The Odds Caught Up With Us

"You mean despite our adorable domed foreheads, giant ears, cunning smarts and conveniently portable size chihuahuas are not perfect?"

According to the Orthapedic Foundation for Animals (commonly known as OFA) 5.7% of chihuahuas in their database have luxating patellas.  Lets consider for a moment that people who spend the time and money to send in their dogs info to OFA tend to be responsible people, trying to better their breed and get rid of these defects.  These people are also probably more likely than the general population to provide proper nutrition and exercise for puppies.  They also (being that a lot of shown dogs are in here) are less likely to have overweight dogs.  I am not saying that all people who participate in the OFA database or responsible but being realistic I think a greater number of them are than the whole rest of the chihuahua breeding population.  Then think about the irresponsible people participating in OFA who don't send in bad results and I think it is fair to say that 5.7% is probably low when it concerns the chi population as a whole. 

Why do I tell you all that?  Well I knew rescuing chihuahuas from the pound (or the street) it was more likely than not that eventually we would end up getting a dog effected by LP.  I am f***ing pissed off that this dog ended up being Nova.  Has not the poor thing been through enough????????????????

Here is the deal.  Nova started skipping when walking and we noticed she was only weight bearing on three legs.  I could see when she was standing on the carpet that three legs were down and her back right one was just pretending to be down.  Of course we called the vet and one thing leads to another and Nova is diagnosed with luxating patellas.  Her weight bearing improved over the week, so maybe it was just aggravated by her knee luxating- that's what we are hoping for.  Her case is hopefully mild enough that on a variety of supplements as directed by our vet (glucosamine, chondroitin, MSM and a special supplement that helps tendons) she will improve and not have any symptoms.  If that does not work then I guess I muzzle her, throw her in the travel carrier and drag her screaming and kicking to the orthopedic surgeon.  But no one wants that now do we?

A lot of dogs seem to live with grade 1/2 LP and never need surgery.  As long as they stay fit, active, a healthy weight and on joint supplements it seems like things can go pretty easy from here on out.  That's what we are hoping for around here.

Want to learn more about LP?  You can read about it here- http://www.offa.org/pl_overview.html

Kerrigan at the Vet

 Kerri went to the vet yesterday and did such a good job.  The vet we go to now is great too.  They have adorable pictures of baby African animals in the waiting room, lots of paraphernalia about environmentalism (right up my alley) and they don't try to sell me a bunch of useless stuff.  On top of that after they drew blood they put that bandage on her leg and the tech picked purple because it complemented her fur the best.  These people are so sweet and kind I just love them.  Kerri responded to their kindness by being "the sweetest chihuahua they have seen in a long time."  That's my girl- so well behaved an social.  

Why was Kerrigan at the vet you ask?  She had to get her rabies vaccine- now she is on a 3 year vaccine so that is great.  I know getting the vaccine is "controversial" in some circles and a lot of people think dog owners should BREAK THE LAW and not give it.  Here is my feeling- yes the rabies vaccine can cause issues- particularly in tiny dogs- but those vaccine damage issues are totally overblown on the internet.  We vaccinate for rabies as a way to protect human public health.  Before domestic animals were routinely vaccinated people died from rabies all the time in this country.  Many of those people were children.  With that said I would not vaccinate a sick dog (the label on the vaccine even says not to do that), I will give the longest vaccine I can (right now that is 3 years) and I will support more research to extend the length a rabies vaccine is approved for to 7 years.  I will not lie about rabies vaccines and endanger the life of my dog who would be killed if I could not prove they were current and anyone even pretended my dog may have bit or scratched them.  As far as parvo/distemper goes Kerri was not even "due" according to my old vet and my new vet feels that immunity last for life for those vaccines so that's that.  Some research shows those vaccines last for life, a lot of the research shows they last for at least seven years so I will be doing more research on those in 6 years when I have to decide about re-vaccination.  I am pretty sure half the dog community will think I was paid millions of dollars by pfizer to write that paragraph and consider me "brainwashed by major pharmaceutical companies" in an effort to perpetuate dangerous vaccines that are killing us all.  Luckily I don't really care what those people think.

Now that I opened that can of worms let me say Kerri got a totally clean bill of health.  I just got the call that her heartworm test was negative so we are all good for another year!  Also see that picture and all the stuff that the rain has washed into my yard?  Looks like a pigeon died back there but all I can find is feathers- plus all the rocks that belong to my neighbors.  It has been raining for like 2 days straight here and as far as this city is concerned that means the world is coming to an end.  It is DogInTheDESERT after all.  I am also glad I spent the day leaf blowing and fertilizing the trees Monday.  Have a great week everyone!!!

We Love Our Vet!

I don't sit on my hip like this anymore :)

A while back I wrote about why we dumped our old vet and promised you a post about how much we love our new one.  Well it has taken me a while but here is why we love our new vet.

• She is a really cool lady and I really like her personally.
• She is a big fan of a raw diet.
• She splits her time between a primarily holistic practice and a primarily conventional medicine practice.  This means she brings a lot to the table.  Sometimes I find holistic vets a little too out there- and sometimes I find conventional medicine too closed minded and vets in particular seem easily bought out by pet food companies and pharmaceutical reps.  This new vet thinks for herself and has a lot of tools at her disposal.
• She is not anti-vaccine, she just is for reasonable vaccine schedules based on scientific fact, not based on ripping you off every 6 months.  This is good because I am equally annoyed by (scared of?) the people who claim all vaccines are evil so you should never vaccinate ever and the people who want me to uselessly pump a grate dane sized helping of parvo/distemper vaccine into my 6lb chihuahua every year.
• Her office DOES NOT SELL DOG FOOD!!!!!!!  Or at least if they do have prescription diets they are hidden away and you would never know they had them if you were a regular client there.  Cutting corn filled kibble out of my life even further feels so, so good.
• She does house-calls but also has a physical building we can go to if we need (and for blood draws and such).
• She gets results.  Under her care Copley has gone from a lump on the couch that "there is nothing wrong with" to an energetic, happy dog.  He even got back to agility just the other day.  I am so glad we found her.  As I said in my last vet post Copley was in a scarey place.  I truly believe if we had followed our vets advise and gone on pain meds, prescription joint care kibble and limited activity Copley would have declined fast.  By the time we found the TBDs I am sure it would have been far too late for his organs to recover.  I really believe we have bough Copley another 10 years of life.
• Did I mention her office does not sell dog food?

I could go on and on but really it is just more of the same points.  This vet fits us so well and I can't believe how lucky I am to have found her.  It took a lot for me to take the plunge and break up with our vet.  They were good people- and good vets- just not for us.  I wish I had "shopped around" sooner.  My take away message is this- There is no harm in trying new vets out till you find one you love- so don't be afraid to look!  We found our perfect vet and so can you.  For the record I feel the same way about human doctors.

It's been a year since this picture was taken?!?!?!?

P.S.- You may be curious how we found this vet.  Well we were at a totally non animal related social gathering and noticed a car in the parking lot with a magnet on it about a local veterinary house-call practice.  It turned out one of the people we met there was said vet and we tried her out.  Fate I think.

I dumped My Vet

It wasn't them it was me.  Seriously our vet was really good- for most people.  They care about animals and they try to do the best and have reasonable prices.  The problem is that they just were not doing it for me.  A few factors really played into it.

1. Raw Food.  I feed raw and I believe 100% that a home-made diet (not necessarily raw) is good for dogs.  There is no way in my mind that processed dry nuggets are better for your dog than whole foods sourced from trustworthy places.  At the very least I would expect them to recommend a HIGH QUALITY kibble- not Science Diet or the equally corn filled Purina.  I understand that there are a lot of complicated issues when it comes to why vets are against home-made food, but basically it comes down to dog food companies having a vice grip on vet schools and continuing their propaganda campaigns long into vets carriers.  I really felt it was time I found a vet who could see why raw feeding was better- and I did.  It was getting to the point where I could not remain civil in a conversation about how processed nuggets were better and I was probably killing my dog by not feeding them.  I also believe our blood-work was being only glanced over because the vets believed it was a byproduct of what we feed.  Unfortunately it was actually a DISEASE slowly killing my dog, not my food.
2. Vaccinations.  I am not anti-vaccine.  I do however have a problem with giving my dogs vaccines every year for parvo and distemper when those vaccines have shown to last for 7+ years.  Especially when my dog is fighting a disease that is attacking his immune system.  Don't even get me started on bordatella and the guilt trip I got from the receptionist every six months for not giving that!
3. Chiropractic and alternative medicine.  I am not against western medicine.  I also don't see why it is a problem to look at all modalities available to us to achieve good health.  The way I see it prevention is always the best medicine and often eastern or holistic approaches are about maintaining good health overall, not just treating problems once they happen.  What is wrong with those approaches?  NOTHING.  That is why we have changed to a holistic-centered vet who also understands you need an ER or some antibiotics every once and a while!  Lets use everything we have available to us and keep an open mind.  My old vet was not willing to do that.  They wanted me to put my 3 year old dog an an NSAID for the rest of his life and feed him glucosamine filled kibble (they never could come up with a good answer about how my giving them joint supplements would be any less effective than a kibble company doing it).  I can only imagine what Copley would have looked like after 2 years of NSAIDS, kibble and Lyme disease.  I don't think he would see his 6th birthday in that scenario. (I don't mean to say NSAIDS- or long term use of them- is always bad.  It makes a lot of dogs comfortable and with proper monitoring it is often the best choice.  For us it was putting a band-aid on a degenerative disease.)
4. Tick Borne Disease Literacy.  I needed a vet who had treated and seen TBDs before.  They are tricky and the symptoms are subtle and seem like other things.  Every time I went in it cost me $200 and they told me it was nothing.  The new vet looked at our whole picture and came up with a solution.
5. Fear Mongering.  I started getting stuff in the mail about putting my dog on flea/tick/heart worm meds and how I was doing them a horrible disservice and  killing my dogs by not having them on monthly frontline and de-wormers (for the record I DO test for heart worm and think people in areas with it should use preventatives).  This bothered me for two main reasons.  First it was propaganda made by a pharmaceutical company but was disguised as a meaningful letter from my vet.  Secondly WE DON'T HAVE FLEAS or TICKS or MOSQUITOES HERE!!!!!  They are literally just ripping people off at best, and tricking them at worst.

For now I guess that's it.  My did this turn into a rant.  I guess it is like all bad breakups- I am a little bitter.  Seriously though- my old vet isn't that bad.  If you don't mind standing up to them about the food thing and your dog doesn't have a TBD they are one of the best vets in the city.

Enjoy this picture of what really matters- a happy, healthy Copley enjoying a romp in a field of swamp cabbage.