Climbing

Lazy Dog Diaries

Majka surgery for lump in face 14-Apr-2006

After Zanatti took a look at the lump and did a biopsy/pathology test we decided to have it removed. It was only slightly larger now than in Nov-2005, but the test showed some weird cells.
We went for an early morning walk. The dogs were most unhappy at the break from the normal routine of cookies and breakfast after the walk. Kaja stood her ground in the usual feeding spot for a while, just staring at me wondering how I could have forgotten. Eventually she gave up on that strategy and walked over to where I was sitting and stared at me from up close. Shortly thereafter Kaja suffered another disappointment at being left behind on the trip outside with Majka, and even having a bowl of food in front of her didn't distract her from this injustice.
Majka was checked in at 8:05am. Weight: 67.3 lbs. The surgery was successful and the lump taken out fully. See the post-surgery pictures.

Majka broken nail AGAIN! 08-Apr-2006

Noticed blood on the kitchen floor, starting the old 'which dog is bleeding' quest. It was Majka, with another broken claw, this time on the front right paw. This actually looked a bit worse than the other time, but it didn't seem to bother her quite so much. We took it a bit more in stride this time and just watched it and did soaking 2-3 times a day with the old disinfectant solution. By Friday 14-Apr the broken/hanging bit had fallen off by itself and the nail was looking pretty good.

Kaja eye 23-Mar-2006

Some good news in the Dog Diaries -- it seems that the lipid deposit that was present on Kaja's eyes since Jul-2004 has receded to the point where it is barely noticable!

Majka broken nail epilogue 03-Feb-2006

It took just a couple of days of occasional limping and shorter walks to get back to normal. There was snow and ice in the woods, which was pretty tough on the exposed quick, but convenient for spotting the blood. We never started the antibiotics and ended up just returning them to the vet ($52 back!). Vets seem to be very quick to prescribe antibiotics as a preventative measure for anything that comes up.

Majka broken nail 23-Jan-2006

On the Saturday afternoon walk I saw Majka go suddenly lame on her back right leg. She would not put any weight on it for a few steps, but then recovered. Over the next couple days she was on and off, seemingly fine but then sometimes completely buckling with the right leg. Yesterday evening I noticed an apparent crack in one of the toenails, and by this morning it was completely cracked in half, just dangling there. The inner fleshly part is just exposed. I can't imagine how painful that must be! This afternoon we go to the vet to get her fixed up.
Vet: Tore off rest of nail, trimmed other nails (they were long!), prescribed antibiotics and cleansing soak solution. Total bill: $117. Ka-ching!

Winter weigh-in 21-Jan-2006

We dropped by the vets to see how the dogs are doing with their winter fat.. and it looks like the current rations are good:
- Kaja: 67.0 lbs
- Majka: 66.7 lbs

Majka gets another stick stuck in her mouth 08-Jan-2006

While Aneta and Aga were in Poland, Majka managed to get another little stick wedged in upper teeth in the back of her mouth. At first I just thought she was hiding something in her mouth, but it soon became clear that something was bothering her, as she would not open her mouth at all and pawed uselessly at her face a few times. I took her home, got out the headlamp, made her open her mouth and quickly popped the stick out. This one was maybe 7mm in diameter!

Kaja ate rope-frisbee 05-Dec-2005

I gave Kaja one of the rope-frisbees to play with and within 10 mins she had eaten half of it. Then next evening she threw up in the back yard (after actually getting up from the living room). The next day she tossed again, so we put her on plain rice. The third day I found the 1/2 rope in the yard, a frozen poopsicle. Aiiieee. After two days on plain rice Kaja was fine.

Majka little lump in cheek 07-Nov-2005

I noticed a little lump in Majka's left cheek. As of 23-Nov it seems somewhat smaller but still bears watching.

Majka, shoulder better 29-Jul-2005

Another week of being strict about short leash walks finally got her back to being a little better, and yet another week of limited activity did the trick. She still shows signs of limp even now, but we have done long runs and fetching and seems OK.

Majka, still bad shoulder 09-Jul-2005

All week has just been short leash walks (with very limited time off leash for business purposes). Was looking better this morning, let her off and did a bunch of swimming, and now back to square one.

Majka, still bad shoulder 29-Jun-2005

Majka is still limping on front left leg, seemingly shoulder. Sometimes worse, sometimes better. E.g. a couple of times in the last week she was putting no weight on it, other times able to run OK. Kaja is fine.

Both dogs, bad shoulders 20-Jun-2005

Both dogs seem to have come down with slight limps in their front legs. Probably too much running and bounding in the woods, running into logs etc.

Majka exploding anal sac (?!?) 18-Jun-2005

In the evening Katherine noticed Majka having a particularly vivid dream, with the full running and muted barking. She went over to koo over this sweet behavior but was instead greeted by the disturbing sight of a brown watery flow coming from Majka's bum. Since Kath was the "first responder", she got the honor of dealing with it. After a lot of paper towels and a no smaller amount of gagging type noises, Majka was restored. The stench was peculiar and disquieting, and in the end we came to the conclusion that it was probably one of the anal sacs that had, errr, discharged during the dream. As of several days later there has not been a repeat incident.

Majka bad stomach 7-Jun-2005

Majka did not eat breakfast or dinner today, and threw up in the car. She is pretty subdued.
Next day: 8-Jun-2005. Majka not well in the morning, still not eating and not drinking. Went to vet. She was definitely dehydrated and the X-ray showed some gas in intenstines. She had some blood in stool. Doctor gave her subcutaneous hydration, which looked like a camelback above her shoulders. Pretty weird. Also got prescription Pepcid and antibiotic. Anyway, she slept all day and fortunately by the evening she got her appetite and energy back. $273. Ka-ching. 64 pounds.
Kaja, feeling left out in the entire going-to-the-vet-thing, scooted across the grasss for 3m. When Aga comes back she can go get squeezed.

Majka sliver in the eye 23-Apr-2005

22-Apr-05: Around dinner I noticed some crud in Majka's right eye, but did not investigate further. Then after we came back from the climbing gym I looked more closely and noticed a definite scratch near the upper right side of her right eye (patient right). It was bothering her and she was scratching at it. Following advice in the "First Aid for Dogs" book, we taped a sock to her foot, with ensuing humor and heartache at seeing her wildly swing this socked-paw as if it were some kind of alien claw attached to her leg.
23-Apr-05: Woke in the morning and her eye was red, and swollen, with discharge. We went on a short run and it looked less irritated afterward. We saw the vet at noon and she (Beatriz Thayer) determined that Majka has a ~3mm sliver lodged in the eye, but fortunately it seems to be fairly superficial and not lodged deep in the eye tissue. I left the office with a cone, Rimadyl (oral pain killer), Tobramycin (solution antibiotic for eye), and Atropine solution (pain killer directly for eye). The last one gave us an unwanted adventure.
- 1:30pm: Gave Majka Tobramycin and Atropine drops. Within a few minutes Majka was really foaming at the mouth and drooling like crazy in a quite terrifying way. Of course I had in my mind the scene from the movie on Jon Muir crossing Australia where his dog ate poison, starting foaming at the mouth, and was dead a few minutes later. So Aneta and I jumped into action, called the emergency vet services in Woburn, and were on our way within 5 minutes. Fortunately by then Majka was only dribbling a bit and we were not completely panicked. By the time we got there she seemed fine and we decided to forgo the long wait and $132 charge and just bring Majka home. Well.. almost.
- 2pm: Since we were in the neighborhood, we thought to stop at PetCo and get some diet dog food for Kaja, who was pronounce "7 or 8 pounds too heavy" by Zanatti on 22-Apr-05. So we brought Majka in with us, but the poor girl really doesn't like this place and ended up having a major panic-attack and nearly breaking the leash to get the hell out of there and back to the car. Finally we got back home and she just collapsed and fell asleep from all the excitement. When we got home, I found this on the web:

My dog began to drool excessively and paw at its mouth after I administered the eye medications. Is that a reaction?
No. The tear ducts carry tears from the eyes to the back of the nose. The eye medications may go through the tear ducts and eventually reach the throat where they are tasted. Atropine has a very bitter taste, which may cause drooling and pawing at the mouth. You are seeing your dog's response to a bad taste, not a drug reaction.

My dog began to drool excessively and paw at its mouth after I administered the eye medications. Is that a reaction?

No. The tear ducts carry tears from the eyes to the back of the nose. The eye medications may go through the tear ducts and eventually reach the throat where they are tasted. Atropine has a very bitter taste, which may cause drooling and pawing at the mouth. You are seeing your dog's response to a bad taste, not a drug reaction.

- Of course this is not the end, since it is Saturday and we can't even try to make an appointment with the opthalmalogist until Tuesday!!! Our vet says it is not an emergency, and indeed Majka is not really scratching at it much, but still this is going to be a long few days. We called Angell Mem and they won't have an opthalmalogist on stuff until June. Majka is expected to require a short surgical procedure to remove this sliver.

RESOLUTION: We got an appointment with another vet eye doctor in North Andover on Monday at 2pm. After a short exam by the "understudy" types, the vet came in, took a quick look and said she would be able to pluck it out with tweezers. After a drop of anesthetic, she had a go but Majka was struggling and squinting and making trouble. Then we pulled out a tennis ball and suddenly Majka had no concern that someone was sticking a pointy metal thing in her eye. She held perfectly still and 5 seconds later the sliver came out clean with trouble at all.

Kaja grubasek 22-Apr-05

On Friday we took Kaja to the vet for a checkup and vaccinations. She weighed in at 72.6 pounds! We were sure this was a mistake since her weight has always previously been stable, albeit steadily increasing. But two further weigh-ins confirmed this development. So now we are serious about reducing the food and trying to get this fatty dog back down to a reasonable weight.

Majka stiff hind legs

20-Feb-05: After a day of running like crazy up and down steep snow/ice slopes while we ice climbed at Rumney, Majka's hind legs were so sore that she refused to move that evening. We gave her a couple of aspirins, and she was fine in the morning
27-Feb-05: After a long-ish X-country session in the fells (1.5 hours), she shows notable stiffness in her hind-quarters, especially the (dog) left leg. It seems to loosen up a bit, but she still is not looking comfortable. I noticed in the last few days it seems that she wasn't jumping as high...
28-Feb-05: Still some silght limping mostly on the left leg, not as bad though
08-Apr-05: After not being a problem for a while, Majka was limping again on her left leg. She went on a run this morning with Aneta and I threw the stick on the evening 2nd walk.
23-Apr-05: Legs generally fine these days

25-Feb-2005

Majka got a small 2" stick lodged in the upper back of her mouth between the teech. Took a trip to the vet to diagnose and remove ($50).

31-Jan-05

A couple of incidents: Majka threw up three times in the house and Kaja had stomach problems as well. Pretty disgusting all in all. Otherwise, going well except Kaja got attacked by Chester just as we were exiting the fells. Poor girl was on lead and she couldn't even defend herself. Total mess as she struggled with Chester biting her head and getting tangled up in the leash and with my legs. I'm not too happy that Chester wasn't grabbed. She was fine afterwards, just covered in slobber. Off to bed. K

27-Jan-05

The dogs got another shot at the snow on Wed--a little less severe this time so we got the full happy dog in the snow effect. We took our chances and left the car in its usual spot by the Fells and did some frolicking in the woods. No good sticks though, covered by snow, so m and k had to make due with twigs. Get the twig!

Not much to report. I had another day of shoveling. The mailman didn't come on Monday--I didn;t do a very good job shoveling the walkway. I was basically spent after shoveling all the other areas. So Monday night I shoveled until about 11pm and voila Tuesday there was mail!

The snow is so high that the dogs have had to build tunnels through the snow. Looking into the back yard is like looking into a maze. It's so funny watching the dogs run through the obstacle course to come in when I call. I tried to take a picture of them, but they kept moving out of position or out of the frame by the time the shutter clicked. Gotta run-K

Katherine

It's 10am and we're in the middle of a snow emergency. This is one big snow storm. Where's my camera!? The snow is up over the handles of all the doors! Thanks god I was able to get out the front door or we'd be trapped in here. I couldn't move the porch door, the back door or the garage door even an inch. I had to hop the back yard fence in my snow boots in order to clear the dog door and the snow is up to my thighs. Walking from the front door to the road it was up to the bottom of my jacket!! I could barely move, it was even a little frightening. Worse yet, when I went over the top of the fence, the hem of my pants got caught on the top of the wood slats. It was really scary because my foot was twisted up into the air and I could only touch the ground with my tip toe on the other leg. It was really painful and I was really panicking. I tried to climb back up but I couldn't get a grip in that awkward position. Fortunately I got the adrenalin strength going and just ripped my pants leg open. Yikes!

Once I finally dug out the dog door, though, the dogs came flying out and went head first into the snow. They both pooed right away. I think they were panicking a bit, too! This is one of those times it's hard to be a dog because they were sunk in the snow and couldn't get a good spot to do their business. It was so urgent that they got over their natural fastidiousness and just went for it. Even though the snow was over their heads, I did a lot of rope throwing and they bounced right after it. Some serious burrowing action. I found the video camera so I'll take some pix. Unfortunately the skiing will have to wait. Diab pointed out that there's nowhere to park--the plows are going constantly and we're not suppose to be on the roads. I really doubt I'd be able to walk far if I'm the first one in, so we're going to wait until later (around noon) and see if it gets any better. In the meantime, dogs are staring, staring at me. I spent an hour digging a path for my car in three feet on snow. I have to admit, a snow blower can be nice at times.

Katherine 23Jan05

Uh, possible problem. The heater was blowing cold air for about a 45 min until I finally got so miserable I had to check it out (yes, it;s 5:19am). I remember Aneta talking about a problem with the heater that she corrected by hitting it so I went downstairs and thanks god found the off switch. I hit everything on the heater until something whirred. Now it appears to be blowing tepid to warmish air. Is this normal? Does the thing take an hour to warm up or is this a problem? By the way, I was thinking I was going to have to evacuate everyone to my condo until I could get a hold of Sears on this freezing blizzardy morning and I would really rather not do that! Dogs dealing with emergency fine. Kaja is sleeping through it and only Majka can tell I'm worried since she's gone into her super-seal face quick tail fluttering mode.

Quick weather report. I went home for about two hours last night and when I came back I had to park in the middle of the road and shovel out the driveway just to get in. So even though it was almost midnight, I also remembered to clear the dog door which of course led to high jinks out in the snow. I had to throw shovels of snow for Kaja which started her barking like crazy so the party was over. But I threw the rope a few times and the dogs had a great time burrowing for it. This snow is true powder! Really amazing! I'm going back to bed.

Katherine

I don't mean to laugh at Kaja's eyes, but I read that section about her eyes but missed the word "deposits". So it looks like she's having trouble with her actual eyes independently growing and shrinking. I'm just practicing using the diaries. Went on a woods walk from about 4:30 to 5:15 pm in the snow. Dogs were happy of course. Lots of accelerating and 'two dogs on a stick'. No incidents and no other people. But I love the way the dogs look in the gloaming. They sort of look like disembodied bodies floating through the woods. And Kaja disappears much quicker into the background when it's starting to get dark so I have to keep her close. Dogwallah time! Kaja's starting to shake and make a racket with her collar so I don't forget. T&A are on the plane. Sigh.

Majka bad shoulder 2005-Jan

Jan-09: First notice slight limp in front left leg ("patient" left as a person would call their left leg)
Jan-10: Stiff in the morning, but went on normal walk, no problems. Then v. bad by evening with severe lameness
Jan-11: No more than ~10% of weight on leg, didn't go on morning walk. Giving 2x325mg aspirin each 12 hours. Vet says 8-12 mg/pound of aspirin each 12 hours. Web site says that crushing tablets can ease stomach issues.
Jan-12: Better last evening, went on short leash walk in woods this morning, showing no limp then and a big desire to run. Seems mostly OK even an hour after walk
Jan-13: Regular walk, plenty of running and postholing... we gave her one aspirin Evening - Majka is limping a little bit
Jan-17: Mostly resolved, slight indication of limp after period of inactivity

Majka bad stomach

2005-Jan-12: Majka vomited in the afternoon (before dinner). Good appetite for dinner.
2005-Jan-17: Majka did a mini-vomit in the morning before the walk (and before food). She made Aneta yell at her by eating sticks continuously in the woods.

Kaja eye

2004-July: First notice deposit on Kaja's eyes. Right eye (patient right) was bigger, left smaller
2005-Jan: Right eye is still about the same, left eye has grown to same as right but seems stable