Bill Arnold's Daily Straydog Log

WEDNESDAY JULY 7 2004

NOON UPDATE

Old Sassy Katie is not doing well

     Since we reported last on this wonderful, very old dog, she's been holding her own most days, then slipping some, and then making a comeback, enjoying walks in the park, still eating well and sleeping most of the time. Over the past few days, however, she's not been warning us when she's needed to leave her hospital kennel to go outside for a potty break. We are, of course, equipped to handle these "accidents," as we have at least one member of our caregiving crew on duty in the hospital at all times, but it appears that Katie is losing control of these basic functions, which cannot be too pleasant for her either.

     Last evening just before Juana left Straydog for the day (a little after six o'clock), she was carrying Katie in from the small kennels near the hospital door, and Katie, who'd been outside for about an hour, suddenly had a bowel movement and urinated while in transit, so Juana turned around and put Katie back in the outside kennel, and we both agreed that it was nearing the time to send her to Rainbow Bridge.

     After cleaning up Katie's mess Juana and Lucy went home, and I (now on duty alone) kept my eye on Katie for a while. This beautiful old dog just stood panting in the hot kennel staring at the sun, which was still quite a ways from the western horizon. "If she's not already blind," I thought to myself, "she will be if she doesn't stop looking directly at the sun." When I realized Katie wasn't going to move, I went to her and scooped her up into my arms and brought her back into the air-conditioned hospital trailer and put her in her clean inside kennel. She took a drink from her water bowl and then lay down and went to sleep.

     When our overnight man, Jason, arrived at 7:30 p.m., I asked him his assessment of Katie's condition, and he agreed that we've waited long enough, so I told Jason to be very sweet to Katie during the night, as we would most probably be making the final decision right after I post this update at noon.

     If today is the day, Juana and I will be driving Katie to the clinic this afternoon.

Erin's Tuesday vet visit report ...

Blackie, Misty, Anthony, Leo, Toby and Indy made the trip to Tyler

   Blackie

     I drove to Dr. Reeves' in my car with Blackie before noon for Blackie's teeth-cleaning. (Tina brought the other five dogs later.) Dr. Reeves shuts down his clinic from noon till 2:00 p.m. for surgeries, and he let me watch as he gave gas to Blackie to anesthetize him. "This is the safest way to put the animals to sleep," the doctor said. "I've never lost a dog in 40 years when I've used just the gas. It's more expensive than using an injection, and it takes longer, but it's safer." After a few minutes Blackie went to sleep, and I left the clinic so the doctor could clean Blackie's teeth without me bothering him. It looked like the doctor was going to use some sort of an ultra-sound machine, and he had lots of other tools out as well.

     Tina arrived at Dr. Reeves' clinic in the van with the other five dogs at 2:45.

   Misty and Anthony

     We brought Misty and Anthony in for their hormone blood tests. Misty had no problems letting the doctor take blood, but Anthony was so scared he had a BM on the table. "Do we need to check for worms or do an enzyme test?" the doctor asked. I told Dr. Reeves that Anthony has been seen eating from dog piles (before we've been able to get to his kennel to pick them up), so the doctor did an enzyme test and found that Anthony is low on enzymes, so we're to increase the enzymes in his food. (Being low on digestive enzymes is one thing that causes dogs to crave excrement, Dr. Reeves said.)

   Leo

     Leo has had a recurrence of a hair-loss skin problem, and the doctor told us to bathe him with a medicated shampoo and use another fungus-removing product on his skin, and he gave us natural hydrocortisol capsules for a week for Leo.

   Toby

     Toby had another acupuncture treatment and was a real good boy throughout his therapy.

   Indy

     Indy has hookworms, and although the doctor didn't see whips, he said that Indy's demeanor indicated that he had whip worms too. "What symptoms do you see," I asked the doctor. "Mostly his pitiful state," Dr. Reeves said.

     Indy came out with a slight positive on the occult heartworm test but showed no filaria in his blood. "It's like he's been treated for heartworms, but still has the antibodies in his system, as at the end stages of heartworm disease," the doctor said."That would be the best scenario. Anyway, start him on the preventive, and let's check him in six months."

     Dr. Reeves said for us to use Panacur for the worms for five days for Indy, and he made up vitamin injections for us for five days to help give Indy a boost. Indy was too weak for vaccines or to be neutered at this time. "Why does Indy have that goop coming from his eyes," I asked. "Does he have an infection?" "He's run down," Dr. Reeves said. "The vitamins will help."

     The doctor also did a chiropractic adjustment on both of Indy's legs (we heard them pop), and he put Indy on the "Dog Gone Pain" pills to alleviate the aching in his legs.

     "Indy cries when we pull off a tick," Tina said. We had given Indy a bath but that hadn't gotten rid of all the ticks so Dr. Reeves put one of the new tick collars on him. These are the new Preventix[R] collars that the doctor had ordered for us that really are supposed to work, by not letting the ticks even attach themselves. With the other products we use, the ticks die after they bite the dog, so we're hoping these new collars will help even more.

     We purchased 24 of a new kind of tick collar, and the doctor told us to try them in different places at the shelter to see how they work. We'll get one on Kerry and Skipper, Scottie and Shawna and many of the other dogs on whom we've found ticks. (For some reason many of the dogs are still tick-free, thank goodness!)

     We're continuing to spray the kennels too and to use Frontline, and we are looking up more information on how to handle this, so we are working our problem from many angles. (We thank those who have sent emails with suggestions.)

     Even with a generous discount our total vet bill for yesterday was $825.25. The 24 tick collars were $12.95 each, bringing that total to $310.80, which Dr. Reeves said we could pay next week.

Our post office box contained 21 letters with contributions yesterday

     We thank you very much for your early contributions.

     As those who have read our June newsletter know, we are trying convince people who don't use the Internet to learn how to use the Internet so that they can follow more closely what we are doing at Straydog. One woman typed us a note (accompanying her donation check) saying that she doesn't even know what a website is. She uses a computer only to type letters, which her husband had taught her how to do a few years ago before he died.

     I had always suspected that that was the reason only about 300 of the 2,500 people on our mailing list visit our website every day. And the 2,200 people who don't visit us on the Internet are not all older people. Not even one of our eight employees, for example, has a computer at home, and they're all in their 20s, 30s and 40s. Our people get to see the daily updates only on the computers here at Straydog.