What do I do????
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How old is Cindie, and what are her health problems? I'm sure you've posted about them before, but I cant find anything  . |
| Also, is she toward the light end of an appropriate weight range?
If not, getting some weight off her will help you both. |
| We think she is 8 yrs old and she has gained weight since shr stopped moving around. She only gets one cup AM one PM it is pro plan. Her back legs look like they come out of their sockets. So I have to push her legs in and then lift. Sometime it takes 2 or 3 tries. |
| You are describing what life is like with Chumley. Using the Outward Hound Lift Harness helps alot because it gives you handles to use instead of trying to get your arms around her for support.
Also, you have said that she is not on any painkillers other than aspirin. Changing her meds could make a big improvement. There are so many that it is worth trying several before concluding they will be no help. However, it could be that her needs are simply too much for you to handle. If that is the case, then you should talk to Madeline about finding another home for her to live out her days. It just sounds like it might no longer be a good fit. |
| Pro Plan has a weight management formula that will help bring her weight down. |
| I'm so sorry to hear about your back! I don't think it's fair for you at all to not be able to use a halti/gentle leader on Darcy... it can't help your problem esp. for a growing puppy who needs to run. Can your husband walk the young one?
I hate hearing about dogs in pain, but I'm sure the decisions on what to do are hard too. I hope you can find meds to help her! |
| If she's overweight, she needs to get the extra pounds off her... it appears her weight has become detrimental to her health. And if she's in pain, this needs to be addressed right away. A pain medication and possibly a glucosamine or chondroitin supplement may help. All of these things might help her to become more mobile.
Hill's Prescription Diet r/d, a low calorie dog food, has worked for us in the past when we had a couple of chunky dogs. But it's not a quick fix... depending on how much extra weight she's carrying, it can take months to loose those pounds. I'm not sure what the average weight is for a female OES... our 3 full-size girls weigh between 61-64 pounds right now. The biggest one is Panda yet she weighs the least... we keep her lighter due to her hip dysplasia. I agree completely with Val... if you don't feel you're able to meet her needs, look to a good OES rescue to give her a chance. I looked at your pictures and she looks like a very sweet sheepie-girl. |
| i am going through this with my daytona not as bad but she is 12 i put her on gluclosium and i swear it has really helped her out.. my heart goes out to you |
| Get her weight down, george has suggested with the pro plan brand a lower calorie one which is good and they also have a seniors brand also. Both are lower in the calories but still all the nutritional requirements they need.
Add grated raw carrot to her diet and cut the dry food amount by 1/4 and substitute the grated carrot (half a cup) to give her a fuller feeling without the weight going on her. They drop the weight then without being hungry. She needs more then asprin to help her, less weight on the leaner side now, good supplements like chondroiton/glucosamine into her diet each day and off to the vets for something better then asprin. Get the pain under control, the weight off her, supplements in her diet and she should do a lot better. She is still only reasonably young at 8 and if you do that it should make her more mobile then. If you don't have a lift harness then when she goes down on you or you need to get her up, do the towel as a sling to help, less strain on you then and easier to help them up then.  Also works well to help them go outside to potty as it supports there back end if they are stiff or unsteady on their feet, stops them collasping on you outside.
Hope it works out and if it gets too much with all that is going on with yourself as well then look to re-housing her with someone that can manage her situation. Hard when they are going in the back ends but with proper management there they can still have a good quality of life. If they were into there golden senior years well it can be a different story then |
| I second everything Val and Lisa said. But, you HAVE to get her on pain medication that is stronger than aspirin. Look at it this way, if your hip came out of the socket, would you just want plain old aspirin to manage the pain? No flippin' way! You'd want some thing that would target the pain and help with the ache. There are so many options out there to help her. Please go to your vet and ask him or her to talk about pain management solutions for her with you. You may not be able to cure her but you can make her a lot more comfortable. Good luck! |
| I wonder if you are describing a double hip-displasia.(spelling) At 8 yrs she might be able to have surgery to fix that. You might want to get it xrayed at least to see if that is the problem. |
| You've already been given excellent advice all I can offer is my sympathies and support.
May you have the clarity and wisdom to find the best solution! |
| I have to agree with all that was said above. The first step is to get her to the vet to be evaluated and get a brace to help lift her. Let us know what happens and know we are always here to lend an ear. |
| How is Cinde? What did the vet suggest? |
| No different. She just eats her 1 cup goes out side goes potty in she comes sometime falling on the step. Just lays down. No playing never new how to. So sad. |
OES Mommy wrote: No different. She just eats her 1 cup goes out side goes potty in she comes sometime falling on the step. Just lays down. No playing never new how to. So sad.
Did you take her to the vet? |
| OFCOURSE I DID. They said she has hip joints that are bad from being tied to a tree for 3 yrs and found frozen to the ground. If we get our check from the costruction company I was want to try accupunture. She told me she sees a 90% improvement. |
Quote: OFCOURSE I DID. They said she has hip joints that are bad from being tied to a tree for 3 yrs and found frozen to the ground.
If she were mine, I'd get her on a low calorie diet to drop the excess weight (not too fast though so she ends up with other problems)... I'd get her on an appropriate pain medication... and I'd have her immediately tested for low thyroid. Some of the things you've describe could very well be symptoms of low thyroid and this is a condition common in OES. It can cause weight gain, exercise intolerance, muscle wasting, stiffness, weakness, mental dullness, lethargy, etc. Others symptoms can be much more serious. Low thyroid is diagnosed or excluded with a simple blood test and treatment is easy too... just a little pill divided into two equal doses and given twice daily. Obviously she has other issues too and maybe this has already been checked in the last 3 months. But IF low thyroid is the cause, diagnosis and treatment might help her to get the weight off faster and help to get her mobile again. Here's the entire list of symptoms... dogs can exhibit no signs, they can have one or two or multiple symptoms- http://www.canine-epilepsy-guardian-ang ... isease.htm 5 of my 6 dogs are on meds for low thyroid... the reason the high percentage is most likely because we do annual bloodwork on the entire pack as a preventative... most people test to figure out an existing problem. My youngest was diagnosed at just over 2 years old. Darby, an OES, was the one to show the most obvious symptoms... cold intolerance, sleeping a lot, gaining weight, dry coat. I know how frustrating it can be trying to get medical things figured out. PLEASE let me know if you need help with her. I'm not sure what I can do from here but I'll try to help. |
| Sorry I did not read to the end. She is on weight managment pro plan she has been tested 3 times for thyroid even on meds for 3 months , no change. nothing has helped her lose weight. I try giving her vegies she eats some. SO now what? |
| Cut back more on the food and NO snacks. |
| Ron, She only has 1 cup in the mornung and one ar night. How much less can she get along on |
| Use the grated carrot and mix it through the dry food. CUT the dry food amount now.
I got Kelseys weight off that way and she was not at all hungrier. It bulks the meal with no added calories and still gives them a fuller feeling. She dropped 2 kgs and it made the world of difference for her. D. I can still not understand your vet saying there is nothing in the way of pain med to prescribe to help her hip problems. There is a ton of stuff now, from cartrpohen injections, metacam etc etc and the list goes on and on. ASPRIN is useless in her situation. She need other meds now. Are you using supplements like chondroiton/glucosamine in her diet each day as well, that helps enormously, that and the weight off, not letting her get fat and good medication from a vet will make the world of difference for her longer term well being. If your vet can't prescribe anything besides asprin well maybe you should seek another vet to help her. |
OES Mommy wrote: Ron, She only has 1 cup in the mornung and one ar night. How much less can she get along on
Well, she hasn't lost any weight. She probably has lost most of her muscle mass, so there's not much there burning any calories. Mulligan is an active feisty 88 pound 5 year old and he eats 1 1/3 cups twice a day. I'd say you can go much lower than 1 cup twice a day since she is a completely sedentary dog. I'd start with 3/4 of a cup twice a day and see if she loses some weight. |
OES Mommy wrote: OFCOURSE I DID. They said she has hip joints that are bad from being tied to a tree for 3 yrs and found frozen to the ground. If we get our check from the costruction company I was want to try accupunture. She told me she sees a 90% improvement.
I think I was asking an honest question since you hadn't offered any info that you had. I don't mean to sound harsh, but it is hard to understand that the vet would send you away with nothing to help with pain management if she's suffering so much. I really don't understand. |
| Bummer... that would have been an easy fix. A couple of mine were in the "gray zone" and we treated anyway. One was Panda who had recurrent bladder infections.
With your vet's guidance, you need to adjust the intake of calories as Ron says. No snacks... zero... unless there's a medical reason she needs them like to maintain a glucose level. We've used salt-free green beans as a filler... we've also used cauliflower and broccoli... mine love it. Weighing her regularly will help you to tell if you're on the right track. Has the vet told you how much weight she needs to loose? Confession time for how I weigh my dogs... I bought a $100 and some dollar dog scale from PetEdge earlier this year but the darn thing is tippy, it's not digital and we all HATE it. So I use a 10 3/4" square shipping scale. I grab a 17"x19" case of US Priority Mail shipping boxes from the shipping room and zero out the scale with the boxes on top. I have to pick each dog up and balance them on the box which is centered on the scale. They've all gotten pretty good at it (good thing my dogs tolerate me  ) http://oesusa.com/PandaGettingWeighed.jpg Nuts? You bet... but I know ortho problems can affect this breed. As I said, Emma & Darby could stand to loose a few pounds.
It is not going to be a quick fix because the weight gain didn't happen overnight (I keep telling MYSELF that!). You need to get in a frame of mind that it will take time for her to get back to a good, lean weight. Maybe this will help her get around better and will reduce her pain and possibly allow her prescription pain killers to be reduced too. It's all so interconnected. |
| The amount of food fed depends on the level of activity and the metabolism of the individual dog.
Examples: September 6th, 2007 weights- Panda- 61.00 pounds gets 2 1/2 cups* per day Emma- 62.40 pounds gets 1 1/2 cups* per day Darby- 63.15 pounds gets 1 1/2 cups* per day Kaytee- 46.20 pounds gets just under 3 cups* per day (special needs sheepie... smaller in size but my most active dog) Emma's and Darby's amounts are NOT typos. * PLUS TREATS- usually 3 small Eagle Pack biscuits and cooked meats, raw veggies or a little more kibble as a treat. All get the same amount for treats. The food we feed is Eagle Pack Holistic Select. The fish formula has Metabolized Energy= 354 kcal/cup. It's not a weight loss formula yet I THINK it has about the same colories as the food you feed. I'm not trying to tell you what to do... just sharing information and experiences that can be considered... I liked the Hill's Prescription food (r/d) because we could feed the same amount we had been feeding... it has 220 kcal/per cup which is very low. The vet had told us that many of the store bought weight loss foods were still high in calories so we gave this a try last year. Mine were satisfied on this food while they lost weight. They got this food and ONLY this food. After the weight came off, we were MUCH more careful about measuring food and monitoring dog weights with a scale and by doing the rib test. Hill's Prescription Diet r/d... http://www.hillspet.com/hillspet/produc ... 4441760447 Metabolizable Energy¹ (Caloric Content) Dry- 220 kcal/per cup ² ProPlan Chicken & Rice Formula: Weight Management... http://www.proplan.com/products/Chicken ... ryDog.html Metabolizable Energy 337 kkcal/cup ProPlan Large Breed Formula: Weight Management... http://www.proplan.com/products/LargeBr ... ryDog.html Metabolizable Energy 369 kkcal/cup You might check with your vet to see if a different food would help her to loose the weight yet keep her full. Again, it's just an idea and only your vet knows if it's appropriate for Cinde. IF the r/d is appropriate for Cinde, maybe if you fed her the same measurement of r/d that you're currently feeding you'd see the weight start to come off? Wouldn't THAT be great  I don't see how it wouldn't if there's that much difference in calories between the two foods.
Quote: If your vet can't prescribe anything besides aspirin well maybe you should seek another vet to help her.
Yeah... you mentioned how bad her hips were so we're all concerned for her. The pain probably is pretty bad. Dogs can be very stoic and suffer in silence where we would be crying our eyes out. The joint supplements made a HUGE difference in Panda who also has hip dysplasia. I know that more powerful pain relievers will required in Panda's future in order to manage her pain... she's still only 2 years old. Please let us know if we can do something to help. |
How adorable that photo is of Panda getting weighed, the look on her face is absolutely priceless. Sort of " Geez mom can't a girl have privacy when weighing ones self"  What a gorgeous sweet doll she is  |
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