The day after

Yesterday was a tough day for us.  Katie does not know about Poppy's passing as far as we know.  Their relationship was antagonistic, at best. She would get all hyper on one side of the kitchen door and he would try to huff and puff and bark the door down.  He did not tolerate much frivolousness and that is what Katie is mostly about with other dogs. They did not play well together but that does not mean that they did not have a close relationship... Who knows?

She seems to be struggling with a UTI of some sort, gauging from the amount of water she has started drinking daily.

If it does not improve by Monday we will go see Doctor Jack just to be sure. So far, he has been a winner with clearing up her perpetual ear infections and problems.

On other fronts, her last seizure was 15 days ago and the one before that was 36 days from the previous event so she seems to be in her winter pattern. Another couple of months and I expect them to get farther apart, again.

Meanwhile, she just got a summer cut from a new groomer. First grooming she has had in Florida. We are very pleased. Dawn is the best. If you are in the St Augustine area and need a good groomer, ck out Grooming by Dawn down on US 1 just south of the WalMart supercenter.  She was fast and did a very nice job in under 2 hours while we were stocking stores at Walmart for the week. Her prices are much more reasonable than up in Raleigh, too.

Life in the Stagecoach RV Park has been wonderfully uneventful. A couple of days in the 30s and the rest have been most comfortable 60s and 70s. A little more rain would be nice just to keep the pollen down but Katie loves every walk like it was her first of the day.

If you are a dedicated plastic grocery bag poop bag user, you might consider something we have found to be a lot more convenient.  It is a fat dog bone shaped plastic holder that clips to the handle of the leash or Flexi leash and holds a roll of 15 bags. The rolls can be bought at WalMart, Target, Dollar Tree (thinner bags) but the size seems to be pretty close to the same from them all. Last purchase was 120 bags for about $7 at WalMart.

It is just nice to not have to leak test/check each bag before using it and also, to have a bag handy for whatever comes up wherever Katie happens to be.

That is priceless convenience.

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Budd

Holiday Happiness

Katie has really loved the holiday season.  Lots of trips to socialize at the dog park up the road and visits from friends and family. She is truly a dog that is wagged by her tail when she is happy.

The only glitch for her was a seizure on 12/30 at 5:30am. Sleeping soundly one minute and the next she was in a 90+ minute seizure set. I should have followed my instincts and doubled her meds a couple of days before when I saw her stools showing a dark coating on some of them.

She is in need of some grooming, though. Her chops are getting in her food and her lips are starting to dribble a drink all around, all around. Usually, she comes to have me dry her mouth afterwards but I don’t always catch on that this is why she is standing there staring at me. My bad.

Though the weather has been excellent this recent cold snap seems to have really energized Katie and she is more on a hair trigger to respond to cars, people, dogs or bikes going by us.

She got a few new toys for Christmas but the best is a bone shaped poop bag holder that clips onto the Flexi leash handle. We have long used old grocery bags for pickups but that takes some forethought to be sure to have one in a pocket when it is needed.  This little bag dispenser is always there and worth every penny per bag.  Target has 120 bags in rolls to fit for only about $8, too. Worth every penny.

Our plans are to be in the area for a few months over the winter. We all seem to be really enjoying this place and don’t see any real need to leave.. but things change. We will keep you posted.

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Budd

She’s a traveling gal

Katie really loves to travel.  Just the anticipation of going is enough to get her really hyped up. She hangs on every movement towards the door and every word that sounds like “go”.  In short, she is usually on the road before we are.

No different this time for our return trip to Florida but I am afraid that this time her anticipation may have caught up with her.  This morning, at 4:18 am she began a 90 minute seizure after 72 days since her last one.  She was lying between our feet on the bed and it may have been triggered by my suddenly waking her from a deep sleep with my foot while I was turning over.  Being startled awake from a deep slumber has frequently triggered her seizures if the other precursor conditions are in place and this time, unfortunately, they were.

She has had much worse seizures but it has been more than 6 months since she had one that lasted this long so it was bad enough.

Otherwise, Katie has been enjoying our adventures and travels. Once we are on the road, she schedules her time lying on the floor, riding on the bunk looking out of the windows, sleeping on the bunk seats and riding in the lap of whomever is not driving.  A pretty cushy travel style if you ask me.

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Budd

Day 62 and still seizure free !!

Yep, the days just keep rolling by and Katie has still not had another seizure.  This is a real relief because we finally had to treat her with an anti-flea/tic/heartworm med and in the past some of those have been linked to seizures within a couple of days of treatment.

This time, the vet suggested a new product called Revolution. it is a spot applied Flea, tick and heatworm preventative. We put off trying it until the cold weather started making Katie a parasite magnet.  So far, it has worked and is still working as we do occasionally see a dead flea on her. But best of all, it has not triggered a seizure.

Her ears are also doing great. This is the longest period that she has gone without daily scratching at her ears since we got her nearly 4 years ago.  The skin in her ears now looks smooth and white and not inflamed and they don’t smell bad anymore.  This is really great news for us all.

A recent grooming got her trimmed out for the holidays and she is always a happy little girl.

On a little more somber note, The beautiful Smudge of the Wandering Sylville blog, finally went home after 14 years. She is missed by all who even just knew of her. Happy trails, Smudge.

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Budd

Happy little girl

Katie is doing fine. Her ear infections seem to be all cleared up. She is still on the meds, though, and that seems to be causing her to drink and eat a lot more. We go back to the vet, today, for  the followup and I will ask about that but I am sure it is just a side effect.

One thing that has always been difficult is getting her to let me process her ears.  She would go hide if I even mentioned them.  Since this infection, she sheepishly but cooperatively lets me do the daily treatments and does not even pull away.  Once this is all over, we will be working a little bit on them every day or two.  Just some drops and a good rinse with EpiOtic 3 times a week and this should not happen again.

Boy!  I am sure glad she is feeling better.   Makes me feel better, too.

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Budd

Katie Rules Again !

Katie Rules Again !

Katie is doing very well. Her problem was a double ear infection complicated by both bacterial and fungal infections. We have her on several medications and she is her old self, again. Actually, maybe better than her old self.   She is definitely hearing better and responding to even softly spoken words. Before the treatments it had gotten to where we had to almost whistle to get her attention. Now, just softly speaking her name gets her immediate attention.

We have always struggled with her earlier problems and are delighted that we have finally found something that has actually stopped them, at least for the moment.  Once the medications are finished we will have to see if they continue to stay clear.

For sure, we will have to up our dedication to actively treating her ears every couple of days instead of the usual once a week or so.  I don't know if it was the change in the climate here in Florida that made them worsen but we now have a handle on how to prevent this from happening again.

Most important, we have our Katie back in good health and happy.
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Budd

One Sick Puppy

We have been holding our collective breath for the past couple of days because Katie has been in obvious distress.  She has been hesitant to eat, overnight, she let out a yelp like she was being hurt terribly! 

It turns out that she was.  Cock-a-Poos have an inherent problem in their genetics… they don’t have good ear ventilation and they grow a lot of hair down in their ear canals which makes the problem worse.

Every time she gets groomed, they clean her ears and pluck all the hair out to keep them as open as possible. Unfortunately, like Cocker Spaniels, her ears have no stiff cartilage to perk them up even a little bit. We knew from the beginning that this was going to be a never ending fight to keep her ears clean and disease free. This past few weeks, we have failed and she has suffered ear infections that are a mix of bacterial and yeast contaminants that have both ears inflamed and her right ear completely plugged up.

Maybe it has been due to our being in Florida instead of North Carolina that has rendered our normal ministrations inadequate. I sure hope so because I really can’t stand the thought that we might have been neglectful of her care and caused her to have such pain that could have been avoided.

After a day of her not eating or drinking and not wanting to move about much we took her to a nearby emergency vet that has gotten her back on track with some antibiotics, antifungal, pain meds for a few days and a thorough ear cleaning.

He said that beyond a certain point, the ear irritation is self accelerating because the inflammation causes the ear canals to narrow more and more and that reduces the ventilation even more.

This will not happen to our little girl ever again! Though we thought we knew what needed to be done and what to look for as symptoms of this sort of problem, we now know that there are other indicators that she needs deeper attention than we have been giving her ears.

We have been told that there are some laser treatments that can greatly reduce the likelihood of this happening in the future. That might be the only option if our best efforts can’t prevent this from happening again.

Meanwhile, she is almost back to her old self. She is eating and drinking ok and even just came out to ask me when I was coming to bed. I told her I needed to finish this post and then will come to bed so she climbed up in my recliner behind me and lay down to wait.  Talk about pressure. I have learned to never tell her something that I am not going to do because she considers every word a promise and won’t let me forget it.

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Budd