Jane came to one of our BBQ’s with Ronnie. We found out that Jane has a goal of hiking the Pennsylvania part of the Appalachian Trail this summer.  I think this is awesome…and she is looking for people to hike with her!  I would love to do some of the trails with her, but not sure if my back would…can you imagine if back went out on the trail?  helicopter, ambulance, fall off the side of a mountain??  I know…dramatic 🙂

On June 15, 2015 Jen decided to go with Ronnie and Jane to do this part of the trail Wind Gap to Katellen Trail 

Jane, Ronnie and Jen

I think were going to have to walk a little slower around the house now miss magic’s eyesight seems to be a little worse than it was before… we shall see!

The last couple days have been weird!  She was prescribed Tramadol (which she has never taken before) for the pain.  Jen gave her her morning dose, and all seemed well. You could tell she was uncomfortable, but she seemed ok…until noonish, so I wrapped up her dose in a hot dog and got it in her.  (I have no idea how she always seems to be able to eat all the hot dog, but leave the pill sitting on the floor…cheese did the trick).  She seemed to be feeling good…rubbing her head on the dog bed, messing up her hair. She slept through the afternoon, but got up and moving around right before Jen got home.  I gave her the evening dose, this one seemed to be weird…she was scratching at her face, rubbing her face on everything…she was in pretty bad shape. When Jen got home, she called the vet to see if this was normal, they told her to bring her in…

The diagnosis was what we expected, she was having an allergic reaction to the Tramadol, but they said that caused “serotonin syndrome”.  They gave her the cure for that and send us home.  (This syndrome is normal for a cat but has happened in dogs…and this pill has been known to increase appetite.)

When we got home, she was super crazy, so we fed her and gave her evening antibiotic. She ate like she was starving and I was afraid she was going to eat until she threw up, so half a hot dog, a roll and a half bowl of food was enough (she normally eats about a third of this)…but she seemed to be getting crazier, so Jen called the vet again…they said bring her right in.

Second late night trip to the vet, they don’t know if it was the allergic reaction to the tramadol or the cure…they described the allergic reaction to the cure as “frenzied”…that describes it perfectly!  They had to give her activated charcoal to counteract everything. And knowing that she can tolerate acepromazine, they gave her a shot of that and send home again…it’s now after 2am!

When we got home and let her out of the crate and she could not see and she kept trying to walk to a corner, I’d pick her up and put her on her bed and she would head right back to the corner….poor girl!  We had to crate her for the night…she barked all night (even when she was asleep…she barked)

Around 8am when I let her out of the crate, she was more like her normal self…and she could see, but she was still very drowsy.

We decided that she was not getting any other meds (except the Ace, and only if she needed it), the further along the day went, the more her normal self she became!

She is doing so much better!!

Hi All!  If you know me, you know about my beloved Papillon, Magic, who was born with a liver shunt that didn’t close.  She is now 14 years old and the vet recommended a couple years back that I don’t schedule any more dental cleanings.  Well you can imagine her breath these days.

I’ve tried many different things but here I wanted to tell the WORLD how much I love this new product.  It’s call Orapup and it’s essentially a tongue brush and you put a beef flavored enzyme paste on the brush and hold it for your dogs to lick.

Skeptically I ordered this thing.  Thinking that I might be wasting my money, I opened it up, poured the stuff on the brush, and held it down for the dogs.  They could literally NOT GET ENOUGH.

The beef flavored enzyme paste is completely irresistible AND a few minutes later there is so much improvement in her breath I couldn’t believe it!  If your dog has bad breath, you MUST TRY Orapup.  I will never be without it!

l never be without it!

Happy licking!  ~Jen

www.Orapup.com

Like every other day, Magic was quiet and stayed in the bedroom most of the day, right up until an hour or so before Jen gets home. (I swear, our dogs know what time it is and it has nothing to do with Pavlov!)  As she emerged from the bedroom, she immediately started doing the boot scoot on the rug, across the hardwood floor, the little rug, the ceramic tile in the kitchen…

I let her outside, she does her job but seems to stay in poop position forever, she comes back in and runs right into Jen’s office to the carpet and sits…she runs to the living room carpet and she sits.  Unfortunately, I have seen her do this before.  Impacted Anal Glands..she did express one of them, but the other one was causing her some discomfort.

In the meantime, while trying to cook dinner, Scott gets here with the circuit board for the HVAC system…yep, a crazy day!

Magic’s discomfort got worst very quickly so as soon as Jen get’s home, she decides to take her to the vet. Stoney Creek is closed so they refer her to Keystone Veterinary Emergency and Referral Center in Havertown, PA.  They must have seen papillon and thought $$$ because the first estimate they gave her to lance her anal gland was full blown surgery at $1100.  When they saw the panicked look on Jen’s face, they went more of a reserved estimate, $475.  From their office, Jen called Old Marple Vet, they had an 8am for her…so she just had to get her through the night.  So Keystone gave her tramadol for the pain to get her through the night, charged her $120 for the emergency visit and sent them home.

Jen’s morning visit included waiting for a while to see a Dr, but they were able to take care of it, give her more tramadol and an antibiotic…and sent her on her way, cost $145….so even with the emergency visit to Keystone and the trip to Old Marple, it still came in way under Keystone’s reserved estimate.  The vet at Marple, Dr Will, said that it would suck to be her for the next couple days, but she should be fine!

It was a crazy busy weekend and we went to a Bach Society concert in Baltimore to see Jen’s dad perform, so we missed being able to sneak into the Bob Carpenter Center and see Lauren (my friend, Janice’s daughter) graduation ceremony…so here is a picture of her and her brother Tyler!

You worked hard for it Lauren!  Watch out UofD!

With work stuff, just about everything we do is on someone else’s timetable.  Don’t ya know, everything started coming together this week after a 2-3 week delay??  Since Thursday afternoon, me and my (ass-kickin) co-workers brought up an OC48 between Race Str and Broad Str, brought a new POP/COLO live and now have active traffic moving across that OC48!  Very exciting considering all of the obstacles!

my bestie, Christina had heart surgery Friday for the second time in ~2 months.  She spent 7-8 hours under anesthesia and the doctor is fairly confident that he took care of everything that he needed to in there!  What an emotional crazy day! I hope that I never need to go back to Jefferson U Hosp again in my life…(it’s not a bad hospital, just a hospital).