"He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog. You are his life, his love, his leader. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion." ~ Unknown

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Veggie & Fruity Goop & Topaz update

Today I made two batches of Veggie Goop and one batch of fruity goop.

In the first batch of veggie goop I put 2 or 3 celery stalks, 1 broccoli, spinach, 1 carrot, canned pumpkin and strawberries...plus supplements: Digestive Enzymes, vitamin E, Flax Seed Oil and their supplement.

 
In the second batch I put spinach, cabbage, broccoli, red pepper, strawberries and canned pumpkin and the same supplements as above. We are freezing the 2nd batch. 

Then I rinsed everything off and made the fruity goop. I put in 1 whole pear, 2 whole apples, a banana, strawberries and nonfat yogurt. It smells DELICIOUS!!! I wanted to taste it! LOL

 
I gave the dogs the fruity goop and some hamburger this evening. they loved it. I may try out the veggie goop tonight at pill time. 

Topaz is doing really well too. We're lowering his KBr, and he's really acting much better. Like the old Topaz. It's awesome to see.

We haven't added the milk thistle and I need to find some cod liver oil and vitamin C and a couple other things, then I'll be making patties and freezing them. it's from that diet I posted. It's the longterm part of it.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

The Diet We're Following

Topaz is doing so much better. He's just about back to his crazy self. I missed my loveable nutty puppa!!

He's eating pretty good, still getting smaller meals and we're feeding 3-4 times a day. Mostly veggies too. We're going to add some meaty bones back in probably in a week or so.

We have a pretty good variety of things to give him. This weekend I'm going to make a batch of the veggie goop as well as a fruity one and probably a meaty one, or else just chop the meats up so they are ready to give when we decide to do so.

I looked online for the article that the lady who we buy our food from, I call her my mentor, sent me about pancreatitis. I found part of it at this site, but I could not find the entire thing.

So here is what we are trying to follow...please remember this is copyright Ian Billinghurst.


DIET FOR PANCREATITIS
When it is time to re-introduce food, your dog will be nice and hungry and ready to eat just about anything.  This is great because we want your dog to start a completely new diet.  The diet is designed initially to prevent reoccurrence of the problem and, ultimately, to not only prevent re-occurrence but to improve your dog's total health.
You must not feed . . .
Cooked food, grain, fatty meals, processed food, canned or dry dog or cat food.
WHAT YOU SHOULD BE FEEDING
1. Lots of little meals - i.e., small meals several times a day.
2. Lots and lots of RAW vegetables - which must be CRUSHED, i.e., put through a juicer or a food processor.  Carrot, celery, cabbage, pumpkin, etc.
3. Lean RAW minced meat - chicken, beef, kangaroo - RAW - and only in very small amounts.
4. Non fat yoghurt
5. Fruit - apples, pears, orange, banana, mango, etc.
6. Liver, egg, cottage cheese, sardines [in spring water] - in very small amounts.
7. Slippery elm bark powder
8. Enzyme tablets
9. Supplements including Multi-vitamin B, vitamin E, Flax seed oil, Cod liver oil, garlic, kelp, vitamin C and zinc.
The first water after an attack - should be little and often till satisfied
The first food fed after an attack should be 90 to 100 percent raw crushed vegetables.  To this is added an enzyme tablet -crushed and mixed through and left to stand for 10 to 15 minutes.  If this is refused, add a tiny amount of one or several of the foods from the WHAT YOU SHOULD BE FEEDING list - to make it more interesting.  That is, depending on what your dog likes, a tiny bit of minced meat or egg etc.  BUT ONLY A TINY BIT!  This is a small meal.  Maybe a quarter to an eighth the size of what he or she would normally eat.
Two to four hours later offer the same again.  Repeat this over the next several days.  You may gradually increase the size of these meals to about a third to a quarter of what he/she is used to eating, and reduce the frequency to two or three meals a day.  You may do this over a period of several weeks.  Gradually introduce the other elements of the diet such as the vitamins, the cod liver oil, slippery elm bark powder, the zinc, the kelp etc.
When all is going well, and usually after a blood test has confirmed that the pancreas is back to normal, you may start to introduce some raw meaty bones into the diet.  Chicken wings/necks, shank bones, large beef bones.
 So far we've got the digestive enzyme, I need to get the flax seed oil, we have vitamin E I think it is...and we're getting cod liver oil. We're also adding milk thistle to his diet for his liver. I am starting that next week.

It's kind of hard because my husband feeds him his breakfast meal. I take care of dinner, but it's the morning meal that gets his taurine and anything else we will add in. Although, maybe if he's not getting a bone meal for a while I'll put somethings in the dinner meal for him.

I don't know, it's a big change for us. We were kind of used to our little schedule and routines.

I think we're also going to have his vet draw blood for a 6 panel thyroid test and see if I or they can send it to Dr. Dodds to have it analyzed. I'm pretty sure that he'll end up on thyroid meds as well...since his test was low. Maybe that's the reason for the seizures...oh wouldn't that be wonderful if we found his trigger???

Anyways,...will keep updating here and will probably add pictures as I make the goops. LOL

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Pancreatitis, the Puppa and the BARF Diet

Today was a much, much better day. Topaz ate a bit this morning, took his am PB in peanut butter and just overall is acting so much better.

I tried to feed him a bit of banana and the turkey mix at dinnertime since he was acting really interested in food and was looking at me like..."where's mine" when I fed Onyx her chicken back.

We did his temp today:
10:15 am - 102
1:30 pm - 103.2
3:00 pm - 102.1
10:30 pm - 102.3

So even his fever is better.

I got a list of his blood work results and his WBC is elevated, one of his liver tests was slightly elevated and one of the thyroid tests came back a little low. (hmm...reason for the seizures?)

So he's on a different antibiotic for the high WBC and we decided against the flagyl. Oh, and the antacidy medicine they gave us...we just can't get it in him.

We are also going to really give a BARF diet for pancreatitis a try. So, tonight the hubbs was so nice to go out and get me some fresh veggies and a food processor and I made a "veggie goop" for him. I put broccoli, celery, carrot, cabbage and canned pumpkin. I also added in digestive enzymes and their supplement.

The entire time I was making it he was in the kitchen and seemed really interested in the smells of the veggies and everything. I even gave him a little to taste...and then we did the big test and gave him some with a little lean hamburger and were able to put his pills PB, the KBr, and even his antibiotic in there! And he ate most of it.

I think this will work out well. Tomorrow, or whenever the kitchen is cleaner I will make a fruity goop and also a meaty goop. And then I'll freeze them into small baggies and we'll feed him like that.

So...hopefully, things are looking up for the puppa!!!

Monday, October 20, 2008

Temps

We have been checking Topa's temp at various intervals today.

12:30pm - 102.7
3:00pm - 101.5
5:30pm - 100.1

So his fever is going down! YEAH!!

I am so torn about this whole Flagyl issue...and where do we go from here?

Vet Appointment

Topaz had a vet appt this morning.

His temp was 105!! omg...we're lucky he didn't have a seizure just from the temp alone!! (and my husband is out right now getting a thermometer for the dogs)

But he was dx with pancreatitis. He got a shot of Cerenia and they sent us home with flagyl and an antacid type med and did some other blood work.

We did a KBr level because I was worried about KBr toxicity and we also did the 6 panel thyroid testing. We should know more later on tonight or tomorrow. They did send him home with us since we were going to be home all day and could monitor him ourselves.

We have to check his temp and see if he can keep down his PB in an hour or so. I'm pretty sure he threw up most of his meds yesterday.

 
We're also probably going to try to lower his PB and/or KBr once we get through this because although he's gone 175 days seizure free, he's been pretty spacey and out of it as of late..well, he has had good and bad days, let's say that. 
 
So, he's not out of the woods yet, but we can see the sunlight between the trees. 

Also, I am thinking that we may need to switch him to turkey necks rather than chicken backs. I am waiting for a text message from the woman who sells us our food to get her input on that.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Well Dinner didn't stay down either

So Topaz has basically thrown up everything he's eaten since probably dinner last night.

He threw up tonight's dinner. I fed him at 5:30 and he threw up around 9pm.

Thankfully I was able to get him outside before he did it.

He's definitely going to the vet tomorrow...in fact I just called and he has an appointment at 9am.

More Vomit

First Topaz snubbed his breakfast...which is SO unlike him!!!

And then when I mixed in some cottage cheese, he ate it...but we just noticed two large piles of throw up in the living room...how I didn't hear him wretching is beyond me.

Anyway...we're going to keep an eye on him and see how the evening meal goes.

If need be we'll take him in to the vet.

Poor puppa.

Vomit & Diet Change

First off, no seizures...which is a great thing.

Topaz did throw up 5 times in the house and at least once outside this morning.

I'm thinking it was from the marrow bones I gave them this afternoon. They haven't had those in a while. Although, we've reintroduced many things back into their diet...coconut oil, the supplement...and we did have a batch of meat that didn't smell great. (I don't generally condone to feeding them "bad" meat, but by the time I noticed we didn't have much of it left)

I really think it was the marrow bones. Tomorrow I'll go easy on him and just give him the mix and pumpkin...no extras for the puppa.

I need to get back to bed. The house smells vomitous and I'm wide awake yet super tired.

If the vomitting continues...off to the vet we go tomorrow. We're lucky to have found a 7 day a week vet.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Travel Depression

When we decided to take the dogs with us up north to my sister's wedding, it was really because I thought it would be easier on them coming with us than to stay home and have a stranger watch them.

Plus, I was really concerned about Topaz with the seizures. The last thing I needed was to be 4 hours away and have my poor puppa have a seizure without us there to comfort him and help.

He had a good time in the car it seemed, but when we got to this motel room (which was essentially a tiny, cramped apartment) he started to act a little down.

I was really worried about him there...moreso than I would be at home even. He wasn't acting like he was going to have a seizure, he was just really not acting himself. Which always brings me to keep a close eye on him.

Unfortunately we did have to keep them in the room alone for long stretches of time, but I thought that just being with us for part of it would be good.

His whole mood changed once we got home though...it took a couple days, but he is now back to normal.