Zoey & The Missing Link!

Before the Missing Link Zoey After

http://www.missinglinkproducts.com/articles1-588/ZOEYTheChihuahua

My 3 year old Chihuahua has a lot of health problems, skin allergies, hydrocephalus, joint problems, color dilution alopecia, and chihuahua pattern baldness. I have had her on The Missing Link Canine Plus formula for two months now. She is doing great on it! She is actually growing hair on her neck, chest, and stomach where she's NEVER had hair! She is also not as itchy and isn't licking her front legs nearly as much with the allergies.

I work for a Veterinarian and we just started carrying the Veterinary Formula. It's truly an amazing product! Thank you! Zoey likes it so well that she takes it right out of the spoon! Although I normally mix it right in with her food.

More of my cute kitties

My Public Shoebox

Munchie and Sissy kept trying to steal Mini Dee's 'thunder' in playing with the teaser.

My Beautiful kitties

Pictures of my cute kitties. Munchie is the seal point siamese, Mini Dee is the beautiful blue one (she has the Cerebral Hypoplasia), Sissy is the one eye'd kitty and Ducky Goose is the snowshoe (white/seal point)

My cute Kitties!

Ducky Goose Update

Well we FINALLY got Ducky Goose's blood tests ran. She is in GREAT shape for a 14 year old cat, she has a slightly elevated white blood count which is due to her chronic nasal infection from allergies, she also is slightly anemic and has an elevated eosinophil count. She has a heart rate of 300-400 which is REALLY REALLY fast. So her diagnosis is Hyperthyroidism. You can find out more information about it here:
http://www.marvistavet.com/html/thyroid.html
For now Ducky Goose is going on the Methimazole tablets, starting off on a low dose of 1.25mg every day, then it will be increased in about 2 weeks. We will be monitoring her heart rate as well. She is also on Cosequin & Rimadyl (off-label) for her arthritis, as well as the Missing Link supplement every day. Oh we also discovered she has a bladder infection so she's going on Amoxi & Vetalog.

DeeJay's still sick....

So DeeJay has been acting 'off' all weekend. She hasn't been as 'noisy' hasn't been bringing us 'creatures' to bed, has been sleeping on the satellite receiver box off & on and has been squinting with her eyes. We Grandpa says that her bladder infection has gotten worse, it's not involving her kidneys, as well as her upper respiratory tract, so we are going to make ABSOLUTELY sure we get her meds into her twice a day for a week, then she's also getting eye drops. Which for DeeJay is QUITE the challenge. SHE HATES eye drops, it literally takes either sneaking up on her or having dad hold her tight as he can while mom attempts it. It's NOT FUN.

Zoey's food

So since Zoey takes so many supplements/medications/vitamins each day, in order for it NOT to take an hour each time I feed her I basically prepare her meals each week, once a week and add all vitamins/pills/supplements to it:.

Before the food
During the food, Zoey watches
The Finished portion...she gets 2 Teaspoons of dry food (Innova mixed with Solid Gold) twice daily.
Eating the Missing Link right out of the spoon! She loves that stuff!

Office Cats

At work (Camelot Pet Resort) we have 4 office kitties who grace us with their presence:
Jasmine aka Jazzy or Jazzy Eleanore Louise who is 9 years old. She came in as a stray with a broken leg. She was very sweet so we kept her.

Tabitha (Tabby cat) 9 years old. One of our former employees bottle raised her, then had some kids and Tabby didn't like the kids so Tabby came back, we had her up for adoption fo ra few months and no takers, so we started letting her run around and immediately got many offers! Tabby's favorite thing to do is to play with paper clips, she pulls them out of their container and chews on them and bats them around (she NEVER swallows) just likes to play with them.

Tiki who is now 5 years old. She is a Black Smoke kitty, which is where the grey undercoat shows through the black/smokish topcoat. She came in through a rescue almost a year to the day that we put Greaser to sleep who Tiki resembles strongly.

Alvin who is a 2year old handsome boy! He was actually adopted then got an infection in his paw and the tissue died so we had to amputate his toes/paw, his owners didn't want him after that. He is the BEST office cat, very sweet, loving and VERY VERY nurturing to little kitties and animals in distress. (He was a mother in one of his other lives! LOL).

Zoey Update

So we took another zillion x-rays of Zoey today and she has some calcification in her knees/hips. She has one spot on the knee that's not bending that is really bad with calcification on the meniscus. So she's not absorbing her calcium like she should, well it absorbing too much of it and taking it out of the bones. Which is why her bones look like she has Legge Calve Perthes (which she still might). SO if it doesn't improve we will probably do surgery to scrape away the calcium deposits on at least the one knee. It's called Metabolic Bone Disease, which is common in Iguanas.....NOT dogs. It is probably due to all the medications she's on, so it's a catch 22 on that. GRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!

We are going to switch her from Prednisone to Vetalog for now, and will re-evaluate her in a month. I am also going to increase her calcium in SMALL ways such as cottage cheese every day on food. Stuff like that. As too much can put her in overload and do more damage. We are hoping the Vetalog will have the same good effects for the Hydrocephalus, Prednisone is the drug of choice for Hydro. Today she's having a 'bad' day, so is on the desk with mommy.

So for now, no surgery until further notice/evaluation. Thank-you everyone for your thoughts for Zoey they are MUCH appreciated.

Zoey Update

It is on the eye on the right side of the photo The sore on the inside of her Right thigh.

I was taking some new pictures of Zoey for a 'photo' assignment for the All Chihuahuas group I'm on. If you look at the bottom half of her left eye it looks weird. I had my dad aka Zoey's Vet look at it and Zoey has Retinitis, so she gets to add 2 oral drugs (anti-inflammatory & anti-biotic) and a topical antibiotic to her daily masses of pills/meds.
On another note, we are taking x-rays of her hip to determine the extent of damage done to her hip......more coming soon on this.

We FINALLY got her x-rays taken. Well not good news.....She has the following:
1- Left Hip Legge Calve Perthes pretty bad, along with arthritis in hip and knee
2- Right leg, arthritis in hip/knee as well as a Posterior/Caudal Cruciate Tear (which is the opposite one that most dogs rupture) the Caudal ligament is a lot more difficult to repair with surgery so most of the time they just have to heal on their own. Basically her leg is moving back instead of forward as it would if it were here Cranial/Anterior Cruciate that was torn.
She is really sore today. She's actually changed her posture to put the majority of her weight on her front legs. :( She also has a little sore on the inside of her right thigh from licking. It was actually blistered over from her licking it so much.

So we are torn on what to do at this point as surgery on her left leg to correct the Legge Calve Perthes would put undue pressure on her left knee that has the injured ligament. ARGH! We are going to evaluate her posture/gait again in the morning and decide what to do, as we've manipulated her legs pretty good today so she's a bit more sore. She may be having surgery tomorrow.

The one that is more left in the picture is the one with the problem, look at how far separated it is compared to the other one.
The one on the Left is the one with the problem It's her right leg. The joint at the hips is really fuzzy and not well defined as the one in the right (left leg).

Some New Sebastian Pics

My little boy is growing up....that was then......

This is now at 7 Months old



Look at that big plumey tail!

Sebastian was licking Zoey. You can see her bump, she was having a bad day on Sunday.

Strider

So after about a 5 year journey towards his AKC Championship, Strider is FINALLY finished! So he gets to be a 'dog' now. He got shaved this week.........

Before



After.....is it the same dog? YIKES! Definitely gonna take some getting used to. My sister is unsure of whether or not she's going to stud him out with him having 'snow nose' and all....

Toys Toys, Everywhere Toys!

Our kitty DeeJay has this peculiar habit of bringing us her 'babies/toys' to bed. Usually they are accompanied by her serenading us while holding the stuffed toy, styrafoam or whatever else suits her fancy in her mouth. Well tonight I got home from work and DeeJay LITERALLY has a toy/piece of styrafoam about every 2 feet from the front door/bottom of the stairs, up the stairs, down the hall and into the bedroom! LOL! She's such a goof! Normally at least one or two of the toys end up in bed with us during the night. I think it goes back to what breed she's mixed with, DeeJay expresses a lot of Chartreaux characteristics, such as being very dog like, being blue in color, coming when called.

DeeJay in her new 'hideaway' spot, in the office between Rob & I's desk!
The collection begins....
Styrafoam
A few pieces of styrafoam strategically placed
Upstairs in the hall
Apparantly she thought froggy needed a snack...YES that is a piece of cat food next to his head!
And last but not least....Odie!


When we were still living with Rob's mom, DeeJay decided to entertain us with a 'real' toy. Well her mom anyways. Dad was working on the computer in the other room and mom was really tired so she went to bed. I fell asleep for about 1/2 an hour, then missing Rob I rolled over and OMG there was a dead REAL MOUSE in my bed! EEEKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is one experience I NEVER wish to repeat! I was sleeping with a dead mouse for 1/2 an hour! UGH! UGH! UGH!