How did she know???

So, here's a rundown of what just happened:

Travis said he'd cook supper if I took the dogs for a walk around the neighborhood. Sounded good to me, so I finished up my internet surfing, and 5 or 10 minutes later I got up and went into the bedroom closet to put on my tennis shoes.

Well, as she often does, Abby happened to follow me into the bedroom and as soon as she saw WHICH shoes I was putting on, she was instantly really excited.

I hadn't said A WORD. How did she know?!?! lol If I had grabbed my flipflops or heals or flats, there would have been NO reaction from her at all!

Dogs are so smart. lol

100th Post!

It's our 100th post! So here's a triptych of Samson enjoying a good brushin'. :)

Now back to business... We finished up Sam's prednisone regimen. He did really well while on the prednisone (as expected), but his limp fully returned after weening him off of it. Bummer.

We took him to the vet for a check-up since he's overdue for one of those anyway. The vet said that he'll probably always have the limp and there's nothing to be done about it. He's not a proponent of surgery (in any situation, not just this one), and he says that pretty much our only option is to give him remadyl to help with the pain.

Travis didn't like the sound of that.

After our vet visit and a few days of research, Travis bought some MSM (methylsulfonylmethane, 1000 mg once per day) which works alongside glucosamine to help with overall joint health. He also learned about a common human drug that helps with arthritis and joint pain called Meloxicam. Meloxicam is much gentler on the digestive tract and will not cause upset stomach like NSAIDs; it's also a very affordable $4 for a 30-pill prescription at Walmart, whereas remadyl is $1 per pill. Our vet didn't even mention this option.

Have I mentioned that we're considering switching vets?

Anyways, Travis called a friend at the vet's office and the friend called in a Rx of Meloxicam for us (7.5 mg, once per day). When Travis went to pick up the Rx, the pharmacist at Walmart actually mentioned that it was pretty common for veterinarians to call this in for pets.

We gave him his first pill tonight, so we'll just see how it goes from here. Fingers crossed!

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...

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.

Splish Splashin'

We've been thinking of getting a little wading pool for Abby and Samson to enjoy during this crazy heat that won't seem to let up. We were worried that they wouldn't like it, though, so we hadn't bought one yet. Luckily for us, we happened upon a discarded wading pool that somebody had dumped on the curb in our neighborhood. FREEBIE!

So we filled 'er up and here's the results. :)

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. :)