Fleas, glorious, Fleas!

Ugh.

We have fleas. We are infested!!!

Topaz has fleas. Onyx has fleas. And at least 2 of the 4 cats have fleas. These are the confirmed cases of fleas.

This is ridiculous!

We bathed both dogs today using Dr. Harvey’s shampoo and gave them an Apple Cider Vinegar (with the mother) rinse.

We’re putting Apple Cider Vinegar in their morning food and also I gave them a clove of garlic each in their dinner tonight. I need to put the garlic through the food processor and mix them up, they weren’t too keen on eating the big pieces tonight.

We are also washing all of our bedding and their bedding, vacuumed the house up and we will be getting some Diatomaceous earth on Wednesday and try to get a handle on the flea situation.

In the meantime, I’m sharing my home with itchy and scratchy.

Doing Great!

Topaz has been doing great! Eating good, taking his meds like a champ!

And the swelling is gone…everything back to normal it seems!

And, so far we’ve made it thru this all seizure free!

Yay!

Surgery!!

Over this past weekend the swelling came back again. I don’t understand why it would completely go down and then come back within a really short time period.

Anyway, it came back. Surgery was scheduled for 7/16, but because the swelling came back we were worried that it was worse than we thought and I was worried about the infection travelling or something like that, so we moved it up to…TODAY!

I can’t believe I didn’t write sooner that we moved it up or that the swelling came back…what is WRONG with me???!!!???

Over the weekend we checked out his mouth again. I was worried that it may be more than just the tooth. Actually, I still kind of am worried about that. But I will try not to think about it too much. I was able to get a good look at the tooth though and it was a dark brown and even black at the gums, however, his gums did look good and I didn’t see any oozing or discharge.

But since the swelling did come back we moved the surgery up. Better to be safe than sorry.

We dropped Topaz off this morning at the vet…the funny thing is when I let him in from outside he ran right to the front door – he usually stops and waits at the computer room door, where his crate is. So he KNEW! LOL geez. Smart dog.

He, of course, was thrilled to be at the vet – read the sarcasm plz – and we had to help the vet people walk him back. I couldn’t bare to watch them drag him along the ground.

His surgery was sometime between 11:30 and 2:30. And it went perfectly, according to the vet…but that his roots were HUGE! We took the tooth home and yes, there will be a photo at the end.

They did a cleaning – it comes with the whole “dental package”, which is fine…definitely can’t hurt, but he really didn’t need it. The vet told us that the tech asked why they were doing a cleaning when he really didn’t need one…she said he needed an extraction, so YAY for raw meaty bones.

Chicken necks (RMB) = nature’s toothbrush. (and this is SO true, our 9 yr old Onyx girl has GREAT looking teeth and good breath too!)

Anyway, we spoke to the vet for a few minutes and then they brought out Topaz.

OMG…the poor boy was muzzled and smelly and looked srsly post ictal to me, but I know it was just him coming out of the anesthesia because he made it through WITH NO SEIZURES! yay! but when they brought him out…omg it was horrible. I felt so bad. I got his collar and leash on him and took the muzzle off and told my husband either you take him outside or I will.

So he gave me the keys and I took him to the car. I put him in the back and tried to calm him down a little. He did much better once he calmed a little bit.

We brought him home and gave him a little Arnica Montana, which is a homeopathic remedy that our friend from The Pet Beastro gave us, for swelling and bruising and to help bring him around after the surgery. I think it helped.

Anyways, my baby boy is home…he is my ♥ you know and I am breathing a sigh of relief.

Never a dull moment with this boy, let me tell you…but hopefully he’ll be feeling better soon and back to normal.

The Culprit!!

Resting peacefully after a rough day....thank God!

Birthday Boy ~ Photos!

Here are a few photos from Topaz’s birthday celebration!

The birthday boy himself

I like this one better!

Onyx getting her party on!

Happiness is birthday yöghund on a hot summery birthday day!

Topaz enjoys his in the grass.

Onyx keeps hers on the deck

*sigh* ...all gone...

Happy birthday, Puppa boy! 5 years!

Food Changes & Back on Meds

Antibiotic meds that is…I started getting nervous because I didn’t really see any change with the Apis, so I started him back on the Keflex and we added the Amoxicillin on 7/2 at night. We gave the Apis a good 24 hours. I should have probably given it 48, but I felt so bad because his face was so swollen and I wanted him to get some relief.

We’ve been on giving him the pills and the swelling has actually gone down a bit.

I just hope we can keep it that way and he hangs tight till surgery day. Then i can worry about that…ugh.

12 more days till surgery day.

Ok…so food changes:

Topaz hasn’t been taking his pills well in the usual breakfast mix (Oma’s Pride Turkey Mix, Oma’s Pride 5-Way Veggie mix, & canned pumpkin). He doesn’t really like canned pumpkin and will spit it out onto the floor, so we really try not to give him spoonfuls with the least amount of pumpkin as possible…not always possible though.

Since he NEEDS to take his meds (PB, KBr) we needed to figure something else out. We got a little 2# (I think it is) container of Oma’s Pride beef mix thinking that maybe that would make a difference, which it definitely has.

This morning, he ate his breakfast super slow…again, i am thinking too much pumpkin…so we decided to shake things up a bit and my husband bought the Oma’s Pride chicken mix instead of the turkey. And we still got the 5-way veg, although we do also have a 3-way veg that I’ll have to use too.

So those are the recent changes. Hopefully the swelling will continue to go down and all will be well. We’re keeping a good eye on it.

On a different note, today 7/4 is the day that Topaz told the pet psychic he’d like us to celebrate his birthday, so we’re going to do so tomorrow with some yöghund frozen yogurt for dogs. We got him and Onyx the Organic Banana and Peanut Butter flavor.

Organic Banana & Peanut Butter
Our Organic Banana & Peanut Butter recipe features potassium rich bananas, which are also a great source of the prebiotic inulin, along with peanuts for flavor and antioxidants. And of course, its primary ingredient is organic, low fat yogurt with live and active cultures, complete with all the benefits of probiotics.

I’m sure they will love it! I’m going to try to get my hands on some party hats and see if we can get a photo! LOL I’ll post it if I do!!

And the Swelling has returned!

With a VENGANCE!

No, it’s back though, which is NOT good. My poor puppa boy!

I noticed it when we got home from work. It’s as bad, if not worse than it was when it first swelled up.

It came on as quickly as it did last time too. Late afternoon.

I called the vet and unfortunately it wasn’t out vet who normally takes care of him and the notes from the 2nd visit didn’t make it into his file, and I basically had to ask the vet on the phone to shut it so i could explain this to her. Ugh.

Anyway, so they were supposed to call us back – they never did, btw. Nice vet.

Actually, I love the vet who sees Topaz. Unfortunately, the Vet who ran the office passed away last year and it’s been taken over by someone new and now the reg staff is almost all gone and vets are resigning. But their hours are GREAT and they can almost ALWAYS get us right in. Hopefully our vet won’t leave too.

I posted about the swelling on Facebook and the owner of The Pet Beastro commented and asked if we’d consider homeopathy.

I’ll consider anything at this point. So we got to talking and I tried to look at that side and see what I could see, and to me it really looks like the tooth. I don’t notice any ooozing or pus or even redness and he really doesn’t seem bothered by it.

So she recommended something called Apis. We picked it up from her and are going to try it. We just gave it to him (11:10pm) and will be on “seizure watch” but hopefully it will help and we’ll remain seizure free.

We’re going to stop the antibiotics for a couple days too, and let this stuff have a chance to work if it’s going to.

We did get Amoxicilian from the vet to add to the Keflex, and we’ll start that in a couple days if the swelling doesn’t improve or we see any other changes. I’m kind of leery of that, but obviously the antibiotics aren’t doing what they’re supposed to do anyway.

Surgery is scheduled for July 16th.