Pet Updates!

Round-ups make me happy and cover a lot all at once, so here goes!

Blog Fail

First things first, one of my MySQL databases failed on Friday night and after a repair, I was able to save my site, but it appears I lost about 21 comments from my latest post They were lost somewhere in the blogosphere, so sad, especially because you guys are high-larious!

Stumbles, X-Rays and We Become “Those” People

Over the 4th of July weekend, we got some preliminary news that The Great Face was mostly likely slowing down on walks due to calcification along his spine and too-narrow hips. We nabbed some pain meds and decided to schedule x-rays for a few weeks out to see how he was doing. On Monday night, we’d been out for dinner with the pups and pulled into the garage. Sean didn’t realize Bailey was leaning against the back door when he opened it to lift him out, so Bailey stumbled. Sean managed to half catch the fall, but not enough, and he landed on our garage floor. Nothing seemed to bug him, he did a nightly walk just fine, and we went to bed. The next morning I woke up sick – which worked out – because he was favoring his front left leg. I scheduled his hip/spine x-rays and added an x-ray for his shoulder. I also, just to ease my Worried Mama Mind, asked for some chest x-rays and am happy I went with my gut:

What you’re looking at, aside from his adorable little armie-pits *SQUEEZE*, is my little man’s enlarged heart. Those areas on the side in blue I’ve circled? Shouldn’t exist. Cavaliers, albeit a wonderful breed, are often victims of terrible hereditary diseases, with the biggest being MVD. It’s one of THE thing owners should be on the look out for, and the leading cause of death (often before their “time” – point: Bailey isn’t even a senior yet). The good news is we don’t have MVD yet.

It will, most likely, be the next stage — but because I suspected something and asked for the chest x-ray, we can continue doing our best to keep that heart right where it’s at and keep his mitochondria healthy: He’s lost a lot of weight, and he has about 3-4 lbs more to go, and we’ve thankfully already started him on CoQ10 supplements. His weight loss plan has been very successful (we helped him drop about 16% of his body weight last year by making his food ourselves to keep a perfect count on his caloric intake, and will start this up again to knock off the last few pounds).

Next up is his actual spine. There are two vertebrae that are starting to fuse (circled). It aches now, but if they actually fuse, he’ll hurt a lot more. The curvature also formed due to being overweight at a young age (I love my dad, but when we moved in with him for a year, he refused to listen to our dog-feeding rule and would sneak Bailey insane amounts of cheeseburgers and tacos, and we were constantly battling the weight as he fully developed).  You’re also looking at a mildly enlarged liver, but no full details on the cause behind yet it, as blood work showed very healthy liver functionality (phew!) and without a previous baseline x-ray, we’ve no idea if that just tends to be Bailey.

The Go-Forward plan for all is supplementing his heart, managing any pain, and losing additional weight. We’re good on this, but the trickier part here is, especially in this Texas Summer heat, that Bailey can’t exercise as much as before because we can’t risk pushing his little heart. So, alongside proper caloric reduction that takes into account very little exertion, we also know Bailey enjoys the stimulation of getting out of the house with the family – so we don’t want to leave him behind when we want to do longer walks for Emmie so that SHE stays healthy. We also aren’t giant fans of walking until he’s had enough, because then we end up taking turns carrying a 32 lb dog a mile back home in 95 degree heat (fun times). We *also* know that as she ages, Emmie’s bone issues will progress, and that led us to one conclusion:

We needed to become “those” people with the dog stroller.

Finding a pet stroller that not only holds a dog over 30 lbs, but a combination of 60 lbs in case Emmie needs to hop in, was a little tough. We finally found the PetGear Expedition Stroller, which should be roughly the size of a small house, and ordered it right up. It arrives Tuesday – so wish us luck that it’s not the most painful task in the world to walk two dogs and a giant, empty stroller down the block until Bailey decides he wants in (and cross your fingers he WILL ride in it), LOL! I’ll let you know how it goes!

Cat Pee and Baby Gate Goodness

Last update, promise! A few years ago, our cat Huckleberry Finn began to use our formal dining room as a litter box. This. Was. Infuriating. But we went through all the good pet parent steps: checked for sanitary conditions, checked she hadn’t decided to dislike the litter, made sure the box area offered privacy, ran a urinalysis to check for a UTI, added two more litter boxes, etc. No dice. It wasn’t until she lost a little weight and we ran a blood test did we discover she had lymphoma, and our vet’s best guess was that hopping over the baby gate we have to keep the dogs out of said box, was making her nauseous. We didn’t have much time with her and made make-shift crazy spots for her to have a box that we couldn’t do long term, and dealt with the situation. When she passed, we replaced the tack strips and padding.

A year after that, Audrey began to pee there. A quick vet trip confirmed a UTI, and a week worth of antibiotics later, we were golden again for over a year.

Then about a month or so ago, I caught both Audrey AND Fox peeing there (its the room right before the litter area downstairs). Vet checks = no health reasons. We also began to notice our upstairs boxes being used more than our downstairs, which is reverse from the normal. Over a few weeks, it seemed the downstairs boxes weren’t even being used at all.

Then one day while working from home, I noticed how long it took both cats to get over the baby gate and it dawned on me: With Audrey being a lot older now (16-17) and Fox having hip dysplasia since we got him as a kitten, they were now at a point where getting over that gate was harder and so they went with the easier option: pee right near it. I tossed the idea off Sean, who realized he hadn’t seen either cat in the study recently, and we went on a hunt for a much lower pet gate that would fit our double doors for the study. We found this bad boy for $23, ordered an extension, and just installed it. Not only is it low enough that stepping over it just became tons easier for us humans – but the two arthritic cats can jump over it a lot easier. Both dogs can get through the door opening, so if we want to allow study access, we don’t need to take down the gate — and to make it even easier, we rigged it so there was more space between the door frame and the gate bar, so all the cats can just slide through an opening verses even needing to hop at all. And three minutes after we installed it — Audrey waltzed between the bars and used her box!

** AND THE CROWD GOES WILD **

Now to get back from vacation so we can install new flooring and I won’t feel like that, no matter how often I steam clean, our formal dining room is gross and creepy.

Tagged as: my zoo

my zoo Animals > Personal Life

Tagged as: my zoo