Heart Like a Dog

The Good, the Bad, and the Oh My God of living with dogs!

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If You’re Happy and You Know It

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When Sampson was a tiny puppy, I read an article that said dogs don’t have a memory.

Little Puppy Sampson, with one of his favorite toys.

I remember thinking, well, that’s a bunch of shit, if they can’t remember anything, how can this dog be playing with a toy, go outside for two hours, and come back in and go straight for the toy?

I also recall an article that said pets don’t experience human emotions. I believe the specific emotion was jealousy.

And again I thought, that’s also a bunch of shit. If you’ve ever seen Delilah when Hubby comes home and is a lovin’ on Sampson, you’d know that dogs, do in fact, have feelings of jealousy.

I’m not good at reading my dogs when they are sad, or perhaps depressed. (Although, I could definitely tell Sampson wasn’t too happy during his confinement for CCL surgery.) But I can definitely tell when my dogs are happy.

Delilah is like Tigger when she is happy. She bounces, jumps and runs around like a maniac. Wednesday, Sampson had a vet appointment, when I got home, I brought him in, and harnessed Delilah up for her walk. She ran to the door and jumped around like a lunatic, because she was so excited, she thought she was going in the car.

Sampson on the other paw, can’t jump around like that. He shows his happiness and excitement in different ways.

One of the ways is something we call, swimming. That’s where he lies on his side, and puts his paws up over his head and pulls them down. He repeats this a number of times. For some reason, he always does this on the seam of the carpet, so guess what? Yup, my carpet is trashed. He usually does his swimming, just after he eats, and just after I put his harness and flea/tick spray on.

If he’s not swimming, the other way to know he’s happy is when he lies on his back against the couch.

It always makes me smile when I see him like this.

It doesn’t look comfortable to me…

Or like this.

Whatchu lookin’ at, Willis?

How does your pet let you know they’re happy?

Tomorrow this special boy turns 14, come back for his birthday post.

Canine Heart Arrhythmia – What Does It Mean?

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I cannot stress enough the value of taking your pet to the vet, at least once per year. If you have senior pets, twice a year at a minimum.

At Delilah’s ‘annual’ exam, our vet discovered she has a heart arrhythmia. Truthfully, I wasn’t alarmed, because Sampson has had an arrhythmia for about three years now. So when Dr. Soutter asked if she could do an EKG, I said, “Of course!”

The EKG showed Delilah has an arrhythmia affecting all four valves of her heart.

Dr. Soutter wanted to confirm the irregularity, so she asked me to bring Delilah back the following week to repeat the EKG. The repeated test showed the same result.

What is a heart arrhythmia?

To put it simply, an arrhythmia is an irregularity in the heart beat. In a normally functioning heart, your heartbeat is like this : thump-thump-thump-thump-thump etc.

For Delilah’s arrhythmia the heartbeat was like this : thump-thump-thump-thump thump thump thump thump-thump. She has a number of extra beats in there.

The next step was an Echocardiogram to see if we could determine the cause of the arrhythmia.

At this point, I was given two options. Wait for the internal specialist to come down, or consult with a cardiologist.

I chose the cardiologist for two reasons. 1) I wanted someone who only deals with the heart. 2) The cardiologist we chose requires I stay with Delilah the entire time. This was a no brainer for me.

Before we left, I (of course) asked Dr. Soutter what could be causing the arrhythmia. The answers were scary. Dilated Cardiomyopathy or a heart tumor.

Neither one has a good prognosis.

Luckily for Delilah, the cardiologist has emergency appointments, and a newly diagnosed arrhythmia is considered emergent. I was able to get her an appointment, in just over three weeks.

The first thing they did when we arrived, was listen to her heart, take her blood pressure and take her temperature. I’ll let you decide which of the above was the least tolerated by Delilah.

Get it off me! Get it off me!

Then we went in to the echocardiogram room, and saw the cardiologist.

Dr. Morris putting the lubricant on the wand.

The vet tech lifted Delilah up, and put her on a table that was just over waist high for me. This impressed the hell out of me, considering the last time I tried to lift Delilah, I peed my pants. That tech got some STRONG pelvic floor muscles. 🙂

The vet tech has her body against Delilah’s back, and is holding her legs so she lies still.

The table itself was padded, and it had a hole in the center where the echocardiogram wand fit through, so the Dr. was able to move it about and get the best view.

You can see the hole in the table, and the Dr’s hand. Also…shaved nipple.

In order to do this, they had to shave an area around her top two nipples. They also clipped some wires to her legs, but thankfully, they didn’t need to shave her legs.

My hand on her head. I was so grateful I could stay with her, to bring her comfort.

I stood at the end of the table, just holding her head, or stroking/kissing her and telling her it was okay. After they viewed one side of her heart, they repositioned her to get the other side.

After that, we were done, and we went to wait for the cardiologist to give me the results.

Can you see those very pronounced lines? Those are the arrhythmias.

The normal beats per minute for a large dog with a healthy heart, is 60 to 100 beats per minute. (Source) During those times when the arrhythmia was happening, her heart was actually beating almost 300 times per minute!  To give you some perspective, if a dog’s heart were to beat at that rate continuously, the dog would be dead in two to three weeks.

Scary.

So what is causing the arrhythmia?

The results of the echocardiogram ruled out Dilated Cardiomyopathy, which is great news.

But there was a dark spot in one area of one of the valves/chambers.

Ruling out a heart tumor

The actual diagnosis says, she has mild leaks in her mitral and tricuspid valves. Her right atrial is normal and her left atrial is normal to slightly enlarged with some subtle thickening. These could be secondary to the arrhythmias or she may be developing degenerative valvular disease. Overall mild findings with respect to structure and function. She didn’t see any obvious mass, but there is a prominent tricuspid valve annulus on free wall, which juts further than she typically sees in the right atrium. She suspects it to be normal for Delilah, but it could be a developing mass.

The cardiologist didn’t think Delilah has a heart tumor, BUT, there is that prominence in her right tricuspid. The way I understand it, the heart attaches to the chest with some fibrous muscles which hold it in place. One of these was slightly more prominent than the other. The recommendation was to do another echocardiogram in 45 days. Her exact words, “IF it were a tumor, WHICH I DON’T THINK IT IS, it will have gotten bigger and we will know.”

If it is a tumor, it will be ugly. It will be fast growing, have metastasized to other organs, can’t be treated by chemo…etc. If it is a tumor….well, I just can’t wrap my head around it. I have never seriously considered I could lose Delilah before I lose Sampson.

Never.

We were sent on our way with Sotalol (80 mg) for her arrhythmia, and she also wanted Delilah’s thyroid checked to be sure the dosage was correct. We made a follow-up appointment for 10 days later, to check and see how the Sotalol was working.

Later that day I spoke with Dr. Soutter, and I expressed my frustration, with not having a diagnosis. The exam, testing and medication was almost $600, and despite this, I still did not know what was causing the arrhythmia. Dr. Soutter was empathetic, she was frustrated herself, but also thrilled we had ruled out the Dilated Cardiomyopathy, and almost 100% ruled out a tumor. She reminded me that many times in veterinarian medicine, we cannot get a clear diagnosis of an illness, but instead rule out what it’s not.

10 days later we went back, and the EKG showed her arrhythmia was down to two irregularities in a three minute period!

Progress!!

They did want to use a holter, which is a heart monitor that gets strapped to Delilah for 24 hours. I declined because 1) I was worried she might chew it off (they assured me it hasn’t happened, BUT I needed to sign a waiver stating I would replace the $1,400 machine IF she did.) 2) It’s hot and humid out, I’d much rather do this in the fall when it’s cooler. So my plan is to take a Friday off, take her up there and get the monitor on, so I can monitor her on the monitor. 🙂

Of course….we still have to get through the next 27 days until the next echocardiogram.

And so we wait.

DISCLAIMER: I am not a veterinarian. I do not play one on TV, and I haven’t stayed at a Holiday Inn Express lately. This post is about MY dog, and the experiences we are having with heart arrhythmias. It is not meant to be or be used as a diagnostic tool. If you suspect your pet is having heart issues, please take them to aa licensed veterinarian.

Well Played Delilah, Well Played

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Due to Delilah’s Endothelial Decompensation, she doesn’t see very well. I often times forget this, until she stares at me, but she’s not actually looking AT me.

She’s ‘looking’ at me, but I’m actually more towards her right.

Because of her trouble seeing, most walks Delilah walks quite closely to the curb. On our walks there are many times where she doesn’t see a small branch in her way, and plows through it, or doesn’t see the sewer grate and comes close to stepping on it.

This past week one of our friends was out on her bike, and saw us, so she rode over and called hello. Delilah heard her and turned toward her, but didn’t see the bike, so when the bike suddenly was right there, she jumped.

As you know, we live in the DADO capital of the world, and I constantly have to be on the watch for the e-fence dogs who come charging at us, barking their heads off. The last thing I want is to be too close to a yard and have a barking dog startle Delilah.

There is one Golden Retriever in our neighborhood, that scares the crap out me when she’s out. I will watch for her, but sometimes she’s in her backyard, and when she hears us, she comes flying towards us, barking incessantly.

This was the case yesterday morning.

Thankfully, Delilah and I were on the other side of the street, when Bailey came flying at us, barking. It was about 7:00 am, and I made sure to say, “Jesus Christ” very loudly. Usually the owner is pretty quick to call Bailey back, but not yesterday.

Yesterday Bailey kept barking.

So I looked down at Delilah who was walking nonchalantly along the curb. She never even turned to look at Bailey. She slowed down to sniff, then stopped to pee, all directly across from Bailey. That’s when I noticed the hair was up along her back.

I figured what Delilah was doing was the doggie equivalent to flipping the middle finger.

And I smiled to myself, with a silent nod to her, and a “Well played Delilah, well played.”

You make me smile (or laugh,) the sweet, funny, loving things my dogs do that bring a smile to my face, or a laugh to my lips.

What did your pet do that made you smile or laugh this week?

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