Doom Dogs

[Drunk Monk]

I think Yuki just had another seizure. He came in from outside walking funny and had some froth around his mouth. Took him a moment to recognize me. I’m comforting him now. 

He bit me this morning. Yuki bit me
We went to star and he went right to that pile of vomit that he fought Bodie over yesterday. There was another dog so I pulled him back and he bit my foot. My shoe took the brunt of it - no blood - but might bruise. 

I was planning to have a ‘me’ day but it’s now a Yuki day.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

Poor Yukster.

[Greg]

No Bueno

[Drunk Monk]

I planned to do more errands & chores yesterday but spent most of it taking care of my dog. He was so clingy, almost textbook post-ictal. We played with the boomerang I gave him for Xmas which he enjoyed because I was rewarding him the treats, but he started to get psycho and I didn’t want to exhaust him since his past seizures seem related to exhaustion. He was very talkative and I tried to get him to say hello, but he didn’t get it. I gave him a thorough brushing, which he loves, and lots of petting until Stacy got home.

One of his pack, Chica, has cancer. She’s an older pit mutt. A super sweet dog. Her person lives in his camper and is an itinerant worker, moving from job to job, but very sociable, except after he got attacked a few years ago. Then he disappeared for a while while he healed. Chica has been showing her age more and more and now she’s extremely skinny, losing weight dramatically, not eating. Won’t be long…

[Drunk Monk]

Our vet said that Chows are prone to seizures and Yuki is a quarter Chow. They advised that we put him on medication if he has seizures once a month or if he has one that's longer than 4 mins. We're also reducing his flea med because that might be triggering, which means I'll likely get bit more, but that's just me. 

We got word that Chica passed away. Her owner was an itinerant worker, living out of his camper - took him a while to warm up to all of us but he did eventually and turned out to be a really pleasant person. We haven't seen him since and I doubt that we will.

[Drunk Monk]

Yuki has been off flea meds since my last post here but he had another seizure today. It was the worst one so far, but maybe it was because I rode the whole event through with him. He's had a flea collar, like the vet recommended, which seems to work ok so far but didn't do anything for the seizures obvs.

We may have to put him on epilepsy meds, which is a twice-a-day med for the rest of his life. It must be administered at exactly the same two times a day. Bottles is on it and that time restriction is a major hassle. Once a dog goes on this med, they cannot come off it.

[Drunk Monk]

Yuki is going on Keppra, a common anti-seizure med for dogs and humans. 

The challenge is that he must receive his dose every 8 hours for the rest of his life. Also, this will set us back another $benjamin$ a month. 

Fortunately Keppra is fairly mild, minimal side effects, not as much as the alternative phenobarbital.

He still might experience 'breakout' seizures, but they should be less, like every six months and not as severe.

[Drunk Monk]

We got the prescription. Our vet found us a generic for a little over $20 a month. That's a lot better than $100 a month.

[Greg]

Phew!

[Greg]

At this point, I have a pretty good handle on the personalities of Aoife and Lily. Aoife is fun on four legs. Glad to be alive. A non-stop motion machine. And champion gopher hunter. She is currently on an eight day streak of bringing home a warm treat. Lily is broken. Whatever happened to her before we got her damaged her for life. She stays by herself. Doesn't find a lot of joy in anything. She hates going on the afternoon walks and jumps on us the entire way seeking encouragement.

To clarify, we do three walks a day. The first walk at 4am is the one where I get my exercise. It's about 4 miles on average. The second walk is for the dogs. After I have breakfast, I take the dogs out again. After a short stint on the road, I let them off leash as we walk around the property and the dirt road that is now part of the neighbor's property. Aoife is simply gone for most of the walk with a few check-ins for treats. Lily is close by but she still joins her sister in the great gopher hunt. They both find pools in the creek to jump in or use the neighbor's pond. The final walk in the evening is short, barely a mile. No leashes, except to drag Lily out of the house. Aoife is just gone out the door. Lily sticks to us like glue for fear of the loud noises, usually gunfire.

For the last six months, maybe longer, Lily has been a no-go on the first walk. One day she just decided that walk wasn't for her. At first, I dragged her out with us. She would be extremely nervous, jumping on me to get reassuring pets. I eventually figured it was best to leave her at home. She would have no problem with the second walk. That was the one walk where she would wait by the door. But a big no to walk number one.

Until Friday. Friday, Lily met me at the door for walk one. That was weird. But okay. Off we went. I was out of practice in walking the two dogs over that length. But it was nice to have Lily out and about. I will confess the long walk was easier with just Aoife. Kind of expected the walk to be one and done and Lily would go back to climbing into bed with the Queen while Aoife and I strolled.

Nope. Lily is back to morning walks. We are on day 4. I'm a bad pet parent for wishing she would go back to sleeping with the Queen. But if she wants to walk. I will leash her up.