A Hitch In His Get-Along

A couple of times this month, Rowdy had got a cramp in his front leg after he jumped up from a lying position. The first time it happened, he couldn't put his leg down and he looked at me like, 'What happened to me?' I called him over to me and rubbed his chest and leg and soon he was all better.

The second time it happened, I again rubbed his chest and leg and he was normal much quicker, than when it happened the first time.

I kinda think it my have been caused by the steroid he was on. Or maybe it is just because he is getting older. Since I have no idea when his actual birth date is, based on when I got him and now, I believe him to be about 10 years old, which is 70 in people years. He's older than I am now!

Turd Cannon

In keeping with a previous post back in February of 2018, titled Fart Rocket, this is probably my version of Paul Harvey's Rest Of The Story.

Watching my dog poop is certainly is NOT one of my favorite past times. Since I have to keep Rowdy calm, walk him on a leash and not let him chase anything while he is on his heart worm treatment, it is a duty I must perform. So, hump over and expel is a daily chore.

A couple of weeks ago, I took him out for a Wee-Poo, which is what we call his bathroom duties and he sniffed around for a place to go. Finding his ideal spot, he hunched over and proceeded to go normally till he was done. Of course I'm thinking of jokes, like calling him Sir Dumps-A-Lot, or maybe renaming him Egypt, because he leaves a lot of little pyramids in my back yard.

Well, he moved over to another part of the yard and hunched over again. I thought he was done before, but apparently not. Since I use a retractable leash, he was about 10 feet away from me, when all of the sudden two turds shot out of him and landed a foot behind him. Then he slightly adjusted his body and shot another one about two feet behind him.

I thought 'Wow, a turd cannon. No more beans for him. If he ain't careful, he could put an eye out with one of those things.'

Two Squirrels and a Rabbit

Trying to keep Rowdy quiet during his heart worm treatment has been a great chore. He gets excited over everything and before I know it, he gets in a dead run, if only just to go to the back door to go out to do his business. I constantly have to call him down and tell him not to run.

This morning, when we went out for a potty break, there were two squirrels and a rabbit in the yard. He quickly spotted them, but I had him on a tight leash so he couldn't chase them. I so badly wanted to sick him after them, probably just as much as he wanted to chase them, but I held him back.

First Heart Worm Treatment

On April the 1^st, Rowdy had his first heart worm treatment. I took him in the morning and picked him up in the late afternoon. The one thing I didn't do in the initial exam, was to get an x-ray because of the expense of the first visit. This time I had them do the x-ray, so they could determine the extent of the infestation and to check if there were any lingering problems that could explain why I brought him in, in the first place.

The x-ray showed that he was in stage one, an early stage of heart worms and the heart had what she called a 'D' formation where swelling of a certain part resembled that letter. No other problems were found in the x-ray. It was good that we found it in the early stages, which makes it easier to treat. So they shaved a large patch on his rump and gave him the first treatment which is a single shot into a heavily muscular area. Then they keep him for the day to watch for an allergic reaction to the drug.

When I picked him up, they gave me some prednisone 10 mg pills (a steroid), to give him as an anti-inflammatory and I was supposed to keep him quiet and not let him run around or chase rabbits and squirrels. So now I have to walk him on a leash for his potty time, instead of just letting him out in the back yard. He's such a happy-go-lucky dog and gets excited over many things, that it is hard to curtail this behavior. I can only do the best I can and try to keep him calm. I think it confuses him, because I have always encouraged the excited behavior.

I also wonder if the drug or the steroid was giving him any problems. For a short time when he would look at me, it was if he had pain in his eyes and the eyes seemed to bulge out much further than normal. I called the vet a week after treatment and asked about the pain or other problems. She reassured me that he was probably alright, as the pain issue would have been in the first couple of days. He's doing much better now and back to being mostly normal.

What's Wrong With This Dog?

Just over a month ago, Rowdy got off of his food and started breathing excessively heavy or fast. I became real concerned, so I took him to the vet to find out what was wrong. They did a physical exam and blood work testing and found nothing wrong. Then they tested him for heart-worms and found he was infested with them. Still don't know if this is what was causing him not to eat or his fast breathing, but at least we found something.

The first part of his treatment was a month on 100 mg Doxycycline twice a day. This was to weaken the worms, so the treatment would be more effective in killing them out. Then he would have his first treatment which would be a single dose for a month and then two doses for his second treatment a month later. While on the Doxy., after a week his breathing returned to somewhat normal and his appetite returned. I wondered later if his initial problem was that maybe he had been poisoned. That fits a better description or cause of the initial problems he was having.

Unposted Happenings From 2018

Well, a lot of things happened last year (2018) that I did not get to write about and most of them not good. Rowdy had his little world turned somewhat upside down, while mine was too and I had to deal with all of it.

In January my mother fell ill and ended up in a hospital and following that, she went into a nursing home for rehab for a month.  When she got out, I had to take full time care of her, which meant she had to live with me. Even though Rowdy knew her, even before me, this seemed to disrupt Rowdy's home life and he seemed to get a bit upset and growled at me a lot more than he ever had. He finally settled down and got used to it, until mom got worse and ended up back in the hospital and then back into a nursing home, where she passed away a month later.

Rowdy had to deal with me gone a lot after that, taking care of things and I had to get a part time job to make ends meet now. So when I am working, Rowdy is now home alone a lot. This is not much different that anybody else who works and has pets. Rowdy has gotten used to it now, but he is always happy to see me when I get home.