"Melinda Shore" wrote:


In this county, if your dog tangles with wildlife that is
thought to be rabid and your dog isn't vaccinated, your dog
will be destroyed by the county.

Here, if your pet is NON-vaccinated, I believe the same is true. However,
it's *not* the case when they've been vaccinated, but haven't had boosters -
IOW, when their rabies vaccinations have "lapsed". The latter was true when
my neighbor's dog bit someone several years ago; he was quarantined at home.

On Jul 10, 4:05*pm, Janet Boss
wrote:
In article
,
*"Jan, Kozzie Girl and Sylvie" wrote:



She is AKC *registered. *

Not as an American Shorthair Shepherd! *If she's AKC registered, it's as
a German Shepherd Dog.

She is just a large girl.

Besides the weight, how tall is she?



We will see what we will be doing for her from here by following the
recommendations of our vet and to keep her healthy as long as we can.
She is not showing any pain yet, just a little slower sometimes.

That *is* a sign of pain. *I can't believe you're willing to chalk this
up to arthritis. *There is so much more you can and should be doing. *If
you truly want her to live to see her 8th birthday, you should really
get a full blood workup and think about some actual medication.

--
Janet Bosswww.bestfriendsdogobedience.com

She measures in at 28 inch to the top of her shoulder. As I said
before Dusty has always moved at her own pace, LOL it is hard to tell
if she is being her or she has slowed down. IMHP she isn't showing
signs of pain. Our vet also was surprised at her energy level.

As for wanting her to live till her 8th birthday, I'm not a hard or
stupid person that we won't do what is needed to keep her healthy.
You have to realize yesterday was the first time we were aware of this
condition. Believe me she will be taken good care of and everyone's
help here has given me more in sight as to were we go from this
point. So again I do thank everyone. I have read post here for some
time and have posted a few times. This forum is a wealth of
knowledge.

Again, I do thank all of you and your responses and help.

Jan
http://www.thefineartcafe.com

Mary Healey spoke these words of wisdom in
.4:

"Jan, Kozzie Girl and Sylvie" wrote:
say her back end/back legs are full of arthritis and she is losing
muscle which is the cause of her weight loss.

Combine these symptoms (weakened hind end, muscle atrophy) with a
probable
GSD background, and I get degenerative myelopathy.


I gathered this as well. It all fits. Which is why I think we were
grilling her so hard about WHAT BREED.

And the age is right as well.

I'm not a vet, and did not want to guess at a diagnosis, for fear that she
would forego a real veterinary workup.
She needs to go to the right place instead of the internet


A lot of things are/have gone wrong. A cursory vet check instead of a
complete one. An overweight dog. The owner isn't clueful enough to guess
accurately what breed she has. (combined with the lack of cluefulness of
owning a 'doodle dog') All suggest a rank novice here looking to the
internet in leiu of getting needed help.

The dog needs a REAL vet and proper assessment. Offering a suggested
diagnosis may give her an excuse not to go.

"Handsome Jack Morrison" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 10 Jul 2008 09:06:14 -0400, "kat"
wrote:

In the meantime do you (or anybody) know of any *reputable* sites
that discuss this in depth?

Define reputable.

Your two vets are reputable (presumably, just having a DVM after your
name means that you're reasonably reputable, with the possible
exception of vets who give dogs vaccinations without their owner's
knowledge, or against their wishes), yet they have different
*opinions*.

Hard to discern which opinion to give credence to.


I previously gave you several sites that discussed just this topic,
including those of Texas A & M, Colorado State, and Cornell
universities, several DVMs, including Dr. Jean Dodds, et al.

I had bookmarked those for reading later but had a malfunction trying to
install a program and had to reformat my computer so I lost all my saved
information.

Another subject I brought up with both vets is titers. Again both vets
seemed to be on the same page in that it wasn't a reliable indicator of the
level of imunity. This seems to be in contrast to what I've heard here (and
another forum).

Kathy

On Jul 10, 4:08*pm, Shelly wrote:
"Jan, Kozzie Girl and Sylvie" wrote in
news:2b5708f3-9d8a-4e02-a915-
:

She is AKC *registered.

Then she's likely a German Shepherd, just a lightly coated one, from
American lines. *

As for the weight loss, if she has actually lost as much weight as
you think she has, I'd go to another vet for a second opinion. If
nothing else, for the peace of mind. *

She has been on some of the best feed due to her allergies with
grain.

For how long? *Is this a change you made over the last year or so? *A
change in diet can lead to a change in weight. *Also, you talked
about her weight change, but what about her general condition? *Is
she in good muscular shape? *Is her energy level good? *Weight itself
really doesn't mean much without context.

--
Shellyhttp://www.cat-sidh.net(the Mother Ship)http://esther.cat-sidh.net(Letters to Esther)

We had to take her off all food with grain about 3 years ago.

Her general condition and muscular shap is very good. What we were
shown yesterday are her back hips and back legs where she has lost so
much muscle. I couldn't believe the loss in that area. She has the
same energy level she has always had as an adult dog.

Dusty does what she want to do. She races with our other 2 dogs, she
has great burst of energy. Then she is done for awhile. That is
always been her way.

My concern is the loss of muscle in her back legs.

Thanks again,

Jan
http://www.thefineartcafe.com

In article
,
"Jan, Kozzie Girl and Sylvie" wrote:


She measures in at 28 inch to the top of her shoulder.

That's tall (if you're measuring properly) but not OMG and supporting
120# tall. My 26" male Golden (yes, above breed standard, since he's
poorly bred) weighs in at 68#. yes, bone has a lot to do with how one
carries weight, etc, but 120#?


As I said
before Dusty has always moved at her own pace, LOL it is hard to tell
if she is being her or she has slowed down. IMHP she isn't showing
signs of pain. Our vet also was surprised at her energy level.

I'm a little confused. Is she active or not? On and off? Dogs can be
pretty stoic. I wouldn't rule out pain.


As for wanting her to live till her 8th birthday, I'm not a hard or
stupid person that we won't do what is needed to keep her healthy.
You have to realize yesterday was the first time we were aware of this
condition.

You haven't been aware of her being stiff before this? Again, I'm
confused. A complete ("superchem") blood panel is wise at the age of 7,
even without a suspected illness. You haven't said a work about that
being done, which is why so many of us are harping on it.

--
Janet Boss
www.bestfriendsdogobedience.com

Shelly spoke these words of wisdom in
6:

(Melinda Shore) wrote in news:g55qrr$7jt$1
@panix2.panix.com:

The grain-free diets tend to be insanely dense, as well,
with both high macronutrient content and HIGH CALORIES.

Yep. So if all other things stay constant, you would expect an
increase in weight, not a decrease. On the other hand, I do wonder
sometimes about high grain diets and some individual animals. I've
known both cats and dogs who slimmed down drastically after being
switched to a grain free diet, which is why I asked about this dog's
condition. It sounds, though, as if her condition has deteriorated
along with her weight. That's not good.

They tend to slim down, because the diets are not balanced.

The body needs all the essential amino acids to build itself.
It assembles them all as they get all the parts (trying to explain this
simply for the op, as she's obviously not terribly clueful, although well
meaning)

If the assembly line runs out of parts, production stops until the needed
nutrients become available. Everything else that can't be used, gets pushed
out as waste. So the dog loses weight if there is a dietary imbalance.

In the meantime do you (or anybody) know of any *reputable* sites
that discuss this in depth?

http://www.rabieschallengefund.org/ would be a good place to start.

I believe you're relatively new to the group, and I've not posted much in
the last few years, so FYI my Jack Russell was killed by her second adult
rabies shot; it caused immune-mediated hemolytic anemia, which in turn
triggered sarcoma in the bone marrow.
She was two weeks past her 5th birthday, and before the shot was in perfect
and vigorous health.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0rlj6itdIs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cc3OtBMD3iI



I have since heard of at least 4 other JRTs who have died directly from IMHA
within 2 months of their second adult rabies shot.
If and when I have another JRT, I will be having ONE adult shot, and
titering thereafter.... hindsight is always 20/20.

Janet Boss spoke these words of wisdom
in :


You haven't been aware of her being stiff before this? Again, I'm
confused. A complete ("superchem") blood panel is wise at the age of 7,
even without a suspected illness. You haven't said a work about that
being done, which is why so many of us are harping on it.

--
Janet Boss


Exactly. Reka went in today fro a superchem panel, and renal check, for no
other reason except she's 7. She's not displaying any symptoms, nor do we
suspect anything is wrong. She's 7, and it's time to do some routine
baseline checks

"Shelly" wrote in message
6...
Janet Boss wrote in news:janet-
:

pretty little dog, but no doubt not what Jan's Dusty resembles.

The shepherd is the one on the horse. HTH!

Heh.

The pictured dog, incidentally, looks a heck of a lot like a sable BC or
English Shepherd... the latter being, as you probably know, an *American*
breed - dating back 150 years or more - which derives from the same root
stock as Border Collies, Australian Shepherds, and McNabbs.