Just when everything was calm

It's been nearly 2 years since Lucky was diagnosed with Addison's.  Since that initial week, he's been completely stable.  Rock solid, healthy as a horse, driving me batty with his demanding, brash nature.

Last night I got home and went upstairs to let Indy and him out (Indy is crated and we keep Lucky confined to the bedroom so she doesn't get lonely).  They were their usual exuberant selves, barking and dancing, happy to see me.  We traipsed downstairs and I let them out.  Indy started doing her usual 50mph circuit around the yard and Lucky ran back behind the raised beds to.... poop.  Unusual.  Usually he goes for a pee a few feet off the deck.

He came running back to the house.  And squated again.  And again.  At this point I could see his stools were pretty much liquid.  Hrm.

So I call them in the house for dinner.  Lucky is looking at me like "Ehhhh."  I scooped the food in his bowl and he walked away.  To drink more water.  I coaxed him back to his bowl and got him to eat, but it was not with his usual bowl-polishing enthusiasm.

I needed to take Indy to the vet, so I herded the dogs back upstairs to get her collar, thinking I'd give Lucky some sulfacrete and see if that helped.  I considered giving him a 2nd dose of pred, but decided to talk to the vet first.

That's when I noticed the small trail of vomit on the carpet.  I looked into the bathroom and saw the bath mat had been scooched back (bless him) and there was bile-y vomit all over the floor.

Shit.  Shit shit shit.

I wiped up the vomit, got Indy into her collar and left for her appointment.  Fortunately we were scheduled with Lucky's normal vet, so I could mention this to her.  She was as concerned as I, though agreed that I should give him the sulfacrete, dissolved in water, and a 2nd pred.  She also gave me some diarrhea medication.

We got home and I dosed Lucky with the dissolved sulfacrete (he's not a fan of the syringe method) and, a half hour later, gave him a pred and the diarrhea meds.  He then curled up with me and I could hear his stomach gurgling away.

This morning he was pretty much back to normal, though his stools were still a bit loose.  He got his usual morning pred and I gave him another anti-diarrhea pill.  Hopefully he'll continue to improve.

Two Random Photos

TEENY TINY BALL

He's not spoiled at all

Photographic proof they don't hate each other!

Sharing the same chair

Curled up on the same bed

Lucky using Indy as a head rest

Yeah, we're pretty chill now.

He lost 5 lbs!

Took Lucky to the vet and had him hop up on the scale. It read 47.5lbs. Last month it read 52.5.

It was such a surprise that, when they were ready for us, the vet tech had me re-weigh him. That's a lot of weight to lose in a month's time. And, in an Addison's dog, unexplained weight loss is not a good thing. But, talking with the vet, I think it's 4 things.

1) The Spouse had reduced his food intake this month by nearly 1/2 cup a day
2) They've been better about getting those nightly walks in
3) He and Indy actually play every day now, so there's a lot more activity
4) We just got back from a long weekend up north, which is a lot more activity than normal as well

So I told The Spouse to take his food intake back up to normal. We'll see if he remains at the same weight or not. If he drops again, we'll probably need to run bloodwork to make sure everything is ok.

Grooming Day!

Before they left - hairy beasts with no eyes.

After!

That would be Lucky being his usual gregarious self and Indy absolutely terrified. The Spouse freaked her out because when I opened the door he was crouched down with the camera up - GIANT BLOBBY THING WITH ONE EYE IN THE KITCHEN! AUGH! She tried to run right back out the door.

PLAY TIME!

Tug of war with...a squeaky ball? Whatever works, I guess.

Indy with the remains of the Dino Cuz
(he lacks feet, spines and, after this photo, a tail)

Pretty girl with her new 'do!

Indy curled up by The Spouse, snoring loudly

"Oi! Can you pipe down over there? I'm trying to sleep!"

Lucky's last labs

I know it's been a while and I said I was going to post these.

Anyway, we ran a full panel but here are the lytes.. these would be 28-day lytes:

	Na	K	Ratio
Normal Ranges:	141-156	4-5.6	27-40
10/09/09 (28-day):	145	5.0	29
Diagnosis:	135	6.0	23

So, like the doctor said, "Perfect". And all the rest of his labs - BUN, creatine, glucose, etc. etc - are smack-dab in the middle too.

In other news, if you follow his YouTube channel, you can see that he has decided to forgive us for bringing Indy home. They now play and wrassle and we even had a bit of Sharks this past week.

Hear Ye, Hear Ye! Lucky wins an award AND is Dog of the Month!

It's an exciting month to be a Lucky Water Dog!

First of all, he is Dog of the Month at his daycare! We got a call at the beginning of the month from the owner to let us know and also to check if we were ok with them mentioning his Addisons (of course). Here's the clip from their website:

Congrats, Lucky! This is Lucky. He is a Portuguese Water Dog, a breed that has recently been in the news. Lucky has been coming to XXXXXXXXXXX almost since we opened 3 years ago amusing us with his PWD antics and fun. A little over a year ago mom and dad noticed that Lucky just wasn’t as energetic as a young PWD should be. They took Lucky to the vet and it was determined that he had Addison’s Disease. Fortunately, this is a treatable condition with medication and in no time Lucky was back to his normal energetic self. Lucky has many friends here in XXXXX and the handlers enjoy his company in the play groups. We are fortunate and happy to have this distinguished dog in our playgroup in XXXXX.

Then today, Lucky got passed an award from his friend Bentley over at Secondhand Scottie for being such a general trooper with all the vet appointments AND coping with the addition of a new sister.

Lucky would like to thank the Academy, his mom and dad for putting up with his crazy PWD antics (countersurf? who me?), his awesome vet, and sends a grudging "Woo-Woo!" out to his little sister, Indy, who isn't quite so bad as he thought but is still annoying on occasion.

Lucky would like to pass this award on to Ace, who is apparently learning to live life on the wild side with the thieving and whom he shares a passion for socks with, and to Jackson, disc dog extraordinaire, who has sent several words of encouragement with regards to getting along with a new weirdo sister.