First Aid and CPR for Pets

AP here:
Today I attended a class for First Aid and CPR for Pets in Columbia Maryland. It was the PetTech^® Pet Saver™ 8 Hour Program taught by Merrill Warchal owner of PetStructor www.petstructor.com/
The class was really informative and the other students were all engaged and eager to share additional knowledge and help each other out. I hope I never have to use life saving emergency measures on an animal but it is good to know that I now know what to do if I had to. Merrill kept the infomation easy to understand and the hands on helped reinforce what we were learning. You can find out more about the course here www.petstructor.com/petsaver_curriculum.html and I recommend it to pet owners as well as those working with animals such as rescue and shelter personnel or pet sitters. She has a snout to tail assessment sheet that is well laid out and should be used by all pet owners to help notice and keep track of any changes in their pet. Catching things early is key in keeping your companion happy, healthy and leading a long life.

Dear Mother Nature

Dear Mother Nature,
Every animal is special to the people that love them and my dog is no different. My Tonka dog is also very special to those that know him and I could not ask for a better companion, but Tonka is also physically special as well.
He is classified as a special needs dog. He was born blind, with a hernia and a hole in his heart; he averages about 2 seizures a year. He has had glaucoma and a cataract and now has either seasonal allergies or a nasal polyp or tumor that is causing nose bleeds. He is a genetic misfit and there is no doubt that in your grand plan of "only the strong survive" he was not supposed to make it this far. However, he is not in the wild where "only the strong survive", he is with me and a whole lot of other people that love and support him.
Every time you throw something new at us with the intent of weeding out the weak, we fight you, and we are going to continue to fight you. So Mother Nature it is you against US. The US also happens to include an amazing team of Doctors and all the technological medical advances of the human species. This tends to even the playing field a bit.
In the end you ultimately always win and death is inevitable for all, but that should be many, many years down the road.

I am simply requesting that for now you just give the boy a break.

Sincerely,
Tonka's Peeps

Bloody Nose

AP here:
Tuesday Tonka and I went for our morning walk and he had some blood on his right front leg so after looking all over I found some on the floor next to his red rubber nylabone. I chalked it up to a tooth or gum thing form chewing on the toy. We played a little at the park and he was prancing around.

We looked under some toadstools trying to find the toads.

When we came home we had a normal morning routine, he ate well and everything seemed fine.

In the evening we went for a early walk because we had a vet appointment to discuss his breathing, sneezing and his itchy ears. We ran into his friend Pepe and walked with him for awhile.

Then we were off to the vet. Tonka was seen by his good friend Dr. Woodburn who came back with a diagnosis of allergies and no ear infection. So Benadryl twice a day and Genesis spray for the ear flaps. So much for no more medication - now it was drops for the pre-glaucoma eye and pills and spray for the allergies.Oh well allergies we can deal with right?

Wednesday morning was just like any other until after he ate his breakfast. I heard him go out the doggie door and went down to check on him. The first thing I noticed was something liquid on the bottom of his food bowl and when I swiped my finger at it I came back with a finger covered in bright red blood. I immediately went out and found him in the yard and checked his mouth, his gums, his tongue and found -nothing. I called the vet and they suggested I come in so I grabbed his leash and out the door we went. As he was making the turn to go up the ramp in the truck he sneezed and bright red blood came running out of his nose. He licked right off and you couldn't even tell it had been there. Mystery blood solved and now I knew the blood from yesterday was not from chewing a bone! I got him up the ramp and started up the truck and called the vet on the way to tell them the origin of the blood. I then called the cardiologist to see if this could be heart related and then called the opthomologist to see if it could be caused by the new drops. the specialists all came back with a no-not likely but wanted to be get up to date with whatever the primary care vet had to say. Dr. Woodburn was in surgery so we saw Dr. Gerity whom Tonka also really likes (she took care of him when he had the heart arrhythmia). She looked up his nose, checked all his vitals and had his blood pressure taken. Since Tonka had just been there the night before and had been fine the belief is that he has allergies that have caused rhinitis of his nose and has probably broken a blood vessel and when he sneezes it breaks open and bleeds. So she added to his on going medicine list two additional drops of the same steroid that goes in his eye but these two go up his nose. I also now carry a bottle of Epinephrine to use in case the bleeding will not stop.

Thursday morning came and Tonka got up and went outside to sleep on the back porch. When I went out to check on him I found him with bloody paws and a small puddle of blood in front of him. I cleaned him up and he laid his head back down to go to sleep. He came in later and wanted to go for a walk so we started off down the street and ran into his friend Marie who was coming up the street. He decided he wanted to walk with her so he turned and we headed back up towards the house. Once we got past the house he decided that it was best if we just turned and went home so that is what we did. Hopefully the medicine will start to work and this does not turn out to be anything other than a blood vessel.

Beach Friends

I got to go to the beach and Saturday night I hung out with my human friends Wally and Gwen and their granddaughter Sydney. We made Smores and I got to have a mini marshmallow. Sydney went with me for a walk and we went up on the jungle gym and since the slide was too steep for me she helped me get back down the steps by telling me where they were.
Sunday morning I went to the beach and ran into some old friends and made some new ones. AP took some video of me but missed me playing in the surf and I was really blippity blopping in the water.

Then we went and picked up breakfast from Robin Hood down on main street and after we ate we walked around and window shopped. I dragged AP and CM to Odysea to say hello to Rick but the store wasn't open yet. AP tried to get me to leave the door and I wouldnt it I wanted to wait and dug in and kept my nose to the door. She finally told me we would go get her coffee and come back so I agreed and when we came back the store was open but he wasn't working. I got some treats from his employee and laid down and took a little power nap while AP and CM shopped.

We walked around some more and I got to kiss a kid on the ear and met a 7 month old puppy named Mickey. Hopefully I will "see" Mickey again down on the beach and we can play.

I had a great weekend!

Sneaky Glaucoma

Today I went to see Dr. Weigt to have a checkup on my eyes. They used the Tonometer which is a device that measures pressure on my right eye (they don't have to do my left anymore since it is a prosthetic) and the pressure came back at 26. The normal reading range is 11-22 which means my pressure is high. This is what happened with my left eye before it started to swell due to secondary glaucoma. Pressure build-up causes glaucoma and it happens when the fluid that nourishes the iris (aqueous humour) cannot drain away.

The eye has two chambers, the anterior and posterior, separated by the lens. The anterior (front) chamber contains the visible eye components, such as the coloured part you can see(the iris), and is kept plumped up and nourished by fluid called aqueous humour. The aqueous humour has to keep draining to keep a constant, normal pressure inside that anterior chamber. When the fluid can't drain away, it leads to a build-up of pressure inside the eye. This is called glaucoma. and there are 2 types, primary and secondary. Primary occurs without previous trauma or eye disease and secondary is caused by trauma or is a by product of some other eye problem. It is a sneaky disease because it has no symptoms in the early stages.

Secondary glaucoma is now sneaking up on my right eye and so I have some new medication (drops) to take to try and get the pressure down. Dr. Weigt says we have other options with this eye as well so if this doesn't work AP will have to do some research to see what option would be best for me. She says she should go back to school and become a vet because she already has to do so much research for me.

First Day Medication Free

Today is the first day I did not have to take heart medication so AP kept a close ear on my heart. I have been on Sotalol since March which keeps my heart beating correctly. We have been decreasing the dose over time since my surgery and today I didn't have to take any.
AP has to monitor my heart rate but I make it difficult by not staying still. If I am laying on my side I bat my paw at her and knock her arm away or roll on my back for a belly rub. If I am standing and she puts her fingers under my arm to start counting then I walk away. She decided that it was best to get a stethoscope and see if I would be better and behave since I am always good for the Doctors.

She has gotten pretty good with it.

I had a good first day without the medication and got to play with my friend Nala and go for a long walk!

PDA 3 month Post Surgery Follow up

Today I got to go to see Dr. Rosenthal http://www.cvcavets.com/doc%20bios%20-%20steven%20rosenthal.html for an Echo-cardi-arf-agram. It was my 3 month checkup from my heart surgery to make sure the ductal occluder is doing it's job. AP put me in the truck and my support team came and climbed into the Tonka Truck to wish me good luck.



My Peeps


Once we got to CVCA http://www.cvcavets.com/  in Annapolis Jamie http://www.cvcavets.com/staff%20bios.html took my blood pressure using my paw and then Dr. Rosenthal came in and listened to my heart and talked to AP for a little while. He said he was really happy with what he heard and then we went in another room for the Echo-cardi-arf-agram. Dr. Hickey http://www.cvcavets.com/doc%20bios%20-%20michael%20hickey.html was also there, he was another Dr. that assisted in my surgery. They lifted me up and put me on a special table for the test. The table has a hole cut out so that the Dr. can take a special wand and run it over my chest to get pictures of my heart and see what it is doing. I had to lay on my side and Jamie and AP leaned over me to keep me still. AP sang me the Tonka Truck song real soft in my ear to make me feel at ease. Dr. Rosenthal put the cold goopy stuff on my chest and moved the wand all around on my chest while flipping buttons and switches to get some good shots of my insides. The first time I had one Dr. Peckens did it and I tried to help. See http://blinddogsrule.blogspot.com/2011/03/be-still-my-beating-heart.html  I tried to help Dr. Rosenthal as well but Jamie and AP caught on too quickly and grabbed my paw.

These are pictures from my first one and all the yellow in the bottom left and right shots meant my heart had a hole and was leaking.



March 2011



These are pictures from right after my surgery and the bottom right shows no more yellow which meant the ductal ocluder was in place and doing it's job.



April 2011



These are pictures from today and the top right shows everything in place and doing well.



July 2011


Dr. Rosenthal told AP that she can cut back on the meds and eventually stop them and to just monitor my heart rate.

Since I was such a good boy I got to go for a long walk with Nala.
After dinner I curled up with a peanut butter kong

ummmm Peanut Butter!

and then fell fast asleep.

A reminder to "seize" the day

AP here:
I share my life with a blind dog. Funny thing is that is never in the forefront of my mind. I don’t ever consciously think of him as the blind dog, and there are plenty of people we have met that loved on him and chit chatted with us and then left not ever knowing he was blind. Our lives and routines just incorporate his lack of sight and we just go on with our days. Then every now and then something happens to remind me.

Tonka’s first seizure occurred on March 11, 2009 when he was just a little guy. Now his seizures are nasty, insidious things that strike out of the blue and then don’t return for long stretches of time - just long enough to make you forget about them. He has had a handful of seizures over the last 3 years, not enough to warrant medication and I usually remark about them medically as a footnote or an afterthought.

Tonight’s was definitely not a footnote or afterthought!

Seizures have 3 components pre-seizure or pre-ictal, ictus or ictal and post ictal. In the pre-ictal you might have some warning that a seizure is about to occur perhaps some odd behavior is present. WE don’t ever have a pre-ictal warning.

The ictus is the seizure event and big ones are ugly and very scary to see. In Tonka’s case he lies rigid on his side and "swims" moving his legs in a swimming motion and arching back and forth violently. He chomps at the mouth and emits a thick slimy, frothy drool that seems to never end. With tonight’s he also lost bladder control and urinated on himself. It happened in the kitchen on the linoleum so it was fairly easy to clean up the floor, not so easy to clean up him. I was asleep when CM yelled for me at midnight that he was having a seizure. She had gotten in late and luckily she was still up. It was over in less than 5 minutes which is good because seizures lasting over 5 minutes are an immediate emergency. Thankfully he just stayed lying in the kitchen while I called the cardiologist on call and the emergency vet. CM cleaned up some and got me some towels and I cleaned off the drool and wiped him down underneath with a washcloth. When he finally got up he wandered down the hall and laid down in a bedroom and CM went off to stay with him. The cardiologist called me back and since he did not seem to be in any further distress told me to just monitor him through the night. I finsihed mopping the kitchen floor and readied myself for a long night.

The post-ictal phase is actually scarier to me because you don’t know how long it will last and he forgets everything, me, his commands, and where he is. This is the HUGE reminder that he is blind as he stumbles into things that he easily navigates every day and gets set to walk right off the top step not knowing it is there. So here we are 3 hours later and he is just now semi navigating his house that should be so familiar. He lies down for short bursts and attempts to clean himself a bit then gets up looking very confused. He has been through the whole house bumping into things and sniffing everything. I can just follow and try to direct him but he acts like he has no clue what I am saying and will stop to sniff me every now and then. Hopefully he will fall asleep soon and get some rest and I will call all his vets tomorrow and give them an update.

Robin Williams did a movie called the Dead Poets Society and made the quote Carpe Diem quite popular. Carpe Diem translates to "Seize the Day" and tonight’s "seizure" is a reminder not only that Tonka is blind but that I need to treasure every moment I have with him and Seize the Day -every day.