Invalid Update...

Both Debbie and Mo'i are doing fine.  Debbie is pushing to get more range of motion (especially flexion).  She's up and about much more now than even just a week ago.  Being stuck in the house is driving her crazy (I know, short drive :-).  Mo'i is likewise doing fine.  His behavior is completely back to normal.  He's loving his 4 or 5 times a day chicken-and-rice diet :-)...

Mo'i Update...

We called Animal ER this morning to check on how Mo'i was doing, and we got some good news: Mo'i was ready to come home!  I jumped in our trusty old LandCruiser and zoomed up there right away.

Shortly after arriving, the vet tech brought Mo'i out to see me.  Oh, man, he looked good!  Alert, happy to see me, tail wagging, giving me his customary “hug”.  If I didn't know better, I wouldn't have known he'd just had a fairly major surgical procedure.  The photo at upper right is Mo'i after returning home (in his “Elizabethan collar” so he doesn't chew his staples out)...

The post-operative care is simple in his case: no strenuous activity for a week or so, bland diet (boiled chicken and rice) and small frequent meals for a few days, and a couple of drugs.  Nothing hard at all.  In ten days or so, we'll get his staples out. 

The folks at the Animal ER said that Mo'i was a great patient.  We hear this about him almost everywhere we've ever taken him .– he's friendly, extroverted, and almost impossible to provoke into an angry response.  He takes needle pokes with equinamity, and gobbles nasty-tasting pills like they were doggie treats.  Vets and vet techs all love him.

We drove home via the grocery store, to get Mo'i a nice pile of chicken thighs to boil up and mix with rice.  Once home, he took a little walk, had a small meal, and drank (oddly, he didn't want water, so I mixed a little chicken-flavored “Gatorade for dogs” for him, and he loved that).  Then we took a look at his wound (above left), which looks fine.

The fine folks at Animal ER were happy to make a CD with Mo'i's X-rays for me to take home.  Below are the two X-rays showing his gastric volvutus so clearly that even I can tell that something is wrong.  Note how the bloated stomach pushed other organs around – that must have been epically painful for the poor guy...

Scary Story...But With a Happy Ending...

Mo'i is our second-oldest dog – a male field spaniel who has been part of our lives for fourteen years.  He's a quiet, affectionate, and unflappable fellow.  The one thing that gets him excited is food – anything he can force into his mouth and swallow makes him happy.  We're not even sure what his favorite food is.  He likes dog food, but he also likes tomatoes, onions, bananas, banana peels, and even...gravel.  Yes, really – gravel.  A couple times a year, while we're walking him, he'll go over to our little gravel pile and grab a mouthful of pea gravel and swallow it.

Mo'i has had more than his share of health issues.  A few years ago, he had a splinter of bone fragment pressing against his spinal cord; that required some fancy surgery to fix.  Unusually for a dog, he has high blood pressure (hypertension).  More recently he's been struggling with skin problems (bacterial and fungal infections) that make him itch all over and smell funky.  The last few weeks he's had a couple of “hot spots” where he's licked and bitten the hair off a patch of skin, so we've had him wearing the “cone of shame” to keep him from further injuring himself.

But through all these travails, there's been one constant: put food down, and Mo'i is all over it.  When he figures out that we're about to feed them, Mo'i starts whimpering and even trembling in anticipation.  At moments like that, all thought of his pain or discomfort go flying out the window, and Mo'i is all about one thing: food, food, food, FOOD!

So yesterday afternoon (at 3 pm) when I fed the dogs and Mo'i was completely disinterested, I knew something was badly wrong.  That had, quite literally, never happened before – not in his entire life.  There were a couple of other less alarming symptoms as well: he was listless, held his back slightly arched, and had is little stub of a tail held level and trembling – all odd for him.  Debbie called our local vet; she was not in the office but another vet was covering for her, so Mo'i and I jumped in my car and away we went.

Before 4 pm the vet was examining Mo'i.  The only thing clearly wrong that he saw were his bright red gums – something possibly associated with Mo'i's hypertension.  With nothing else to go on, the vet thought that Mo'i's symptoms were most likely caused by something related to his hypertension, and quite likely not something acute.  Our local vet doesn't have the specialized sphygmomanometer needed for dogs, so he thought it might be a good idea to take Mo'i to the Animal ER in Kearny Mesa (40 miles or so away) where they did have a sphygmomanometer to get that blood pressure checked.  He didn't think it was urgently necessary to take Mo'i up, and waiting until Monday would probably be ok as well.

Ordinarily this is the sort of thing that Debbie and I would decide together, as she'd be right there with me.  But with Debbie laid up with her busted-up knee, I was down at the vet's on my own.  It's the kind of tradeoff decision that pet owners agonize over – do we put our pet through the low-grade trauma of further tests and travel, spend the money and time?  Is it actually necessary?  Vets (like doctors) generally don't give clear-cut advice in such matters, but the vibes I was getting from this vet were “this isn't all that urgent”.  On the other hand, the fact that Mo'i wouldn't eat was really sticking in my head – knowing Mo'i, that felt like a loud scream for help.

So I decided to take him to Animal ER.  Mo'i and I loaded ourselves back into our ancient LandCruiser, I gassed up, and away we went.  Animal ER didn't even open until 6 pm, so I thought I had plenty of time to get there – but it was raining, and the San Diego freeways were slick, and the traffic was horrible.  I didn't make it up there until just before 6 pm.

In very short order, Mo'i was being examined by Dr. Keith Ray at the Animal ER.  He recommended X-rays, and ten minutes later he was going over the electronic results with me.  There was a very clear diagnosis, and it had nothing whatsoever to do with his blood pressure: Mo'i was suffering from gastric volvulus, causing his stomach to blow up like a balloon.  The X-ray at right isn't of Mo'i, but it is very similar to his.  There are lots more details at the link, but basically his stomach had spun on its lengthwise axis about 2/3 of a turn.  This caused both ends of his stomach to be sealed shut, and it immediately started inflating from digestive gases.  If untreated, it's fatal – and quickly.  The mortality rate for diagnosed dogs is around 50%.  The sufferer is in agony.

The treatment is surgical, and Dr. Ray is experienced in this particular surgery.  He told me very frankly about the risks, which are significant.  The two biggest risks: necrosis (dead tissue) of the stomach (caused by blood vessels being twisted shut) and loss of the spleen (again, from loss of blood supply).  The first problem could cause anything from complications to death; the second could cause complications and increased risk of post-operative infections.  He recommended immediate surgery (the only real alternative was to euthanise him), and by 7:30 pm Mo'i was being prepped for surgery.  I had a chance to spend a bit of quality time with him as the tranquilizer was taking hold, but then it was off to the operating room for the Mo'i.

I drove back home to explain all this to Debbie, and to wait with her for the surgeon's call.  There was nothing either of us could do at the Animal ER; we couldn't even be with Mo'i.  So, feeling very helpless and very worried, we waited.  Finally, a bit before midnight, we got the call from Dr. Ray: the surgery had gone very well.  There was no stomach necrosis at all, and the spleen was fine.  Dr. Ray suspects that Mo'i's hypertension actually helped in this situation, by forcing blood through the constrained blood vessels.  Mo'i was fine, and his stomach was back in the right place, tacked down to a rib so it doesn't happen again, and the trapped gases were all released.  We've heard this morning that Mo'i is recovering just fine; he's been up for a little walk and he's behaving like the dog he is.  Hopefully we'll be able to bring him home tomorrow, where he'll be getting a bit of extra attention.  And maybe a banana, if the vet permits...

Debbie's Excellent Weekend...

Debbie competed in an agility trial on Saturday and Sunday – with Mo'i and Miki. The trial was local, down in Bonita at Rohr Park.

This was Miki's very first agility trial, so he was entered in the novice class. He was up against about 15 other dogs, and ran twice each day. The results: he took three first places, and would have had a fourth except for a bar he knocked off one jump. Many people were very surprised by Miki's stellar performance, including Debbie!

Mo'i had just one clean run out of the four, and he didn't place. But the “Q” was enough to put him back in first place for the trial year (June to June). He'd fallen behind as he was out of competition for months after his back surgery.

So Debbie had a most excellent agility weekend!

The Champs...

Mo'i and Debbie (at right) are the top-ranked field spaniel agility competitors in the U.S. this year, for the third year in a row. Next Friday, they head to Long Beach for the National Invitational Agility competition, where the top dogs in each breed compete against each other. My camera and I will be there next Sunday, for the finals.

Mo'i is in the best condition of his life, despite it being only two months since he had surgery on his back. It's clear to us now that his back problem has been plaguing him for years – the poor guy just couldn't tell us about it!

Because Mo'i is a field spaniel (a breed “serious” agility competitors might compare to a Volkwagen bug competing against Ferraris), there's little chance of them placing – much less winning – the national competition. But they're going to have lots of fun, and they'll get some well-earned recognition from their peers...

Mo'i Update...

Mo'i continues to do unreasonably well – his hair has now grown back enough to hide the square gray patch, and the incision has healed so well that it's now just barely visible.

Tomorrow Mo'i goes back to the vet for his two week checkup. The poor guy has spent the entire last two weeks in his crate, to enforce quiet and calm – he's going stir-crazy. Hopefully we will get the okay tomorrow to let the miserable mutt out of jail. If so, you can expect one very, very happy dog tomorrow night!

Morning, and Mo'i...

Mo'i is still doing fantastically well. It's just one week since his surgery, but he's rarin' to go – we have to actively control him in order to keep him as quiet as the doctor ordered. Basically these days he lives in his little crate or on a leash, poor guy. He's going to be one very happy fellow in a week or so, when we can first let him run free.

His surgical incision is healing very quickly. It already looks like a relatively minor, albeit big, cut. His hair is growing back on the shaved spot, and it's easy to see that within a few weeks he'll be looking practically normal. For Mo'i, that is...

It was a beautiful morning here again – crisp and clear, with a nice waning moon low in the northeastern sky, just down from Castor and Pollux. Ursa Major has wheeled just a bit higher in the sky; in a couple of weeks it will all be visible again at 4 am...

Morning, and Mo'i...

Mo'i continues to do spectacularly well – for the past day or so, his behavior has been completely normal, as though he never had the surgery at all.

This morning, as on nearly every morning out here in the chaparral, the skies were clear and bright with stars and the moon. The constellations wheel clockwise around Polaris (the north star) with the seasons, and this time of year brings Orion up high in the morning's eastern sky. Orion was the first constellation I learned to recognize, and it's usually how I start orienting myself with the sky. Now bright, bright Sirius is also well above the eastern horizon in the early morning. The moon this morning was near Castor and Pollux, up by Orion's right arm. The Pleiadies (the Seven Sisters) were nearly directly overhead. And Ursa Major (the Big Dipper) is peeking up over the northern horizon, below and to the right of Polaris. A very nice morning for a little stargazing...

Mo'i Update...

This morning as I opened the door to his crate, Mo'i practically smothered me with his patented “hugs” (which consist mainly of him pressing into you like a bulldozer) and ear nibbles. He was feeling very frisky, and seemed completely normal in his behavior – an observation that was only reinforced by his morning walk. His gait is normal, his energy level and “pull” is normal, the incision looks better every hour that goes by, and our biggest problem is keeping the big old lunk quiet and calm. And this is only on day 3 of a 14 day prescription for quiet!

It is so good to see Mo'i looking so well...

Your Morning Mo'i (and Other Dogly Adventures)...

We're seeing progress almost by the hour with Mo'i. Last night when I took him out on a walk, he did something he does when he's happy – he grabbed the leash in his mouth and “took himself for a walk.” It was very nice to see that behavior, because we know he only does it when he's feeling good. This morning Debbie inspected the incision, and she was happy to see that the swelling is down (exactly as the vet predicted), and there still is no sign of infection. All good!

We had a dog adventure of a totally different kind last night, by coincidence (or at least we think so!). Mo'i, for obvious reasons, couldn't sleep on our bed as he normally does. We had him in a crate in our bedroom. Around 2:30 am, he started whining – something he has done before when we've had him crated. The whining could mean he needs a walk, or (more likely) it just means he wants to get up on the bed.

Debbie got up and took him for a walk just in case, but when she crawled back into bed we noticed there was a wet spot on the bed. A big wet spot, as though someone had dumped a glass of water there. Of course our first thought was that one of our dogs had peed on the bed – something none of our dogs has done for years. But no, this wet spot had no odor, and seemed clean, like plain water. The only thing I've been able to imagine is dog saliva, as though one of the dogs slept with its mouth open and drooling.

Whatever it was, it wasn't something we cared to splash about in as we slept. So (at 2:30 am!) we got up, stripped the bed, threw the bed clothes in the washer, and “camped” in the living room. We made a bed on the floor by using cushions from several chairs and sofas and throwing some blankets over them. Not a very satisfactory bed, for sure – Debbie and I are a little stiff this morning...

Mo'i Update...

Mo'i is doing great! I just got back from taking him for a short walk, and it was a joy to see him behaving completely normally. As usual, he investigated every gopher and ground squirrel hole (even the ones that haven't been used for years!). If you're Mo'i, it's important to smell them all carefully – you just never know when a critter might come by...

When we got back in the house, I took the opportunity to take a few photos. At right you see him looking almost normal. Only the shaved spot on his right front leg (where the catheter was) shows any evidence of his recent surgery. In the photos below, the surgery is a bit more evident.

The surgical wound is looking great. There is no evidence of infection, and only minor swelling. We're keeping an eye out for anything looking abnormal here, at the direction of the vet. Mo'i doesn't go back in for a checkup for two weeks.

As always, click on any of the photos to get a larger view...

Mo'i Is Home!

Yesterday Mo'i had surgery to repair a slipped disc. This morning, an astonished-sounding vet called Debbie and said (with many more words) that Mo'i was recovering so well and so fast that he thought we should take him home this evening.

So of course we did! Debbie and I drove down together, paid our bill (don't ask!), and waited for the technician to bring Mo'i down to us. He rounded the corner in the hallway well ahead of the technician, who was leaning backwards to counter-balance Mo'i's bulldozer-like pulling. That was one happy dog! Lots of happy grunting and whimpering, hugs, and a 200 mile-per-hour wagging tail. We lifted him carefully into the truck and took off for home.

And now Mo'i is resting very comfortably in his familiar crate. He is one very happy dog tonight. Adding to his pleasure is the fact that he has no dietary restrictions, so he's getting (and will be getting) a few more than the usual dog treats – and there's nothing that Mo'i likes more than dog treats!

He's got a rectangular shaved area on his back, with a roughly 8 inch long incision running right down his backbone. There are no sutures visible; the technician told us they were entirely under the skin. Mo'i acts almost completely normal, and his strength seems to be unreduced – certainly not what I was expecting after such a major surgery. Twice since we've had him home, he's yelped in pain; it seems to be associated with rotating motions on his back (as when he's shaking himself). Otherwise, we can't even sense any discomfort in him. We're going to keep him completely quiet for 2 weeks, and then after that we gradually ramp up the level of exercise. The vet tells us that he should back to normal in about 6 weeks.

Amazing!

Tomorrow I'll post some pictures of Mo'i. Tonight we're just happy to have our dog back, and healthy...

Mo'i Update...

We just heard from the vet that Mo'i is out of surgery and doing just fine. Whew!

Best of all: the surgery confirmed that the problem was exactly what the vet thought it was – fragments of disc that were pinching a nerve the runs to his right rear leg. That means it was not a tumor or any other life-threatening issue.

The vet thought she saw a single fragment on the MRI yesterday, but it turns out that the actual situation was a bit messier. If I am correctly understanding her description, it appears that for whatever reason, this particular disc in Mo'i's back calcified, hardened, and then broke apart into multiple pieces. One of those pieces was pinching that nerve.

During the surgery she cleaned out all the little fragments, then put Mo'i back together. His back is currently being iced to reduce swelling, and he's on good pain medication. They don't want us to visit tonight, because they want him quiet and still. Dang. We'd sure like to see him right about now...

But the important stuff is that he's ok, and we're done with this problem. Even better, the vet says there's no reason to believe that his agility work contributed to this injury in any way, and he's perfectly ok to go back into competition.

We can hardly wait for Saturday morning, when we get to bring him home. And tomorrow afternoon, when we can visit with him.

A big thanks to all of you who sent kind words and thoughts – 'tis much appreciated by these worried “dog parents.”

Everything Is All Right...

...but for the last 24 hours we've been really worried.

Mo'i is our agility champion field spaniel – just over 8 years old and in his prime. A few days ago Debbie noticed that he seemed to be reluctant to jump up on us (something he loves to do when he greets us), and he wouldn't do the “dog food dance” when she fed him. She figured he'd pulled a muscle or something, and was watching him closely.

Last night she noticed the symptoms suddenly got worse. Now he was favoring his right rear foot, and showing some evidence of pain. Debbie got on the phone with our wonderful vet (Dr. Christine Wilson), and then ran him right down for an exam. Shortly after that I got a call: Dr. Wilson suspected a slipped disc, or something like that, and wanted us to get Mo'i to a specialist immediately.

So I met Debbie at Dr. Wilson's place, and we headed to the Veterinary Specialty Hospital in Sorrento Valley (almost an hour from home). They examined him, and recommended an MRI to determine what was wrong. We left poor Mo'i there, in pain, and went home very worried.

This morning we got a call from the neurology vet, with some very hopeful news: after an evening on pain meds and muscle relaxants, Mo'i was looking much better. The vet even talked with us about the possibility of the injury being relatively minor, and of treating it with (basically) bed rest and quiet. But after some careful discussion with her, we decided to go ahead with the MRI to see what it would find. We want to know what's going on, and that we're giving him the best treatment – not just guess at it.

This afternoon they did the MRI, and the vet called us with the results. She's about 99% sure that there is a fragment of a disc that's pinching a nerve and causing the symptoms. She recommended surgery – but it's relatively straightforward surgery, going in through the top of the spine (bone, not muscle). Success isn't guaranteed, but it's very likely. Recovery should be fairly fast, about 5 to 7 weeks to a full recovery. And the surgery will remove all ambiguity about the cause of his problem – if it is a tumor, bony growth, or whatever, when they're done with the surgery, they'll know for sure.

This evening we went down to visit with Mo'i. Lordy, he was happy to see us! We spent some quality time with him, then remanded him to the care of the techs at the hospital. Tomorrow around midday he goes under the knife. We'll visit him again tomorrow night, and then on Friday, barring any complications, we can take him home.

We're thinking that all of this is good news. We're pretty sure now that we know what the problem is, and it's completely treatable with low-risk surgery. We went home feeling much better.

And then tonight there was one final happy event. On one of the agility newgroups (on Yahoo!), a woman that Debbie knows through agility wrote of her surprise when she discovered that Mo'i was checked into the hosptital where she works. What a coincidence! She wrote on the newsgroup of how she checked up on Mo'i several times during the day today, and will continue to do so. It is no small comfort to us to know that a friend of the family is there keeping an eye on Mo'i. And it put a smile on our face to read her reports of Mo'i's cheerful demeanor and constantly wagging tail...

We'll be a little distracted for the next few days, folks...