Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Helping those in need - Building a Bailey Chair



I don't post much on the Yahoo ME Support Group site but always check it out to see if someone needs help or if there is any new info that could be beneficial to Sidney. There was a person in Florida with a cute little German Shepard puppy that wasn't able to build a Bailey Chair. I know how helpless you feel in the beginning after you get this horrible diagnosis, so I offered to help them out and build one like Sid's Portable Chair.

A nice friend Linda, that has her own ME dog named Baron, that I met through the Yahoo site that lives nearby offered to pay for the shipping. So I used the materials I had left from Sid's Portable Chair and other random projects and built little Barry (puppy's name) a chair.

They send us pictures and updates on how Barry is doing and he's doing great.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

New experiment with his Megaesophagus diet


So one of the more expensive things about ME dogs, aside from initial vet bills, is the food. At least in our case. We have been soaking 1/2 cup of Dry Eukanuba Large Breed Puppy Food with 1/2 cup of Canned Eukanuba Puppy Chicken and Gravy Food. As you can imagine, canned food for a Lab can get expensive. Plus, the cans seem to run out fast (we can't buy 100 at a time) and we are running to the pet store on a more than regular basis to buy the cans. Then while I'm there we spend more money because we want to buy him toys. So, I go in the store for 12 cans of food and get out with double the cost.

Regardless, now that Sidney is about 11 months old and is 100% house-trained and has better bladder control, we are going to try 1 cup of the Dry Dog Food soaked and eliminate the Canned (we are still adding the Fish Oil, the Instant Oatmeal and the Eukanuba Puppy Weaning Formula). The reason we did the 50/50 mixture at first was because we were having to add so much water to the dry food to get it soft enough to be blended into a milkshake that he was wetting himself in his cage every day after the new ME diet. I think we just were giving our puppy more water than his little bladder could handle.

Now that he's older, I hope that not only will the additional water not affect his bladder, but also help him get more hydration. We do feed him about 4 or 5 Knox Blox with each meal, but I think more is better than less.

My main concern is that his stomach and esophagus will allow this change, but it's worth a shot. He'll get the same nutrition. I know a lot of ME dogs can't do soaked dry kibble, but Sidney has done well with it mixed with canned. Wish us luck!

Friday, August 6, 2010

Having a few bad days



Sidney started regurgitating this week out of the blue. I'm pretty sure it wasn't something he ate off of the ground (I didn't see anything when I was cleaning up after him). I know that it happens from time to time, but I made sure to keep a really close eye on him to make sure he didn't show signs of aspiration pneumonia. He hasn't RG'd for a day or so now - so we might be through it. Poor little guy.