Rolling Dog Farm

Here, Take A Look At My Clot

I took Aurora, Darla and Widget back to Peak in Burlington last week. Our internist, Dr. Marielle Goossens, wanted the radiologist, Dr. Lynn Walker, to ultrasound Aurora's leg again to see what that clot in her artery was doing. That's Dr. Walker doing the imaging in the photo while vet tech Melissa holds Aurora. 

Dr. Walker graciously took quite a bit of time to show me what she found and explain to me what we were looking at on the monitor. Knowing I was going to post this on the blog, she also helpfully labeled the image for us:

(Click on photo for larger image.)

Unfortunately, the clot is larger and longer than it was a week earlier. That's because as it creates a dam in the artery, the blood flow slows down as it hits the clot and starts becoming turbulent; as it backs up and the rate of flow decreases, some of the blood begins clotting and adhering to the original clot. 

In the meantime, Marielle had also received the results of the tests she had run on Aurora, particularly the critical one checking her antithrombin value. As the Cornell lab report on Aurora's antithrombin value noted, "Antithrombin is the major naturally occurring inhibitor of blood coagulation." If you are deficient in it, you're at elevated risk of clotting. The normal range is 65-145%, and Aurora is at 49%.  

As it turns out, the underlying cause of Aurora's antithrombin deficiency is kidney disease. 

So ... she is now on additional medications for clotting and for kidney disease. We'll also be transitioning her over to a special kidney diet.

Over the past several days, the pain Aurora was experiencing from the clot has subsided, and though she sometimes walks with a limp in that rear leg, overall she seems to be doing much better. Alayne is taking her to our local clinic this afternoon for some blood work to check her kidney values.

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In more depressing news, last week our oncologist, Dr. Kendra Knapik, determined that Widget is not responding to the vinblastine/Cytoxan protocol that we had resumed after she came out of remission. That is not what we wanted to hear, of course. Kendra started her on the first line "rescue" chemo drug called CCNU (Lomustine), which Widget has tolerated very well. Right now we are just keeping our fingers crossed.

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And also last week ... Darla underwent the surgery on her mast cell tumor and the procedure on her now blind left eye. Instead of enucleating (removing) the eye, this time we elected to do an injection of gentamicin, which kills the cells that create the internal fluid that can no longer drain out adequately (thus causing glaucoma and then blindness). We have done this once before, more than a decade ago on a blind horse. Our view has been that if an eye is blind and chronically painful, it's better to get rid of the "hardware" once and for all. That way you avoid any future potential eye problems -- trauma, corneal ulcers, entropian, etc.

After some lengthy and helpful discussions with our ophthalmologist, Dr. Sarah Hoy, on the pros and cons of each method, we chose the gentamicin procedure this time. In large part because Darla was already going to have surgery on her leg to remove the tumor, we thought it would be easier for her to not have an eye removed at the same time. And on a human emotional level, I wasn't ready to see her missing an eye yet. 

Sarah did her procedure first, and then our surgeon, Dr. Kurt Schulz, performed the leg surgery. Everything went well, and I was able to bring Darla and the other two girls home at the end of a very long day.

Here's Darla and Aurora the next morning:

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2014 Shelter Challenge Underway

The first round of the Shelter Challenge for 2014 is underway and runs until March 30th. You can vote every day here. To search for us, type in our name, Rolling Dog Farm, and Lancaster, NH 03584. We've won thousands of dollars in the previous contests, so your daily votes do bring in serious money for our disabled animals!

Please note that I cannot help with technical or voting problems. I also do not have an "inside track" to anyone at the Shelter Challenge, and I don't know any more about the contest than anyone else does. So if you find yourself having issues, please consult their FAQ page here and their Rules page, which is a pop-up you can find linked on this page.

Thanks for your votes!

And Now For Aurora....

Yes, that's little one-eyed Aurora undergoing a CT scan on her neck last week at Peak in Burlington. We have a mystery here. As a result, this post might end up being the length of a mystery novel. Sorry!

Several weeks ago Aurora developed some neck pain, and responded quickly to prednisone. Once we tapered her off the pred, she remained pain free and became her normal self. But the week before last, she started yiking again and holding her head like her neck was painful. Pred initially helped, but we went ahead and scheduled her for a complete examination at Peak for last Tuesday. Clearly something was not right with her neck. It had been a year since she first came and had an ultrasound and echocardiogram, so she was due for a recheck anyway. 

Last weekend she became very painful -- just crying out when moving -- so I contacted our internal medicine specialist, Dr. Marielle Goossens, to find out what kind of pain medication we could start her on until we got her to the clinic. (Being on pred eliminates many choices, and one you can use while on pred -- tramadol -- Aurora can't tolerate.) We put her on buprenorphine, which really helped. 

On Tuesday, we began with Marielle doing her initial exam, followed by blood work and other tests:

Much to my total consternation, Aurora exhibited no pain whatsoever! That's a real obstacle, of course, because that makes it even more difficult to figure out where the problem is.

Here's the surgeon, Dr. Kurt Schulz, doing his physical exam and trying to pinpoint the source of her pain:

Kurt's vet tech Anthi is holding Aurora, while I'm looking through the camera lens in disbelief that no matter how Kurt moved her head or neck or other limbs, Aurora didn't yike at all! We had worried that the buprenorphine might mask the symptoms, but never to this degree.

This meant we really needed a CT scan to get an image of her neck for a detailed look. This is done under anesthesia, so first we needed her heart rechecked by the cardiologist at Peak, Dr. Don Brown:

On the left is vet tech Liz and on the right is the other doctor in the cardiology practice, Dr. Jenny Garber.

So this is where things got weird. Don discovered a growth of some sort flapping around in the mitral valve. It was attached to the valve wall with very thin fibers, and it floated around, buffeted by the blood flow. It was so large and recognizable that I could easily see it. He wasn't sure if this was tissue -- an abnormally formed part of the valve wall she was born with, an oddly shaped blood clot somehow attached to the wall (but how?), or "vegetative" matter, the result of infection somewhere. 

Don turned to me at one point during the echo, pointed to that object in her mitral valve, and said, "Here's your worst case scenario. That thing could break off and disappear into her blood stream. If it did, I'd expect it to end up in her hindquarters somewhere."

I asked him if it was possible to surgically remove it before that happened, and he said no. Basically, that would be open-heart surgery and just not feasible.

After the echo, the action moved to the CT scan, which is what you see in the photo at the top of this post.  I took that photo just after they had finished imaging Aurora, and here she is coming out of the machine:

The back of her neck and skull is shaved because she had a myelogram done to inject a contrast dye into her spinal column for the CT imaging. The dye makes the spinal structure and surrounding tissue visible on the scan.

I was with the radiologist, Dr. Mark Saunders, when he read out the images alongside Marielle. While there were areas in her neck where some compression was noticeable in a few vertebrae, it wasn't significant, couldn't really explain the pain she was exhibiting, and wasn't surgically "fixable" in any case. In other words: We had hit a wall. The only test we were waiting on was an analysis of her cerebral spinal fluids, but it was unlikely to tell us much at this rate.

I brought Aurora home that evening, along with Darla and Widget. Marielle had equipped me with extra pain meds for Aurora, and our goal was to keep her comfortable and continue to monitor her.

And Then...

All was well until Friday morning. Aurora was standing at the front door, waiting to come in, and had been barking to get our attention. I opened the storm door, she came in, started walking ... and suddenly screamed. And screamed. 

I looked down and saw she wasn't using her right rear leg. She was holding it up, whimpering and crying. She hopped, shuffled, and cried out. Alayne came running to see what was happening.

We took her into the living room and set her on the floor.  She continued to walk as if her rear leg was paralyzed. She was agitated, constantly trying to rustle up bedding, then lay down, get up, rustle the bedding, try walking on three legs, cry out, and start all over again. I took some quick video on my phone and sent it to Marielle. 

When I saw Aurora not able to use her back leg, and seeing the pain she was in, my first thought was what Don Brown, the cardiologist, had warned us about:  that thing in her mitral valve could break off and wash down her bloodstream, blocking blood flow to one or both hind legs. 

I bent down to feel her foot. Sure enough, it was cold. My heart sank. Alayne and I looked at each other with one thought:  Blood clot.  (We've been through this before, except with cats, in whom it is much more common.)  I texted Marielle and told her I thought Aurora had just thrown a clot.

Marielle called shortly thereafter, and I was soon on the way back to Burlington. She had alerted the cardiologist and the other radiologist on duty, Dr. Lynn Walker, that I was coming back with Aurora for an emergency. 

As soon as I arrived, Dr. Brown came out, felt Aurora's leg, and said "very weak pulse," meaning blood flow had indeed been cut off. A few minutes on the echocardiogram we learned what had happened: That chunk in her mitral valve had broken off and disappeared into her bloodstream. Whatever it was, it was gone.

And a few minutes after that, in a room down the hall, Dr. Walker found it while doing an ultrasound on Aurora's leg. It had plugged up the femoral artery in her right leg. Blood was still getting around it a little, but the artery above the clot was much larger than normal because of the dam in the bloodstream created by the blockage. This was painful, but there wasn't much to do other than keep Aurora doped up on pain meds. 

By the time I had arrived at Peak the warmth had already started returning to Aurora's leg. Puzzled by this, I asked Marielle how that could be. She said that the body almost immediately begins to compensate for the blocked artery by shifting blood flow to other vessels; it takes time, and occurred in Aurora faster than you might expect, but that's what was going on. 

Marielle said Aurora's body would very quickly begin breaking down that substance -- clot, tissue, or vegetative matter -- by sending out macrophages to digest it and clean it out. The process might take a few weeks.

A lot more happened that day, and this post is already too long, but in a nutshell we are waiting on a new batch of test results, including a blood culture that could tell us if Aurora had a blood infection that could have created "vegetative" matter. She is now also on blood thinners. I am taking her back on Wednesday this week for more tests.

So now we are all wondering:  Was her original neck pain being caused by clots that were traveling to the other end of her body? We don't know at this point.

Please keep her in your thoughts. 

 

Oh, Widget

Darla's left eye going blind wasn't the only bad news last week. There was plenty. On Tuesday, I had taken Widget in for her post-chemo "re-staging" to see what the status of her lymphoma was. Since our oncologist, Dr. Kendra Knapik, had already determined Widget was in remission just a month ago, and since Widget just had her final chemotherapy treatment two weeks before, we weren't very concerned. She was her usual happy, active and bossy little self. The oncologist was out that day, so our internal medicine specialist, Dr. Marielle Goossens, did the tissue aspirates of her lymph nodes for pathology and supervised the rest of the tests performed by Kendra's team of vet techs.

On Wednesday afternoon, as that big snowstorm was roaring in, I was up at the hay barn feeding the goat bucks in their shed when Marielle called. She had just received the pathology report. Widget's lymphoma had returned. I was stunned. We had just finished the chemotherapy, Widget looked and acted like she was perfectly healthy, and we were expecting at least several months of smooth sailing ahead. It wasn't to be.

Kendra called later that night to review the findings and discuss our options. They ranged from putting Widget on a maintenance dose of prednisone, which might buy us weeks, to last-ditch "rescue" chemo drugs used in cases like this, to re-opening the original protocol and starting over.

What struck us as so strange is that Widget's remission had come in the wake of a steady treatment of the vinblastine/Cytoxan combination of drugs ... but for the last several treatments, spanning about 6 weeks, she had been only on a single chemo drug called Mitoxantrone. I asked Kendra if it were possible that for whatever reason, the Mitoxantrone just wasn't as efffective in her as the vinblastine/Cytoxan combination. She said there was no way to know for sure, but it was possible. Clearly Widget had gone out of remission quite quickly, and the only thing that changed during that time was the drug.

We weren't about to give up. If you watched Widget march around the place, tail up, bossy as ever, you'd never know she had cancer. As I write this on Monday morning, I can hear her at the other end of the house in the dog room, wooing away, demanding one of us come down and offer her a snack of her choice.

We decided to re-open the protocol and resume the vinblastine/Cytoxan treatment. The goal will be to knock the lymphoma back into remission, and then see how she's doing.

Kendra wanted us to bring Widget in right away to start treatment again. That was a problem, with the worst of the snowstorm descending Wednesday night and Thursday. I had already plowed Wednesday to keep up with the snow, and Thursday morning I got on the tractor again to open the drive once more. Just before noon I bundled Widget into the front seat of the truck, put Darla in the back seat (more on that in a minute), set the truck in 4-wheel drive, and headed off to Burlington. It took well over three hours, including time to stop and assist briefly at a roll-over accident along the way, but eventually Widget, Darla and I made it to the clinic. 

While Widget was getting her vinblastine intravenously, I took Darla in to see our ophthalmologist, Dr. Sarah Hoy, again. I was still getting pressure spikes in her left eye in the morning, despite the additional glaucoma meds Darla was on. Sarah had hoped that after a few days Darla might regain a menace response, and thus vision, in that eye, but the pressure spikes I was registering before her morning eyedrops were troubling. It meant she was having significant spikes overnight.

Although her left eye looked much better than it did on Tuesday, it still didn't seem to have a menace response. Finally, Sarah taped a bandage over Darla's good right eye, put her on a leash, and walked out into the hallway with her. I could tell from how Darla was moving that she couldn't see. Her steps were tentative and her body language was fearful. My heart sank when I watched her walk into the wall. No, that left eye was blind and vision was not coming back.

Dang.

Now, instead of laser surgery to prevent glaucoma in that eye, we will be looking at removing that eye (enucleation) or doing an injection of Gentamicin, which "kills" the part of the eye that produces the fluid (called aqueous humor). It's the inability of the eye to adequately drain out this fluid that builds up the intraocular pressure, resulting in glaucoma and thus blindness. We haven't decided which option to take, but we'll make that decision by Wednesday, when we take her back to the clinic.

The (only) good news was that the three of us made it safely back to the farm Thursday evening. Widget has been getting her Cytoxan treatment here during the past few days (it's a pill we give her once a day). 

I think I hear Alayne heading back down the stairs to see what Widget wants now. Full-time concierge service, I suspect.

And ... He's Out!

Well, exactly one week after he arrived, on Friday afternoon, Sunny came out of hiding. Alayne walked into the dog room and found him lying on a bed in the sun. He looked at her, got a worried look on his face, glanced nervously over at his crate as if he was going to make a run for it ... but stayed on the bed. Alayne didn't approach him but went about cleaning and tidying things up in the room. Holly, Cap and Bugsy were all swirling about her.

And then, as if he was taking his cue from the other dogs -- which he was, in fact -- he got up and walked towards her. Tentatively, shyly, but nevertheless wiggling his little tail. She bent down to love him up.

That was that.

He's been out ever since. By Saturday afternoon he'd made it down the hallway to the living room. That's when I took these photos. He's a cute fellow, not as chunky as he first appeared when hunched in his crate all the time.

He's definitely more comfortable with Alayne than me, but all I have to do to get him to come to me is get down on the floor with a couple of other dogs and start making all over them. He can't stand it, and heads on over for his own share.

At one point on Saturday, Alayne even saw him happily rolling around on his back in the sun in the dog room. (That solarium is wonderful on sunny winter days!)

Here he is meeting Wilbur, with Holly behind them:

(Looks like someone's diaper has slipped down.)

We joke to Holly that Sunny looks like her long lost son she left behind in Shreveport. She's not amused.

Here's the problem with his leg -- the lower part is bent, as if there's no ankle, and the foot is split in two sections:

Another view, showing how that long singular section folds under the rest of the foot:

When he does try to use that leg, he ends up walking on the edge of the turned over foot. Much of the time he is hopping around, holding the leg up in the air. When he tries to walk on it, he kind of throws the foot down on the ground. It's a very awkward gait. It looks like a cross between a hop and a shuffle.

I'll take Sunny to see our surgeon, Dr. Kurt Schulz, and our internist, Dr. Marielle Goossens, for an evaluation. I'll wait until Sunny's a bit more comfortable with his new world, though -- we don't want to overwhelm him. He's still not too sure of things, and doesn't have any confidence ... despite his venturing out, we'd still describe him as fearful. But what a change from a week earlier!

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2014 Shelter Challenge Underway

The first round of the Shelter Challenge for 2014 is underway and runs until March 30th. You can vote every day here. To search for us, type in our name, Rolling Dog Farm, and Lancaster, NH 03584. We've won thousands of dollars in the previous contests, so your daily votes do bring in serious money for our disabled animals!

Please note that I cannot help with technical or voting problems. I also do not have an "inside track" to anyone at the Shelter Challenge, and I don't know any more about the contest than anyone else does. So if you find yourself having issues, please consult their FAQ page here and their Rules page, which is a pop-up you can find linked on this page.

Thanks for your votes!

 

Here's Sunny. Though He's Not.

This is the little guy who arrived with Cap. The Arkansas shelter had heard about him at a rescue group in Shreveport and asked if we could take him. You can't tell from the photo, but he was born with a deformed right front leg. We will need to get it evaluated by our veterinarians.

His name is Sunny, and if ever there was a mismatch between a dog's name and his personality, this is it. This poor guy is scared and wants nothing to do with us or the other dogs. He is everything Cap is not. 

I had to take the photo of him in the crate because he basically hasn't left it since coming here last Friday. No, really. When we get too close, he growls. We leave the door open, but the only time he's actually come out is to go potty on a nearby towel or bed on the floor. That's it. And he only does that when we aren't around.

He was turned into a shelter with the rest of his litter a year or so ago. His brothers and sisters were all euthanized. The shelter staff felt sorry for him because of his deformity and decided not to euthanize him. That may be the first time we've heard of a disability saving an animal rather than being the reason to put him or her down. 

Sunny was described to us as a Chihuahua mix, but he's a lot bigger than any Chihuahua, so we aren't sure what the other part of that mix is. It had to have been a good size dog. I mean, Sunny is still a small guy, but not in that Chihuahua type class of dogs.

Fortunately, he's not at all like Bugsy was when he first came, so we're hoping this process won't take nearly as long. As you know, Bugsy turned completely around and is now a total love-bug. We can only hope Sunny will too.

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2014 Shelter Challenge Underway

The first round of the Shelter Challenge for 2014 is underway and runs until March 30th. You can vote every day here. To search for us, type in our name, Rolling Dog Farm, and Lancaster, NH 03584. We've won thousands of dollars in the previous contests, so your daily votes do bring in serious money for our disabled animals!

Please note that I cannot help with technical or voting problems. I also do not have an "inside track" to anyone at the Shelter Challenge, and I don't know any more about the contest than anyone else does. So if you find yourself having issues, please consult their FAQ page here and their Rules page, which is a pop-up you can find linked on this page.

Thanks for your votes!

Big Trouble, Small Package

What weighs 5 pounds and cruises at 500 mph?  

If you guessed a new, super-secret drone of some sort, you'd be mistaken.

If you guessed a tiny, wire-haired Dachshund mix puppy of some sort, you'd be correct.

His name is Cap, and he arrived on Friday from the same Arkansas shelter where Tanner came from. The animal control officer there had seen this one-eyed puppy offered on Facebook in a "free-to-good-home" ad, and immediately worried that he could end up as pitbull bait for a dogfighting ring. The ACO contacted the owner and picked up the puppy, and then asked if we could take him.

We've heard a couple of different versions about what happened to his left eye. The animal control people were told he had the eye scratched by a cat when he was just a few weeks old and the vet removed it. When we got the vet records that came with him, however, we noticed the paperwork said he had been "born blind" in that eye, and the vet had done an enucleation. I called the clinic on Friday to ask for a clarification. A staff member told me he had been born with a left eye that was small and shrunken, which is why the vet removed it. He can see just fine with his right eye.

Another discrepancy: Cap was supposed to be 5 months old, but after animal control got him they found out he was ... drum roll please ... only 8 weeks. So he is pure puppy. And yes, that means we are working on housetraining. 

Cap is one of the friendliest, happiest, most sociable and outgoing little characters we've ever seen. Just a sweet, loving tyke who enjoys meeting people, dogs, shoes, computer cords, toys and anything else along the way. Even his own tail is good for a chase every now and then. He zooms everywhere. He's so light we often don't even hear him, but see a small dark shape streaking across the floor. He's smaller than he seems in these photos -- you could put him in a coat pocket and still have room for a beer.

Of course, the other dogs are looking at us as if to say, "Who let him in the house?" Cap doesn't understand why all of his new uncles and aunts aren't thrilled to have him jumping up and down on them, and he is learning boundaries from his elders. Here he is with Holly:

Holly promptly growls at him, getting this look in response:

(Click on photo for larger image to see how big that tiny one eye can get.)

Here he is with blind Sophie:

We decided he may start thinking that growling here is just everyone's way of saying "Hey, nice to meet you, kid."

Well, there is someone who not only doesn't growl at him, but plays with him:

Yes, Tanner! He loves this little guy, and they like to play tug-of-war over soft chew toys:

And even when a chew toy isn't involved, Tanner doesn't seem to mind having a puppy hanging off his face:

Cap is just a doll, and we don't see any reason he can't be available for adoption right away. So if you're interested in adopting this little guy Alayne calls "Pop Top," please send an email to steve[at]rollingdogfarm.org. All the usuals apply -- potential adopters need to come out to meet us and the dog, we'll need a vet reference, etc. We'll do the initial screening via email.

There was one other dog who also arrived on the same transport as Cap. We wish he had a fraction of Cap's personality, but alas, he doesn't. He's shy and scared and prefers hiding to socializing. Hopefully I can get a photo of him for the next blog post!

Final photo of the munchkin:

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2014 Shelter Challenge Underway

The first round of the Shelter Challenge for 2014 is underway and runs until March 30th. You can vote every day here. To search for us, type in our name, Rolling Dog Farm, and Lancaster, NH 03584. We've won thousands of dollars in the previous contests, so your daily votes do bring in serious money for our disabled animals!

Please note that I cannot help with technical or voting problems. I also do not have an "inside track" to anyone at the Shelter Challenge, and I don't know any more about the contest than anyone else does. So if you find yourself having issues, please consult their FAQ page here and their Rules page, which is a pop-up you can find linked on this page.

Thanks for your votes!

The Rest Of The Photo

In the previous post I said that the leg in the photo belonged to Tanner. Well, here's what was going on just before Wilbur stood up and Alayne took the photo. Both boys were enjoying some winter sunshine coming through the storm door. We use towels by the doors instead of door mats because of all the foot traffic -- two, three and four-feet at a time -- coming through, usually with snow attached. They get tossed in the wash as needed. But, when they're fresh and dry and happen to occupy a sunny spot, it's a nice place to snooze, too.

Tanner does not like having his photo taken, which is why you see that vaguely suspicious expression. We've had a number of really cute things to photograph -- like him playing with Bugsy (adorable!), or him playing with Darla (yes!) -- but as soon as the camera comes out, he breaks off the activity. So we'll keep trying.

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2014 Shelter Challenge Underway

The first round of the Shelter Challenge for 2014 is underway and runs until March 30th. You can vote every day here. To search for us, type in our name, Rolling Dog Farm, and Lancaster, NH 03584. We've won thousands of dollars in the previous contests, so your daily votes do bring in serious money for our disabled animals!

Please note that I cannot help with technical or voting problems. I also do not have an "inside track" to anyone at the Shelter Challenge, and I don't know any more about the contest than anyone else does. So if you find yourself having issues, please consult their FAQ page here and their Rules page, which is a pop-up you can find linked on this page.

Thanks for your votes!

Oh Fine, Show The World My Diapers

Yep, there he is sporting his new diapers. He couldn't believe we were taking his photo to post on the blog. We told him not to be embarrassed -- about 25 million adult Americans have urinary incontinence, and in Japan the sales of adult diapers are set to overtake infant diapers. (No, really.) We don't know how many adult dogs are incontinent, but we've sure had quite a few over the years.

In Wilbur's case, his newly developed incontinence seemed to be a complication from his bladder stone surgery. Fortunately, the diapers work very well on him. We haven't had such luck on some other incontinent dogs -- generally because they manage to chew or pull their diapers off. But now Wilbur is back to skittering around the house at will, happy and leak-proof!

(In case you're wondering, the leg in the foreground of that photo belongs to Tanner.)

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2014 Shelter Challenge Underway

The first round of the Shelter Challenge for 2014 is underway and runs until March 30th. You can vote every day here. To search for us, type in our name, Rolling Dog Farm, and Lancaster, NH 03584. We've won thousands of dollars in the previous contests, so your daily votes do bring in serious money for our disabled animals!

Please note that I cannot help with technical or voting problems. I also do not have an "inside track" to anyone at the Shelter Challenge, and I don't know any more about the contest than anyone else does. So if you find yourself having issues, please consult their FAQ page here and their Rules page, which is a pop-up you can find linked on this page.

Thanks for your votes!

Whew, I Made It Inside

That's Tanner on a bed in the living room, enjoying one of Holly's favorite toys. (We didn't tell her.) This is what he does when he makes it past the security guard out front -- i.e., Darla -- and scampers into the house.

Tanner's hip is completely healed up and he enjoys racing around the yard on three very fast legs these days. A couple of days ago we had put the dogs out while we were having lunch, and I could look out the window and see Tanner joyfully sprinting back and forth along the fence -- just because he could. I marveled to Alayne, "Look at that boy go!"

Barb R. asked whether Travis' mouth is staying open after his surgery. Yes, it is so far, though we still have him on a very small dose (2.5 mg every other day) of prednisone. We're waiting a bit longer to do the final taper. Travis feels great, too -- he sprints out the door with Tanner every morning, and together they race to the spruce tree at the other end of the yard.

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2014 Shelter Challenge Underway

The first round of the Shelter Challenge for 2014 is underway and runs until March 30th. You can vote every day here. To search for us, type in our name, Rolling Dog Farm, and Lancaster, NH 03584. We've won thousands of dollars in the previous contests, so your daily votes do bring in serious money for our disabled animals!

Please note that I cannot help with technical or voting problems. I also do not have an "inside track" to anyone at the Shelter Challenge, and I don't know any more about the contest than anyone else does. So if you find yourself having issues, please consult their FAQ page here and their Rules page, which is a pop-up you can find linked on this page.

Thanks for your votes!

 

 

Miss Remission

Alayne took that photo a few days ago of blind Widget in mid-roll on a bed in the living room. 

Back in October, I had mentioned in a post that our oncologist at Peak Veterinary Referral Center in Burlington, Dr. Kendra Knapik, had said Widget was already "probably in remission" at that point. We've had a few ups and downs since then, and for one brief span her lymph nodes became enlarged again after we had to interrupt the chemotherapy for a couple of crucial weeks because of gastrointestinal issues. Along the way we found that one of the chemo drugs in her protocol, vincristine, seemed to be the culprit behind the GI problems. Once Kendra switched her to vinblastine, a similar but different drug, everything improved. Widget's been on a roll ever since. (Um, I think that pun was intended but I'm not really sure.)

At Widget's weekly oncology appointment yesterday, Kendra was quite definitive: Widget's lymphoma is in remission. Yay! We still have a couple of treatments left, but after that we'll be in monitoring mode. It's been a long slog, but absolutely worth it. She wouldn't be with us today otherwise.

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2014 Shelter Challenge Underway

The first round of the Shelter Challenge for 2014 is underway and runs until March 30th. You can vote every day here. To search for us, type in our name, Rolling Dog Farm, and Lancaster, NH 03584. We've won thousands of dollars in the previous contests, so your daily votes do bring in serious money for our disabled animals!

Please note that I cannot help with technical or voting problems. I also do not have an "inside track" to anyone at the Shelter Challenge, and I don't know any more about the contest than anyone else does. So if you find yourself having issues, please consult their FAQ page here and their Rules page, which is a pop-up you can find linked on this page.

Thanks for your votes!