Heart Like a Dog

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

Yin and Yang

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I often think that old saying, “Opposites attract” has a lot to do with the Yin and Yang of life. The light and the dark, the good and the bad, the funny and the serious, they complement each other.

If someone were to look at the physical and personality characteristics of my dogs, they’d pretty much determine they are as opposite as two dogs can be. Sampson is peanut butter, and Delilah is chocolate. A perfect food combination, and a striking pair of dogs.

While the general Labrador personality is goofy and fun, the thing I like most about Labs is they each have their own, unique personality.

Delilah is Yin. She is darker in color, harder to train, stubborn, impatient, demanding, naughty.

Sampson is Yang.  He is lighter in color, easy to train, easy-going, patient, gentle, social, obedient.

Some would say, old soul, new soul. I guess it just depends on your philosophy.

I was reminded of the Yin and Yang yesterday morning, when I was preparing breakfast for Sampson and Delilah.

I looked over, and there was Sampson, patiently waiting for me to finish the prep, and serve him.

Where was Delilah?

Why in a perfect heel, right next to my leg.

Of course, I picked up the phone, and took the photos, smiling all the while.

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

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

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.

Easy, Non-Toxic and Pet Friendly Carpet Freshener

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In my perfect world, neither my dogs or I would be exposed to, or live in a toxic environment. But it’s not a perfect world and unfortunately we are exposed to hundreds of toxins/chemicals every day of our lives.

When we bought our house almost eleven years ago, we didn’t really give any thought to the wall to wall carpeting in the living room, master bedroom and den. I had been tired of chasing dog hair bunnies on the hardwood floors of our previous home, so I welcomed the idea of carpet, not really considering what a pain in the ass it could be.

I don’t want to burst your bubble or anything, but here’s a hard truth.

Dogs ruin carpets.

Do I LOOK like I’m ruining the carpet? NO, No I LOOK like I’m taking a nap.

If you have carpet and dogs, here are some guarantees.

  • When your dog has to vomit, they won’t go into the bathroom to puke on the tile, so it’s easy to clean up. Oh no. They will ALWAYS make for the carpet, and I’m not talking about the throw rugs, I mean the wall to wall carpet, or the area rug that’s just too damn big to wash.
  • At some point in your dog’s (and your carpet’s) life, there will be ass juice. Yeah, you know what I’m saying. Fido did not just do the latest dog dance on your carpet, no. No, Fido did the Boot Scootin’ Boogie and in the process released those anal glands and all that nasty stuff that went with it. If Fido was good at what he did, he may have left a little bit of poop with it.
  • A dirty or wet dog will head right for the rug. Because really, when they’re dirty and wet, they only want to roll around, and only a carpet will do.
  • No matter how well you train your dog to eat their treat on their bed or mat, odds are at some point, that Kong and all the stuffing that was in it, are going to be bounced around. On your carpet.
  • On that same line of thought, a dog that loves to steal food, will run with their stolen goodies and eat them on your carpet. My carpet has seen chicken necks, Bisquick, and so many other things, I’ve actually lost count.

Chicken necks. On the carpet. What a lovely surprise.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say, “If carpets could talk, the stories they’d tell.”

I would love to get rid of that carpet, and get down to the hard wood below, but having Senior dogs with mobility issues means it’s not in the cards at the moment.

And yes, I could put Stanley Steamer on speed dial, but my pocket book doesn’t allow, and I cannot realistically shampoo my carpet every week.

With the snows of winter and the rains of spring, come wet dogs.

I’m not sure about your dogs, but even if we’ve toweled them off, they still run straight to, and roll around on my rugs. Now I don’t typically mind the smell of a wet dog, but when I walk in the door and say, “My house smells like wet dog,” I gotta take action.

My dogs also like to ‘swim’ on the carpet, and they naturally do this on the seam, so not only do I have a stained, stinky carpet, I also have a carpet that is fraying in certain areas.

I told you dogs ruin carpet.

I’ve given up on the stained carpet. I talked to my carpet guy and he said, “Jodi, if you replace it now, the dogs will just ruin it again.”

He’s got a point. So I do the best I can to prevent and treat stains when they happen, but what do you do about that smell?

Carpet fresh is nice, but I worry about the chemicals and toxins in it. Luckily for us, making our own carpet fresh is pretty simple.  All you need is baking soda, essential oil, and a shaker can.  I use an old parsley container, but you can pick up a really pretty glass one at your local department or dollar store. (If you do this, use some plastic wrap or aluminum foil between the container and the lid, to help keep the baking soda from losing it’s smell.)

I like to make this in bulk, so I go to my warehouse club and buy a large box of baking soda. I also buy my coffee in bulk, so I save a the container, and I’m able to make a large batch. (NOTE: Make sure to wash that coffee canister out good, or guess what? Yup, you’ll have coffee smelling carpet freshener)

It’s important to choose an essential oil that is 1) Non toxic to dogs and 2) Has a smell you can tolerate.

I say, non-toxic because if you choose a smell that say, your dog finds interesting, you could have a dog licking the baking soda up from the rug, and then you have a totally different mess.

The other important thing to note, is to make this in advance and let it sit at least over night, so the baking soda really absorbs the smell of the oil. If you are in a pinch, you can let it sit four hours, but I wouldn’t do any less, and I really think 24 hours is the best.

I use Lavender essential oil, because I like the smell, and it also has some calming benefits.

I usually make the freshener in layers. A bit of baking soda then a drop or two of oil. Once it’s all in the container, I’ll give it a small upside down shake, careful to keep my hand on the top and bottom of the container so there are no mishaps.

Then, after your dogs have eaten and been walked, (really, you don’t want those assholes walking through this stuff) sprinkle it all over the carpet. I like to let this sit on the carpet for a half an hour to an hour, so while your waiting, pour yourself a glass of wine and sit down with a good book.

You deserve it.

NOTE: Wine also has calming benefits, but they don’t make an essential oil that smells like wine, and if they did, it wouldn’t be safe for dogs!

This is part 2, in a series designed to help you make simple changes, that will help reduce toxin exposures for both you and your pets. If you missed part 1, you can read about it HERE.

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