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Dermatology Photo Gallery
Week 8 Progress Report
The Dogs: early in week 8, they were doing relatively well on their regime. Their skin would get a bit red occasionally and the itchiness hadn't completely resolved, but overall they seemed pretty good. They still had red patches under their collars so we would take their collars off, especially when the weather was cooler and they were rarely outdoors. However, toward the end of week 8, poor Simba began suffering from something new. All of a sudden he had an accident in his kennel and the next morning went outside to urinate every 10 minutes or so all morning. Poor guy; I suspected a urinary tract infection but was concerned about the possibility of bladder stones. I chased him around a bit to catch a urine sample, which had flecks of blood in it, and made an appointment to take him in (the looks he gave me as I followed him around the yard with a plastic cup were quite priceless!). The vet checked his urine but found no crystals, so we collected a sample in a sterile container so it could be checked for bacterial infection and antibiotic sensitivity. Pending the results of urine culture and sensitivity, we started him on antibiotics and decided it was a good time to reduce their prednisone dosage (a few days ahead of schedule). On top of the urinary difficulties his skin changed a bit too. He developed an ugly sore on his flank (so the antibiotics can do double duty), and over the past few days he had been licking his back toes so much that a sore developed on one toe. It was not a good week for Simba. Asia stayed pretty stable this week, suddenly she seems to have lost a lot of weight.
Food Trial: I got pretty tired of preparing meals of goat meat for the dogs this week, and they have been losing a lot of weight. We are going through the goat meat (not to mention potatoes) very quickly, and cooking for two big dogs is more work than I thought! In addition, the dogs were losing weight and increasing the amount we fed didn't seem to slow down the weight loss. Asia was starting to look downright emaciated. The first 20 pounds of goat was disappearing quickly, so I arranged to pick up more, and got another 12 pounds or so. That was all the goat meat I committed to buying from my source, so I decided once it was gone (probably within another week) I was going back to Ultra z/d. I never fully appreciated the convenience of dry dog food before this! I also use their kibble as treats and for training (I'd been using cut up baked potatoes but it just isn't the same...).
Next... Week 9: talking about new tests and new diets!
