deepdarkblue
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dukebluedevils05
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Cool thread. Fun reading about the different pups.
Here's our 3.5 year old Pit/Lab mix, Fitzgerald, checking in at a sturdy 70 pounds. My wife has a great picture of him as a puppy that I wish I could pull up. Needless to say, he's gotten much bigger than we were expecting. Has severe epilepsy, which has put a dent in our checking account since his first seizure last October (when my wife was 7 months pregnant, so great timing!). He's a rowdy fella, which makes it difficult for us to have people over to the house since he has no idea how to not lose his goddamn mind whenever someone shows up. I love him, though he might tell you otherwise.
Here's our 3.5 year old Pit/Lab mix, Fitzgerald, checking in at a sturdy 70 pounds. My wife has a great picture of him as a puppy that I wish I could pull up. Needless to say, he's gotten much bigger than we were expecting. Has severe epilepsy, which has put a dent in our checking account since his first seizure last October (when my wife was 7 months pregnant, so great timing!). He's a rowdy fella, which makes it difficult for us to have people over to the house since he has no idea how to not lose his goddamn mind whenever someone shows up. I love him, though he might tell you otherwise.
deepdarkblue
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I'm going to share my dog's story with you. Might help, can't hurt.
My Jack Russell started having seizures when he was about 3 or 4 years old. I planned to shoot him but my son cried so I didn't. I love my son, my son loves this terrible dog. Okay, I love this terrible dog, too.
After spending several thousands on overnight stays at the emergency vet over the course of a couple of years, and trying him on all sorts of drug combinations, I stumbled across some internet wackos who advocated a raw meat diet to control canine seizures.
At that time, my dog was taking daily phenobarbital and zonisamide and they weren't doing much more than making him a zombie. He would still have breakthrough seizures every few weeks that would not end without taking him to the vet and having him put under sedation for 24 or more hours. I assumed the raw meat thing would be a waste of time, but not much else.
That was about 8 years ago and the only two seizures he's had in the time since then were in the first couple of years, when I carelessly let him get into another dog's food and when I fed him raw lamb. I threw out all of his meds after a few months on raw, we have not missed them.
Here is everything I feed my dog:
Raw chicken leg quarters
A little raw chicken liver twice a week
A squirt of fish oil daily
Two raw eggs once a week
A big raw beef soup bone every couple of weeks to chew on
After the reaction he had to lamb, I don't try experimenting with new foods.
However, sometimes he feeds himself raw squirrels, raw birds, and raw baby rabbits. I have no control over that. If he can catch it, he will kill it. If he kills it, he will eat it.
He hasn't had any reaction to rodents or birds, so I guess they're safe. Same with lizards and various insects.
My terrible dog, at age 14, can still catch squirrels and grab a frisbee or a bird out of the air. I'm kinda glad I didn't shoot him, but I wish I'd tried changing his diet sooner, before I paid enough for the new addition at the emergency vet's office. Give it a try, it might help your dog and it can't hurt him.
dukebluedevils05
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That's super interesting and something I will definitely keep in mind. I can't tell you how much I appreciate you passing that on. I can absolutely relate.
Our guy had his first seizure in October. It was a single seizure when he was asleep with us in the bed (which we no longer allow). But it was his first one in the roughly two years we'd had him so it was strange enough. Two weeks later my wife had planned a great trip, a 'babymoon' in her words, which is apparently a thing, to Annapolis for a weekend. Her parents were going to watch the dog. Her dad comes over to check on him mid-day after we'd left that morning and notices things are rearranged in our house - things on the floor that aren't typically on the floor, etc. Then notices a healthy amount of vomit, which he can only attribute to the dog. Our guess is seizure, which of course would happen after we've left to go outta town for a nice getaway. We call vet to explain the situation (didn't call them after the first one a few weeks prior) and they recommend one of the meds so we get prescription squared away on that and her mom is going to give the dog the meds when she gets off work and gets to our house. Needless to say, from 5 pm that night until about 4 in the morning he had 9 more seizures. Her mom isn't much of a dog person as it is. She calls us at 4 am, we pack our shit up and head immediately back to Durham while they run him to the emergency vet.
We spend the majority of that drive back to Durham on the phone with the emergency vet. They had a really hard time getting him back under control, he had several more seizures while with them despite being heavily drugged. They were stumped for a while. They told us we wouldn't be crazy for entertaining the thought of putting him down because of how bad and bleak his situation was at the time.
We get home, hardly any sleep, an emotional ride home and go straight to the emergency vet. They let us in the back where they were keeping him in this crate in the emergency room. We crawl in there with him and he has no idea who we are, no clue about much of anything, really. It was an incredible turnaround from when we left him. We did eventually get him home two or three days later and he was not himself at all. Took a week or so.
Two weeks after that had a near identical repeat of the above situation, except we weren't out of town. These repeated seizure episodes occurred generally about once every 3-4 weeks, but they were no fucking joke. Like you said, only way to get him to back down is to send him to the emergency vet for at least 24 hours, after spending thousands at a time (one time we got outta there only paying $800+ I think). Emergency vet recommended getting an MRI at State, which was even pricier than any of the other things we'd already taken care of. Of course you pay all that money for one of two outcomes: 1.) MRI finds nothing = epilepsy - which is what 95% of the results say, which is considered a good thing when you don't think about the money spent or 2.) MRI finds something that means you almost certainly have to consider putting him down. So, a lose lose for all intents and purposes but you feel like you've gotta do it. Meanwhile mother in law is in our ears to put the dog down or give him up since we've got a baby on the way.
Fucking disaster.
Miraculously, and I know I shouldn't even say this for fear of fucking up the juju, but things have been MUCH better the last 2-3 months or so. We had to rush him to the emergency vet back in early April I think. Since then he's only had one seizure and we were able to bring it under control ourselves before he got to the second one thanks to the emergency meds the folks at State gave us (the time prior to that the emergency meds they gave us could not bring him under control so we did have to take him in).
He gets seven pills with each meal right now, so 14 a day. He's on pheno, zonisamide, keppra, and one other one I can't remember. We get all of the different pills from different pharmacies based on price, which makes for a shitshow when we run out of one.
Wife looked up all kinds of remedies on how to control things ourselves - went to an organic dog food based on something she read, which didn't work. Stopped giving him one of the flea and tick meds because she read seizures were a side effect. Didn't work.
So what you've said is something we haven't heard and obviously haven't tried, but no doubt I will mention to her in the future.
Our guy had his first seizure in October. It was a single seizure when he was asleep with us in the bed (which we no longer allow). But it was his first one in the roughly two years we'd had him so it was strange enough. Two weeks later my wife had planned a great trip, a 'babymoon' in her words, which is apparently a thing, to Annapolis for a weekend. Her parents were going to watch the dog. Her dad comes over to check on him mid-day after we'd left that morning and notices things are rearranged in our house - things on the floor that aren't typically on the floor, etc. Then notices a healthy amount of vomit, which he can only attribute to the dog. Our guess is seizure, which of course would happen after we've left to go outta town for a nice getaway. We call vet to explain the situation (didn't call them after the first one a few weeks prior) and they recommend one of the meds so we get prescription squared away on that and her mom is going to give the dog the meds when she gets off work and gets to our house. Needless to say, from 5 pm that night until about 4 in the morning he had 9 more seizures. Her mom isn't much of a dog person as it is. She calls us at 4 am, we pack our shit up and head immediately back to Durham while they run him to the emergency vet.
We spend the majority of that drive back to Durham on the phone with the emergency vet. They had a really hard time getting him back under control, he had several more seizures while with them despite being heavily drugged. They were stumped for a while. They told us we wouldn't be crazy for entertaining the thought of putting him down because of how bad and bleak his situation was at the time.
We get home, hardly any sleep, an emotional ride home and go straight to the emergency vet. They let us in the back where they were keeping him in this crate in the emergency room. We crawl in there with him and he has no idea who we are, no clue about much of anything, really. It was an incredible turnaround from when we left him. We did eventually get him home two or three days later and he was not himself at all. Took a week or so.
Two weeks after that had a near identical repeat of the above situation, except we weren't out of town. These repeated seizure episodes occurred generally about once every 3-4 weeks, but they were no fucking joke. Like you said, only way to get him to back down is to send him to the emergency vet for at least 24 hours, after spending thousands at a time (one time we got outta there only paying $800+ I think). Emergency vet recommended getting an MRI at State, which was even pricier than any of the other things we'd already taken care of. Of course you pay all that money for one of two outcomes: 1.) MRI finds nothing = epilepsy - which is what 95% of the results say, which is considered a good thing when you don't think about the money spent or 2.) MRI finds something that means you almost certainly have to consider putting him down. So, a lose lose for all intents and purposes but you feel like you've gotta do it. Meanwhile mother in law is in our ears to put the dog down or give him up since we've got a baby on the way.
Fucking disaster.
Miraculously, and I know I shouldn't even say this for fear of fucking up the juju, but things have been MUCH better the last 2-3 months or so. We had to rush him to the emergency vet back in early April I think. Since then he's only had one seizure and we were able to bring it under control ourselves before he got to the second one thanks to the emergency meds the folks at State gave us (the time prior to that the emergency meds they gave us could not bring him under control so we did have to take him in).
He gets seven pills with each meal right now, so 14 a day. He's on pheno, zonisamide, keppra, and one other one I can't remember. We get all of the different pills from different pharmacies based on price, which makes for a shitshow when we run out of one.
Wife looked up all kinds of remedies on how to control things ourselves - went to an organic dog food based on something she read, which didn't work. Stopped giving him one of the flea and tick meds because she read seizures were a side effect. Didn't work.
So what you've said is something we haven't heard and obviously haven't tried, but no doubt I will mention to her in the future.
CMon85
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Today I lost my best friend, Bella. She had some health issues but heart failure took her this morning out of no where. She was an amazing dog and the house already feels empty without. There’s truly nothing more loyal than a dogs love but fuck is it brutal losing them. Wish we got more time. Give your pets an extra treat today!
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torontoduke
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condolences CMon
rome8180
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My kitten is adjusting socially, but she's way too much a biter. I've got to curb that shit. She's playing, but she goes a little too hard sometimes. I'm also covered in scratch marks because I can't get her to sit still long enough to cut her nails.
DukeNukem05
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I got really lucky in that my cat bites without trying to puncture, nor tries to claw me. I think it’s largely due to having spent her first year with other kittens learning how to play / what hurts.
rome8180
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Yeah, my last two cats didn't do this. They were raised together.
I think I need to get her a playmate, like @deepdarkblue recommended. And if that doesn't work, I'll get those two a playmate. And if that doesn't work, I'll get those three a playmate...
I think I need to get her a playmate, like @deepdarkblue recommended. And if that doesn't work, I'll get those two a playmate. And if that doesn't work, I'll get those three a playmate...
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Devilsforlife
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Sorry to hear that, man. She was a really cute dog. Losing a pet sucks.
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Sorry to hear that, Cmon. She was beautiful, and I'm sure she lived a great life.
And Rome, I definitely think your kitten needs a playmate. My two weren't biters or scratchers of humans at all. However, they definitely went at each other. They used to love to wrestle. So I think that's why.
And Rome, I definitely think your kitten needs a playmate. My two weren't biters or scratchers of humans at all. However, they definitely went at each other. They used to love to wrestle. So I think that's why.
torontoduke
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Too weird not to share
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rome8180
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I have yet to have a pet I really cared about die. I am dreading it, given how strong my emotions are about animals. Hang in there, man.
We had family pets die when I was younger, but they were never my pets and almost all of them died after I'd left the house.
We had family pets die when I was younger, but they were never my pets and almost all of them died after I'd left the house.