Entire Dog Blog

This is Part One in a series detailing what I have learned in caring for my dog George, who was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver.

It was four months ago yesterday when my wife and I noticed that the stomach of our 6-year old Cocker Spaniel, George, was severely distended and rock-hard. 10:30 PM. We had noticed him getting a little bit heavier over the few preceding weeks, but we chalked it up to inactivity. I started him walking on the treadmill, which he took to splendidly. But at that moment, 10:30 PM, it had become clear that something was seriously wrong. We weren't quite sure what it could be, but we knew that it required a trip to the emergency vet.

We did our best to hide our near-panic from George as we loaded him into the car and began the 15-minute drive to our nearest emergency veterinary hospital. We'd both had close relatives die from cancer during recent years. We knew a build up of fluid was not a good sign.

George was not aware of any of this. He was his normal, friendly self when we arrived at the hospital. Pom-pom tail wagging frantically, he explored as much of the waiting room as his leash would allow while we filled out the paperwork. In just a few minutes, he was taken back into the examination area and my wife and I were left to our own increasingly fatalistic thoughts.

"Maybe its worms," I said, forcing my mind to go anywhere that could possibly mean this was something a few pills and a little attention could cure. "Maybe he ate something in the yard that's creating a blockage, or a reaction." It would mean surgery, but it was curable.

"Maybe," my wife said. She wasn't buying it any more than I was. None of our dogs is left unattended in the yard long enough to eat anything.

I did what I always do when there's trouble: I paced. I walked every inch of the expansive waiting room. I tried to focus on the wall-hung flat-screen television, but I couldn't. My wife sat silently on the hard bench. There was no one else there.

It was the longest forty-five minutes you could imagine. Seconds ticked by like minutes, and minutes took hours to pass. And the longer we waited, the less I was able to fool myself into thinking any good news would be coming out of the examination area.

The look on the emergency vet's face when she came out to lead us into the consultation area was confirmation that we were in for a devastating blow.

It was clear fluid that was filling George's belly. It could mean a number of things, and none of them were good. Based on her examination and preliminary blood work, she had determined that the problem was with George's liver. Something we hadn't known was that Cocker Spaniels are prone to liver disease. It was hard for her to determine the extent of the damage to George's liver, as the fluid was pressing on George's liver and kidneys. But, no matter the cause or how far it had progressed, it was not good news. There wasn't going to be any good news, only varying degrees of bad news.

She did not think it was cancer. She thought it was chronic cirrhosis of the liver. Whatever it was, the blood tests indicated that George was in liver failure.

We agreed that George's fluid should be drained, and to pretty much any treatment she thought would help George be comfortable. George would be spending his night in the hospital, and was scheduled for an ultra-sound in the morning.

The doctor suggested that we think about how much treatment we were going to give George, and at what point we would want to put him down. We didn't even need to think about it. We knew how we felt on the subject.

Our rule is this: George would not be put down because of expense or because it was too much work to help him live.  However, if it became clear that George was suffering or in pain or had no enjoyment of life left, the only humane thing to do would be to end his suffering.  We wouldn't keep him alive just because it made us feel better to have him around.

The emergency vet assured us that liver disease such as what she thought George had was not painful. There would be times when George would feel run-down and times when George would feel listless, but pain is not associated with chronic liver disease in dogs.

The emergency doctor thought that George's time would be measured in weeks. Maybe a month or two. It was devastating news.

George's hospital stay lasted two fretful days.  We took him on a Wednesday night, visited him on Thursday afternoon, and decided to bring him home on Friday. We were given constant updates on his condition the entire time, and encouraged to call any time for these updates. George was observed to be perky, friendly and active during his stay.

That Friday, we arrived at the hospital to pick George up and consult with his attending vet.  In the next installment, I will examine what treatments and prognosis traditional medicine had to offer.

I know my dogs love table food and I'm pretty sure everyone's dogs do. Scraps of table food, if given rarely, can be a nice treat for a dog. I'm always wary, though, of giving our dogs table food that they haven't had before because I know there are odd instances where certain table foods are harmful to dogs (and sometimes fatal). These are things that you'd never think of without knowing them first. Raisins are one such food that dogs should never have. Of course, that extends to grapes which are raisins with water. Grapes and Raisins are poison to dogs.

Because it's so easy to forget which foods are OK and which are killers, I think it's useful to put a little reminder up whenever I'm reminded of one of those dog-toxic table foods I'd forgotten about.

It's an older example (2004) but still rings true. It's an often-quoted story, but I've verified with Snopes that the information is accurate and the incident acually happened.

Veterinarian Laurinda Morris of Danville Veterinary Clinic (Danville, Ohio) reports on a case of raisin toxicity.

My patient was a 56-pound, 5 yr old male neutered lab mix that ate half a canister of raisins sometime between 7:30 AM and 4:30 PM on Tuesday.  He started with vomiting, diarrhea and shaking about 1AM on Wednesday but the owner didn't call my emergency service until 7AM.

I had heard somewhere about raisins AND grapes causing acute Renal failure but hadn't seen any formal paper on the subject. We had her bring the dog in immediately. In the meantime, I called the ER service at MedVet, and the doctor there was like me - had heard something about it, but...    Anyway, we contacted the ASPCA National  Animal Poison  Control Center and they said to give IV fluids at 1 1/2 times maintenance and watch the kidney values for the next 48-72 hours.

The dog's BUN (blood urea nitrogen level) was already at 32 (normal less than 27) and creatinine over 5 (1.9 is the high end of normal). Both are monitors of kidney function in the bloodstream. We placed an IV catheter and started the fluids. Rechecked the renal values at 5 PM and the BUN was over 40 and creatinine over 7 with no urine production after a liter of fluids.  At the point I felt the dog was in acute renal failure and sent him on to MedVet for a urinary catheter to monitor urine output overnight as well as overnight care.

He started vomiting again overnight at MedVet and his renal values have continued to increase daily. He produced urine when given lasix as a diuretic. He was on 3 different anti-vomiting medications and they still couldn't control his vomiting. Today his urine output decreased again, his BUN was over 120, his creatinine was at 10, his phosphorus was very elevated and his blood pressure, which had been staying around 150, skyrocketed to 220.. He continued to vomit and the owners elected to euthanize.

This is a very sad case - great dog, great owners who had no idea raisins could be a toxin. Please alert everyone you know who has a dog of this very serious risk.

Poison control said as few as 7 raisins or grapes could be toxic. Many people I know give their dogs grapes or raisins as treats including our ex-handler's.

Any exposure should give rise to immediate concern.

The ASPCA has more (PDF Link).

Live Science is reporting that listening to soothing music can "lower heart rate, anxiety, and respiration" in anxious or uncomfortable dogs.

"The structure of the harp is considered to be the most healing instruments next to human voice,” said [musician Alainna] Boone, an Oregonian who plays for ill family pets and produced a CD "Harp Music to Soothe the Savage Beast."

While anecdotal reports abound, Boone conducted one of the few studies on harp music’s effect on animals. In 2000, she performed for recently hospitalized canines at a Florida veterinary clinic. The hour-long sessions immediately began to lower heart rate, anxiety, and respiration in many cases, she said.

[...]

"Harp of Hope," a collection of 17 songs, was originally recorded for people but Schneider decided to release an animal edition last year after owners reported it helped their arthritic dogs fall asleep and calmed their agitated cats.

Veterinary hospitals also acknowledged the CD's success in soothing nervous pets — and their owners.

She said every detail of the instrumentals — the tempos, rhythms, keys, note intervals, chord structures and plucking techniques — are carefully arranged to promote progressive peace and relaxation.

Animals usually begin to relax after listening for just a few minutes.

How often have you watched a dog going crazy for the mailman or a passing cat and joked: "That Dog Needs Prozac." Well, your joke is Eli Lilly's reality because a version of Prozac for dogs called Reconcile is here. It's going to be in chewable form and "flavored with a doggie-delectable zing" according to MIT's Technology Review.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Reconcile in February after clinical tests in dogs showed it significantly improved symptoms of separation anxiety, a problem that strikes 10 to 20 percent of canines with varying severity; dogs affected may bark, chew household items, or urinate in inappropriate locations when left alone. The drug, which will go on the market in April and will be sold along with a behavior modification program, is the first product introduced by a new division of Lilly devoted entirely to pets.

[...]

Two other pet drugs were approved early this year: the first diet drug for dogs, Slentrol, and the first motion-sickness drug for dogs, Cerenia. Both are being sold by New York-based Pfizer. Unlike Reconcile, neither drug has ever been prescribed for humans. Dirlotapide, the generic form of Slentrol, was originally tested for human use, but its side effects were deemed intolerable. (Compounds in the same class are being tested for their cholesterol- and triglyceride-reducing properties in humans.)

Researchers in Italy who are studying tail wagging in dogs (did I just write that?) say that a dog will wag its tail to the left when they want to back away from something and to the right when they want to approach it. Either way, you'll never notice because you apparently need slow-motion video (an example is hosted in the linked article) to tell the difference.

30 household pets were studied while being shown different things.

Shown a human or a cat, tails wagged consistently to the right. The unfamiliar person elicited less wagging than the owner, and the cat the least wagging of all — probably because the dog was so interested in giving chase that it was distracted from wagging, says [psychologist Giorgio] Vallortigara.

Shown a large, unfamiliar and intimidating dog, the dogs wagged their tails more to the left. Dogs also wagged to the left when left on their own without anyone to look at, the researchers report in Current Biology.

The reason appears to be the hemispheres of the brain and the way in which they react to the stimuli. The Left-brain (controlling the right side) is apparently more reactive to pleasurable stimuli, while the right-brain is more reactive to fear.

The article also notes that male dogs are likely to favor their left paws while female dogs are more likely favor the right, which I sure didn't know.

These researchers will next be studying emotional reactions based on which eye and nostril are stimulated.