Howloween 2012

We had our 2nd annual halloween party yesterday. It was a blast. :)

Not so much for the dogs, though. We had to keep them pinned up in our bedroom. They behave pretty well, though. We gave them some chew treats, and pet on them whenever we walked by the door (we just had a tall baby gate blocking them in so they could still see all the goings-on).

Anyways, the dogs have been well. Samson has good days and bad days with his knee. Mostly good, I think, but he'll go through an especially "limpy" handful of days every now and then.

Abby threw up yesterday. She ate her supper then yacked it right back up. She later went on to eat a rawhide treat and had no trouble keeping it down, so I think it was probably nothing.

Other than that, Abby's been fine. Very happy and affectionate as always.

Frisky Sam

Lately Samson has been feeling quite frisky. This is a big change from his usual mopey self, so we're taking it to mean that his knee is stating to feel better. He still limps, but it seems like every night around 8:00 to 10:00 he tries to play with Abby. Their favorite game? The mounting game (it's a dominance thing). Obviously this is not good for his knee or hip, so we have to always separate them or distract them with treats.

Other than that, we're still doing the glucosamine and fish oil, two each twice per day.

Samson After 8 Weeks of CM

We slowly weaned Samson off of his 8-week regimen of prednisone last week. He had his last pill Saturday, so he's been completely off of it for a few days now. He's still limping, but the good news is that the limping hasn't gotten worse since he's been off the pred. Keeping our fingers crossed that it stays that way, and he'll continue to heal. Hopefully he'll be back to 100% a year from now…

We continue to give Samson 4 pills per day of glucosamine+chondroitin and fish oil.

For the past couple of weeks Samson and Abby have been getting playful around 9:30 or 10:00 every night. It's hard making them not play because I know they've both got a lot of pent up energy. It's been FOREVER since we've taken them both to walk around the Square, and even though I walk/jog every morning with Abby, that doesn't help with Samson's boredom at all (and if I'm honest, it only barely helps with Abby's).


To tease you a bit — and to break up the monotony of all this news about Sam's bum knee — I've got a cute video of Abby that I'll post later after I've had a bit of time to cut out the dull bits. :)

Upset Tummy

Not the most savory of topics, but this blog is for documenting our dogs' quirky and funny behaviors as much as it is for documenting their illnesses and problems (if not more so for the latter). So here goes.

We came home to a mess in the living room this afternoon where Samson had gotten sick with diarrhea. It's probably nothing (after all, the same thing happens with people from time to time) and is likely due to the prednisone that he's taking. They say that prednisone can cause all kinds of little problems with the digestive system, so we're not going to worry until there's a need. And he's acting normal, so I don't think he necessarily feels sick. We've given him an imodium to help with the loose stool. Hopefully it will just pass and he'll be back to normal tomorrow.

Other than that, Samson seems to be slowly on the mend with his bum knee. We had a brief setback where he was completely tri-podding, but after about a week or two, he was back to his regular limping. This was about 5 or 6 weeks ago (April 15th). He continues to limp now, but we think it might be getting a little better. He's good to walk on it now, though there's still an obvious limp, but he rarely puts much weight on it when he's just standing. We've been a lot more strict on his conservative management since the setback a few weeks ago, and I think it's paying off.

We continue to give him 4 pills per day of glucosamine and chondroitin, 4 pills per day of fish oil, and 1 pill per day of prednisone.

I think the fish oil pills are really making Sam's fur super healthy. lol It's so shiny and soft now!

Abby has been shedding a lot recently so we gave her a bath last week. I think it might have helped...

WWHHYYYYYY???

I had originally intended to post an update on Samson's bum knee, but Abby presented me with a more upbeat topic:



"Why???" I ask. "MOMITWASSOMUCHFUN!" Abby says in answer.

She got a serious bath afterwards. It was so hard to lather up her fur with all of that gritty mud in it. It took almost a whole bottle of dog shampoo! Thankfully she's all clean now.

As for Samson, we think that we're starting to see some improvement in his walking. He's using his right leg to scratch more often now, so hopefully that counts. He still has a very prominent limp, but we think it might be getting a little bit better.

Torn ACL

Or CCL as it's known in dogs.

We've pretty much narrowed down Samson's right-side limping to a partially torn ACL/CCL. We had an antinuclear antibody (ANA) test done on him and it came back negative. This test checks for any kind of autoimmune problems from rheumatoid arthritis to lupus. Since it came back negative, it narrows things down to some kind of injury; and since we know there's no damage to his bones, it's a soft tissue injury.

Because he already had a bad left hip, he probably overcompensates on his right side which led to him being rougher to that side. I'm sure Abby helped too because she likes to tackle him when they play in the yard. She probably T-boned him one day, and it made him hurt his knee.

As treatment, the only thing we can do is "conservative management" (it's pretty much the equivalent of bed rest). The vet says no running in the yard, very limited activity and to keep him as sedentary as possible, like he's in a crate (if we had a crate big enough, we'd just keep him in it, but alas...). I've been taking him out only while he's on a leash, so that he can't chase anything in the yard. It's also easier to keep Abby off of him this way.

Poor Abby doesn't understand why we won't let her play with him, though. She wants to jump on him and run around with him so badly. I feel bad, but we'll have to keep it up for quite a while. The vet says that if our conservative management is working, we should start to see some improvement at about 8 weeks. He won't be healed in 8 weeks, but we should start to see some improvement by then. If not, then we'll have to pursue other more invasive options (a.k.a. surgery).

We are also supposed to keep him on glucosamine+chondroitin, fish oil and remadyl to both manage his pain and also to promote the growth of scar tissue to strengthen his joint.

Hopefully all of this will work. It's gonna be a long 8+ weeks...