December 29, 2009 at 2:55 pm · Show more about: diarrhea, gadget, vet
I’m way behind on posting to the blog, but I promise to keep posting as often as I can. However, we do have some big news here, as the past two months have been a really long pug-related drama.
First, Gadget started having chronic diarrhea. When it didn’t go away, we took him to the vet, who gave him a shot and some medicine to take. That worked for a little while, but after his diarrhea came back for another week, we took him back into the vet. This time, the vet took some blood and noticed that he had really low “albumen” in his blood, basically, because he had not been absorbing enough nutrients from his food. At this point, Gadget had gone from about 31 pounds to 24.5 pounds, but the low albumen was causing him to have edema (swelling), making him look as though he was bigger than usual. So, he had to stay in the hospital. During his stay, they determined that he had to have a biopsy of his lower intestine in order to figure out what was wrong. So, they checked out all his organs and took a little piece of his small intestine to deliver to a lab for testing.
Finally, Gadget got to come home, but the end of the story (so far) is that he has some serious food allergies, and he has to eat special food (Hill’s Prescription Diet d/d duck formula) to manage the allergies. He also has to take some steroids every day in order to manage his allergic symptoms (for now, at least).
Now, he’s home and doing fine. However, his diet is very limited (he can only eat small quantities at a time), so he’s always hungry! Moreover, because of his restricted diet (which will increase a little bit over time), he’s lost even more weight… he’s now 21 pounds! He hasn’t been 21 pounds since he was 8 months old (when he became a champion!!!)
Here are some pictures of him… Notice that he’s much skinnier, and you can see his big stitches!
Happy New Year! Gizmo is playing the role of “Baby New Year” in the swing! He really likes it in there. Unfortunately, he’s going to get booted from the baby things soon for our HUMAN baby.
Last year was filled with excitement, up until the end. I migrated the blog from using Flickr to self-hosting images in the Urban Pug Picture Gallery (which anyone can upload pictures to). Then, I created Urban Pug TV, which shows all the cutest / funniest Pug videos from YouTube. Also, of course, Tricia became pregnant along the way! However, relating back to Pugs, we had some excitement just yesterday!
Yesterday, we had to take Gadget to the vet for a rather embarrassing problem. The day before yesterday, the tissue around his butt became inflamed — and started oozing a thick fluid mixed with some blood! I suspected it might be a problem with his anal glands, so I called Tricia’s parents (who know more about pug physiology than I do) and they confirmed that 1) it was probably a problem w/ his anal glands and 2) he probably needed to see the vet.
So, we got him into the vet yesterday, and they basically confirmed the diagnosis. To treat him, they gave him a quick sedative, flushed out his glands, and then gave him another shot to wake him up. He was out for about 10 minutes. They also gave us some antibiotics and anti-inflammatory medication to give him to prevent infection and reduce the swelling. He’s feeling better now, and he’ll hopefully be 100% back to normal by tomorrow.
“Why did this happen?” we asked the vet. Neither Gizmo nor Gadget have ever had their anal glands expressed, and neither has ever had a problem like this before. We were told that some dogs do not excrete all the fluid they produce in their anal glands and that over time the fluid can “back up” and cause problems. Second, sometimes the gland can get “blocked” and get backed up. This is what probably happened to Gadget. We probably don’t need to regularly express his glands, and this is probably (hopefully) a one-time occurrence.
Anyway, hopefully he’ll be 100% back to normal soon (he was already feeling well enough to beg *really well* for some New Year’s Day Bacon)
October 11, 2007 at 9:51 pm · Show more about: cancer, vet
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In very good news, the Vet let Tricia know the other day that Gizmo’s tumor was benign. To celebrate, he took a nap in this laundry basket with a huge body pillow stuffed inside. In other good news, Gadget’s feeling better, though we’re still waiting to see if he breaks out again. He’s at our house, and his steroids will wear off soon. Generally, he’s back to his normal moderately active self (hey, he’s a Pug, he takes naps), so that’s very good. No more overheating because of his medication, no more drinking too much water to cool off and peeing in the house.
Hopefully all is better and we’ll have normal Gadg for a while.
Oh, in other good news, it turns out some academic work I’ve done is going to be published. Law school is weird in how the academics get published. Generally, it’s student run publications (Law Reviews or Journals published and edited by students), rather than peer reviewed journals (the New England Journal of Medicine) that the academics submit their work to for publication. Many of these student journals require / allow their members to submit limited pieces of work for publication. I was required to do that, and my work was selected to be published, which is really cool. I don’t talk about non-pug stuff here much, but this is pretty cool to me. I did what’s called a “case note” on a recent case, Golan v. Gonzales, which is about copyright and the First Amendment. The case was argued by the guy who came up with Creative Commons, Lawrence Lessig, which was part of the reason I chose that case. It’s not about patent law, which is what I’m in law school to eventually do, but I just couldn’t pass up doing a casenote on an important, timely case.
Lexy went back to my parents’ house last night, but not before making another bed out of a box. This time, it was an empty Sam’s Club Diet Coke 32-Pack.
In other news, Gadget hasn’t had any swelling, but he’s still been itching some. Also, the Temaril the doctor gave him is making him lethargic and thirsty. Also, I’m not sure if it’s a side effect of the medicine, but he’s also really hot. (Side effects of temaril at Yahoo Answers, Pfizer Animal Health.) If you touch his ears or let him lick you, you can just feel that he’s a lot hotter than Gizmo. I think it’s related. Anyway, the combination of lethargy and thirst has been causing him to not want to go outside… to pee… And as a result, well, he’s been just randomly letting it out. Not even going over to a sofa corner, bed corner, the trash can (the spots they sometimes mark) — he’s just stopping, not even lifting a leg or squatting, and just dropping down a puddle.
It just took me 10 minutes with him outside to get him to pee, most of which was spent with him staring at me, just looking at me. When he wasnt standing there, he was trying to get past me back into the house. (Note, it was also fairly wet outside tonight)
I had to carry him into the yard a couple times, but eventually, he decided to “go.” It was a good thing, too, because he actually did have to go. He just didn’t want to, for some reason.
Hopefully, this is just the medicine he’s taking, and all will be back to normal soon. We’re keeping a close eye on his condition!
We took G&G into the vet on Thursday for two reasons. First, to have their teeth cleaned. Second, Gizmo had a small tumor removed from his mouth. They both came home fine, and the Vet doesn’t think that Gizmo’s tumor isn’t the bad kind of tumor. However, on the ride home, and then getting worse for the next hour or two, Gadget’s face got really puffy, especially the tissue around his eyes.
Last time we took him to the Vet for the puffiness on the face, the Vet told us to give him small doses of Benadryl. So, we did the same thing this time. However, Tricia took him back to the vet the next day, and now he’s got some medicine.
But, there’s more! He keeps breaking out whenever the medicine wears off, which means he can’t sleep through the night (and neither can Tricia). He’s also congested, and this is causing him to have some trouble breathing.
The Vet thinks that he’s allergic to something in our house, so we’re going to try having him stay w/ my parents to see if that helps – if we take him out of the environment, and he gets better, then we know it’s something in our house.
The picture is of gadget, not feeling very well. When he’s scared sometimes, he hides under our bed. He did this, and then kinda laid down on his side. POOR GADGET!!
We woke up this morning, and everything was fine. However, a little while later, Gadget’s face started to swell. It was almost like he had a bug bite! (it turns out that may have been what it was). However, we’d never seen anything like this on either G or G before. We didn’t know if it was going to get worse and possibly cause problems breathing, so we decided he needed to see the vet.
It was no problem for them to see us, so we just went over first thing. Gadget had to have his temperature taken (oh oh!) and the doc gave him a steroid shot and some benadryl. We’ve got to give him benadryl 3 times per day for the next two days. I think the steroid shot really worked, because his face is a lot better now, though you can still tell that something was wrong. Hopefully everything will be back to normal again soon.
Today, Tricia took Gizmo and Gadget to the vet. We take them to Metairie Small Animal Hospital — they see Dr. Martin. Tricia took them for just a simple, routine visit, but there were two outcomes from this visit — one surprising and another not-so-surprising. First, as we already knew, Gadget’s a bit hefty. Today, he weighed in at 26.1 pounds. Now, that’s big for a Pug, you say. And yes, it is big for a Pug. However, both Gizmo and Gadget were bred to be show pugs, and they’re both champions.
Their body frame is different than many Pugs you might see around — it’s somewhat bigger, with thicker bones. Moreso than Gizmo, Gadget’s frame is VERY stocky. It’s just how he’s built. I know this is the old, “I’m not fat, I’m just big boned,” argument that’s been told over and over again. However, it’s really true with Gadget. Even though he’s 26 pounds, he only stands to lose a few pounds. Under 22 pounds for Gadget would be REALLY underweight for him! Anyway, the outcome for Gadget is that we’re going on a diet. Both of the boys will be getting two smaller meals per day, and their caloric intake will be monitored. We’ll also feed them such that they eat small enough meals such that we can put two plates of food down, they’ll eat (and finish) the food, then we’ll pick things up. We’re going to stop the “here’s a plate of food, eat it whenever you want, we’ll refill it tomorrow sometime” routine.
The SURPRISING news, however, is that Gizmo has a small tumor in his mouth!!! If you look in his mouth the right way, it appears as though there’s a mass of tissue right above one of his teeth. It’s like his tooth is coming out of a little ball. The vet seems to think that mouth tumors aren’t good things, but right now we’re hoping that either it’s just a benign growth or that we caught it early enough such that it’s not a big issue. We’ll find out in a couple weeks when they both go in for teeth cleaning (and Gizmo gets a biopsy)
Regardless of everything that went on at the vet today (they even got shots!!), Gizmo had a GREAT time, and both Gizmo and Gadget LOVE all the attention they get at the vet from everyone who “just wants to squeeze” them because they’re “like little teddy bears.” (especially Gadget)
The picture is of Gizmo, Gadget, and Dr. Martin. Gizmo’s on the left, and he just looks incredibly happy!
P.S., the moral of the story is that you should TAKE YOUR DOG TO THE VET! You never know what he/she will find!
. They work great!
are great for cleaning up messes, and are reusable.