Boston terriers having some fun!

This is a video of two of our Boston terriers: Brutus, a daycare client who visits with us alot, and his new girlfriend, Ubu. Ubu is one mean ball player, and retrieves better than most retrievers. She's also a tough girl when it comes to tug o' war. I finally just stopped filming, because these two just go on and on and on....
I took the video on Tuesday, Dec. 21st, when Ubu was still boarding with us.

Emma's health: continued - GOLPP

As promised, here is another brain dump on Emma's health. She is, after all, my six million dollar dog. Okay, I haven't spent that much, but I'll bet we're on our way to $20,000. Yikes. I try not to think about it. Today, I'm going to talk about GOLPP, which I mentioned in yesterday's post stands for Geriatric Onset Laryngeal Paralysis and Polyneuropathy. GOLPP is exactly what its name implies: it's a whole syndrome which has as one of its main symptoms laryngeal paralysis, and which mainly occurs in older dogs.
Emma was diagnosed in October 2009 by Dr. Pattie at Aldie Vet Hospital as having laryngeal paralysis. Emma had had a difficult summer that year, with heavy panting when we'd go for walks in the heat. She just couldn't handle the heat at all. Once the weather cooled, the problem (hoarse heavy panting, almost gasping for breath) went away. But Emma LOVES visiting the vet, so when we were there that October, she got excited and did the same kind of panting. As soon as Dr. Pattie heard it, she suspected LP. That heavy panting is called "stridor." Once I had a name, I started researching LP online. I stumbled upon a fantastic Yahoo group, called simply LP, for people whose dogs have been diagnosed with this disease. At first, I was pretty panicked. Laryngeal paralysis is what it sounds like: one or sometimes both sides of the larynx become paralyzed and basically don't open appropriately when the dog breathes/pants. Since dogs get rid of heat by panting (almost exclusively), if the larynx isn't opening correctly, oxygen and air can't pass appropriately. Therefore, dogs with LP often overheat because they can't pant correctly.
The paralysis is caused by a nerve problem (hence the "neuropathy" in the name GOLPP). The nerves that control the larynx are the real problem (not the larynx itself). Unfortunately, not only are the nerves of the larynx affected, but alot of other nerves as well. Most dogs with LP have weak hind ends, because the nerves that control the back legs also seem to be affected. The messages that tell the brain how to move the legs don't get through very well. Emma has, in the last year, gotten weaker in her hind end, and occasionally lists to one side or doesn't seem to know where she's putting her back feet. So every once in a while she'll fall or misstep. To make Emma's situation worse, she also has arthritis, which is of course pretty common in older dogs. She has arthritis in her spine, and she has hip dysplasia (her right hip). She also has arthritis around her repaired knee (she blew a cruciate ligament years ago, and had TPLO - tibial plateau leveling osteotomy - surgery). So she gets acupuncture and laser therapy twice a month to try to keep her flexible. I also walk her a lot to keep her strong.
Another unfortunate side effect of her crappy nerves is that it makes Emma's incontinence worse. Emma has had urinary incontinence for years, and has taken Proin for it. For the most part, until last year, the Proin worked quite well. However, Proin doesn't work as well now. Most likely it doesn't work as well because the problem isn't as much a bladder sphincter problem for Emma as much as a nerve problem. Again, the nerves don't send the appropriate message to the brain - that message might be "hold your urine" or it might be "hey you have to go to the bathroom." Regardless of which message, the message isn't getting through. So Emma leaks unknowingly. I can't really give her any more Proin, so we just follow her around with towels. She'll have a batch of good days (4 in a row!) and bad days (when I have to do laundry every day).
Emma had surgery to fix her larynx in early November 2010. She had what's called a unilateral tieback (UTB). In a UTB surgery, the surgeon permanently ties back one side of the larynx. This makes the larynx always open on one side, so air can pass. All of a sudden, her breathing is quieter, she doesn't pant as much, and she can cool herself like a normal dog. It is apparently a bit tricky to eat and drink - most dogs take a few days to get used to how their new throat feels. Also, their bark is affected. Emma used to have a deep bark (unless she was excited, then it was higher pitched). Now it's hoarse and high pitched. It sounds quite pathetic actually. :) But she was never a big barker, and honestly I'd rather she breathe than have a big bark. The surgery carries some risks (more than the average surgery) but Emma came through quite well, and is just about back to normal. So at least she won't suffocate to death. Obviously the surgery doesn't fix the nerve problems at all, so those have to be managed separately. But as I said, at least I don't have to listen to her suffocate to death, or overheat.
If anyone needs information about LP, please feel free to ask me. I'll most likely send you to the Yahoo LP group anyway, but I do have a lot of personal experience and am happy to share it. Okay, that's it for today.

The products I use on my dogs

I'm occasionally asked for advice on dog food or supplements by my clients. I thought it might be helpful if I listed all of the different products that I use with my dogs, and why I use them...so here it goes.

Food: Emma (my old lady) is on a prescription food because she forms struvite crystals. She gets 1 cup twice a day and weighs a healthy (for her) 68 lbs.
Murphy and Leeloo eat Fromm's Family Classics Adult dog food (mainly a basic chicken and rice dog food). Murphy gets 3/4 cup twice a day and Leeloo gets 1 cup twice a day (Murphy is a little heavy at 58 lbs; Leeloo is just right at 52 lbs). Murphy and Leeloo also get a spoonful of pumpkin once a day - I find it helps keep their feces firm.

Supplements:
Pre/Probiotic: Emma and Leeloo get a pre/probiotic (powder form) once a day; as Emma has aged, her stomach isn't quite the iron stomach it used to be. Leeloo has always had a sensitive digestive tract, and has never really done a good job of keeping enough good bacteria in her gut. The probiotic we use is called Opta-gest. 
Fish Oil: The whole gang gets one large fish oil capsule once a day. We use Omega-Caps ES. They have always gotten a fish oil supplement.
Arthritis supplements: Emma gets 2 Cosequin DS a day plus 1/2 of a Glycoflex 3. I believe these two together amount to about 1500 mg Glucosamine and about 800 mg Chondroitin. She has been on these supplements (or something similar) for 10 years.
Acid Reflux: Emma has some reflux issues, so she gets 1 Pepcid AC (Maximum strength, 20 mg) in the morning, and 1 Prilosec OTC in the evening.

Medications:
Emma is on a lot of medications (she's a creaky old lady after all!) so here's a list:
Proin: This is a urinary incontinence drug that is commonly prescribed for dogs. Emma is on a VERY HIGH dose - she still leaks urine on occasion. There is another drug (an estrogen type drug) that we can try, although the side effects are worse than Proin. For most dogs, Proin works really well. We supplement with towels and pee pads wherever she lays down.
Enalapril: This is a blood pressure medication. Emma pushes too much protein into her urine, which is treated by lowering blood pressure. She takes 15 mg. two times a day.
Metacam: This is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory used to treat arthritis pain. It is in liquid form. Emma tolerates it very well, and I give it to her occasionally (for example, if she's over-exerted herself or slipped on the ice).

Other:
Emma has pretty bad arthritis in her spine, around her left knee (she had a TPLO surgery for a torn cruciate ligament several years ago) and in her right hip (hip dysplasia). To ease her pain and maintain mobility, she has acupuncture once a month, and "cold" laser therapy on the acupuncture points once a month (so she gets something done every 2 weeks). Both seem to really help, although she's not a fan of the acupuncture needles. But once they're in, she's very relaxed.

Emma has other problems as well but I'll discuss those in a later blog...as I said before, she forms struvite crystals in her urine. She also has GOLPP, which is Geriatric-Onset Laryngeal Paralysis and Polyneuropathy which is a whole syndrome. She recently had surgery to correct the laryngeal paralysis.

Lumps, lumps, lumps

Today I want to talk about lumps on your dog. If you have an older dog, you might have noticed a lump or two popping up. There are lots of different kinds of lumps, but it's pretty important that you know what kind of lump your dog has.
I own an older Lab, and older Labs are prone to benign lumps called "fatty lipomas." Fatty lipomas are exactly that, a fatty tumor. They usually start small and can grow. They can become quite large. Vets often don't want to remove them, because they are always benign, and other than being unsightly, don't generally hurt the dog. A vet WILL remove a lipoma if it somehow inhibits the dog's ability to walk for example. My Lab Emma has several of these lumps - most about the size of a quarter. I keep a "lump list" for Emma. When I find a new lump, I add it to her list. Then the next time we go to the vet, I pull out the list, and the vet takes note of the new lump. We've had very few of Emma's lipomas removed.
There are obviously alot of other kinds of lumps, and some of those aren't benign. Something that feels like a lipoma might not be. So it's really important to get all lumps checked out. A vet can do something called a needle aspirate (or a fine needle aspirate), which means they use a syringe to pull cells out of the lump. They then spray those cells onto a slide and look at the cells. Alot of times, a vet can tell what type of tumor/lump the dog has by the type of cells on the slide. A needle aspirate isn't terribly expensive, and is certainly worth it to understand what your dog has.
Emma has had several lumps removed that were not lipomas, but were instead mast cell tumors. Mast cell tumors are a type of skin cancer, and are malignant. I found Emma's mast cell tumors myself, just by petting her. When the needle aspirates came back as mast cells, I immediately scheduled surgery to have the tumors removed. When a mast cell tumor (or any malignant tumor) is removed, the surgeon will try to get "clean margins." That means that the vet has to continue to cut out tissue until he/she feels that all of the cancerous cells have been removed. Two of the three mast cell tumors Emma has had removed were quite small - about the size of a b.b. They were also harder than a lipoma (they actually felt like a b.b.).
Unfortunately, a mast cell tumor can quickly spread, and once any internal organ is compromised, at that point, there isn't much that can be done. Dogs can have chemotherapy, but it often only gains the dog a few months at the most, and is often not particularly comfortable. We recently found out that one of our long-time clients had a mast cell tumor that has spread. :(
We often find lumps on dogs here at Dog Days, usually when we're petting them (or sometimes when they're being groomed). We will always ask you if you know of the lump, because we know that sometimes it's difficult to notice these things on your own dog. I also am pretty paranoid about lumps, because of Emma's history, and want to make sure that anything that might be cancerous is caught as early as possible. So forgive us if we've asked you multiple times about a particular lump - we sometimes forget if we've already brought it up (maybe we need "lump lists" for our clients' dogs!).
So be vigilant with your pet. I'm sure the vets at Aldie Vet Hospital at first thought I was a nut - the first mast cell tumor I found was so tiny, I had a hard time finding it to show them, and they had a hard time getting cells out of it. But they got enough cells to see it was a mast cell tumor, and when they removed it, found that it had fingers into parts of her muscle. So they had to remove a chunk of her chest muscle to get clean margins. The second one was just as difficult to find, but didn't have the fingers, so it was easier to remove. Now they never question my lump list, and dutifully check each and every one of them. So don't worry about being a worry wart - it's your dog, and your dog depends on you to ask the right questions, because they can't ask themselves. So be your dog's hero, and know your dog's body inside and out. If something isn't right, get your dog to the vet. Even if it's nothing, you'll feel better that you've had the dog checked out. And maybe you can avert a problem that you can't fix later on.

Over-stimulated dogs and daycare

This one is long guys, so hold on! Today I want to talk about over-stimulated dogs. Over-stimulated dogs - you know them - they have boundless energy, seem to be easily distracted by just about everything, and sometimes are undisciplined. People with over-stimulated dogs think dog daycare is the perfect solution to this problem - I mean, dog daycare is there to tire out energetic dogs, right? Yes, but...
The dog daycare environment is basically an off-leash dog park that is supervised. If you've ever been to a dog park, you know that there are all kinds of dogs there - laid back adult dogs, young energetic dogs, and so on. At dog daycare, we strive for play groups that combine dogs of similar sizes and similar energy levels. But in a group of 20 dogs, we often have a mix of energy levels, just like a dog park. If you have 2 or 3 over-stimulated dogs, they can increase the overall energy level of all of the other dogs in the play area. An increase in energy level translates into excitement and sometimes anxiety. Over-stimulated dogs play too rough, get involved in too many chase games, and run into dogs when going after a ball. If these dogs are large dogs, they can cause physical injury, either to themselves or to the other dogs. And some of the other dogs in the play area act out when there's an over-stimulated dog there. That makes everyone's job more difficult.
Over-stimulated dogs also can affect the employees working at a dog daycare. Dog daycare attendants tend to focus their time and energy making sure that the over-stimulated dogs aren't misbehaving. This means they can't spend their time with the "good" dogs that aren't causing alot of trouble. Over-stimulated dogs can also, by accident, hurt the employees in a dog daycare. We have to manage the dogs, which means moving dogs from one place to another. We have to make sure that all of the dogs in our care are safe. If an over-stimulated dog is chasing another dog, we have to be able to stop that behavior (whether by stepping in between dogs, or grabbing a collar). Sometimes, an over-stimulated dog, which might be really distracted by the dog he's chasing, doesn't realize what we're doing, and we can get run into, knocked down, mouthed or jumped on. If it's a 12-lb dog, that's one thing. If it's a 70-lb dog, that's another thing entirely.
So the moral of this story is: if you have an over-stimulated dog, and your dog attends a dog daycare, you should work hard to teach your dog some discipline. The two things that help over-stimulated dogs the most are ample exercise and obedience training. The exercise is an obvious solution - a tired dog is too tired to act badly. Bear in mind that, just because a dog attends daycare does NOT mean that the dog doesn't need other exercise on that day. I bring my 3 dogs to daycare with me every day, and I still walk my dogs every day (and one of them is 12.5 years old!).
The obedience training might not be as obvious a solution. But what obedience training does is teach the owner to train the dog. If the dog learns to listen to the owner (and respond appropriately when the owner gives a command), that dog will almost always listen to other people as well. They have learned that people are at the top of the hierarchy, and that they're expected to do what they're asked to do, when it's a person doing the asking. At least then, if that dog becomes over-stimulated, and a dog daycare employee asks the dog to follow a specific command, the dog stops what he's doing and instead does what he's asked to do. And all of a sudden, the employee has gained control over the dog, just by using a command that the dog responds to. That makes our jobs alot easier, and makes the daycare environment alot more enjoyable for EVERYONE - all the dogs and all the employees.
So know your dog, and figure out ways to make that dog a good dog, in any environment.

Prepare your dog for boarding in advance

I just want to remind everyone that, if you're one of those people who boards their dog at a daycare only once or twice a year, you might consider bringing your dog to play at daycare in preparation before the boarding stay. Some dogs who only visit us rarely can be quite nervous when they're dropped off for a boarding stay. They aren't used to us, our schedule, or the other dogs that are here. It often helps to bring them for a half day or so of daycare, so they "remember" that we're not a scary place, and that you will return to get them. A nervous dog often doesn't eat well, has loose stools, or can be fearful (of other dogs or people). We often see dogs who come visit, and only after two or three days do they settle in enough to actually start enjoying themselves. It's a shame when their visit isn't much longer than that, and they finally start to play about the time their parents pick them up. Even if you can't get over here during the week, we're open both Saturday and Sunday for play, and would love to have your dog join us!

Timid dogs and daycare

Just wanted to chat about timid (or unsocialized) dogs and daycare. We often receive calls from people with young dogs that haven't been socialized. Consequently, their dog is fearful when meeting other dogs. Sometimes, these dogs make wonderful daycare dogs - they just need some time. And some dogs need more time than others. We recently got a client whose shih tzu puppy, Pressley, wasn't well socialized, and was quite timid when meeting new dogs. His owner started bringing him a few times a week to daycare, and slowly Pressley has come out of his shell. Today Pressley has had a GREAT day. He's initiated play with several of the dogs in the small dog play area, and is having the time of his life. It just took him a few visits before he gained enough self confidence to come out of his shell. He also probably didn't really know how to play, and has learned from observing some of our regulars. It's been wonderful watching him grow as a dog, and really makes working here gratifying. So Pressley, we're glad you're having fun and that you fit right in now with the rest of the gang! Here are some pictures of Mr. Pressley.

We are blogging!

We're finally blogging here at Dog Days Playcare. Check back regularly, and you'll find pictures, stories, and information that we think is important or interesting. All of it dog-related, of course. We'll update our blog regularly (the goal is every day, but we'll see how we do!). And please, if you want to see a picture, or if you have a question, let us know!