Sidney Lived Over 14 Years

We lost our buddy Sidney in October 2023. He died peacefully in his sleep on his own terms as opposed to the cruel condition he had. Normal old age. He was born with Congenital Megaesophagus, which means his esophagus was paralyzed and he couldn't eat or drink anything on his own without it potentially killing him. He was given a month to live and we made it over 14 years! We built him a special feeding chair and created a routine to feed him that we had to do several times a day. He didn't care. We didn't care. He was family and that's what you do for family. In fact, his condition helped us save hundreds of other dogs with MegaE with hope and proof that this was not a death sentence. I like to think we won! He was the sweetest dog and best friend our family could ever have hoped for. He lived a full & really exciting life and we wouldn't change a thing. Thanks for 14 amazing years buddy! We'll miss you!

Sidney will be 11 years old in September!

We haven't posted in quite some time - but really that's because everything is just the normal routine. This was from our camping trip a few weeks ago.  Sidney was born in September 2009 and will turn 11 years old this September 2020 - living with Megaesophagus since the day he was born.  We still feed him Knox Blox in his Bailey Chair, blend his food and feed him in his Bailey Chair 2x per day with a 30 minute sit time.  Other than that - Sidney is our happy normal best buddy!  I guess the gray in his beard is something new!

TV News Story about Sidney

I posted this a while back but I think the links have since broken.  I have uploaded the video here for people to see.

Stopping Bethanechol

Sidney has been on Bethanechol for the past 7 years or so. He is getting older now and we know that it could possibly affect his ability to control his bladder at some point when he gets really old.  So we started by just eliminating the evening pill for about a month.  Then we started alternating days in the morning until we stopped completely.  It has been about a month now and it seems like stopping the Bethanechol has not affected anything.  Sidney is still the same and is doing well.  The only medication he now takes is a Prilosec in the evenings.

Sidney will turn 8 years old in September and counting!

Sidney has a new brother!

It has been a busy year and I know we haven't posted in a while.  The thing is, Sidney is doing really well with his routine given his MegaE condition.  It is kind of tough to keep posting the same thing - Sidney is doing well, has some regurge issues, but overall is thriving.  We haven't had to change his feeding routine for quite some time.  That's the trick with this I believe, the ROUTINE. Once your dog gets into it and it's working - they literally are just normal dogs in my eyes.  They just eat in a chair, etc. 

Plus, he has a new little brother Keegan now.  He is really great with him and while Sidney gets less attention - he still is very spoiled.  Sidney will be 6 years old in September, diagnosed with MegaE at 10 weeks.  Been a great run so far and can't wait for him and Keegan to be best friends for many years to come!

Feeding Routine while at work!

Our routine is simple - just need to make sure his "to-go" bag has everything we need. His "to-go" bag includes his Portable Bailey Chair, Magic Bullet Blender, Prilosec and Bethanechol, Towels, Timer, Bowl and a Lickety-Stick.  We do soak the food in the Magic Bullet at home and bring Knox Blox from home when possible.



We run a haunted house company (www.carnivalofhorrors.com) in October - so Sidney is there a lot with us - but his Megaesophagus feeding routine isn't affected.

Happy 5th Birthday Little Buddy!

It seems like only yesterday we were told Sidney would not live past 10 weeks old!  He turned 260 weeks old today!  Looking forward to the next 260 weeks and beyond!  I hope anyone who reads this can see that even if your best friend has this horrible condition called Megaesophagus, it IS NOT A DEATH SENTENCE!

Happy Birthday Sidney.

Sidney's Weight

We took Sidney and Butters to the vet last week for some shots they needed and weighed them both.  Butters weighed 59 pounds (she is 15 months old) and Sidney was down to 43 pounds (he is 4 1/2 years old).  At one point Sidney weighed 55 pounds.  This was of course before we brought Butters into our home. 

While we exercised Sidney as much as we could - he gets way more exercise playing with Butters and has dropped around 12 pounds over the past year.  I don't attribute this to MegaE really, the current drop at least, just burning way more calories that he used to.

Sidney doesn't look super skinny, in fact at 55 pounds he was considered overweight for his size.  So we now need to get more calories into his diet.  My concern with adding larger portions that is more than the 1 cup of Eukanuba Large Breed Dog Food he gets blended with 2 cups of water is the volume being so much.  Plus, we do not want to change his diet drastically, since our MegaE food and eating routine is working. 

So we are going back to the strategy that we had when he was a puppy and we were concerned with cramming calories into his food.  We are going to add a tablespoon scoop of the Eukanuba Puppy Weaning Formula to each meal and blend it with his food to add calories that are healthy, but not add volume to his meals.  Hopefully this will work, we may add two tablespoons if we think he needs more, but for now we will start with 2 meals:

1 Cup Eukanuba Large Breed Dog Food (Labrador)

1 Tablespoon scoop Eukanuba Puppy Weaning Formula

2 Cups Water

Blended to a milkshake consistency

30 Minutes sit time in his Bailey Chair

Fun Winter!

This winter we did a lot of outside activities like playing fetch in the snow and playing lots of ice hockey with Sidney and Butters.  While Sidney had a few regurgitation periods, nothing out of the ordinary really.  Sidney will turn 5 years old this September. 

Our upright feeding routine and meds has worked wonders for Sidney for over 4 and a half years and counting. We were curious how playing and exercising so much more with the addition of Butters to the family could throw off the schedule.  But it hasn't.  In fact, Butters knows that Sidney's feeding time in the Bailey Chair is his time.  She doesn't bother him until he's done.

We haven't changed Sidney's routine for quite some time and will ride it out until we need to tweak it, if at all.  In the meantime, we will just treat both dogs the same, because realistically, the only difference is that Sidney eats vertically in a chair for 1 hour a day, the other 23 hours are just normal.  Sure he doesn't get treats or water from a bowl, but that doesn't seem to really matter.  What maters is that Sidney is living a normal life with his sister Butters.  Life is good!

Happy 4th Birthday Sidney!

Sidney turns 4 years old today.  MegaE is NOT A DEATH SENTENCE!!

Our Megaesophagus Feeding Routine with a 2 Dog Household

Butters is 7 months old now and we've worked out our feeding schedule for both dogs.  The one thing that I think we may be extremely lucky about is that Sidney has been eating Knox Blox for so long (his whole life) in place of water, that if we leave a bowl of water down for Butters, he will completely ignore it.  Our main concern for introducing a new puppy to the house was keeping her hydrated while everything is on Sidney's schedule.

Also, we crate Butters and we give her a frozen puppy Kong™ with peanut butter when she goes in the crate.  So Sidney didn't feel left out, we put a small smear of honey inside a frozen Kong™ for him as well.  There isn't anything really to eat - just taste.  Some dogs can't even do this with MegaE, we are lucky it works with Sidney.


MORNING MEDICINE: 5mg Bethanechol and about 5 Knox Blox - sit time is 10 minutes.

We feed Butters in the morning while Sidney is in his Bailey Chair for his morning 5mg Bethanechol medicine and Knox Blox.  Butters eats REALLY fast, so Sidney will have no chance to eat leftovers!

MORNING FEEDING: 1 cup of Eukanuba Large Breed Dog Food soaked in 2 cups of water and blended with 5 Knox Blox- sit time 30 minutes.

Then - we feed Sidney his blended food 30 minutes after that and then he sits in his Bailey Chair for another 30 minutes.   Butters usually waits for Sidney to get done and lays by him.


LUNCH FEEDING: Sidney gets about 10 Knox Blox - equivalent to about 1 cup of water - sit time 10 minutes.

At lunch, Sidney gets in his chair for Knox Blox and Butters gets her water refilled.  Sidney sits in his Bailey Chair for about 10 minutes.

EVENING MEDICINE: 5mg Bethanechol and 2 Prilosec OTC pills - served to him hidden in Knox Blox. He ends up getting 5-10 Knox Blox - sit time 10 minutes.  

We changed our routine for Prilosec OTC - we give it to him separate from his food now.  We used to put it in his evening meal, but he was still kind of drooly and seemed uncomfortable - so we changed and give it to him when we give him his evening Bethanechol.  It seems to have worked.  We feed Butters her second cup of food while Sidney is in his Bailey Chair, same as the morning medicine routine.

EVENING FEEDING: 1 cup of Eukanuba Large Breed Dog Food soaked in 2 cups of water and blended with 5 Knox Blox - sit time 30 minutes.

Sidney gets his last meal of the day 30 minutes after the Prilosec OTC and the Bethanechol.  Butters is done eating already.  She only eats 2 cups a day just like Sidney does now.

This is our schedule - fairly routine and seems quite effective for us.  Both dogs are doing well - so we will keep at it like this unless something needs to change!  Both dogs are at a great weight and look healthy to me!

Portable Bailey Chair for Travel

 

Above is the bag that holds everything Sidney needs to travel - and if you can believe it - there is an entire Bailey Chair in there as well.  The other pictures show it in various stages of being assembled and Sidney is modeling it on our boat in the top photo.

If you want the plans - email me at ryanpluta@yahoo.com - I put them into a word document with photos and instructions.  If I could figure out how to make them downloadable from here I would do that.  But for now - just shoot me an email.

Someone who reads the blog was nice enough to upload the files to a link for everyone to download:

Sidney's Portable Bailey Chair Instructions

Whether we go on vacation and family and friends watch Sidney or travel where we we take him with us, we need an easy way to transport Sidney and his Bailey Chair.  So we created a Portable Bailey Chair.  We've traveled before for weekends and to move all of Sid's stuff is a huge hassle. The main Bailey Chair is heavy, huge and cumbersome. Then to put all of his meds, food, toys, blender, etc in the car to travel takes like 5 trips.

I made him a Portable Bailey Chair, which is a huge convenience. It basically slides into place and is held together with a few dowel rods and grooves. It breaks down and is constructed very fast - like about 20 seconds. You can see in a photo above the broken down Portable Bailey Chair stacked in a pile.  I bought an Eddie Bauer lightweight roller-travel bag from Target that holds his Portable Bailey Chair, food, Bethanechol and Prilosec, Magic Bullet (that we blend his food with), feeding bowl, bottle of honey (his treat), towels, blankets, toys and his schedule instructions.  It has a botom ziper compartment that holds the Portable Bailey Chair, so everything fits in one duffel bag with wheels and a handle too!! HUGE difference. Now taking Sid away or having people watch him is much less of a hassle than it was before!!

Problem solved!

Meet Butters!

So we are finally ready to get Sidney a baby sister.  Sidney is now 3 1/2 years old and still loves to play like a puppy.  Meet Butters, our new 9 week old Yellow Lab.

We wanted to get a puppy so that we could train her to live on Sidney's routine. We wondered how to manage a MegaE dog and non-MegaE dog feeding routines.  Basically, we feed Butters when Sidney is in his chair and Butters has already figured out that Sidney's blender noise is her feeding time too.  So this is working out so far. We brought Sidney along with us when we picked out Butters.  We wanted to make sure they got along. Butters was the first puppy to show interest in Sidney.  So she won!
              

Sidney and Butters play really good together.  Sidney is impressively tolerant with Butters and it seems that he is helping us raise her and take out some of her puppy energy, while using up some of his own!  It is so much fun watching them play.  Plus, Butters plays with all the million toys we bought for Sidney that he chose to ignore! We try and be mindful of Sidney when giving treats to Butters for her puppy obedience and house training.
We use the Lickety-Stick for Sidney and Butters gets the training treats.

One main thing for us is making sure Butters doesn't drop any food that Sidney can eat - or us forgetting to pick up Butters' food and water bowl when we let Sidney out of his Bailey Chair.  

With Butters, we are trying to make sure she gets enough water - the food part is easy - she eats her food up fast.  We will give Butters water when Sidney isn't in his chair - we just keep an eye out to make sure Sidney doesn't try and get some for himself.  He is usually pretty good about not doing that.  He is more used to the Bailey Chair and Knox Blox. We're happy to have Butters as part of the family and Sidney is happy to have a sister to play with every day.  Plus, Butters likes to hang out with Sidney when she is done eating while Sidney is still in his Bailey Chair.

Sidney Honored with the Ceremonial Puck Drop!

The Lake Erie Monsters Hockey Club (The AHL affiliate of the Colorado Avalanche) had their annual Pucks and Paws hockey game vs. Rochester on March 3rd at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, OH.  This is where you are able to attend the hockey game with your pet.  An assemblage of 8,136 humans and 500 dogs attended.  Pretty cool - we also went last year.

They offered to let us drop the Ceremonial First Puck at the game (which is fitting since Sidney is named after a hockey player), honoring Sidney and his success at living for over 3 1/2 years with Congenital Megaesophagus and surviving long past the month he was given to live way back when he was only 10 weeks old.
The PA announcer did a really nice introduction and story on Sidney, his Megaesophagus condition and how we were able to manage it and give Sidney a great life and what a big hockey fan he is.  It's nice to let people know that MegaE is not a death sentence and the crowd gave us all a great round of applause.  Which was really cool.

I like to think we were there representing all of us who are managing this condition with our special MegaE friends.  We all put in the time and effort to give our dogs a great life.  Our story is just one of many.  But I can say this - Sidney has led a way more interesting life than he would have if he wasn't born with MegaE.  Pretty sure he wouldn't have been on the ice in front of a large crowd dropping the puck at a hockey game!  He's just taking us along for the ride!

Thanks again to everyone at the Lake Erie Monsters organization for this great honor!

Excessive Drooling

For the past month or so, Sidney seems to start drooling a lot when he isn't feeling well.  Well, it has been happening longer than a month - but this month seems like it is more constant.  He will sit up as straight as he can because it might make him feel better like his Bailey Chair does with his food.  But it's one of those things where we don't know really what else to do.  We will put him in his chair for a while - but that doesn't seem to do much.  I think he may just need to regurgitate to get out whatever is making him feel uncomfortable.  But I really can't force that to happen.  And don't want to.

Basically we just sit with him and pet him while he is sitting up and drooling and wipe his mouth.  These episodes pass - but I really hope they go away.  He doesn't seem like he is in pain or anything.  He just seems uncomfortable, like indigestion.  I am guessing something is stuck in a pocket in his esophagus that causes him to feel like this and drool excessively.  Poor guy.  For now we will just do what we can to make him feel better and loved.  Because that's all we can do when this happens.

Well, to be safe I took him to the vet.  They checked him out and did X-Rays, etc.  Basically he is fine - nothing like Aspiration Pneumonia or something stuck in his esophagus.  It could be he has more acid reflux than normal getting out of his stomach and into his esophagus - making him uncomfortable.  The Vet looked up to see his maximum Prilosec (omeprozale) dosage.  We can increase it for a dog Sid's size and weight to 40mg (which is 2 pills at night instead of one).  We will give this a try and hopefully it helps!  I know some people use a Pro-Collar to try and keep their dog's head elevated which he sleeps.  We tried this for a while and ended up having to buy a few because Sid chewed them up - he just doesn't like wearing them.  We'll see if he will need to get used to it at night again this time - but we will wait and see if it comes to that.

UPDATE 2/13/13 - It seems like the 40mg of Prilosec (Target brand omeprozale) has worked - he seems to be much better now.  My only concern is what if he gets used to this dosage and it comes back - this is our maximum dosage.  I may try and decrease him down to 20mg at the end of the month and see if nothing changes, that way when he gets bad like earlier I can up his dosage back to 40mg until the episode passes.

Happy 3rd Birthday Sidney!

Three Years and counting is a lot longer than the One Month he was given to live.  Here's to a lot more birthdays with my best buddy!

Megaesophagus Dogs Can Have Fun Too

I know a lot of people worry that when their dogs are diagnosed with megaesophagus, that they will have to lead a completely sheltered life.  I know that's what I thought in the beginning (aside from thinking he only had a month left to live).  However, I can't think of anything we don't do with Sidney that we wouldn't do if he didn't have this stupid condition (outside of the obvious feeding routine and diet).  Of course we're very careful that he doesn't eat or drink anything without being vertical, but that's it really.  He's still a happy dog that does things happy dogs like to do.  Lots of walks, hikes and trips to the dog park.  So what if he doesn't get treats like most dogs.  I'm fairly certain that he isn't getting teased about it from the other dogs.  The other day we took him to the ballpark for a baseball game. We brought along Knox Blox in a Ziploc bag and just held him up in his seat vertical when we let him get his hydration - yes he had his own seat. 

The day at the baseball game was a lot of fun and everyone had a great time, including Sidney!!

Summer

This summer has been hotter than most - so we have tried to limit the amount of time Sidney spends out in the heat.  Especially since we can't just throw down a bowl of water.  We took him on a hike the other day and even though we gave him a bunch of Knox Blox before and after, he still seemed really tired the rest of the day.  I'm not sure if he was exhausted from the hike or what.  But I know we have been feeding him more Knox Blox than in the winter, which is fine.  He also gets a bit more water in his food as well since we switched over to Adult Dog Food.   That seems to need more water to fully soak up enough to blend into a milkshake consistency.  Lately we've been concerned that his belly seemed like it was betting a bit fat, so we changed the food portions to 1 cup of food in the morning and evening meal, but just 1/2 cup of food for the lunch meal.  So now he gets 2.5 cups of food as opposed to the 3 cups he has always had recently.  That seems to be working fine.

Overall, Sidney has been doing well.  We have had a few regurgitation episodes as usual, but not too many like in the beginning when we received the MegaE diagnosis.  What we get more is Sidney just seeming to feel uncomfortable.  Either his tummy or his esophagus.  We can't tell.  But he still sits up horizontally on his own when that happens.  If you look at the photo - that's kind of how he sits.  Sometimes you can just tell if he isn't feeling too good.  We have no idea why.  Our routine is very consistent.  It just happens.  Plus, I've never had a Lab aside from Sidney.  I assume they get sick sometimes too like all dogs.  So it could just be a dog or Lab thing.  But we always pay special attention to Sidney when he isn't feeling too good to make sure it isn't anything serious.  So far, he's doing just fine!  And he's always happy, even when he's feeling uncomfortable.  He's always demanding belly rubs!!

Transitioning from Puppy Food to Adult Dog Food

Sidney will be 3 years old in September and we are still feeding him the same Eukanuba Large Breed Puppy Food.  It is 1 cup of dry dog food soaked in about 2 cups of water and blended (3 times a day).  We do add a squirt of Salmon Oil to the first two meals as well.  He still sits in his Bailey Chair for 30 minutes after eating.  That amount of time works, so I do not anticipate that changing.

I know you are supposed to change over to Adult Dog Food at around age 1 or 2 (depending on the dog etc.).  However, we have been hesitant to change anything in his diet because we don't want to tempt fate.  As we all know - with Megaesophagus, once you find the right food, routine and consistency - you tend to stick with it.  But I know for Sidney's overall long-term health, I should probably transition him to the Adult Dog Food.  We really don't want to just feed him Puppy Food forever because he has Megaesophagus and ignore the needs of the rest of his needs.  At least that's how we see it.  I assume there is Puppy Formula and Adult Formula for a pretty good reason.  Plus, we thought a breed specific formula would make sense.

So the plan is to start mixing Eukanuba Labrador Retriever Formula with his Eukanuba Large Breed Puppy Formula.  I'm hoping since they are both the same brand, that this will make it easier on his digestion.   The Eukanuba brand has worked great for us - so I will always stick with that.  The Adult Formula Dog Food looks and smells the same (no I didn't taste it).  So we are slowly mixing the food together.  I figure, because we are always cautious with Sid, we will probably keep the mixing transition for a month or more.  We are starting with 90% Puppy Food and 10% Adult Food and will slowly adjust the percentage over time, with the ultimate goal to phase out the Puppy Food and be 100% Adult Dog Food.  So far we have been doing it for a week and it hasn't had any adverse affects or increased regurgitation or anything.

So far so good!

Our "Frosty Paws" Treat Recipe

Since obviously Sidney's diet is about as boring as any dog could have due to his Megaesophagus, we like to try and give him some additional treat options while he is in his Bailey Chair.  There is a product called Frosty Paws, which are frozen dog treats.  Sid loves them, our wallet does not.  So we make our own.  After he eats his meal and his Knox Blox in his Bailey Chair, we let him have some licks of the Frosty Paws treat - especially in the summer.

INGREDIENTS:

32 oz. plain yogurt
1 mashed banana
2 Tablespoons peanut butter
2 Tablespoons honey 

DIRECTIONS:

1. Mix all these ingredients in your blender, then dump into ice cube trays, paper cups, or whatever to freeze and serve.

Fairly simple - he likes to lick it and get the taste.