ohmidog!

In Ace’s younger days, before DNA breed identification tests were invented, it was always fun to guess what he might have in him.

Was he part German shepherd, as most people guessed? Maybe some mastiff, or Great Dane, to account for his size?  Some thought they detected retriever, or ridgeback, Catahoula or coonhound. It was a true whodunit – who exactly got together to produce such a beast? What made him so big? Where’d that curly tail come from?

It was an enjoyable mystery, unlike the kind of guessing game that becomes more common as a dog ages.

Then it becomes not what he’s got in him, but what he’s got. (I know that’s bad grammar, but I like it better, and I’m in control, at least of the words on this page.)

It’s amazing, and depressing, all the things that can go wrong with dogs, not to mention us. And the path to figuring out which one has – even when you do have medical insurance — can be torturous.

Breed determination tests require just a simple swabbing of the inside of the cheek (or a blood test), but determining what’s wrong with your dog will likely take numerous even more expensive ones that may or may not yield an answer, or even a general category into which his ailment falls.

Is it orthopedic, neurologic, digestive, cognitive? Or could it be, instead of a purebred disease or disorder, some sort of mix?

But first things first, or at least now. Ace seems back to normal. Unlike the previous two days, when he was a mix of clingy and anxious and, while he would sit, refused to lay down – an American Clinganxious Setter, maybe? – he’s himself again, and seems to have no complaints.

He’s back on the futon as I write this — one of the areas he has avoided for the past two days – back in the role of muse, as opposed to object of my fretting. He’s laying — or is it lying — down at will. He’s eating, drinking, pooping, peeing, playing and breathing normally.

A visit to the vet — and yes, I still want to marry a veterinarian — brought no definite answers. A battery of blood tests showed that liver, kidneys and pancreas were all clear, and that he had an only slightly elevated white blood cell count.

He was dispensed some anti-inflammatory pills, which may or may not account for his improvement. Still, upon the vet’s recommendation, I will engage in the also-not-fun, though highly challenging, game of catching one’s dog’s pee in a cup, and will tote a urine sample to their office this week.

Then, depending on what the pee reveals, and depending on whether he  shows any more symptoms or strangeness, more tests are a  possibility — X-rays of his stomach to ensure no parasites or other foreign objects are lurking there, neurological tests because of his earlier problems, and a day-long test for Cushing’s Disease, which the vet mentioned was also a possibility.

Or, given what appears at least today as an apparent recovery, was it nothing at all? For all I know it could have been the full moon, a ghost, a sound he was hearing that I wasn’t, or an extended blonde moment, even though he’s more auburn.

Adding to the uncertainty, when your dog appears to be ailing, there’s always the question you ask of yourself, or at least I ask of myself: Am I under-reacting, or over-reacting? The answer of course is that, in circumstances like these, over-reacting is preferable, if not good for the bank account.

For you newcomers who haven’t memorized Ace’s breeds, I won’t repeat them here. You’ll have to look it up, just in case I ever move to one of those backward towns that enforces or is instituting breed bans — though I probably wouldn’t — but in the event of which Ace is a collie.

Let’s just say, of those breeds that showed up in the three DNA tests he has had in the past two years, one is Japanese, one is Chinese, one is German (but not a shepherd) and one is an overused and misunderstood catch-all that’s not really a breed at all.

As for all those friends and readers who have offered their opinions, I do appreciate the input, the sharing of your own experiences, and the support.

As for Ace, once he wakes up, I think he’s due for a not-too-strenuous hike.

It’s always good to work a little sunshine into the mix.

SWM  ISO  SFDVM … for LTR.

Better yet, I’ll spell it out: Single White Male in search of Single Female Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, and by LTR I mean not just long term relationship, but marriage.

I might be willing to give the institution another try, but only with a veterinarian.

This decision is based not only on certain financial realities with which I am confronted, not solely on being a journalist without a real job, but on my belief that anyone who has devoted her life to dogs — as long as they are not all self-righteous about it, or hoarding them — is going to be a good person.

So, yes, I plan to marry, and live happily ever after with, a yet-to-be-chosen veterinarian.

(The unidentified one in the photo above, which I found by Googling, would be fine, but I’m not sure if she’s a veterinarian or a model, or, since her left hand is hidden behind the dog’s ear, whether she’s spoken for.)

In the interest of being totally frank, even though my name is John — nice to meet you, do you come here often? – I will reiterate that at least part of this life choice is based on practical, in addition to any romantic, interests.

Ace is nearly 7, beginning to get up there for a big dog. I am 58 (though, by making it a point to take poor care of myself, I can manage to still pass for 60). I’m feeling quite fine today, but Ace is showing signs of another ailment.

He has taken to acting like a cow, but only at night.

While seeming otherwise fine, he has been exhibiting two unusual behaviors. The first is standing like a cow, declining both offers and orders to lay down. When he does finally consent to joining me on the couch, or bed, he insists on putting the front third of his body on top of me.

None of his appendages seem to be bothering him, and I’ve manipulated them all to no end. No other spot I press on seems to cause him any pain. His symptoms are not like those back-related ones he was experiencing a few months ago. He acts mostly normal during the day, but once night falls, he becomes a cow.

He’s eating regularly, his bowel movements are on schedule and his stool seems fine. (Mine, too, in case any potential suitors are wondering.)

I have Googled myself silly trying to figure it out. At one point, I was convinced it was carbon monoxide poisoning, because he was standing by the door a lot, as if to say we must leave the premises at once. When he went out, though, he did nothing, except stand like a cow some more. I went out and bought a carbon monoxide detector. It hasn’t gone off.

Last night, I began suspecting bloat, even though what’s going in, food-wise, seems to be coming out, and he doesn’t seem inflated.

I’ve even asked myself if his ailment might be something other than physical — a cognitive disorder, though it seems to early, stemming from his advancing years. But then I forget that I’ve asked myself that.

Each day he seems fine, recovered, running, playing and happy, and I cancel my plan to take him to the veterinarian. Then at night he becomes an unmoving cow again, but, unlike a cow, seems anxious about something.

So he’s going back to his vet, who’s not an option when it comes to my plan to return to wedlock with a DVM, as he is a he and he is married.

But how wonderful would it be, now and moreso in the future,  to have someone right in the same house who could observe Ace’s behavior and — contrary to my uneducated guesswork — come up with an immediate diagnosis and treatment plan?

To spare me from the anguish — and, despite any jest herein, it is anguish — that comes with knowing something is bothering your dog and not being able to figure it out?

And perhaps, even though her background is in dog health, to detect any excessive panting, or drooling, or other warning signs, that I might be exhibiting myself?

Til death do us part.

What I haven’t mentioned yet — because it’s a small thing, which has only a slight bearing on my love for veterinarians — is neither Ace nor I have health insurance, and we’re both getting to an age where that might be handy.

If I married a kindly, female, financially secure, unattached veterinarian, I can only assume Ace would get free medical care — given that Ace would become her dog, unless we parted ways, in which case, as spelled out in a pre-nuptial agreement, full custody of Ace would revert to me.

And if, in addition to making a good living from being a veterinarian, one of those rare careers that actually has a future, she had her own human medical insurance — the kind that covered spouses — that would be some highly appreciated icing on the cake. That would just make our bond even stronger.

I think we would be very happy together.

Yes, I kind of like time and space to myself. Yes, I probably work too much, definitely too much for a person who’s unemployed. True, I can’t shower you with luxurious or expensive things, but I do occasionally shower. I’m probably not “a catch.” As I’ve already stated, I will be 60 in a couple of years.

Nevertheless – and I”m going down on one knee now — I ask you, female veterinarian, will you marry me?

And, whatever your answer, can you help me back up?

(Photo: From Topcollegesonline)

Topaz, the pit bull who lost a leg after being caught in a barrage of police gunfire in Inglewood more than three years ago, is in need of a home in the Los Angeles area.

The health of her human, a formerly homeless man named Michael Reed, has deteriorated to the point where he can no longer care for her, and can barely care for himself, say those trying to help out the once inseparable pair.

I met the two of them three years ago in Los Angeles, after spotting Reed, his shopping cart and his three-legged dog walking down the sidewalk.

They were homeless at the time, and just recently reunited.

He told me their story: how police opened fire on another homeless man they thought was pulling a gun in Inglewood. The gun turned out to be a toy, but that wasn’t discovered until, 47 shots later, Eddie Franco had been killed, and Topaz had been struck by four or five bullets.

Reed, by virtue of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, was taken into custody, and his possessions, Topaz included, were confiscated.

He was later released – but he was given no information about his dog. Having watched as she went down in the hail of gunfire, he presumed she was dead.

Two days later, though, a message was relayed to Reed that his dog was alive.

Months before the incident, Ingrid Hurel-Diourbel, founder of Streetsmarts Rescue, had seen Reed and his dog on the street, collecting recyclables, and stopped to talk to him.  She placed one of her organization’s rescue tags on Topaz, who otherwise had no identification, and Reed gave her his stepmother’s phone number.

When the animal shelter in Carson — where Topaz was taken after the shooting — saw the tag, they called Ingrid and she relayed the news to Reed.

By the time Reed got his dog back, she had lost a leg as a result of an infection that set in after being shot.

Ingrid started trying to raise money for the pair then, to cover the cost of Topaz’ veterinary care, and — because of their additional misfortunes   – she hasn’t stopped since.

For a while, things were looking up. Michael got off the streets and moved into a trailer, but not long after that he learned he was terminally ill with cirrhosis of the liver, and that Topaz had cancer.

Topaz had surgery again, and Michael has been in and out of the hospital. During one recent stay, another member of the rescue was caring for Topaz when he noticed a mass around her vulva, which led to yet another operation for Topaz.

Ingrid – that’s her narrating the video at the top of this post — says that operation went well, and early signs, though biopsy results are still pending, indicate Topaz may be cancer free. Her hospital stay, surgery and treatment cost more than $3,500, which Ingrid is still trying to raise.

Michael, meanwhile, has continued to decline, mentally and physically – so much so that the man who so graciously let me take photos of him and his dog three years ago, isn’t allowing his photo to be taken anymore.

He gets incommunicative, and neglects to take his medications, friends say.

“We have no more money for rent for him,” Ingrid said, “and unless his SSI kicks in soon, he will need to move out of the trailer … He has no family and he really needs care every day to maintain him.”

That’s led the rescue to intensify its efforts to find Topaz a new home, preferably one that will allow the dog to continue to make visits to Reed.

It’s also still trying to pay off the veterinary bills. Donations can be made via PayPal to pajade@yahoo.de

Last week’s report about the Ohio dog found with an arrow poking out of both sides of his body got me to wondering about whatever happened to the Georgia dog who, in September, was found in a similar situation.

And, just as I started wondering, the answer came.

In the Ohio case, a 15-year-old German shepherd mix named Hershey disappeared from his home, ran off into the woods and was found 17 days later with an arrow going in one side of his chest and coming out the other.

A veterinarian removed it and he was last reported to be back home with his family and recovering.

In the Georgia case, a police officer discovered a one-year old pit bull mix wandering the streets of Atlanta with an arrow through his head. It had gone in near his left eye and came out behind his right ear, but veterinarians at a VCA Pets Are People Too Veterinary Hospital were able to remove it and treat the dog’s other injuries.

Interest in adopting the dog, dubbed Arrow, was high after news reports about him were aired, according to the Fulton County animal shelter.

After six weeks of recuperation, we’re happy to report, Arrow ended up getting adopted by Kevin Bryant, executive director of Pets Are Loving Support (PALS).

Bryant, whose organization provides pet food and money for veterinary care to people with terminal illnesses and disabilities, emailed me last week to share the news.

He reports that Arrow is doing well, and that both dog and human are helping each other heal: Five months ago, Bryant lost Murphy, his dog of 12 years, to cancer.

Bryant explains his decision to adopt Arrow in this video, produced by the website Fashionado:

Hershey, a 15-year-old German shepherd mix, is back home after spending 17 days in and around a neighboring nature preserve — at least some of that time with an arrow sticking out of his chest.

Shot either by a hunter or sick thrill seeker, Hershey was found this week with an arrow protruding from both sides of his chest. He has since had it removed and is recovering.

The dog ran out of his house Oct. 20 to chase a squirrel and disappeared into the Princess Ledges Nature Preserve, a 46-acre site in Brunswick Hills, Ohio.

The family had searched for the dog for 17 days. On Sunday though, Hershey wandered into a back yard in Valley City, 15 miles away. The homeowner cut off the ends of the arrow that protruded from both sides of the dog’s body to make him more comfortable, and called the Medina County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Akron Beacon-Journal reports.

SPCA officials took Hershey to the Akron Veterinary Referral and Emergency Center in Copley Township, where the rest of the arrow was removed.

When an animal control officer in Brunswick heard about the dog, he determined it was Hershey, whose family had called him repeatedly during their search. He relayed that information to the SPCA, which contacted Hershey’s owners, Deanne Pennell and her daughter, Mindy Daugherty.

SPCA Director Stephanie Moore said the arrow was probably lodged in the dog’s body at least two days.

The Pennells picked up Hershey on Tuesday afternoon and took him home.

Donations are helping to cover the cost of Hershey’s medical care, including $1,000 from an Olmsted Falls family. Donations can be made through the Medina County SPCA.

(Photo by Karen Schiely / Akron Beacon Journal)

Although still largely unavailable and heavily restricted for humans, stem cell treatments for dogs are becoming quicker, cheaper and more common.

Just ask an 8-year-old mutt named Jake, who, injured in pursuit of a UPS truck, underwent the procedure Tuesday in Winston-Salem.

The treatment involves siphoning off belly fat, isolating, filtering and condensing the cells, then injecting them into the area where the problem exists — in Jake’s case, his  rear knee joints.

Where once the cells had to be sent to a laboratory before they were ready for injection, some veterinarians are using a new technology, developed by Kentucky-based MediVet-America, that allows the therapy to be done in one day without the stem-cell samples leaving the clinic.

The cost of the procedure has also dropped, from about $3,000 to as low as $1,800, the Winston-Salem Journal reported.

At University Animal Hospital in Greensboro, about 20 grams of fat from Jake’s belly were harvested and placed in a small jar, and, after being isolated and concentrated, injected back into Jake, a beagle mix.

Stem cells can spark new tissue growth in the body, and they aren’t likely to be rejected, as sometimes happens with donor cells.

For humans, it’s a little harder to secure stem cell therapy, at least in this country. Among those who have benefitted from it is presidential candidate Rick Perry. Perry’s stem cells were harvested by RNL Bio.

That’s the same South Korea-based company that clones dogs, and which has successfully cloned them from the stem cells in fat.

(So if the day comes that Rick Perry is campaigning simultaneously on the West Coast and East Coast, don’t be too surprised. We jest. Or do we?)

Those human treatments that do take place have mostly been through experimental programs, or in cases in which patients have traveled to countries where the procedure is legal. About a dozen companies in America are now offering it, but some believe a crackdown by the FDA, whose regulations permit only “minimal manipulation” of harvested cells,  is imminent.

For animals, the treatment is a little less controversial and easier to accomplish.

Dr. Christine Hunt, Jake’s veterinarian, said the dog — between his injury and arthritis — was a prime candidate for the procedure. Other treatments, including acupuncture and physical therapy, had been of little help.

Hunt has been certified in stem-cell therapy for about three years but hadn’t used the therapy, partly because the cells had to be shipped to the West Coast to be prepared.

Jake was the second dog to undergo stem cell therapy at the Greensboro clinic. The first, a 7-year-old Pembroke Welsh corgi named Riot, owned by veterinarian Catherine Markijohn, underwent the same therapy this month for back spasms, arthritis and other problems.

Markijohn said that two weeks after the procedure, Riot, is moving much more normally.

As a child, I had a recurring dream about getting sucked into an escalator: If that grate at the bottom (or top, if you’re going up) managed to gobble up all those stairs, I reasoned, it could surely flatten me out as well.

That — though he didn’t disappear like a pancake — is sort of what happened to Kei, a shiba inu from Illinois, while on vacation with his owner in Toronto.

Scott Thisdale of Wadsworth, Ill.,  and his two 7-year-old shiba inus were on their way to a local park, via subway, when Kei’s paw got caught in the grate of a  escalator.

His injuries — all fixed up now — earned him the title of “Most Unusual September Claim” by Veterinary Pet Insurance Co. (VPI). The company picks the most unusual claim every month, then selects one of those to receive its annual  VPI Hambone Award.

Kei and Midori, were riding up a subway escalator when Kei’s paw got caught in the grate at the top.

“He didn’t yelp or cry, even though it must’ve been painful. I didn’t realize anything had happened until he started licking his nails,” said Thisdale. “That’s when I noticed he was bleeding.”

A veterinarian sedated Kei and treated his wounds, described by VPI as “nail bed avulsions and lacerations on the pad of his left, hind paw.” Kei got some stitches and had his nail bed vessels cauterized during a six-hour visit at the animal hospital.

Kei’s escalator incident was one of more than 80,000 claims received in the month of September by VPI, the nation’s oldest and largest provider of pet health insurance. It was selected by VPI employees as the most unusual of the bunch.  

Honorable mentions in September included a Newfoundland that tangled with a moose; a Labrador retriever that suffered deep lacerations from a run-in with a water spigot; and a Papillon that had its tail caught in a groomer’s Dremel, a rotary tool used for trimming nails.

All pets considered for the award made full recoveries and received insurance reimbursements.

VPI, which insures more than 485,000 pets nationwide, established the VPI Hambone Award in 2009. It’s named in honor of a VPI-insured dog that got stuck in a refrigerator and ate an entire Thanksgiving ham while waiting for someone to rescue him.

It was first awarded to Lulu, an English bulldog who swallowed 15 baby pacifiers, a bottle cap and a piece of a basketball.

VPI says publicizing unusual pet insurance claims helps educate the public about the unexpected mishaps that can affect household pets — and what happened to Kei is a good example of that.

Rare as it may sound, it isn’t all that unusual. Escalators grates and claws are a dangerous combination. Some escalators warn people to carry their dogs. Some don’t permit dogs.  Guide dogs have to be trained to use them.

Even if you’re not phobic, when you’re with your dog, it’s best to take the stairs.

(Photo of Kei, courtesy of his owner and VPI)

A Great Dane named Cooper — stepped on by his mother as a puppy — has gotten rid of his limp, thanks to a procedure that, in effect, stretched his bones.

Cooper was only 11 weeks old, and unwanted by the breeders who produced him, when Sally Stoffel adopted him through a rescue organization in Boulder.

She took him to Colorado State University’s Veterinary Teaching Hospital, where small animal orthopedic surgeon Ross Palmer came up with a plan to repair the dog’s badly damaged right rear leg.

Palmer straightened and lengthened Cooper’s tibia using an orthopedic device not available in the U.S., and generally only used on humans.

The device, loaned to Palmer by an Italian colleague, permitted him to correct the deformity, then gradually stretch the bone as it healed, allowing it to catch up with the growing dog’s other limbs.

The device had to be adjusted daily, and Cooper spent months recovering.

The results were unveiled Monday, when the 130-pound dog bounded into an exam room at the university.

“For this to be successful, you certainly have to have the right technique,” Palmer told the Denver Post. “But you also have to have the right owner and the right dog. And in this case, we did.”

Stoffel said Cooper spent a month laying on his blanket, but when the treatment was finished, his tibia had grown about three inches as a result of corrective surgery and use of the device.

Cooper, now nearly 11 months old, appears to be healing well, and is walking  normally on all four feet. Because he’s still growing, he might eventually require a prosthetic device or a second bone-lengthening procedure, Palmer said.

The treatment required 11 visits to the CSU vet hospital, and Stoffel estimated that she has spent about $7,000.

(Photo by V. Richard Haro / Fort Collins Coloradoan)

Lisa Ison was going through a rough time four years ago when she met Bella, a Pekingese-Pomeranian mix, at an animal shelter in Denver.

“I was depressed. I was lonely. It was a real hard time and she saved my life,” said Ison, who was recovering from a back injury, a divorce and getting laid off. “I live alone, so having her there, she is always happy to see me and she is so loving. My life would not be the same without her.”

So when Bella became severely ill earlier this week after eating a ham bone, Ison was understandably distraught when a vet told her that trying to save her dog was going to cost around $1,800, half of which would be required up front.

“She was dehydrated, vomiting and not eating,” Dr. Jeff Steen at the Alameda Vet Hospital told 9 News in Denver. “She could have gotten septic and died.”

Ison didn’t have that kind of money. “I live paycheck to paycheck … I was hysterical. I was crying,” she said.

Ison stepped into the rest room to compose herself, and when she came out, a middle-aged couple she had met in the lobby gave her a hug and told her not to worry.

When she went to the front desk, the $900 had been paid.

After a few days, Bella pulled through. Ison still has the other half of her bill to pay, which she plans to do over time. Her donors remain anonymous.

“I was so touched and so moved that somebody would randomly do something so kind and so giving in these hard times. It restored my belief in human kindness,” Ison said.

Until the last couple of weeks, Dan Rubin was among that minority of Americans who don’t let their pets into bed with them.

That’s right, I said minority, at least according to the American Pet Products Association (APPA), which earlier this year released the results of a survey showing nearly half of dog owners and 62 percent of cat owners share their beds with their pets.

That’s a pretty stunning figure — one that shows not just our increasing  closeness to our pets, but our willingness to proudly admit it, even to  survey-taking strangers inquiring about our bedroom habits.

But back to Dan (which is how his dog Harley is sometimes sleeping nowadays).

Dan is a friend of mine, a former colleague and Philadelphia Inquirer columnist who never got into the practice of laying down with dogs, at least not in bed. He’s a dog lover, but he’s also a sleep lover, and the latter is more easily accomplished without a 113-pound dog squirming about, he notes.

A couple of weeks ago, Harley, his  five-year-old bouvier des Flandres, had leg surgery, Dan explained in his Monday column. And his vet declared stairs off limits for eight weeks.

That meant lonely nights for Harley, who — though not allowed in bed — was accustomed to at least sleeping on the same floor as his family.

Dan’s wife, Mimi, wasn’t about to let that happen. She announced she would sleep downstairs with Harley. Dan, like a dog, followed.

They moved all the furniture out of the TV room and replaced it with a futon mattress, then made a sleeping area for Harley, adjacent to it, topped with his favorite blanket.

But the first night, Dan found Harley on his pillow. A few nights later, Harley settled down on Mimi’s pillow, and they decided there was room for all three, kind of, even with the huge plastic cone Harley has to wear around his neck:

” … He has to wear one of those plastic lamp shades – at the vet’s they called it an Elizabethan collar. It’s about the size of a satellite dish, and he knocks about in the dark with the grace of a rutting Triceratops.”

Harley had surgery for a ruptured cranial cruciate ligament. It involved  planing the tibia and making a mechanical adjustment so his bones hinge without requiring the support of the damaged ligament, Dan explained.

With Dan’s man cave temporarily converted into a man/wife/dog cave, Dan says he has had to make sacrifices:

“…We can’t watch baseball in bed because Harley likes to rush the screen every time he sees a pitcher go into his windup. Best I can tell, he thinks they’ve got his ball.”

We wish Harley a full and speedy recovery. And we sincerely hope Dan doesn’t give him fleas.

Photo: Courtesy of Dan Rubin