For JOYCE...Lab x 2 plus a little guy

[iluvk9]

This forum is starting to look suspiciously like Labrador-Pit Bull Talk...hmmm...all these labs appearing suddenly on everyone's doorsteps...Joyce? Anything to say?

I wish I could take credit!

[luvmyangels]

Awww how sad. They both look so sad. I hope they will get better soon.

[Malli]

I am glad you got them to the vet

Do you have some junky dog food (Cesar or something) that you can blend with some water and heat? The taste and the texture(doesn't hurt to swallow) may encourage them to eat it Or, maybe chicken and rice blended with water and heated?

They should cough a little, so they can get all that crap out of there...

Thanks for helping them out !

[msvette2u]

Oh they are coughing a ton
We're giving them baby food with water in it. I have to syringe it to them.
Maybe tomorrow we can try cooked chicken with rice or something...
They DO seem a BIT better, if only they aren't chilling/shaking the way they were last night and even this morning??

[msvette2u]

Just a quick update - Dallas is improving greatly and can eat on his own, easing medication administration.
However, Duke woke up this AM worse than before and has diarrhea, so we brought him in to the office. He was so lethargic, didn't want to even move.
He needed 8 billion things done, fecal as his diarrhea was so horrible/slimy/smelly, but that was OK, vet thought he *could* have something rickettsial going on but I don't THINK so, just in case he's on doxycycline, and then she X-rayed him and ran a whole blood panel, his white cells are through the roof, thousands above normal, he's got severe pneumonia and he's on Zeniquine for that. She said his lungs are just horrible and full of gunk.
I KNOW he's quite sick.
He's also dehydrated so we've got 12 litres of fluids to start on him at 1 drop/second until tomorrow, I mean he's seriously dehydrated and sick.
BUT - he's on the road to recovery as soon as we get the fluids going and the antibiotics in.
So that's the update - thanks for caring, everyone
(and special thanks Joyce and Christine who donated last week for their care-- I love you guys!!!)

[Malli]

The fluid rate sounds appropriately high - are you using a macro or micro drip? (big or little drip maker)
Did she talk about any couppage? It will help knock the gunk in the lungs loose.
Also be sure to give him access to a very warm environment.

What have you tried to feed him? Nutrition is very important in healing...

[msvette2u]

It's a regular drip I think. It's whatever we had, Jeff has iv setups on hand.
I hadn't thought of couppage(?) isn't that where you kinda make a cup of your hand and pat the side of their chests to make mucous come out?
I'm hoping that fluids help with removing the mucous.
He's getting that DOGSURE we purchased for Smitty, he never used it. I syringe it to him.
Tomorrow I'll add some gerber baby food again, making a slurry of it and giving it to him.
IF he can eat on his own I'll try rice, too, and cooked chicken.

[gayrghts]

yes you cup your hands.... and rapidly tab on their chest wall, with their head lower than their lungs to loosen and help the mucus to get freed up and out.... they often vomit when they cough it up, so its not advisable to do right after working hard to get food into them

Its the same thing that's done with kids with cystic fibrosis.

[amazincc]

Oh, poor guy... sending lots of good vibes for a speedy recovery...

[airwalk]

Ah, that sucks...I was afraid of that.

Just a note to everyone, as you all know the Bordatella vaccine provides for the most common 3 strains; however, there are like 13 strains out there.

Shelters seem to, for about the last year, be fighting a particularly virulent strain .. so I can only assume that we are no longer fighting one of the most common 3.

It has been our observation, that virtually every dog that comes to the shelter, within about 7 - 10 days comes down with it and it is a monster.

So, in your own dogs, please take care and please remember that it seems the lethargy and going off feed are the first two symptoms we see, then the goopy eyes, then runny nose...then the coughing starts. I don't want to scare anyone, but seniors and immune suppressed tend to get bad quickly and very bad.

[msvette2u]

Well when we first did rescue 6 years ago, we never vaccinated our own dogs for KC.
Let's just say that when that Beagle came our way, showing NO symptoms - he was the ONLY 'new guy' to come from a shelter and two days later our own dogs were coughing, plus a few fosters. FOUR of our own dogs were coughing.
Only one foster needed antibiotics - but almost every dog at our place got sick.
I went and got vaccines from the feed store since it's not been our routine to vaccinate fosters on arrival or our own dogs.
So everyone got vaccinated then, and I got 50 vaccines online and now everyone has one when they come in.
Of the dogs now, only 3 are showing symptoms, Chris, Laddie and the boxer pup, Izzie. And the symptoms are very mild, thank God.

OH - and Duke is lying in his cage this AM, wagging his tail at me!!

[airwalk]

Oh that is good news...and yep every shelter I know is fighting this garbage, so I wouldn't take any chances when bringing in a shelter dog..I would assume that if they aren't showing symptoms, they soon will be.

[Malli]

The couppage is like everyone else said, be sure to tap the chest HARD, harder then you'd think, and the taps would go in a pattern, from where the abdomen meets the chest towards the head, so as to "tap" the mucus out.

The tail wagging is a good sign

[Malli]

I should add, its odd, we see a lot of KC at work, and we disinfect like crazy but have to assume that we miss some of it, Oscar has never *knock on wood* had KC; although by going to work he would be more exposed to it; I vaccinate him every 6 mos for it, I wonder if the vaccs are all the same?

[airwalk]

We too disinfect everything like crazy, but it's airborne..so if one dog sneezes, it's there for all dogs to catch.

Scooter and Magic go with me virtually everyday and the only reason the vet and I can come up with that they don't catch it is they have built up resistance by being exposed every day...I too vaccinate every 6 months on all four of my dogs.

My old lab got it in early April, scared the crap out of me and not something I want to do again with a 16 year old lab.

[msvette2u]

Our dogs never used to get it. I mean NEVER. I think I heard one cough once, when doing fostering before.
And the fosters would always come in with it.
This Beagle came in about 2 mos. ago and that's the first time, in a long long time that any of our dogs caught it, so I am assuming it's "new" or mutated that our dogs just never had been exposed before.

[msvette2u]

My life just got a bit easier...!!!

Look who could barely make it to the door to pee, we have to half carry him...yet after we used our new George Foreman grill to cook up some burgers...he sat up...



Took notice...


YUM!!!!!!!! (he chews funny)
Now I can wrap his pills up in some food - I hope we don't have to grill a burger every time he needs some pills...!!!!!

[luvmypitties]

Awww I am so glad he is doing better! I love his chewing face!

[Malli]

[msvette2u]

The boys got adopted yesterday!!!!
I put a link because it's a pic of the adopter too, for those interested they can click and see the boys and their new home.

[img=http://aycu34.webshots.com/image/41873/2001853647152364565_th.jpg]

Way to go, Duke and Dallas!!
Oh, and the adopter is keeping their names...!!