Poos needed (warning: sad ending)

digitalscream

OK, so...for all of you who're still following...this is her two weeks later:

Not shown in the video is how she's running around, jumping, walking on her hind legs etc.

Frankly, it's incredible. As far as she's concerned, she's absolutely fine and doesn't know what all the fuss is about. Today, she was out in the back garden, heard the neighbour's dog and decided to try to fight her way through the fence to go and kill him.

Amazing little dog.

TTony

One of ours currently has 12 stitches in his throat / neck area after an op to remove a growth - which was about the size of the surgeon vet's thumb apparently.

More traumatic for us than for him (dog, not vet ).

ChrisMusic

Brilliant, I am so pleased for you all.

It is the first time I have seen a video of a "tail powered dog" !

Seriously, that contrasts so much with the tail between her legs at the vets, lovely to see the relaxation and happiness return.

Good life ahead me-thinks  

I still think she looks like she ran a bit too hard into a toilet roll though, or is it this seasons look ?  

ChrisMusic

Thoughts out to you TTony, hope he is doing OK.

Enjoyed the recent "walkies" pictures, nice looking pack you have there.  

holnrew

Excellent, ongrats.

digitalscream

Damn, @TTony...how's the pooch doing?

ChrisMusic said:

Brilliant, I am so pleased for you all.

It is the first time I have seen a video of a "tail powered dog" !

Seriously, that contrasts so much with the tail between her legs at the vets, lovely to see the relaxation and happiness return.

Good life ahead me-thinks  

I still think she looks like she ran a bit too hard into a toilet roll though, or is it this seasons look ?  

See, this is why everybody was surprised when we saw her at the vets like that - they thought she was really happy, but they didn't really get the whole tail-as-a-propeller thing

They did have her with a proper solid brace, but she's an odd size...so they had to make her one out of bandages and gauze. She absolutely f*cking hates it, as you might imagine.

digitalscream

OK, brief update...things were pretty good. She hadn't really shown any kind of problems, and had meteoric improvements all the way up to last Monday, when she suddenly had a seizure with no warning. The vet said it was OK, but then she had two at the beginning of this week...at which point the vet got really concerned (not to mention the fact that it was pretty terrifying for us too). She came out of the seizures with no adverse effects, but she was a bit dopey for the 10 minutes or so afterwards.

They've got her on Pexion now - despite the fact that she hasn't got epilepsy (it's an anti-epileptic), they think it's going to prevent the spikes in electrical activity in her brain which cause seizures; they're pretty convinced it's scar tissue in the brain from the accident that's causing it.

On the bright side, she seems to be physically perfectly fine. She's belting around the place when she's let out, and showing no signs of pain or awkwardness

We've got to keep a real eye on her for the first 4 weeks of being on the anti-epileptic (she's going to be on it permanently), as well as cage rest. With that in mind, I bought one of these yesterday so I can keep an eye on her while I'm working upstairs. It turned up today, and it's a cracking little unit. Took about 10 minutes to get it all wired up, and it's even got a two-way audio feature (I don't use that, though, 'cos it seems to freak her out a bit). For £30, you can't go wrong.

holnrew

That must be worrying, hope the medications works.

digitalscream

Another update - the Pexion didn't work particularly well. It took the edge off the seizures, but didn't reduce the frequency. They've got her on phenobarbitone, which isn't ideal because it can cause liver damage. The first seizure after she went on that was about 3 weeks later, then four weeks later.

Then she started leaking mucky goo out of her left eye, had trouble breathing and had two seizures within a day or so. They stuck her on a course of massively powerful antibiotics and it cleared up...

...and now, just over two months later, she hasn't had a single seizure. I know we're not supposed to second-guess our vets, but having spoken to a lot of people in the know it's entirely possible that the infection has been there (in her eye socket, between her eye and her brain) since before the accident and was actually causing pressure on her brain and therefore causing the seizures.

We're being cautiously optimistic, but if she goes until February without a seizure the vet wants to try reducing the anti-epileptics to see if she's actually getting better.

She's also completely back to her old self and causing havoc around the place. It's quite the relief

randomhandclaps

Glad to hear thing are relatively steady. Although acting on their best instincts I do think vets can quite frequently get things wrongish, but I suppose when you consider the amount not species and breeds they have to deals with then, unless you get lucky, with complex cases a good degree must comes down to general knowledge, guess work or experimentation. I've always had horses and regularly see vets who work exclusively with horses make terrible misdiagnosis. I always think another issue is that ultimately an animal who dies from the wrong treatment doesn't cause the comebacks that a dead human does.

holnrew

Hooray.

littlegreenman

randomhandclaps said:

I always think another issue is that ultimately an animal who dies from the wrong treatment doesn't cause the comebacks that a dead human does.

I'm not sure about that. My Mum was being treated for a sore shoulder that turned out to be stage 4 lung cancer. Symptoms can be misleading to even the best practitioner. Looking back it seems obvious but at the time?...

We've never thought the docs were at fault.

TTony

randomhandclaps said:

Although acting on their best instincts I do think vets can quite frequently get things wrongish, but I suppose when you consider the amount not species and breeds they have to deals with 

And also, every time we ask one of our dogs "where does it hurt" they just look blankly at us.  Like they don't understand the question!

Sounds hopeful @digitalscream.  

randomhandclaps

Well to put it another way, without naming the surgery itself there is a very famous animal hospital around here and where an ex-girlfriend was a vetinary nurse. Within the space of two weeks a particular nurse killed three dogs off with anaesthesia mistakes. They then decided to retrain him after the owner of the last of the three kicked up a severe stink. Two other owners had walked away no wiser and there were no comeback on all three. Much more difficult to imagine that scenario going completely unchecked when dealing with humans. The point about animals not being able to say "this is where it hurts" is rather irrelevant as being pet owners we only tend to take animals to vets when pain or symptoms are obvious. That's different to solving the problem or having vets psychically predict conditions before the are apparent to us. Our Boxer has arthritis in one of his front legs. It has obviously been eroding the joint for some time but we only picked up on it when he showed obvious discomfort. Our current vets which I trust completely never mentioned a difficulty in diagnosis due to his inability to articulate as she deals with animals in pain every day.

TTony

randomhandclaps said:

The point about animals not being able to say "this is where it hurts" is rather irrelevant as being pet owners we only tend to take animals to vets when pain or symptoms are obvious.

I guess that's true to a point.

Our dogs aren't "just" pets, and we tend to watch their health and indications pretty closely.  We've taken ours for vet attention when we've noticed behavioural changes, appetite changes (and more).  The behaviour issue was related to early stage cancerous growth and consequent discomfort / pain, the appetite due to some digestive infection that resulted in years of meds and complete dietary change.  In either case, if we'd waiting for the obvious signs, it'd have been too late.

Not that I'm saying vets are perfect and never make mistakes.  It can be a ridiculously stressful profession (highest suicide rate), depends hugely on experience and "feel" (5 years of training just about covers the basics, in theory), and often depends on learning from your mistakes.

My stepson qualified earlier this year, started work last month, and is only too aware of how much he still has to learn.

randomhandclaps

I totally agree with the stress they face. As I posted earlier when you consider the sheer amount of species and breeds a vet has to cover, then when you consider the effect of medication of different size and breed of animals, then to expect all vet to get it right all the time is ridiculous.
It's great that you see your 'pets' as more than 'pets', whatever the semantics of that means to you or any other individual it is indicative of the bond we have we animals. I would feel comfortable in saying you are in the vast majority of animal owners and the greater number of those undoubtedly notice change in mood and behaviour. 

That said the amazing resilience of animals does not always help. I have known horses with leg fractures after being kicked by another who have shown very little change in mood, with their main focus being getting in for tea and only careful observation over a long period suggests their is a problem. For some vets in a brief window this is easy to miss and the owners perspective of "he's just not himself" is not always completely valid to them - if it is to your stepson then he will be in the upper sector of vets people have to deal with. At times it is only when pushed to perform and x-ray, which is often on a second or third visit is any serious problem diagnosed. Baring in mind with most of us paying vast sums of money to insure these family members and as you say they can't tell us what is wrong then extra precautions should be taken. Compare that with the fact that for free I can go down to A&E with a slight limp and they will all too willingly send me for an x-ray as a doctor or medical department cannot afford a claim for a missed broken leg.

digitalscream

randomhandclaps said:

That said the amazing resilience of animals does not always help. I have known horses with leg fractures after being kicked by another who have shown very little change in mood, with their main focus being getting in for tea and only careful observation over a long period suggests their is a problem. For some vets in a brief window this is easy to miss and the owners perspective of "he's just not himself" is not always completely valid to them - if it is to your stepson then he will be in the upper sector of vets people have to deal with. At times it is only when pushed to perform and x-ray, which is often on a second or third visit is any serious problem diagnosed. Baring in mind with most of us paying vast sums of money to insure these family members and as you say they can't tell us what is wrong then extra precautions should be taken. Compare that with the fact that for free I can go down to A&E with a slight limp and they will all too willingly send me for an x-ray as a doctor or medical department cannot afford a claim for a missed broken leg.

Very true. That's been our main problem with Ruby - she's so non-communicative when it comes to any kind of pain that it's frustrating as hell for us. Even at the worst point - with fractured vertebrae and skull, brain bleeding and what must've been a lot of nerve pain - she was still doing her level best to just be a dog. She had one seizure which was so bad we had to use the diazepam shot, and she was even fighting the effects of that to try to stay awake.

As an aside...it's difficult to separate the emotions from the practical part of trying to make a humane decision, but that was basically the point at which we decided that it didn't matter how much it cost; if she was going to try that hard to carry on, there was no way we could do anything but give her every chance there was, despite the fact that the vet's counsel was to put her to sleep. Her recovery has completely vindicated that decision, but...I don't think we could've done it any other way.

We've had a torrid time trying to convince the various vets of what we know about her - when we took her to Queen's in Cambridge for the MRI consultation, the consultant's assessment was "she seems a little depressed". Knowing her personality (ie she's the toughest, happiest, most energetic dog we've ever seen), we had to have quite a long conversation with him to explain that "a little depressed" for her means "there's something desperately wrong here".

I don't blame any of the vets who've seen her for their assessments, though - everything they told us was right, because they have to use a baseline for animals' behaviour. The problem is that animals - even within the same breed, much less species - all have completely different communication methods and pain indicators.

randomhandclaps

digitalscream said:

I don't blame any of the vets who've seen her for their assessments, though - everything they told us was right, because they have to use a baseline for animals' behaviour. The problem is that animals - even within the same breed, much less species - all have completely different communication methods and pain indicators.

Absolutely and I completely agree that in Ruby's case it is so complex that you can't blame, it's just a case of experiment and feeling your way for both you and the vets.  Small dogs are particularly resilient little souls anyway.

I think with advice of PTS it must be difficult for vets as without insurance they are really trying to balance odds and the morality of what may endanger someone's whole families security in return for very slim hope.  I completely would have made the same decision as you guys.  Had it not been for the money spent on patching up our own or rescuing others animals we would be a lot richer, although life itself would be far poorer and hollower for it.

I'm so chuffed for you guys that she doing well and the crux of it whatever works best in the short and long term is best for everyone, especially her.

Our Boxer is on strict exercise rota to try and preserve and protect what's there whilst still allowing him to exercise.  Sometimes that means resting him whilst the others go out and it depresses the hell out of him, plus he's the youngest so he's not used to be on his own.  It is heartbreaking but like anything you know your own best and you just have to manage it week by week etc.

digitalscream

Well, she just had another seizure...it's not all bad, though, because it's been almost four months since the last one. That's a massive improvement.

Also...the two chihuahuas sleep in a (massive) crate together, the idea being that if she had a fit in her sleep then Dutch would wake us up - that worked a treat. It was quite stressful for him, poor thing, but he certainly woke us up with a bang.

Emp_Fab

Well it is deffo a huge improvement.  Best wishes to little Ruby.  Pugsley had another seizure the day before yesterday (in addition to ripping a nail clean off - blood everywhere !).  Thankfully it was very short.  He cuddled up to me when he knew something wasn't right...  his breathing gets shallower and faster and he gets hot and sweaty and starts looking around at the ceiling at things that aren't there.  This went on for a few minutes before he suddenly went rigid and had the most awful terrified expression on his face, legs jerking awkwardly.  I just gently smoothed his head and spoke quietly to him, telling him it was all ok, and within a few seconds it stopped.

It takes him a while to recover, but thankfully, this is only the fourth one he's had in two years and each one has, so far, been milder than the previous.  I double checked with the insurance company as, although they never asked about existing conditions when I took out the policy, his first seizure occurred before I signed up with them.  As expected, it turns out they won't cover him for anything seizure related now.  His nail cost me £61 at the vets too.  He ripped it off when he saw Mrs Fab pulling into the driveway and went his usual batshit crazy, arms and legs flailing everywhere as he ran for the door.  Silly bugger.