Humans for Dogs

Be careful not to give your dog artificial sweetners.  One of them, Xylitol, is toxic to them.  It’s used in sugar free gum and some baked goods.

Xylitol enters the cells without insulin which can cause your dog to become hypoglycemic, i.e. have low blood sugar.  If left untreated, it can affect the liver.  Treatment includes an IV to reestablish glucose levels in the blood and watching the liver enzymes to ensure the liver has not been affected.

So if you notice your dog becoming very lethargic a few hours after eating baked sweets, check the label to see if this might be the problem.

Exercise with your dog – take him or her for lots of walks!  It’s good for you and good for them.  Researchers have determined that people that walk their dogs regularly are happier and healthier than those that go to the gym for exercise. 

The study of more than 1,500 dog owners and gym goers with an average
age of 47 found:

• The average dog walker trod 676 miles a year – 208 miles than gym
  goers
• Dog owners walked the equivalent distance as Bangkok to London over
  their pet’s lifetime
• A third of York’s residents were gym members, while 19 per cent had
  dogs
• Most dog walkers were likely to stick to their routine, whereas just
  over half of gym goers lost interest after two or three months
• More than half of gym members reported suffering high stress,
  compared with 35 per cent of dog walkers.

So don’t forget to take your dog for a walk today!  (As if you could forget when they sit in front of you for hours with the leash in their mouth!)

Ever wondered how your dog can hang out with you in your 70 degree house and then run out into the snow and not seem to be bothered at all?   To understand this, we need to look at how dogs stay warm and cool.  (And how I wish I could do the same!)

Stay cool is simple.  Dogs cool off in a few basic ways:

• They expel heat by panting.
• They lose heat by sweating through their paws.
• Staying cool by getting wet.  (One of my dogs that hates to swim will wade in and sit and then rock back and forth to get as much of herself wet as possible without actually swimming!)
• They seek cooler places to hang out like cool grass, the shade, a whole dug in the dirt to find the cool dirt underneath.
• Shedding fur.

Staying warm takes more.  Dogs stay warm by:

• Growing more fur when it’s cold.
• Converting their food into heat. 
  • A lot of the food dogs eat during cold weather is used to maintain their body temperature.
  • The mass to surface area ration determines how hard it is to keep
    warm.  So large dogs that have a large mass relative to their surface
    area require less energy (for their size) than small dogs to keep warm.
  • Feed your dog more if they are out a lot when it’s cold.  (If they are inside a lot when it’s cold they may need less food as they are less active!)
• In general, your dogs should be inside if it’s freezing outside.
  • If you do leave them outside for any reason, even a short while, make sure they have water by putting out warm water regularly or investing in a self heating water dish.  Eating snow is not a good alternative – it takes energy to warm up snow and it takes a lot of snow to quench a dog’s thirst!
• Get a really warm (and cheap) sweater for your dog.
• Dogs can get frostbite especially on their ears, tails and paws.  The area will look pale and feel cold.  Don’t rub it! And don’t let your dog scratch it. Call your vet immediately.
• Wash your dogs feet in the winter if you’ve been walking where the roads have chemicals on them.

And don’t forget to have fun with your dog in the winter!  Walking, snowshoeing, and just romping in the snow is fun.  My neighbor’s dog loves to try to catch the snow as she throws shovelfuls into the air!

Teddy, my nine year old black lab/golden retriever/irish setter mix, was diagnosed with kidney failure this summer.  I took her in for a totally unrelated issue.  Actually, I officially took her in for her shots because I was embrassed to take her in for the reason I thought was serious.  (Too many doctors and vets have looked at me like I’m crazy – see my post about figuring out that Teddy had a herniated disk.) 

When we got to the vets office, the first thing they did was weigh her, at which point they discovered that she’d lost 17 pounds!  The shots were forgotten and they immediately went into diagnostic mode.  They also listened carefully to my explanation of the symptoms I thought they’d ignore (Teddy came in from the backyard freaked out and hid behind a chair for the day and wouldn’t jump up on the sofa or bed), they checked her back out completely and ruled out any back issues and then suggested blood work.  When the blood work came back the vet spent a lot of time explaining to me what each measurement meant and how he had used a combination of them to make a diagnosis of kidney failure.  (The time he spent and the clarity of his explanations was better than any doctor or vet I’ve ever been to.  And to think I’d said he was pretty reserved!  I take it back – he’s great.)  Then he told me the bad news, the problem is fatal.  He said she had anywhere from two months to two years to live.

Here are some of the things he said we could do to help alleviate the fact that her kidneys are failing:

• Keep weight on her!
• Limit exercise.  Take her for short walks instead of runs, for example. (Unlike the previous vet, the one that finally diagnosed the slipped disc, he didn’t suggest eliminating all walks.)
• Feed her dog food especially designed for kidney failure.  Although when I told him about Teddy’s allergies, he suggested staying with the food that was currently working and switching to the senior diet. 
• Feed her less protein and more carbs.  (Her kidneys can’t process protein well anymore.)
• Do NOT feed her puppy food.  This is what I immediately thought and what the receptionist also suggested.
• Feed her supplements of pasta or rice and egg whites.

So how’s Teddy doing?  Great! She loves people food – she’s gotten quite obnoxious about it.  And she has a ton of energy since we started feeding her pasta.  (She’s become some what of a snob and definitely prefers egg noodles over rice and won’t touch overcooked rice!)  It’s been two months and although very skinny, she seems very happy and full of energy.

I was looking for information about kidney failure in dogs and the following article caught my eye: Kidney failure in dogs following ingestion of grapes and raisins – College of Veterinary Medicine – University of Minnesota.

The ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center has received more than 50 well-documented reports of dogs developing acute kidney failure after ingesting grapes or raisins.

All I can say is it must be a lot, and I mean a LOT, of grapes.  My dog Teddy loves grapes and one Christmas everyone was giving her handfuls until I found them out. 

Teddy has kidney failure now but she’s nine years old and she’s been eating grapes since she was a puppy.  This study says the dogs developed kidney failure within 72 hours.

IMG_0406,
originally uploaded by Storming.

Here’s Chase after his surgery to fix his herniated diaphragm.  He’s doing well now after three days at the vet clinic.  Seeing him well made us realize how much didn’t look right before – his abdomen was too thin, his ears were back, his fur wasn’t shiney, … he’s looking much better now!  Even without any fur on his belly!

He snapped at the vet and vet technicians the first day (which has to be the only time Chase has ever snapped at anybody) but he made up with lots of cuddling the next two days.

The vet said another day and he probably would have lost his small intestine.  I’m not sure what that would have meant as far as his chances of making it so I’m glad it didn’t happen!

Chase buddy, our dog, needs all your good wishes.  He’s just been diagnosed with a Diaphragmatic Hernia.  There are two types of diaphragmatic hernias, one you are born with and one that is caused by some type of trauma.  In either case, it means there’s a hole in your diaphragm and your intestines come up into your chest interfering with your lungs and heart.  (It can happen to people as well as dogs.)

Symptoms we noticed were that Chase would not move, not lie down and not eat. He would sit rigidly for hours with a very curved back and he drank a little bit of water.  He also lost 12 pounds (20% of his body weight) in four days!  He still wanted to cuddle but he wouldn’t come to you.  He threw up all day on the 3rd day. 

We have no idea what happened to Chase.  We know it happened sometime Saturday while we were camping. The vet and the internet say a diaphragmatic hernia is usually caused by a car, a blow to the stomach or a fall out the window.  As far as we know none of these happened but he was tied up at our campground during the day without us. (He was tied to a post in our campground while we were on the boat.)

He’s going in for surgery right now and we should if he’s going to be ok in about 24 hours.

[3:24pm]  Followup: The vet said the trauma could have happened a long time ago.  Since Chase routinely jumps the fence, I’m guessing it happened on one of those excursions.

If you are having a hard time convincing your partner to neuter the puppy because he won’t develop any testicles, let him know that you can now purchase Neuticles, silicone implants, i.e. prosthetic testicles for neutered dogs.  CNN.com – Pooch Neuticles top Ig Nobels – Oct 6, 2005.

My dogs sleep a lot.  A really lot.  So I decided to see if I could find the real answer to “how much do dogs sleep?” According to Sleep and Dreams in Dogs and Cats:

Under controlled laboratory conditions both cats and dogs sleep about 13 hours per day but they wake up more frequently than people do.

According to Planet Dog:

• Adult dogs spend approximately half their life sleeping,
typically 12 hours a day.

• Some breeds need more sleep than others –
as much as 18 hours per day! (typically larger breeds).

I think mine sleep more than average – closer to the 18 hour limit.  They sleep 8 hours a night with us.  They sleep while we read or watch TV in the evening.  And they sleep all day if we leave them inside.  I’d bet they are only awake 4-5 hours a day during a normal day.

Buy your dog a good bed. Here’s one if they like turning in circles before they lie down.

How much do your dogs sleep?

Photo by mikecpeck.

Alcohol is toxic for dogs.  Your vet might not ask how many drinks a week your dog has, but maybe that’s because they know if they are having any, they wouldn’t be there. 

I couldn’t find anything on the web about alcohol and dogs so I am posting my experience so others can learn from it.  Note that I used to have a friend that fed his dog beer and the dog didn’t have any noticeable side effects.  But one drop of gin was way too much gin for my dog.  Here it is …

We were having a drink on the porch with friends and my boyfriend finished his gin and tonic and put the glass on the floor.  One of the dogs knocked it over and both dogs ate the ice cubes.  We didn’t think anything of it since the drink was empty.  An hour later my dog Teddy couldn’t walk straight, a half hour after that her legs wouldn’t support her at all, she was having trouble breathing and she started vomiting all over the floor and herself.  (And made no move to clean herself up or move out of it.)  She was also terrified and just wanted to lie as close to me as possible.  Wait till you watch your dog try to flop across the floor to get next to you – it’s terrifying.  Two hours after the gin flavored ice cube she was fine.  (I then felt like I might need a gin and tonic myself!)  Anyways, before we remembered the glass and the ice cubes, the emergency clinic vets were thinking back problems and neurological disorders.  When we finally remembered the knocked over glass, they immediately said that was it.  So, NO ALCOHOL FOR DOGS.  Not even a drop!

See reader comments at the original post location.

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