Rolling Dog Farm Blog

Our blind Husky Mitch was patient No. 3 for our veterinary ophthalmologist, Dr. Sarah Hoy, last week. His eyes had become uncomfortable the previous week and I had started treating them with some topical medications, but after initial improvement I began to lose ground again. So I thought it was time for Mitch to see Dr. Hoy for a thorough eye exam. It turns out that was a very good thing, because he now has uveitis. When he first came to us, he had a simple case of PRA, or progressive retinal atrophy, which is typically not painful. Uveitis is, however, very painful. Ironically, it's something we've seen much more in our blind horses over the years than in our blind dogs — it's the leading cause of blindness in horses.

In these photos Dr. Hoy is using her slit-lamp to examine Mitch's eyes while her vet tech Amy holds the big furry boy still:

As is often the case with painful, blind eyes, we made the decision to enucleate, or remove, Mitch's eyes to give him permanent relief. He will be having surgery on Tuesday this week, along with little Wilbur.

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As I had mentioned in earlier posts, I took Wilbur to see our veterinary ophthalmologist last week as well. Although we knew from our primary care vet's initial exam with our Tono-Pen that Wilbur does not currently have glaucoma, we still wanted a definitive diagnosis of what was going on with his eyes, especially with his right eye. When he first arrived he could see out of this eye, but in the few weeks he's been here we noticed he's been losing vision rapidly in that eye as the cataract in it became larger and thicker. So we wanted to know if we could save his vision with cataract surgery, or if there was something else we could do for him.

In the photo above, Dr. Sarah Hoy examines Wilbur's blind eye with the slit-lamp (an ophthalmic microscope) while her vet tech Patty holds him. It turns out that the lens in that eye is "luxated," i.e., has come loose, as well as having a mature cataract. He had no menace (or blink) reflex, dazzle reflex or pupillary light reflex, so as we had already seen, no vision to speak of. While currently the eye is not painful, he is at risk for the lens lodging against the back of the cornea, which can be very painful.  Here's another view:

Dr. Hoy thought it was possible he might have already had glaucoma in that eye and it "burned out," but it's hard to know at this point for sure.

His right eye, on the other hand, still had all of the essential reflexes, but the cataract had "opacified" or covered 75% of the lens — which is why we were noticing him acting more and more like he is losing vision. In addition, the lens is loose inside the eye — the tiny fibers that hold it in place were mostly gone. This meant he would soon have the lens entirely displaced, which could lead to retinal detachment or glaucoma. 

Because the lens was aleady loose, Wilbur would not be a candidate for cataract surgery because the procedure itself could cause the few fibers still holding it in place to rupture. So Dr. Hoy recommended lens removal surgery, or a lensectomy. There are synthetic lenses that can be inserted in dogs but they don't come in a small enough size for a little guy like Wilbur. However, he would still be able to see — he would just be far-sighted. And it would take care of the fast-growing cataract in the process.

But there was still one more thing to check before knowing whether he would be a candidate for the lensectomy: making sure the retina in his visual eye hadn't started to detach. To determine this, Dr. Hoy ultrasounded the eye, which is what she's doing here:

Patty is holding Wilbur while Dr. Hoy's other vet tech Amy is capturing images from the ultrasound for archiving purposes. The ultrasound showed his retina is still very much attached.

As a result, we have Wilbur scheduled for the lens surgery next week, and Dr. Hoy will remove his other eye at the same time.

Through it all, Wilbur was the best little patient — quiet, still, and never complaining … even when the big glob of ultrasound gel covered up his eye. (The probe itself was wider than his head!) He was a just a gem through the whole thing.

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I went to pick up Billy on Friday from the veterinary ophthalmologist in Burlington, Vermont. Billy's surgery on Thursday to remove his eyes had gone fine, but on Friday morning Dr. Sarah Hoy and her techs became a little concerned about how he was doing. He was more listless than they expected, even considering the post-op "blues" you normally would see. Walking seemed to tire him out, and his gums would get a little on the pale side after any exertion. Mindful that he was heartworm positive, which always puts a strain on the heart, Dr. Hoy wanted me to be aware of what they were seeing.

Of course, with Avery's tragic loss fresh in our minds and hearts, Dr. Hoy's report alarmed me. I knew we needed to get Billy's heart checked out as soon as we could. In an ideal world, we wouldn't have put him through surgery without treating his heartworm infection first, but that can take up to three or four months from start of treatment to the "all-clear" for surgery. Because he was in so much pain, this was a triage situation where we had to get his eyes taken care of first. This was the same predicament we were in with Avery, so the similarities were even more uncomfortable.

Sitting in the truck outside Dr. Hoy's clinic, I called our internal medicine specialist in Burlington, Dr. Bryan Harnett, at Burlington Emergency and Veterinary Specialists. I knew it was a long shot, but I thought that just in case he might have an opening, I wanted to get Billy in for an echocardiogram to check out his heart function. Dr. Harnett was off on Friday, but his new associate, Dr. Tanya Donovan, was available and graciously offered to look at Billy as soon as I could get him over there. Less than ten minutes later, I was sitting in front of their door.

Dr. Donovan is also an internal medicine specialist and just joined the clinic two weeks ago, which is why you haven't seen her in previous blog posts. In the photo above, she is listening to Billy's heart. Another view:

She took him into the back for his echocardiogram, and I sat nervously in the exam room, waiting to find out. It wasn't long before the door swung open and Dr. Donovan walked into the room carrying Billy. She smiled and said, "His heart is gorgeous." Whew! He did have a very small leak in his mitral valve, which is producing a mild murmur, but she found no evidence of "decompensation" or disease. In fact, she also didn't see any worms, which could mean either his heatworm test in Georgia was a false positive or he has a very low worm burden. So Dr. Donovan recommended retesting him for heartworms before treating him. His bloodwork was also normal. As she was telling me all this, Billy was zooming around the exam room floor, climbing up on Dr. Donovan and then me, and clearly regaining some Beagle spunk.

I also had little Wilbur in the truck with me — he needed to get some more bloodwork done at the opthalmologist's clinic — and since I'm never one to waste an opportunity, I asked Dr. Donovan if she had time that afternoon to do an abdominal scan and echo on Wilbur, too. He is going to have surgery in another week, and since we don't have any medical history on him, I figured it would be wise to get the wee-one checked out. Again, she was kind enough to fit him in, and off he went for his scan. I will post more on Wilbur next time, but Dr. Donovan said his organs looked great. Judging from some age-related changes in his gall bladder and adrenal glands, she figured he was closer to 10 years of age.

After she came back with Wilbur, Dr. Donovan had sat down on the floor to tell me her findings on him, and pretty soon both dogs were sitting in her lap. Wilbur had squeezed in under her right arm, and Billy had come in from the left and was leaning up against her chest, his nose on her shoulder. They clearly liked their new doctor. It was so cute and I was such a dud for not getting that photo!

With all the good news in hand, I put the two boys in the truck and headed back to New Hampshire.

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For the second year in a row, Rolling Dog Farm will be the beneficiary of the Peace Cereal Giving Back Program. We will receive a contribution for every Peace Cereal product sold during the first quarter of 2012. Last year that came to $7,500 for the animals!

The Peace Cereal Giving Back Program is designed to raise funds for four non-profit partners each year that match Peace Cereal's mission of positively impacting causes that are important to customers, employees and business partners. We were selected because of our role in animal welfare.  Another big "thank you!" to the fabulous people at Peace Cereal for choosing the farm!

Peace Cereal has been a pioneer in natural and organic cereals since it was introduced in 1997 as a way to support community projects that provide nutritious meals to those in need. Peace Cereal products always use all natural ingredients and ensure ingredients are certified grown and processed without genetic engineering.

Peace Cereal is offering a coupon for $1 off your next purchase.  Please note: You may need to download a small "e-coupon" software application to print the coupon. We cannot troubleshoot or provide any assistance if this doesn't work for you.

You can find out more about Peace Cereal, including where to buy it, here.

Our Rolling Dog Farm logo is also now on Peace Cereal boxes in stores. Please support their Giving Back Program by purchasing some Peace Cereal for breakfast!

Here's Kate holding our newest arrival, blind Billy, who just came to us from Atlanta Beagle Rescue. Morgan S., who runs the group, had emailed me to say:

We got him from South Carolina last weekend. He's maybe about 6-8 years old and has the wide open stare of PRA. The shelter neutered him before they released him and unfortunately did not stop him from licking his incision site. His mouth is a bacterial cesspool – worst teeth I've seen in a while – so now he's got infection "down there" as well as a ton of teeth that are going to have to come out. We've started him on antibiotics and have him scheduled for a dental next Thursday. He is, of course, heartworm positive on top of all that.

The shelter had picked him up as a stray wandering loose in a neighborhood. He had a tag on his collar, and when the shelter staff called the person whose name and number were on the tag, the fellow said he didn't have a dog. Lovely, eh?

When I emailed Morgan back to say we'd take him, I joked that we were beginning to look like Atlanta Beagle Rescue North. Of the seven blind Beagles we now have, all but one came from Morgan's group. (Well, Widget came to us from Morgan many, many years ago when she lived in New York.)  And with Billy's arrival — and Katie and Spencer's adoption — the Beagle to Dachshund ratio has tilted decisively in favor of Beagles at the moment, 7 to 4. Of course, since Widget is half-Dachshund (a fact that makes her grumpy whenever we bring it up), even if we add her genetics to the Dachshund side of the ledger, Beagles still prevail.

In addition to being blind, Billy also has dry eye, which Morgan had started treating him for. His left eye in particular seems painful — some discharge and squinting — and may need to come out. He had his dental in Atlanta, which we paid for, and lost most of his teeth because they were so bad. Between his heartworms and his eyes, he's got more medical work ahead.

Billy is a very sweet boy, and immediately made himself at home. He loves cruising the front yard, sniffing all the new smells. When I was taking the photos this morning, Billy could smell some food on the table next to us in the dog room, and all he wanted to do was climb out of Kate's arms and go find that food!  So with all the squirming and wiggling, I subjected Kate and Billy to 47 photos. By the time we were getting to the end of the shoot, Kate was still holding up but Billy was getting bored and decided to yawn:

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Late last week we noticed that blind Avery's belly seemed distended and his breathing had suddenly become labored, so we took him to our clinic in Whitefield on Thursday for an exam. As it turned out, that was the day the clinic's new digital X-ray machine broke down, so we had to take him to a new emergency veterinary clinic in Littleton, New Hampshire, just about 10 miles from Whitefield. There a wonderful vet, Dr. Eva Stobnicki, was able to quickly diagnose the problem: X-rays showed Avery's heart had become very enlarged. (I forgot to take the camera so I didn't get any photos of Dr. Stobnicki with Avery.)

We knew Avery had some mild right-side heart enlargement last year from a previous echocardiogram we did in conjunction with his heartworm treatment, but at the time he was showing no ill effects from it.

She started him on Lasix for the fluid build-up and Enalapril for his heart, and set up a follow-on appointment for Monday with a cardiologist in Concord, Dr. John MacGregor.

So yesterday I drove Avery down to Concord for his appointment. In the photo above is Dr. MacGregor doing an echocardiogram while his vet tech Jen holds Avery. Dr. MacGregor is putting the ultrasound probe through a hole in the table; although we've done dozens of echocardiograms over the years, I'd never seen this technique before. Dr. MacGregor says it provides better access to the heart this way.

The echocardiogram showed that Avery now has pulmonary hypertension, specifically, high blood pressure in his lungs. This is most likely caused by the heartworm infection he had when he first came to us (and for which we treated him last year). Even though the treatment can get rid of the heartworms, longtime untreated cases like Avery had can still cause progressive heart damage.

Here's another view when Dr. MacGregor was determining how much fluid was in his belly:

As a result of the diagnosis, Dr. MacGregor started Avery on two additional heart medications, and he will recheck Avery's progress in two weeks.

At the emergency clinic in Littleton, I had warned the staff that Avery might scream and get a little dramatic being handled for his X-rays. (This is behavior left over from his prior history of abuse.)  Sure enough, about one minute after they closed the door to the X-ray room, I heard Avery start screaming. But the next thing I heard was one of the staff yelling, "Quick, get a towel, he's peeing!" Yep, I had forgotten to tell them he might pee if he gets upset … and he did pee all over the X-ray table. Oops.  I yelled through the door, "Sorry, my fault, I forgot to warn you about that, too!"

So at the cardiologist's office, I had prepared them for this particular "expression of discontent." Amazingly, Avery not only let us lay him down on the table and roll him over without any drama, but he never peed either.  But you can see from the pee-pad on the table we were ready for it!

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Weekly Winner and $1,000 for the Animals!

Yes, the Shelter Challenge people finally posted the weekly winners for Weeks 4 and 5 (at the same time), and we — or I should say, you – won $1,000 for the animals here! Thank you so much! We thought we had won it a couple of weeks ago when we got a few emails from people congratulating us for the win, but the Shelter Challenge had not posted any results past Week 3 … so we were reluctant to say anything. I gather the Animal Rescue Site must send out an email of some sort, but I don't know why they don't update their page at the same time. In any case, the check for $1,000 also just arrived and is now in the bank. Thank you for all your dedicated voting to benefit the animals at Rolling Dog Farm!

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The usual routine every morning is that we first go upstairs to the (relatively) sound-proof room on the second story of the dog wing, where blind Widget and Dexter T. Dickens and any other night-howlers sleep, and carry them outside. Then we head to the dog room and start letting out the rest of the gang. By the time we get done with the ground floor group, Widget has come inside, gone down the hallway and made a bee-line for Travis' crate. (Having just written "bee-line" I wondered about the origin of the phrase.)

Travis, our dog with the fused jaw, eats — well, slurps — a liquid diet and makes a fine mess during the course of his dining experience. (His other name is "Pig Pen," though that might be a disservice to pigs.) In any case, there is always plenty for others to clean up the next morning, and over the years various dogs have enjoyed helping themselves. And none more so now than Widget, for whom the mad dash into Travis' crate is a part of her morning routine.

That is, except when Alayne and I get the sequence screwed up, as we did on Saturday morning, and somehow Widget got back inside before we had let Travis and friends out. (That's blind Louie on the left.) She bounded into the room, went straight for Travis' crate, pulled on the door with her paw, and found it locked. Then she realized that he was still inside. Uh oh. 

So she milled around for a few seconds before deciding to sit back and woo-woo-woo to let us know that something-was-terribly-wrong-with-this-situation-and-must-be-fixed-right-now: 

After the vocal protest, I put down the camera, let Travis out, and Widget zoomed in. All's well that ends well.

If only the rest of the world's problems could be solved so easily.

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Weekly Winner and $1,000 for the Animals!

Yes, the Shelter Challenge people finally posted the weekly winners for Weeks 4 and 5 (at the same time), and we — or I should say, you – won $1,000 for the animals here! Thank you so much! We thought we had won it a couple of weeks ago when we got a few emails from people congratulating us for the win, but the Shelter Challenge had not posted any results past Week 3 … so we were reluctant to say anything. I gather the Animal Rescue Site must send out an email of some sort, but I don't know why they don't update their page at the same time. In any case, the check for $1,000 also just arrived and is now in the bank. Thank you for all your dedicated voting to benefit the animals at Rolling Dog Farm!

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