DOGS RULE !!! To share all the good times for being dog lovers.

holy smile’n sled dogs… hold the boat…
I just came across a couple walking a beautiful Great Dane Tripawd just two blocks from home. ‘Cours I did a U turn and pulled over to talk to them.
So they had surgery about a year ago, 10 months earlier they got the diagnosis of Osteo. in his right front leg, it was 10 months , ya thats 10 not a type O, not 10 days or even 10 weeks he ambled around on the leg with cancer till the pain got bad enough to warrant surgery 10 mo. later. I asked them how their boy did on chemo and they said he hasn’t had any chemotherapy . . . ” pardon?, no chemo?” They have a 10 year old Grate Dane with cancer, for the last 20 months, and have had no overwhelming side affects of chemotherapy because they didn’t have to poison their pet to cure it. He is beautiful and looks to be full of life. I gave them my Email address and am eagerly waiting on some information on the course of care they took for their boy. They told me the cancer was shrinking, not sure of details as I was blocking the street and couldn’t talk long. They have been taking their boy to a holistic vet in port moody { my town }. few blocks away from me, and I had no Idea they were there.
I’m SOOOOOOOOO glad we waited on Macleod for his surgery, and for the weekend with Mya. There is still hope we can stay ahead of his cancer and now maybe there is something we can still do for Mya, even in these late stages. She has been doing well this weekend. We messed around with the pain med dosing and getting a bit constipated again , working I out tho…
I will keep posting any info I get my hands on …

This past week has been a roller-coaster at the very minimum. After our last appointment for Macleod, the consult with the Vet and up coming holiday scheduling, we set a tentative appointment for for the following Tuesday for amputation of his front left forearm.That, giving us the weekend to absorb this one and speak with our family Vet. He had been limping a bit more lately and we have had to double up on his pain meds on occasion. That weekend was hell, we both changed our minds a couple of times going opposite directions and have decided to go ahead with the surgery. He is still running around on it so well and just sometimes, probably when he has played hard, it gets sore again. We cancelled the appointment for Tuesday, Too soon…

Mya has had it pretty rough last week, really struggling with constipation. She finally got hip to the pill pockets or just got sick of them, and was turning away from the pumpkin as well as her morning meal that had a laxative powder mixed in it. we would have to hand feed the kibbles to her just so she would get at least some of the stuff. I found that I could slip a pill (capsule only) and a kibble together, and as she ate the kibble(s) I left my fingers in her mouth for a second so she would swallow as she tried to check for another kibble in my fingers. She eats slowly now and test what we feed her specially when we change things up. We started mixing in wet canned food and now she is strictly canned. We started using Performatrin Ultra Grain Free, Looks like a can of stew, and doesn’t taste bad… { yup!} … She likes them, (all we’ve tried anyway) but we like the pate style over the chunky for med delivery and now she has had two days of relatively calm bathroom events. She’s back to every 12 hours instead of once every 48. We can see that her sitting on her honches to pee has faded away but still does the army crawl away from her resting spot. She still will get vocal in the morning little bit after breakfast, were starting to think the Meticam or laxative was upsetting her stomach. This morning when she was crying We noticed she was trying to roll over but the rear left leg { X-Ray showed a lesion in the hip } is a little stiff and she can’t tuck it under her belly enough to roll over. We grabbed her magic carpet and got her laying on it then just raised her off the ground, rolled the carpet a bit and shifted her to the other side, then laid her back down. BAM!! out like a light she hasn’t moved or made a squeak in hours, don’t think she even raised her head when we put her back down. Al’ just fired up the vacuum in the front of the house and I noticed Mya kinda look up for a second and shifted her position a bit, then has a deep breath sigh, and fell back to sleep. Going to try and teach her to roll over on her back would think she would just do that anyway but I think there is likely pain associated with a bump on her spine, we can do it for her. We have had some volley with the decision for Mya as well, twice we had her booked for a home visit to put her down. The first time Mya made a 360* turn in appearance as soon as the Vet showed up, kissing and wiggling around to say hi. She had a lot of trouble last few days this week and we were horrified to think if we wait out the weekend we could have the same thing happen as with our Previous Boy Cy. His last days fell on a long weekend and we had tried one last medication to ease the progression of a spinal disease he was fighting. it did not work and his last days were not good at all. We decided to go for it, there’s always the Hospital that did her surgery, 24hrs., if things go sideways on us. She has made a few sounds as I’ve been writing but its because the sun came out a bit {FINALLY} and she was getting to warm. I went out and did the roll over and brought her back under the shade. She rested until Allison and her Mom came home, she heard them laughing and perked right up, squawking away. Mom always has a treat 🙂

So far this weekend we are sailing on smooth waters. If the weather stays nice maybe we can take the kids down to the water and chill with an ice cream.

We hope everyone has a good Easter weekend.

It would seem to be the case here… Any of the news we have been receiving lately has had a “bad news” note attached to it somehow.

Mya has not walked in a few weeks now. We received our Artemisinin delivery and the cookies finally came too. Since we have been giving Mya the Herb, ( 400 mg. 1xDaily), she has shown some improvement in her legs. Over the last week she has got to supporting her weight on the back legs to about half way up, almost standing. Small improvement, she still can’t take a step but can support her self to go to the bathroom, sometimes anyway. She wont s#!+ where she sleeps so she will get very vocal if its that time and she is inside or on a blanket outside. She’s pretty smart, she’ll look me right in the eye, talking away, then look out towards that spot in the yard they both go, or look at her water dish. At dinner time its a look towards the kitchen from where ever she is laying. If we don’t hear her in time she sometimes does the army crawl on her own, that’s the only time she doesn’t fuss much when I help. We’ve now passed the month we had thought there may be left for Mya so every day is golden from here on. She is still “mostly” calm and quiet but does have her bad days, I should say bad parts of each day. Usually gets quite vocal just before she has to pee or poop, specially if she’s inside, then usually gets quiet. She may be getting a gastro issue with all the meds or a bladder infection. If we are out of sight and laughing or talking to a neighbour in the yard or the house and she can hear all the commotion she starts to howl. She still wants to be a part of the action and her pain seems to be intermittent, there is a green discharge from her eyes that doesn’t seem to bother her. I have heard her cough once or twice but usually after eating or drinking too fast. Over all I think she is ok, as long as she wants to be a part of it all, I will carry her around all summer, but if she has had enough and just stops being Mya then we wont push her.

We took Macleod in yesterday for another follow up, he has been limping more in the last few days. Imaging of the shoulder still has not brought a confirmation of sarcoma in his shoulder. Luckily, { if its luck at all }, we chose the CT scan over the X-Ray because there are 3 visible nodes in his lungs…

that would have likely been missed in an X-Ray, because they are still quite small. So Macleod now has seemingly developed metastasises before the osteosarcoma has even been possessively identified. This changes the game and the rules yet again. He doesn’t have any dysplasia issues yet and is very strong, but he is a fare bit bigger than Mya. Allison and some other friends have some doubts about Macleod’s ability to cope on three legs. I disagree, I often see him overcome obstacles , each day, usually its getting around Mya’s Diva thing she throws about. My only concern for him is, will he be able to recover from surgery before the lungs get worse. Today we started him on the Artemisinin ( 400mg 1x daily ) as well. one day at a time…

Well it was a pretty rough weekend. Mya is not walking on her own at this time and she has had a lot of trouble getting used to us helping her get out to the bathroom. She was getting so frustrated not being able to get up on her own. She has been stock pilling her bathroom breaks the first time we used a blanket to carry her out side, she just hung her head on the pillow and faced the other way. No kisses for about an hour and she wouldnt even look at me … Broke my hart… but now she will get chatty when she needs to got out and understands that we can help her. This morning she told us its time to go outside and i set up her blanket behind her so we can slide her on to it, and she kicked her back legs a bit and skooted her hind quarter onto the blanket like she was helping us.

We were in bad shap after my last post , Mya had not had a poop since friday am and we figured it would be another vet visit. I went out to the drug store to pickup some mineral oil to put in her dinner and by the time i got back Allison had called and said Mya just unloaded. Yeahhhh!!!! For poop! Im a plumber so poop isnt my friend but i was lov’n it yesterday…

I got a tracking number for the herb my vet found on line. Artemisinin,  Ordered it from Absorb Health. Hope to recieve it next few days. The new order of CBD cookies is in transit again hope to get them in a few days as well. Waiting waiting waiting … sucks !!!

Weather here has been cold and wet or snowing for a while now. Dogs don’t care but we cant afford a lung infection… Mya loves to be outside, until summer, then she wont stray outside the range of the air conditioner.
We had our walk on the pier and an ice cream few weeks ago, Mya and Macleod loved it… Over the next few days it took her longer and longer to get up each time and then finally would sit back down once or twice before getting up to do some business{ usually after we walk away for a bit }. the last 3 or 4 days she hasn’t been able to make it all the way up, I tried to help her a few times and she hates it. If I approach her when she appears to be trying she will just lay down. We are using a blanket now to carry her in and out of the house. We lay the blanket down for her but she is “wiggly” and before long she has worked her way off it. She will get talking and agitated when she has to go to the bathroom. If she’s inside we taker her out and if she’s outside we just make sure she clears the blanket if she is still on it. She wont do it in the house and still has trouble letting go if she is on the blanket. She is a little backed up from the pain meds and we’re giving her pumpkin in meals as well as a stool softener. She will usually go every other day, but I think its day two now. We set up a 12×12 collapsible BBQ tent so she can stay dry out in the rain, and we can move it around. I set up a security camera system I got a few months ago so now I have a really sweet baby monitor with night vision. She has had a rough one tonight, couldn’t sit still for long. I have been coming into the office to warm up once in a while so I’ve had a chance to write. I watch her on the monitor , and bet a time-laps sequence of her sleeping would be interesting.

I heard of a herb, Artemisinin { Asian medicine from sweet worm wood } it has anecdotal remarks of regressing cancer cells. It’s said that it is not for patients that are on radiation therapy. We ordered some from Absorb Health on line and should be here in a few days. We ordered another case of the CBD cookies but they got sent back to the supplier because of some paper work with shipper, didn’t have that issue last time… So they are now delayed for maybe weeks. Mya is such a fighter and I just want to give her every tool a trainer can give a fighter while she is in the ring. I feel the need to stand in the next parliamentary meeting and beat my fist on the table and spit while I speak about the way big business has put possibilities aside because profit dictates the research… Oops I just fell off my soap box !!!..  Sorry…

So Macleod has gone off tramadol and then back on it again after sign of limp came back, still wearing the cone of shame. Mya was off tramadol for a bit but is now back on board. Likely why she’s constipated, The CBD treatables cookies seemed to help her with digestion,  Stupid paper Work!!!

Has anyone heard of the herb Artemisinin (wormwood)? I heard about it less than 48 hours ago… people have used it for many years and some have used it on pets with success.  Well it’s time to get back to Mrs. Kisses…