samson

So just a little update on how Samson is doing since we've been treating him for lyme disease for a little over a week now. We could tell he was feeling much better after just 24 hours of treatment, but he still seemed to have a fever, so the vet said to give him a daily dose of prednisone for four days. After that, we really started to see improvement.

In addition to the temporary prednisone, he also gets a dose of an antibiotic twice a day via a pill cleverly concealed within peanut butter-covered treats. Needless to say he loooooooooves to get his medicine, and he probably thinks peanut butter is a cure-all now. He even hurries to get back in after going out just so he can get a treat.

He's definitely spoiled now, and his appetite is obviously back in full force. :)

All in all, he seems to be back to his normal self, and we'll be able to stop his medicine next Wednesday. So thankful for this being an easily treatable illness!

Oscar Says it's Time to Eat

Oscar doesn't get a lot of face time in the diary, so I thought I'd show him off in this post. He begs like this all the time whether he has food in his bowl or not. I think he just likes the attention. ;)

Four-Month Update

Abby Stats: 1 year old

Abby has turned into a very confident and happy dog. She’s not afraid of anything. She is a regular barker and guards the house well. In fact, just yesterday my mom came to the house while we were at the neighbors’ and rang the doorbell. Both dogs barked of course, but Abby also stuck her head through the cat door to see who was outside. Mom put her face to the window, and Abby, head still stuck through the cat door, growled menacingly at her. I had to laugh when I saw her do it; she looks a little ridiculous with her head sticking through the cat door. It makes me feel good to know that Abby will do a good job intimidating would-be burglars.

Abby walks really well on the leash, though she tends to try to lead. When we take her and Samson out to the square, she will sometimes bark at other dogs when we try to pull her away from them. I think she is just doing this because she is confused or is unsure of how to behave around other dogs that are leashed. It’s definitely something to do with the leashes, because she is always very friendly when she meets dogs when she is free in the back yard.

Other than that, she eats really well, has gotten into a regular schedule about going out, and plays with Oscar regularly. She loves digging in the yard (to our chagrin) and playing with Samson. She gets jealous when he is outside on his own and will bark and whine wanting to go out where he is. She doesn’t seem to mind as much when the situation is reversed and she is outside on her own.

She likes to cuddle and play with us in the floor. Her personality is so much like Ellie's sometimes, but minus all of Ellie's fearfulness. Abby really has been a Godsend for us.

She is very fond of chewing on her toys; we bought her a Kong Extreme about a month ago, and she’s already chewed off a few pieces of it. She also really likes the bones that she has, and has done a very good job of not chewing up much that she is not supposed to. The Christmas tree, however, had its trial by fire not long after we put it up. Somebody (probably Oscar, but possibly also Samson since he likes to get into tight spaces…) knocked the tree over, and we came home to find a bunch of chewed-up ornaments. Luckily none of our good ones were destroyed (it was only the inexpensive decorative ones), but we scolded her really well and she hasn’t paid any attention to the tree since then. She seems to learn very quickly when she does something wrong, and rarely does it more than once.

Also, we discovered today what appears to be a third dew claw on one of her hind legs. It looks so weird and is not like the others. It's sort of soft and looks as though it could just be pulled out or something. Gives me the heeby-jeebies just wrting about it. We might have to have it removed just for being so... creepy. lol

Growing Pains

Ellie Stats: 7 months old, 80-ish lbs.

• Ellie’s been limping a lot. We think it’s growing pains and have been giving her half an aspirin to help with the pain.
• Probably related to the aspirin (and because Travis didn’t give her some food to go with it), Ellie threw up several times yesterday and overnight. She seems to be better today (haven’t given her any aspirin today) and so we gave her just a little bit of food to see how she keeps it down. So far so good…

LESSON LEARNED: Always give FOOD with aspirin!

Starting to Grow Up

Ellie Stats: 7 months old

• Ellie’s personality seems to be transitioning from puppy to adult. She’s been a little less playful all the time and a little calmer. Sleeping more; eating less.
• Ellie chewed up the kitchen rug. Apparently she still hasn’t learned that those are off limits…

Oscar Decides She's Okay

Ellie Stats: 18 weeks old, 11 weeks with us, 50 lbs.

• Ellie hasn’t peed on the carpet in weeks. :D
• She barked and snapped at Samson last night when he got too close to a bone that she had snatched from him earlier after he left it alone.
• Oscar has decided he likes Ellie. They play all the time now.

Ellie's 2nd Week

Ellie Stats: 9 weeks old, 25 lbs.

• Ellie and Samson officially play tonight for the first time.
• Oscar is warming up to her as well. He jumped at her in his box, but she didn’t know what to think of it.
• Ellie is also beginning to scratch at the door when she needs to go out; she’s inconsistent at best.
• Ellie is getting much better with the crate. She does not usually whine while she’s in it, and waits quietly (though not always patiently) to be let out.
• Barked back at Samson before backing down from his food.