Sunday, March 08, 2009

Frank is not better

Well, last week we had a little setback with Frankie poo. I think it is probably a set back from his neuter and tooth removal but it didn't pop up until he had finished his antibiotics. He got all itchy again and began getting little pimply bumps. So we went back to the vet. Another round of prednisone and a month's worth of antibiotics He's now on day 4 of the prednisone and the itch is completely gone. 

His hair is not so bad looking, it's actually starting to fill in. He still has the coordination issues. That progress has pretty much come to a standstill and while he can stand and keep all four feet under him on a slick floor, he tends to drag instead of lift his feet. He's like a lazy kid wearing flip flops, scuffing along. Except that when he's really tired, he scrapes the top of his toes. A nice long walk yesterday reminds me I need to lay off the exercise on him. 

Today he's outside on the porch enjoying the fresh air along with his fresh breakfast. I am going to switch his food to a limited ingredient although I am not convinced he has a food allergy. I am 90% sure he just had a tenacious skin infection and that he needed more than 14 days of antibiotics to get through it. Last night after looking at his gums (still very pale), I decided that I needed to get over my meat aversion and maybe take him raw for a little bit. So I bought about 10 pounds of ground turkey and beef, skipped the turkey necks and bought some fresh Kale. I cooked the Kale down and then blended it into a paste and I'm going to mix the paste with the pearled barley, sardines and the rest of his duck and potato canned food. That with the gound meat balls should do the trick with the weight gain issue as well as making sure he gets the right nutrition. 

He's a good boy. I'm going to talk to the vet about the possibility of testing for another tick born disease (babesia) and treating his thyroid to see if those are things that would help his coordination.

1 comment:

Marvie said...

I found your blog through a search I did for a friend of mine. I'm trying to help her rehome her two pit pups, she's fallen on rough times and can't take them with her where she will be staying. I'm hoping you might help me get in touch with someone who can truly help her in ways I just can't. We are in Va Bch, and she is desperate not to put her pups in the pound. I can't take them in for her, or I would do so. The most I can do is help put her in touch with the people who might help her somehow. If you could please contact me I would very much appreciate any help or direction you might be able to give. Thank you.

Marvie