No News - Our Black Lab is very sick

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He's Such a Cute Dog!!!

I'm glad to hear that he seems to be improving a bit. I hope the news from A&M is good, and he is getting over what was ailing him.

PRAYERS AND THOUGHTS ARE WITH YOU!! Give that good looking fella a BIG HUG from his "Aunt" Bill in MO! ;)
 
Good News To Report!

I picked Kurt up from the vet today and the vet said he's eating and drinking water on his own now! He no longer has that "sick dog" look in his eyes. He's still moving a bit slowly, the vet's concerned about the way he is careful about how he plants his front feet when he walks. She thinks this whole thing could be neurological. I am seeing a trememdous improvement in him today vs yesterday. The vet also said that we may never know what it could have been if he recovers completely. Right now the clinical report from A&M won't be in until Thursday. So we are going to wait and see what A&M says before we do any further treatment testing. We'll keep him on the Prednisone and Antirobe and see how he progresses.
Whatever it was, this was too close for comfort! I think tonight is going to be the first night I'll get some decent sleep in about a week! We'll just have to take it day by day.

Thank you all ever so much for caring! It meant more to the both of us that you'll ever know!
 
That's what made this so hard, Kurt is a real "Daddies Boy". When I'm home he's constantly by my side and when I'm out on a trip he gets up on our bed with his head on my pillow and "pines away". Karen said it's the most pitiful thing you'd ever seen. Actually Kurt adopted us before we had any interest in him.
I met Kurt while doing dog obedience training at a local shelter. If a dog is in a shelter and you can tell people that it has basic obedience down pat, that dog will be adopted in a day or two usually. When I met Kurt everyone said he was one wild ass dog. But when he saw me for the first time he acted like he knew who I was. I looked in his face and asked him "Who are you? I don't know who you are" and he gave me a "kiss" and followed me around the shelter all day long. When I went to leave for the day he threw a fit! The woman who ran the shelter said she had never seen him act like that around anyone else. So we decided to "host" Kurt until someone adopted him. He immediately got along with our Yellow Lab and our old Dalmatian. We knew he'd be a keeper.
Well that went on for about a month before we realize that he had grown on us and since he had that strong ability to please, which made him very easy to train, we adopted him. That was in 2004. I can honestly say that he turned into the best dog we have ever had. He's friendly with everyone, other dogs and even cats too. He's just a special boy.
Thank you all so much for caring......
 
~we realize that he had grown on us and since he had that strong ability to please, which made him very easy to train, we adopted him.

oh THAT's what I need to improve.... LOL *AHEM*

Seriouly Allen, glad to hear of the improvement. Hope he's 100% ASAP!
 
Allen and Karen, So Glad to hear that

Kurt is feeling better ; and I hope he continues to improve.
Maybe he just encountered something toxic and your extra
care helped him get rid of it. Two years ago I thought my,
at the time 17 year old, cat was a goner. Wouldn't eat and
acted like he wanted to just wander off and fade away. I got
down there with him and begged him to eat, and he gradually
came out of it. He doesn't look like much these days , but he
has fit if I eat something and don't share with him!
 
I wonder if he may have been bitten by a spider???

Down here that's always a possibility. His blood tests were all within normal limits, so the vet didn't suspect poisoning or a bite. What was wrong with him looked more like a West Nile type of problem or neurological.
The vet is starting to suspect a brain tumor. She said that after he completes his meds this weekend time will tell us what is wrong. If he relapses, he'll get a brain MRI. If he doesn't, the vet said that we may never know what happened except that treatment with a massive dose of anti-biotics and steroids cured it What's really bizarre about this is that we lost a Dalmatian at age 5 back in 1994 due to a brain tumor. It would be really stange to have that happen again.
Right now Kurts fully back to his old happy self.
 
Last fall I found our old Parker (13 yo) laying in the laundry room in his mess and all dazed and eyes zipping back and forth sideways. I panicked because it looked like he had or was having a stroke. Couldn't stand up at first and when he did he was falling over and walking in circles with his head tilted. I managed to half carry him into the truck and get him to the vet. It turned out not to be a stroke but a case of ideopathic vestibular disease, something akin to vertigo that there is no known cause hence "ideopathic" The vet figured he'd come out of it over the course of the week and he did eventually. All signs were gone after about 3 weeks, the lingering head tilt that is. Hopefully it's just something passing for Kurt as well.
 
Our little in house joke at the vet school was:

Idiopathic means the idiot pathologist can't figure out what's wrong.

(Medical personnel have a somewhat warped sense of humor)

I'm glad Kurt is back to his normal self. It sounded like your vet was on top of things so I don't think I had much expertise to add. Keep us posted on his continued improvement.
 
Crackers, our Pomerainian, had a seizure once. It was terrible - I really thought he was dying - but he came out of it, and hasn't (to my knowledge, at least) ever had one again.

I'm so glad Kurt is feeling better, and I am keeping my fingers crossed for his future health.
 
An Update

Well, Kurt doesn't seem to be doing much better. He's still acting like a zombie. My vet wanted to wait to wean him down to a low dose of Prednisone before sending him up to A&M. She thinks that the Prednisone could be making him act strange.
On Sunday I gave Kurt a bath. He usually doesn't mind this. But on Sunday he thought I was trying to kill him. I have never seen a dog so terrified in my life! He cried, barked, woofed, growled and jumped around like a jumping bean during the bath. Plus he used to be perfectly obedience trained, now he only listens to the "come" and "No" commands.
On Monday he was in the kitchen with Karen as she was preparing dinner. She had the door open looking for something inside and Kurt just tried to jump right inside the refrigerator! He knocked all kinds of things out of it. Fortunately, he didn't break any of the glass shelves and only went in as far as his front legs.
Unfortunately, we have this distinct feeling that the outcome of this is not going to be good. It's already starting to depress the both of us as the dog we used to know is long gone.
 
Thats exactly what is seems like, some kind of dementia. Every now and then you'll see a glimmer of his old self in his eyes, but then he fades back to a zombie like state. Now he's eating good, going outside properly but he's impaired in some manner.
The vet thought of rabies, but he hasn't been exposed to any other animals in the past 60 days or so and I am always positive to get him is vaccinations on time.
Now here's a scary thought. I asked my vet one time how many people actually have their annimals vaccinated on an annual basis? Her answer? About 20%.
 

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