Wednesday, September 23, 2015

BILL ANNOUNCES: Straydog Radio Show covering the events of Wednesday, September 23, 2015. Bill here in my office and Juana is on the phone from H1 at Straydog. Good morning, Juana. Let’s talk about what happened Wednesday.
 
JUANA: Wednesday was a good day and a very busy day. Blind and deaf Colt went to the vet, because we noticed spots on his leg on Tuesday. They looked like ringworm and we put him in quarantine. I wanted to take him to the doctor and have the doctor examine him under the black light. Poor Colt gets so nervous at the vet and I hope that he never has to make another trip to the vet. I didn’t want to take him to the doctor, but I didn’t want to leave him in quarantine, if he didn’t have ringworm. He didn’t know why he was put in quarantine or why he couldn’t go the park, because he can’t see or hear and he was upset. He could have had a skin infection. I wanted to know if I could take him out of quarantine and let him go to the park. I hope that this is the last time that I will have to take this poor baby to the vet. If he ever gets sick again, we will have to ask the vet to come here.
 
BILL: He can’t hear or see and he has no idea of what is happening. If he’s not in his environment, he only has his sense of smell and touch.
 
JUANA: George took Colt to the vet and he has ringworm, poor baby. He will have to stay in quarantine.

Colt is in the van crate on his way to see the doctor. Poor guy does not know what's going on.

Our dogs are so funny. Erika, Junior, Ebony and Nelson used to escape, when they were young. They are getting older and it’s harder for them to dig, but they dug a whole on Wednesday. Erika and Junior were in Ebony and Nelson’s kennel. There is only a fence to separate them. They used to do this almost every day and we used to ignore it. It was too hard for us to cover the hole up every day and they would just dig it out again. Then we decided to take them to the park together. That didn’t work because, as soon as they got to the park, they would squabble. If they dig into the same kennel, they like to visit. But they don’t like to be walked together to the park. It happened again very early Wednesday. It’s been a long time, since they’ve done this. Ronnie had never seen them dig like that and he has been here more than a year. I told Ronnie that they used to do it all of the time. He wanted to take them to the park together, but I told him that we couldn’t. Ronnie went to get a shovel to fill the hole. Before he got back, Erika and Junior went into the hole and went back to their kennel. They don’t dig that much anymore, but they did this time and it was so funny.

At the fence is Nelson and Ebony, you can see Junior running around the house over on the right, he's actually chasing Erika. It looks like Nelson and Ebony are tell Ronnie what Erika and Junior did.

Ronnie comes back with a shovel to fill the hole that Erika and Junior dug but they had crawled back to their kennel and acted like nothing happened. They're trying to fool Ronnie.

We didn’t walk the dogs to the park in the morning, because I wanted to bleach the entire park. We walked the dogs in the afternoon, after it dried. I bleached the whole park. Wayne did one section, Stephanie did one section, Ronnie did the sidewalks and I did the whole park. Then I bleached the H2 park. We bleached the whole shelter, because we are trying to control the spread of ringworm fungus.

Juana spraying down Park One with bleach.

Travis’ kennelmate Maria has something wrong with her skin. It’s peeling, but it’s not red or irritated. The irritation is round and I don’t know if it’s a skin infection, because it doesn’t look like ringworm. If it’s not ringworm, I don’t know what kind of fungus it is. Travis didn’t have anything. It was only Maria. So George took Maria to the vet too.

Maria in the van crate on her way to see the doctor about her skin infection.

He also took Wendy to be spayed. She was going to be spayed on Thursday morning. She had already eaten and she had water all day. I asked that they not spay here right then, but to wait until the morning. They took her to the back kennels and scheduled her spay surgery for Thursday morning.

This is little girl Wendy wondering what's going on.

This is a photo of Dr. James. He took care of all of the dogs. George didn’t get a good photo, because he was having trouble holding Colt. Colt was so nervous and he didn’t know what was happening. The doctor said that he has ringworm and he gave him oral medicine. We usually don’t use the oral medicine anymore, because it could hurt the dogs’ kidneys. The ringworm will have to run its course. The oral medicine could make it easier to heal and it might heal more quickly, but it has side effects. Since Colt is blind and deaf, we decided to use the oral medicine. We will also use lotion and we will dip him. We want him to heal as quickly as he possible, because he doesn’t understand what is going on around him.

Dr. James checks out Colt's ringworm spots.

Maria has a skin infection and it’s not ringworm. The doctor sent her home with medicine.

Next he checks out Maria's skin infection.

Back at our shelter, after we bleached all of the kennels and started doing the walks again after the park was dry, we started care giving. It’s September 23rd and it’s so hot. It was 91 degrees. This weather is crazy. There wasn’t any wind and it was so sunny and hot. You would think it was July or August.
 
BILL: How was Colt, when he got home?
 
JUANA: He was fine and he was very happy to be home. He’s doing well. He just didn’t like the trip or going to the vet, but he’s okay.

The last time our vet was here, we noticed that Joe had a little cyst on his face and it was hard. The doctor squeezed it and put him on Cephalexin. It started to heal, but it got full again. When we were caregiving Brownie and Joe, we noticed that Joe’s cyst might have ruptured and it is bleeding. It’s right near his nose. The doctor didn’t want us to bring him in and remove it at that time. But we are going to take him to the vet and have it removed, before it gets bigger. If it gets any bigger, the doctor won’t be able to suture it, because it’s right near his nose.

Lacie had the day off from Morton Clinic and she came and helped us. George had the camera and I didn’t get any pictures of Lacie trimming Rosita. She was so badly matted, but she looks so good now. Rosita looks adorable.

We asked Lacie to look at some of our dogs and give us her opinion. She works with Dr. Morton and she has a lot of experience as a vet tech. We asked if she thought we should take some of our dogs to the vet. She looked at Joe and, because his wound is open, she suggested that we take him to the vet as soon as we can and get it removed. I hope it’s not cancer, but it has ruptured. That’s not a good sign.

Lacie sees that Joe's cyst has opened and suggested we take him to the clinic as soon as we can.

My granddaughter Emma is enrolled in daycare. Bless her heart; she wouldn’t go to school on Wednesday. We can’t trick her anymore and Emma knew that her mother Lacie was coming to Straydog. She wanted to come to Straydog and she did. She loves it here. I got a video of her playing with Sandy. It was so cute. Emma played ball with Sandy and Sandy is so gentle. She lets Emma get the ball from the ground and Emma throws the ball to her and Sandy runs and gets it and brings it back to her. It was adorably cute!

We were also concerned about another knot that we found on Harley’s chest. A few months ago, Harley went to the vet and he was very, very sick. The last time we took Harley to the vet for very hard knots, Dr. Shirey aspirated them and they were just fatty tumors. I wanted to take him to the vet and see what was going on with this particular lump on his chest. It’s a little different.

Next one to be checked out is Harley. He has a knot on his side.

We’ve had Annie, Toby, Maria, Hannah, Marie and Mackenzie on diet food. They’ve all lost weight, except for Annie. She is super obese. She is older and she hasn’t lost any weight. It could be a sign that her thyroid isn’t working properly. Lacie said that she could save us a trip to the vet and she asked George to bring her a tube from the clinic. She took a sample of Annie’s blood and she will take it to the clinic and they can send it to the lab. I know that’s probably not fair to Dr. James, but we are trying to save a little bit of money. I look forward to getting the results.

Toby is not as fat. He’s not obese, but his hair is very, very coarse and thick. That is a sign that a dog’s thyroid might not be working properly. His hair and coat was always shiny, like a Lab’s. But now his hair is thick and bleached and coarse. It could be from the sun but, since he’s getting older and his coat was never like this, we also took a sample of his blood for testing. They don’t do the tests at Morton’s. They actually send them to another lab. We should have the results sometime next week.

Lacie checks out Toby and takes a blood sample to see if his thyroids are causing his hair to be so coarse.

I handed the camera to Emma and asked her to take a bunch of pictures. She took a bunch of pictures of her feet and her face and her nose. I asked her to take pictures of her momma and her nana, when we were taking blood from Annie. I was holding Annie and hugging her, while Lacie took the sample. Emma took a bunch of crazy pictures.

Hi, I'm Emma.

And these are my feet.

And this is my Mom and Grandma getting a blood sample from Annie.

We sent Purtis to the vet on Monday, because he was huffing and he had a bunch of knots again. The doctor aspirated them and said they were fatty tumors. I asked them to look for and aspirate the lump on his chest and it was full of pus. He was limping so badly on Wednesday and I thought he might have torn his ACL. The doctor thinks that, when he was trying to bite Lacie and Gordie, he might have bruised his leg. They were holding him down for the doctor. I hope he hasn’t torn his ACL and that it’s just bruised. He’s been having trouble with his leg. He can walk or run to the park and I carry him back to his kennel. He just sits in his kennel and he appears to be in pain. I brought him in and put him in a crate.

Purtis is going to the vet shortly but first gets a cookie.

We got several pictures of Fancy and Mike going back to H2.

Mike and Fancy wait outside H2's door. They are ready to go back inside.

They like going outside but are always ready to go back inside.

There are Jessie and Teddy, two more H2 residents. Jessie is hanging in there. He’s not doing well. I know that his time is getting close. His cough is horrible, but he’s still eating. He tries to walk and he tries his best. He has deteriorated in the last month and, bless his heart, it’s getting bad.

Jessie takes a cookie after getting back from the park.

Little Bear is doing the same thing. Sometimes he’s rejuvenated. He just won’t give up. He’ll have days where he can barely walk and we think he’s giving up. The next day, he’s perky and running around. He just wants to hang in there and live. It’s amazing! We’ve seen this time and time again.

Esther brings Little Bear back from the park. He's doing pretty good today.

​BILL: We’ll be back again in a minute with another report from Straydog.

You can listen to today's Radio Show below.