An easy cold weather soup

Take a 2 quart crock pot

1 can of diced tomatoes

half of a small sweet onion chopped fine

some fresh or dried (not dehydrated) button mushrooms

1 can of diced sweet corn

1/4 c of frozen spinach

1 medium carrot

vegan veggie bullion

a little bit of water

sea salt to taste

pepper to taste

a tiny bit of garlic

Cook in the crock pot until the carrots are tender, then serve with a fresh tomato or rice cheese sandwhich

Frank's improving

Frankie poo is taking it easy tonight. He lost his manhood today as well as a badly broken tooth. He is recovering nicely from the mange. His coordination has really improved!  He is now weaning off the prednisone and as he does he is starting to limp so we did x-rays today too. His hips look good so we are leaning more and more towards the HBC theory.

Sunshine also got a new splint today and is boarding at the vet in an effort to keep her from destroying another cast and keep her quiet.  Her leg has started to heal.

So how IS Frank?

Well, there's not a whole lot going on with Frank. He is improving
steadily since Tuesday. On Tuesday morning, I actually thought that I
might have to put him down. He was miserable, skin inflamed, seemed
feverish and was refusing water. His ataxia had not improved and
seemed a bit worse. I called my vet and luckily they said "go ahead
and bring him in" and I dropped him off to stay for the day.

Seems the vet on Saturday misdiagnosed his demodex and it is really sarcoptic mange. Which is contagious but easier to treat and not re-occuring. The only thing she did get right was the severe pyoderma but 

because we were only treating that and not the mange...he was not
improving. The dose of ivermectin for demodex is much less than the
dose for sarcoptic.

We took him off the pain meds, put him on prednisone to work in the
inflamation and allergic reaction to the mites. Changed his ivermectin
dosing. Since that alone did not account for his ataxia, we decided to
re-do his HW test to include lyme and erlichia, did a fungal culture
and bloodwork.

Not a whole lot interesting in his bloodwork except for a couple of
values. His thyroid is below normal at .8. He could be hypo thyroid
secondary to his current illness or this could be a growing problem
for him and in rare cases hypothyroid can cause some ataxia and muscle
weakness along with lethargy and weight gain. It would be hard to
tell at this point which is the first one because he is definately
very tired but he is on the thin side of healthy weight.

He is also mildly anemic, again could be secondary to what is going on.

WBC normal range so for the moment we are ruling out an infectious
agent at this point.

tick titers were normal

So for now we are going to work on his skin and closely monitor his
neurological issues this week and come next week if there is not
improvement as his overal health improves we will re-address and
perhaps do a thyroid panel. If his anemia and thyroid values are
secondary to whatever is going on....they should begin to resolve.

None of this really addresses the cause of his unsteadiness and we
still don't know the answer. If we had more history, we could
potentially know if he was born this way, got this way due to trauma,
trauma of a single event like HBC or multiple events (abuse), etc.

He said if we choose to go the thryoid panel and get no results, then
there is the spinal tap and/or mri and possibly a specialist. I am
not ready to consider those options at this point.

Oh! Valentines Day

One of the saddest days I've had in a long time. I went down to a
shelter in the next town to look at a dog and ended up sitting in my
car crying before I made the decision to take Ol Frank with me. I
couldn't find a vet that would stay open long enough for me to get
back to Richmond and I was so worried he had something contagious that
I didn't want to take home to my 12 year old dog. Thought I was going
to have to leave him with a request he be put out of his misery or go
to VEC on Cary and mortgage my future children to pay for his care.

Thank goodness though I had a friend call Fairfield AH on Nine Mile and they were still open but walk in's had to arrive by 1 and I was going to be just shy of 1pm. So a friend ran up there to start filling out paperwork so we would make the deadline. So, as Frank and I are outside waiting. Me watching the day pass by, frank just passed out on the grass....my friend approaches with a little red puppy in her arms and trailing behind is her "owner". He bought her on the 13th and let her get hit by a car just a few hours later. Now it's mid afternoon on the 14th and she still hasnt received any care for her dangling left back leg. I am sure it's broken. He isn't planning on getting her care because he claims he can't pay for it - even though he just paid for her yesterday. He's just planning on dropping her off and hoping that someone will come through. So now we have passed out Frank and dangling leg puppy and still waiting to see the vet. The world works in mysterious ways. 

The puppy's (see sunshine, she's up for adoption) tibia is broken and it's getting pinned on Tuesday 2/17. She will have a cast for a while, then finish up her vetting and find a new home. She will recover completely and be better for it. She'll get a home that will walk her on a leash and not let her be abused or neglected in any way. She's a typical punky pit bull puppy.

Frank, frank, frank. He's a different story and I wish we knew where he came from and what happened to him. He walks like he's drunk and has some ataxia like motor problems. Stiff legged walk, wobbly off balance and has a difficult time on slick flooring. He doesn't have enough muscle mass for his large frame and that's just one of his problems. He has a raging skin infection and mange. His skin is weepy and itchy all over his body. He scratches himself to blood and he is unable to settle down and can barely walk without falling over from trying to scratch his itchy body. He has meds for pain, meds for infection, meds for mange and meds for worms. We won't know if Frank will be put up for adoption for a while. I can only hope that where ever he came from...that person has a visit with Karma. It is tragic that a dog could be allowed to get in this condition.

Beyond dog breed myths

This is a great article!

http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009902090331

Guinness's lucky day

Today is the day that Guinness gets to meet his new family. They are
driving up from Kinston North Carolina to meet the dog they have
decided needs to come and stay. He's excited to meet them and just got
another bath last night. Wish him luck.