Covid and dogs with grass seeds in their paws

 Recently I succumbed to the Covid wave here in Australia, and spent a couple of weeks in bed. When I started to feel better (and was not required to quarantine), I took Peppa for a walk in a local park. It's winter here, of course, and the grass in the park was mowed and short, but I think that was the day Peppa got a seed in her paw. 

At one stage, after playing vigorously with lots of friendly pups, she lay down and didn't want to walk. I thought she must be exhausted. In retrospect, I ask myself why a healthy young pup would be exhausted by some play. Now, with 20/20 hindsight, I think she might have had a grass seed stuck in her paw. 

I'm resolved to check her paws after every outing to a grassy area.

So, she began to limp. We went to the clinic and the vet on duty checked her and thought perhaps she had broken a toe. An x-ray ensued, and it was sent off to an expert for another opinion. While we waited, we came home with a cone on her head and pain relief medication - Metacam. 

She sat around staring morosely into space, and the pain relief injection she'd been given at the vet seemed to have spaced her out so completely that she couldn't even keep her legs under her and kept swaying and sinking to the floor. Such a stressful day.

I took the cone off, because she wasn't paying any attention to her foot. And I didn't give the Metacam because I thought she wasn't in pain. (I've since been told it was an anti-inflammatory also, so I guess I should have given it.)

Back to the vet clinic a few days later, for an examination by our usual vet. He couldn't see any sign of what the problem was, but suggested an operation to open the swellings (two on top of her toes and one between her pads). It was organised for two days later.

What a relief it was when the operating vet called to say that after a long search she had found a grass seed buried in the flesh of the paw. 

So, home again with pain medication and antibiotics and instructions to keep the bandaged foot dry. Hmm...that meant no walking in our jungle of a back garden, which at this time of year is damp with dew for most of the day.

All was going well until last night when I noticed Peppa had removed the bandage and dressing. So, off at midnight to the Animal Emergency Clinic to get it rebandaged.

But what a surprise awaited us there! It was fortunately a quiet night there, so the usual offering of stressed and suffering animals wasn't as bad as it can be. And who was there?

The first Lhasa apso we have ever met! So exciting. He's a Golden, and looks a lot like Peppa, so we were very pleased to have it confirmed that she is also a Golden (which is what she was sold to us as). And the owner knew the breeder we had got Peppa from and said she's a good breeder, which made us feel even better. 

So a good ending to a stressful evening. Peppa has a nice new bandage on and we'll continue to keep it clean and dry (here's hoping) until we go tomorrow to have it checked. The vet nurse at AEC says it's healing well.

The other owner has also had a grass seed removed from his dog, so we're warned to be ever-alert after walks. He said it's because of their thick fur that they tend to pick up grass seeds.

Forewarned is forearmed.

December with my dog

I'm surprised to see I haven't posted any updates on Penny's day-to-day life since October 6th. Where did October and November go?

Anyway, there is one thing to report for November - Penny had a long-overdue haircut. Here she is, energised after the visit to her lovely groomer, Gabby.

Penny has never been fond of being groomed, but when I took her for a walk prior to going into the salon, she tugged me down the driveway into Gabby's place. That's what I call 'voting with your feet'! Gabby has a gift for making Penny relaxed and happy.

It had been cool for November, so I covered her with a blanket the first couple of nights, as she has quite a thin coat.

I didn't have to do that for long. December arrived with a vengeance, and hot, hot weather landed on us. It was too hot, even at night, to walk, so I drove to Kepala to give her a swim. I loaded up a big container of  water in a cooler in case the car broke down, because I don't think she could deal with 38°C these days. She was panting in the back seat, even with the air conditioner going, but we got there safely after the 50 minute drive.

It was worth it.

The rules specify that humans are not allowed past the blue line, so I took that as a definite instruction to wade in up to the blue line. (When I wasn't taking a break in the shaded hut.)

It's not only about keeping cool. The benefits of swimming are wonderful for old dogs with joint problems. Look at how she stretches her limbs when she swims.

goat kefir and dogs

I've been giving Penny a 'dob' of goat milk kefir with each meal lately, in an effort to improve her gut health and thus her immune system.

So far there are no problems, even though I accidentally dropped in more than a 'dob' yesterday.

Two of the humans in our household drink kefir ourselves every day (home made, a very easy process) and feel it's doing us good, but we wouldn't have given it to Penny without the say-so of a canine specialist. However, when I saw it at the canine naturopath's shop I trusted her to have researched it well.

This article is one of many online promoting the benefits of kefir for dogs.

However, this  article suggests water kefir may be better than dairy kefir. I haven't tried making that myself, and the naturopath doesn't sell it, so that may be something to look into in the future.

I'm interested that the same article mentions sauerkraut. I've seen sauerkraut in the fridge at the naturopaths's shop, but she doesn't make it with salty water. She says dogs don't need salt. (I'm not sure I understood that correctly. I'll check next time I'm there.)

Skepvet has looked at studies dealing with the use of probiotic supplements for cats and dogs, and I find that site interesting. But that's supplements, not actual foods like sauerkraut and kefir. The site says,  'There is no high-quality, consistent evidence for most suggested uses of probiotics.'

On the other hand, my doctor recommends the use of probiotics after antibiotic usage (in me, a human), and I suppose at least some of the studies on that topic were conducted on animals.

a worrying time and grass eating

Bette Davis is supposed to have said, 'Old age ain't for sissies.' Or, as I've heard it often said here in Australia, old age ain't for wimps!

I agree, in terms of my own life, not that I yet consider myself old... But I'm sure not young.

And in terms of of dog ownership, a beloved dog getting older can be stressful. It's been about six weeks since I blogged, and the hiatus has been mainly because Penny's been plagued by one problem after another and I kept waiting for her to be back to her usual energetic self.

Well, perhaps that will happen, but if I keep waiting it might be another six weeks, so I thought I'd write about what's been going on.

To sum it all up, she had an x-ray to check what was the cause of her ongoing limp, and to our surprise and that of our vet, it turned out her right leg has a completely torn cruciate ligament. We'd both thought it would be her lower spine that was the problem. The x-ray didn't specifically show the tear, but the specialist felt sure it was the problem.

To a certain extent, a torn cruciate ligament is an easier problem to deal with, given that she had cruciate surgery in September 2010 and made a good recovery.

But the x-ray showed some 'spots' in her body and so we arranged for a CT scan, which showed some issues in her liver, upper spine and her lung. The surgeon says they might be just part of the ageing process and we could keep an eye on them. But he won't do the cruciate surgery until he feels he's checked that out. So we'll have another CT scan in a week's time. That's three weeks after the original one. He's looking to see if any of them have changed in that short time.

It's been hot weather, so it's not too hard to convince Penny that she should rest and take life easy. We started her on pain relief - anti-inflammatories - but after a while her bowels seemed upset, so we've taken her off the tablets and put her on a bland diet.

We're obsessing about her poos. I'm sure anyone who has a dog understands this obsession. Her  gut is settling, we think. But yesterday she - as usual - grabbed something from the front garden and it must have been bad, or maybe it had something on it that bit her, and she rushed around eating grass for what seemed like ages.

Her appetite is good and she poos regularly, so we're just watching and waiting. But this afternoon, she vomited up this:

What a mystery. How could a bunch of grass sit in her digestive system and come back up, when all the other food is passing through normally?

It's not the first time she's used grass to self-medicate. She has always done that. But usually it comes out the other end. I just checked my past blog entries for ones that focus on grass-eating and there are ten! Sometimes she's pooed out the grass, sometimes she's vomited it up, and sometimes she even ate grass after vomiting something revolting she'd snatched as we walked.

In the midst of all this stress, it's kind of amusing to re-read my old post about how silly I was to buy pet grass. That pot of grass has turned out to be wonderful, given that it's hot and dry here in Melbourne and most of the grass in our garden is dying off. (I let weedy grass grow in the garden for Penny's sake.) The one little pot has multiplied into a big bunch of luscious leaves. You can see it in the background of this photo of our back patio, which has been spread with mulch to encourage her to wee and poo there, seeing she can't get down the back steps. (She refuses to toilet anywhere but the back yard, though, so we have to take her the long way around the house. Sigh...)

Penny and the limp

Penny's limping once more. Or still limping, to be more exact.

After a month of seeing her limp when she gets up from lying down, and having tried complete rest; partial rest; massage; icing her front shoulder, swimming, we decided it was time to go back to the vet.

Of course she had no limp at the vet surgery. It was pretty difficult to assess Penny's gait, seeing she loves her vet so much that she throws herself at his feet all the time for a tummy rub, but he did his best, and of course he did all that disturbing limb manipulation, trying to find the soreness. Penny, like so many other dogs, is incredibly stoic, but the vet concluded that it is indeed her left front shoulder that is giving her trouble. Probably arthritis, sigh...

So she's having a course of cartrophen. One injection each week. She did have this once before, after her cruciate surgery, so we know she can tolerate this medication. The information on the site says it has no side effects, and our vet said the same thing, but I'm cynical enough to think that NOTHING has no side effects. But we'll settle for 'minimal side effects'.

The difference this time is that the vet suggested continuing with 'moderate exercise'. He used to advise resting a troublesome joint, so it was a pleasant surprise to be encouraged to keep her active. Given that in human medication the doctors and physios generally suggest keeping active after injury, I'm glad to get the same advice for Penny.

It's easy to restrain her from over-exercising, because the weather is awful lately. Hot, hot, hot every day. I've never known an autumn like this. Seeing we've just had the hottest summer ever recorded in Australia, it's frighteningly like what the climate change scientists have been predicting.

Good weather for swimming, though, and there's a nice little beach on the Yarra river up at Warringal Parklands.

And another swim at Kepala Canine Resort wouldn't go amiss.

using honey as part of a veterinary treatment

Dr Jennifer Coates has posted an interesting article about the use of honey in treating wounds. I've heard of this treatment before, but didn't know how honey (or sugar, it seems) hastens healing. To read the whole post, go here.

orange dog vomit

There are a few photos of dog vomit in this blog, so don't read on if you think it will upset you. However, I'm posting it because when Penny threw up in the park yesterday, we couldn't find good information on the internet, and I hope this post will be helpful to others.

It seemed like a good idea to have a walk before breakfast yesterday, so when we set out, Penny had an empty stomach. That may have something to do with what happened.

As we walked, I took a photo of the lovely, typical wattle. All three of us were happy. In retrospect, examining this photo, I'm wondering what Penny was doing. Eating something? Grazing on grass?

Anyway, a few minutes later, she threw up a handful of grass in yellow froth, as she occasionally does. It was yellow, which is not really clear in the following photo.

We weren't too concerned, because it was likely Penny was just using the grass to settle a bit of a tummy upset.

But a few paces further on, she threw up orange froth, with a small blob of blood in it.

She seemed fine, but we slowed  down the pace of the walk and made our way back to the car.

Penny was her usual self as far as we could see, during the rest of the day, but we fed her only tiny meals of boiled rice and chicken - we gave her a little handful about four times over the course of the day.

This morning, however, we began to think we should get her checked out at the vet. So off we went.
He believes Penny might have ruptured a little blood vessel in her stomach when she vomited the first time and that's why she threw up the orange froth.

We're continuing the rice and chicken diet, but today we have introduced some of her normal treats (for instance, when I was bathing her this afternoon).

She seems fine. Time will tell, of course. It's reassuring to have visited  our vet, though.

And when I look at what Penny was doing while we were admiring the beautiful yellow wattle, I think she was already eating grass.

keeping older dogs active for their health's sake

Catalyst, the science show, had a segment recently on the damage to our bodies caused by sitting. I've made a promise to myself that I will intersperse computer activity with regular breaks, and I've set the computer's clock to speak the time each fifteen minutes, as a reminder.

This got me wondering about Penny's level of activity - or more precisely, inactivity. Lately she dozes a lot. We hadn't taken much notice of it, because of the generally held belief that dogs sleep more than we do. We also put it down to the fact that she is now a senior dog. I looked around the internet to check this belief, but didn't come across any more details about how long a dog could be expected to sleep than I did when I posted on this topic five years ago.

This article at lifehacker details the changes our human bodies experience if we sit still. Pretty scary.

I guess the equivalent activity for dogs would be lying down. I think the key factor in the danger of sitting is that we don't move and so the electrical activity in our muscles slows down. (The article explains the consequences that follow.)  It seems to me that this could similarly be a problem for household dogs who lie around too much.

So let's see if I can keep up my resolution to do something active with Penny (low-level activity is okay, apparently) as often as possible. (We went for a seven-minute walk around the block during the writing of this post.) One thing I will try is commanding her to come outside with me when I hang out the washing, or pull a few weeds. She no longer bounds off her comfy bed to come with me. I think I can achieve it if I take one of her favorite toys with me.

is pet ownership actually good for our health?

I came across an article today about a psychologist who thinks we should look carefully at claims that pet ownership is universally good for us.

It's generally accepted that it is, but according to Harold Herzog, Professor of Psychology at the Western Carolina University, we need to investigate this claim in more scientifically rigorous ways. He says that previous reports

often suffer from methodological problems, such as small, homogeneous samples, lack of appropriate control groups, and reliance on self-report to measure participants' health and well-being.

I feel that having Penny live with us has been good for everyone in our household, but I certainly don't know any way to prove that, because I don't know how things would have been if we had not brought her home. Somewhere on the Net, as I browsed yesterday, I saw a piece about introducing a new dog into the household, and it made the interesting point that once a dog comes into the home we cease to be individuals and become a de facto 'pack'. I think that's a good thing.

is roundup - glyphosate - safe to use around dogs?

A recent article in Organic Gardener magazine, about glyphosate (Roundup), has me wondering about this herbicide in terms of its danger to dogs.

I have two concerns (apart from my general concern about the environment). First, I believe this is the herbicide that is used in Darebin Parklands, where we walk frequently.

Secondly, we have a back lane behind our house, one that is great for a short off-lead walk and also provides a private place to chase tennis balls. I asked our local council why a spray is used there and was told it's too expensive to mow it more than four times each year, so herbicides are used to keep the weeds down.

I've noticed that some weeds spring up immediately after the spraying in the lane and asked whether they might be Roundup-resistant, but the council official was non-committal about that.

However... now that I've read this article in Organic Gardener I see that there are now 16 weeds with confirmed resistance to this herbicide.

By the way, to clear up any confusion about what herbicide I'm talking about, here's a quote from the article:

Glyphosate is sometimes referred to by the original trade name Roundup, which was first marketed by Monsanto in 1974, and the two names are often used interchangeably.

I don't like to use this product in my own garden, so it bothers me that Penny is likely to be exposed to it when we're out walking. There's a lot of work being done to regenerate indigenous plants in Darebin Parklands, and glyphosate is considered to be an essential tool in fighting introduced weeds.

The article says,

While bush regenerators maintain they couldn't do their work without it, emerging research may yet see glyphosate join the long list of pesticides that were once thought to be safe, but turn out to be harmful.

The author says we tend to trust the story that glyphosate is relatively safe, but last year France's Supreme Court ruled that Monsanto had not told the truth about the safety of Roundup, and many Canadian municipalities restrict the use of any [pesticides] herbicides for cosmetic purposes such as lawns and driveways, because of health concerns.

Humans can wear gloves and face masks when they use it, and cover all exposed skin. But if my dog walks through a recently sprayed area, she will place her bare paws on it, she will roll in it, she might chew a few blades of grass, she might drink from a puddle that is polluted with runoff.

And not just recently sprayed areas, either - here are a couple more quotes:

While regulators agree glyphosate has a relatively low acute (short-term) toxicity compared with other herbicides, recent research indicating possible long-term health effect is causing controversy...

Glyphosate is relatively persistent in soil, especially in cold climates, where residues have been found up to three years after use. In warmer climates it stays in the soil for between four and 180 days.

Penny likes to dig, sometimes.

walking the dog on Christmas Eve

Penny and I have just come home from a brisk walk around the streets, passing houses with carols drifting from the windows, a church with families pouring out in happy clusters, supermarkets with shoppers racing for last-minute ingredients.

Perhaps if I hadn't had a dog I might have stayed at home, resting from the ordeal of roasting my first-ever turkey.

But I do have a dog, and she wanted to go out, so I did.

And that's what dogs do for us - they get us out in all weathers and on all occasions - as I just read in a post at Dog Blog, reporting on a NY Times story about a study that found if people have human walking buddies they don't walk as briskly or as consistently as people who walk with a dog.