He is feeling better.......

I think he is feeling better…..well his body language tells me he is almost back to normal.
Actually, he is in less pain now the dew claw and infection has been incised than he was when it was just hanging and swollen.

He just seems totally normal today

If a claw splits down to the quick, or even if it falls out altogether and it bleeds it (there is a rich capillary supply there) it can leave a gap at the base through which infections easily gets in. So Dizzy is taking a broad spectrum antibiotic as well as a cleaning regime. We had been cleaning and dressing Dizzy’s foot for a few days days since the tear with salt water, antiseptics and styptics/antibiotic powder, but it did not stop infection forming.

Anaesthetics

Remember it used to be the case, that anaesthesia was very dangerous for greyhounds due to breed traits and inability to clear it quickly.

However, the vet says this is not necessarily as bad these days. This year a new anaesthetic is available on the market, which is used for humans but is perfect for greyhounds or for other ageing pets. It is many many times more effective than any previous anaesthetics and that means they can use much less of it therefore is not so toxic for the liver and kidneys to clear from the bloodstream.

However, the drawback is that these new anaesthetics are expensive. He says a good vet will aborb that cost and spread it over all treatments. Why? Because a customer should not have to be told, that if they have this anaesthetic they have to pay more, because that could lead to people making a decision not to use it based on expense. Unscrupulous vets may not stock this drug or use it because of its expense, so if you have a greyhound, check that they have definitely updated their anaesthetics to modern ones. Dizzy came round and was completely normal whereas in the past, dogs used to be dopey and drugged for hours afterwards. Being under, does make them a little bit thirsty for a day afterwards but as you can see, Dizzy is fine now.

Dew Claws

Our boy has had a problem with his dew claw, he caught it a few days ago and it split. However, Dizzy licked it and bit it and it was half hanging off. We put some kiddies numbing ointment on it. Then we wrapped a solid barrier around it, taped up his paw, and the vet said he would see him next morning.

He went straight into surgery to have the twisted ripped claw taken off, ie Dew Claw amputation and disarticulation and has part of his bone taken away too. He has also had the same done on other legs to avoid this happening again. I am not exactly sure why they have to cut a bit of bone at the base of the claw, he said partly infection and partly ‘disarticulating the toe’.

He is in recovery at the moment, and we pick him up later no doubt with a ruddy great lampshade on his head. My girl here was distraught, she has never been on her own really without Dizzy there and although he finds here a nuisance and often changes rooms to get away from her, she clearly relies on him.

Dizzy looks as if he has had problems with toes before, and his claws/toe bones do seem to jut out at really odd angles even after clipped. My suspicion, is that he might have suffered a broken toe before or has joint problems. Then he runs in a strange way, so we always have had to tape down the dew claws if we let him off the lead because the way he bounces forward he catches the claws on his other legs. So he is better off without them.
He has infection in that leg/toe apparently so we need to treat him with antibiotics.

While he was under anaesthetic, we got them to do his teeth which were badly scaled, and apparently they have come up spotless. He should be waking up round about now, and we pick him up in a few hours.

Hounds Calendar 2010

The doggies' grandmother (human one) loves to get products with the hounds on and likes a yearly calendar so we've made the new Hounds 2010 calendar which is on sale at Zazzle, with all profits (i.e. the royalties that get sent to me) going to Essex Greyhound Rescue service.

The Hounds 2010 Calendar by erssie
Browse Greyhounds Calendars

make custom gifts at Zazzle

Christmas Cards For Charity

I have just put a couple of Christmas cards up for sale on Zazzle with pics of Dizzy and Lily taken in the snow last year. We are going to use them for our cards this year but they have a neutral greeting of ''Happy Christmas'' so that anyone can buy them and we will donate all profits from the sale of these cards to Essex Greyhound Rescue. Find them here at my Zazzle Store

create & buy custom products at Zazzle

You can find these in the normal Zazzle panel in the sidebar.

Dilemmas of Dog Food

What to feed our hounds has been a bit of an issue with us. When we first got the hounds, they did have bad skin and a lot of gas and we knew we wanted them to have a good quality food for life to keep them as healthy as possible. We knew we wanted a dried dog food especially as greyhounds do have bad teeth that get covered in plaque quite quickly compared with other breeds.


We started them off on James Well Beloved and that worked well for a while, especially as they had a large breed version with big chunks they couldn't inhale and choke on (which Lily had done previously) and containing organic ingredients.



Our girl developed alopecia and lichenoid tissue with ulceration in her vulva...extremely painful for her and gets worse obviously when she is weeing through that tissue. So, on the advice of the vets we changed their food to Nutro Choice and went for an Adult sensitive.
It was very costly getting it from the vets and our local pet food store only stocked it occasionally. Then there was a scare. Some of the US imports of this food contained a silicon like ingredient, that had also been used on furniture (sofas) and had caused burning in humans. In pets it was causing fatalities and so there was a voluntary recall from the manufacturers. The problem with dried food is that many manufacturers are really only compiling the food and not making it as such, and it consists of raw ingredients that are mainly imported from China, where the laws concerning what is fit for consumption by animals is not as rigorous. They had been using a particular type of vegetable protein, and mixing in a poisonous ingredient to Nutro had to recall stock and also had to reassure the public and use different suppliers. Well, when we went into pet food shops in the UK, no-one had heard of this recall or had actually returned the food. Only our vet knew about it and had restocked but no-one could say whether the UK had imported the same stock etc. So we lost confidence and what with the expense of it, and the irregularity of the stocking in our local big shop we dropped it. I cannot really say that it made an awful lot of difference to the condition of Lily's vulva either.

We went back to the old faithful James Well Beloved, but this time, we had a problem. Their manufacturers had changed, or they had been taken over and their formula was different. Even I could tell that it smelt bad. It smelt like horse manure and boiled cabbage and the hounds normally greedy and ravenous and who would eat anything, started leaving the food. They tried hard to eat it, picked it up, sucked it a bit and then spat it out on the floor.


We changed to a new food that was widely available, Purina. But then my confidence was affected by some bad reports online with regard to illness and deaths caused by the food. There were too many things to read or report here, but just Google Purina and problems and there is a list with claims of deaths. This was supposedly connected to afloxatins forming on mouldy grain. It worried me a bit, because sometimes I can tell that dog food has been stored in a damp place anyway, and to me, many brands do smell mouldy and I wouldn't eat it. The problem with pet foods, is that they are for cheapness sake made from waste food that is unfit for human consumption. You can read one of the reports on the composition of dog foods here and the brands that use certain types of food.


Then we heard about a new dog food called Burgess Greyhound and Lurcher and I could find few bad reports on them, and they were not listed. We did try to order this through a small local pet food shop, and as usual, they messed up our order by not putting it in at all the first week and then the following week, we were just about to dig in and feed the dogs when we noticed the pellets were really small, and smelt like lawn clippings. It was rabbit food of course!



So now, we decided to change to Burgess dog foods. Especially a s I could not find any particularly bad reports on their dog food lines, and they have a variety called Greyhound and Lurcher.
It isn't organic, and I suppose it is going to have some of the problems with any manufactured dog food, i.e. it will have been made cheaply. They did however give us a free pack to try and they are contributing to rescue services for greys and lurchers from their sales profits for the life of the product. We will see how it goes.



Well, I suppose the alternative is to feed a dog only food cooked by their owners but this for us isn't good because home cooked food tends to be soft, and our dogs are not safe with bones. They do have home cooked food as supplements, like roast meat, vegetables, some fruit and of course fish to help their coats.But we do want a dry dog food as it is better for their teeth. Also I do not cook, and cannot cook for myself. I don't mean I am bad....but it is impossible and dangerous for me to try to lift pans or go near hot things with my arm disabilities. It would not be practical to feed two dogs twice a day and for Steve to cook for them each time.

Anyway, this is the general recommendation by one organisation if you must use dried products:

API recommends that if you must use dry commercial pet foods, change brands and flavors every three to four months. Change gradually, mixing the old and new so that your dog has a chance to get used to the new food. Also, try to feed canned food, too, because it contains more meat protein than dry dog food. You should also try to supplement commercial pet foods with organic meats and steamed vegetables. Dr. Jeff Feinman, Certified Veterinary Homeopath, recommends that pet owners feed the freshest food available to their pets, offer a variety, and serve it in moderation. Feinman says that his advice certainly "sounds like how we should eat."

The pet food companies are living in a lawless land where pets become pet food. Cusick writes, "We are not being truthfully informed as to what is going into a food and are unable to read a pet food label to know what is in the food."

Teeth

I have put a post up on the Greyhound forum on Ravelry, asking for advice about food and teeth just to see what people actually do. No-one has replied yet though or commented.



Most of us are told to brush the dogs teeth at least once a day, but I wonder in reality if everyone does this. We have been keeping up with this now for about a month and the dogs teeth are still forming really hard plaque that goes over the gum line and causes bleeding, I have never known a dog for developing such teeth, our border collie had an occasional brush but never had teeth this bad in about 17 yrs of his life. Greyhounds are known obviously for their dental problems, which are a breed trait.

Not my dogs teeth......but an example of little black dots
which are not decay but actually exposed dentine
from the tooth being worn down

I panicked recently thinking that Lily was getting black bad teeth at the front. Each one is like a little stump with black dots on it. Actually, it isn't decay, it is where the teeth are worn and the middle part, the dentine, has become exposed and discolours when in contact with the air.

This all looked very familiar and sure enough, I visited the dentist recently and was told that my front teeth were a bit worn and the dentine is exposed and getting discoloured. The discolouration goes right down through the tooth and so eventually, it needs the whole top being sawn off (painful!) and then a filling put on top that is white....I am not ready to face that yet being a total dental phobic. This was my first visit in about 10 yrs.

Dog Dental products

We use a dual ended toothbrush. it has a long handle and a small head, with an even smaller head the other end. We have one for each dog, and really this makes it a lot easier with the needle noses who have long jaws.


We also use Logic toothpaste prescribed by the vet. You can buy it elsewhere though.
We did switch to a cheaper brand bought from a pet shop, and really it was useless and sticky and the dogs didn't like the taste (smelt like butterscotch and not meat). The Logic toothpaste is enzymatic which means that even if you can just get it into the mouth, and cannot reach certain teeth if your pet is being difficult (especially cats) then the enzymes in the product are supposed to break down plaque. We do see a difference if we stop using it for a few days.


When we were on holiday, we noticed that Lily who was really a pup when we got her and always had really white teeth, to our horror was also developing scaly teeth and bad breath. So in addition to the normal regime, we gave Plaque Off a go. It is supposedly a natural product (contains seaweed products) and is supposed to break down tartar as well as cure bad breath.
You sprinkle it on to their foods and they do love it because it smells a bit fishy and sea weedy.
As for fresh breath it did not seem to make it fragrant, it sort of neutralised the bad smells and replaced it with a faint whiff of the sea....is that worse? Maybe not. As for breaking down the tartar, it did appear to be helping in Lily's case but did not see a huge difference with Dizzy after about 3-4 weeks. However, I have heard that you need to use it for much longer to get a good result.

New Knits For Lily

OK this is a cross post, but this is relevant to both greyhound and knitting so needs to be on both blogs. Lily has 2 new sweaters. Sadly, I didn't make or design these sweaters although I would have been very proud if I had. The sweaters were designed and beautifully knitted by Laney Chubb, from Greyt Sweaters.

She was originally a hand knitter but was so successful in getting orders for these, that she started to knit them on a machine and the work can be done swiftly and still to a high standard and I would still consider it handcrafting.

She had a special offer during the summer when orders are a little lower so for £50 you get two sweaters which is a bargain. You got to choose the colours of the multicoloured sweater and then she used one of the colours to knit a plain spare sweater. Dizzy is modelling the plain one, it goes on him but is a little too short and tight for him because it is designed especially to Lily's measurements and they are spot on. If you measure accurately as explained on Laney's website, then you will get a perfect fit.



Lily is such a fusspot when it is cold, and I have become her blankie slave getting up in the night to cover her up if she gets cold. The consequences of not doing that are that she scrapes at the bed until she has nearly dug holes in the carpet and then yaps to tell me her bed is a complete mess and she wants someone to sort it out! ''Look what you made me do'' she says, she is just like a moody teenage daughter.



The pics I took are awful but it is 25 deg C here today, and too hot to let them wear them for long and the batteries on the camera ran out. Better pics will be done when it is cooler. But have a look at these hounds from the Greyt Sweaters gallery.


Laney is currently only making ready-made sweaters for her sweater shop. Most of the ready-made ones have fitted so well, and the orders have been so high that it makes sense for her to build up shop stock and not take custom orders at the moment.

New Pillows for the Boys and Girls

We went to IKEA on Saturday night, what a wild time we had looking at curtains and eating Swedish Meatballs. Going out (to IKEA) is the new staying in (which was the new going out) don't you know?

We bought these two pillows for our hounds as they are cheap and cheerful and machine washable. Steve tried out his new camera skills and wanted to capture the pair before they got hairy (cushions of course), but as you can see he didn't manage that. However, the quality of this different camera in terms of depth and colour are apparent immediately. We are still novices though, and Stevie is learning to get better and better pics all the time.

Yesterday Lily collided into Dizzy and what a palaver. Stevie had to bend down and cuddle Dizzy to stop him screeching and shutting his eyes and he said it was exactly like having a 2yr old who had bashed his knee, he needed comforting although there was nothing wrong with him. And madam Lily, arrived home with poo splattered over her back end and was most ashamed at her lack of ladylike hygiene. It seems that the force of the impact (whilst running) made her release a little bit in the bowel region, and it just went flying. So Stevie needed wet wipes (just like a toddler too) and we had to put her in the shower and scrub with Sanex. Next time someone asks me if I have kids, I will probably have to stop and think about that, and might say ''Yes, sort of, except mine are never going to grow up!''