Maltese with AIHA

[jill]

Hi Christine just thought I would say my Snoopy boy who has a very sensitive tum and im afraid though raw food is meant to be good for them I won’t feed Snoopy any just on case as I m sure raw food can upset there tums to xxx my vet put him on hills id gastro and Sheena told me about the royal csnine which is another good dog food and I now give Snoopy some turky and fish with it and the pumpkin as it does seem to help his poo stay nice and solid, I do think every dog is different and you sometimes just have to experiment but when Snoopy was so hungry on the pre don isilone I gave him several smaller meals a day instead of his usual amount xxxx .hope this helps xxx .si glad to hear Lucy is doing do well xxx love Jill & Snoops xxx

[Christine]

So Thankful for all of your sharing your experiences!

Yeah, I don’t think I would be comfortable feeding Lucy raw meat,however, I have always given her carrots, celery, pumpkin and her favorite is zucchini. I will add those in more frequently as a low fat filler.

So far I have gotten away with NOT feeding her in the middle of the night. Up twice in the night for her to go outside.

Today is the start of Day 5 on Mycophenolate and day 4 of Lucy feeling better. She still is not strong enough to jump up on anything but she is walking well and not getting exhausted just walking from one room the the next. I cannot wait to hear what her HCT is tomorrow!

[Sheena]

Hi Christine

I’m afraid I was always a commercial dog food user – but the best quality possible, plus some tinned food, but my boys couldn’t tolerate anything too rich, so I used Chappie in the UK. They never had any issues, so I was probably lucky!

When Worzel became ill, I started cooking for him (when he eventually DID want to eat again). I stuck to turkey, chicken, lean minced beef raw or cooked (the only raw I gave him was beef) plus lamb. It is always advisable to keep the protein high – I agree with Amy on this completely – because their muscles do atrophy with the pred. Also I kept things low fat – fat can aggravate the pancreas & the GI tract. I added pumpkin, sweet potato. mashed green beans & organic rice, but he spat the rice out!!!! Pretty similar to what you are doing. At that time, he pretty much had a cast iron stomach. I upped his meal sizes & frequency to 4 times a day, as he seriously did eat about 6 times more than normal AND still kept losing weight & muscle mass. Like Jill’s Snoopy, out greyhound types have no fat on them at all, so they tend to look very emaciated. That all changes when the pred can be weaned & hopefully stopped altogether. It’s amazing how quickly they get back to normal!

About 18 months ago, he got something very, very nasty – most likely Giardia – and had persistent diarrhoea for quite a few weeks. He had a strong worming treatment (made him feel rubbish) & I tried Royal Canin at the recommendation of our local vets (he LOVES it) plus Tylan & again went to home cooked meat. He suddenly went off chicken completely & I know many dogs can’t tolerate that. He hates chicken since that infection, so maybe he is sensitive to it now. His PCV dropped 19 points which frightened the living daylights out of me as I thought “relapse”, here we come. Tylan made him turn the corner. He has had a dodgy guts ever since that episode, so if he’s not good, straight back on the Tylan (I have a good supply always!) & a sensitive tummy diet.

Dr Dodds does have a liver cleansing diet, a kidney diet. plus many more ideas in our Hemopet Resources section if that’s any help. I know everyone has different feeding ideas & it’s an immotive subject. As long as Lucy is enjoying her food, isn’t be given anything high fat, plus doesn’t have diarrhoea, you must be doing something right! I would also avoid any non-dog food or fatty treats – play it safe. We have had a few incidences of folks giving big chew-type things, fatty sausages & then they get an upset tummy or worse.

Oh yes, nightime pee pees galore – I had a bowl of water in the bedroom because he was so very thirsty, bless him. Our neighbours used to laugh at me running around with a torch in my underwear in the middle of the night trying to see where he’s disappeared to!

I can’t wait to hear how Lucy gets on tomorrow either – from the sound of her, she’ll be doing fine if she can walk around a bit now. It means so much to us all when we see them enjoying life & not lying around like a wet dish rag. I honestly believe you can tell how they are coping with how they behave. I knew Worzel was suddenly getting better (took a couple of weeks on the azathioprine) before we even went for the test – he was more lively & his gums, tummy & corners of his eyes all were more pink – lovely! I hope you will get great results, even though it’s still early days.

Sending loads of luck & love from us all
Sheena, Worzel & Ollie xxxxx

[Christine]

Hi Everyone!

So sorry I haven’t updated! It has been a very crazy few weeks.

I went out of town on Aug 2nd so had Lucy’s blood checked on the 1st. Her HCT was 32!!!

I was out of town for a week and my son and husband were in charge of giving Lucy her prednisone and mycophenolate. Well, they forgot to give her the prednisone! so Lucy was taken off the steroid cold turkey! I was still out of town when it was discovered 5 days later! So I told my husband to take her in right away for a blood test and check. Her HCT was up to 37!! that was on the 7th. Dr said to just continue without the steroid and recheck in a week. I took her in on the 15th and her HCT is now up to 41.5!!

We are now going to check in 2 weeks to see if she is up to her normal HCT of 48-50 then we will wien her off the mycophenolate!

[Vally]

Christine this is fabulous news. Glad I didn’t know about the pred, as I’m sure you were, but it’s all good.

Thanks for the update.

Regards, Vally & Bingo
xxx

[AlnCasy]

How is this little pup doing? I could not read all of these posts fast enough. Any word?