Anticipating Christmas

Is my dog the only one who picks a strange item for a favorite toy?

My 11 year old mixed breed dog, Lady, has chosen a small red Santa hat for her favorite toy. I'm assuming at one point it was on a stuffed animal. She is absolutely obsessed with it! We had to remove the cotton ball from the tip of the hat, as we were afraid she'd swallow it.

This painting is titled "Anticipating Christmas", as we feel Lady wants it to be Christmas year-round, and that's why she chose the hat for her favorite toy.

The painting is part of my "Dogs With Toys" series of artwork. If you'd like to submit your dog for inclusion in the series, please read my news page to see how you can do so.

Want to have your pet's portrait painted? Visit my custom pet portraits page for information and pricing.
http://www.jaiart.com/custom-pet-portraits.html

Thanks so much for stopping in to view my work and for sharing my website with fellow pet lovers! Comments are always welcome.

InJoy,
♥ Jai
http://www.jaiart.com
Enjoy my mini art gallery on the front page, and shop for limited edition prints, cards, and gifts with your favorite paintings. Be sure to read the news page for upcoming series, events, contests, and more exciting things!

Update on Lady #2

We made it through another night with no incidents. Lady is calm...calmer than I'd like, as I was enjoying her energy and playfulness over the past 2 months. She is still alert, and her stomach seems calm and she wants to eat. Yesterday, she didn't have a BM. This morning on the walk, she did, and it definitely wasn't normal yet (never thought I'd be so interested in POOP...LOL). BUT, it was better than it had been before her vet visit, and she didn't appear to be straining or cramping at all. Also, since she had a BM, it appears that the food IS passing through her intestines...which is good because that must mean she doesn't have a blockage. Or if she does have a partial blockage, it hasn't gotten worse. This is a good sign!

We are still seeking donations to help with her vet bills and medications, as we are not in a good enough financial condition to pay them. It's really great the state can help people when they're in financial straits...but sad they can't help the pets. If you can help, it will be greatly appreciated! Just click the donate button below...even $1 will help!

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Please Help My Dog Lady!

This week, I got seriously ill! I had to spend the night in the hospital and the vet suspects an intusseception. They won't know for sure without doing surgery on me to check me out inside. The good news is it's not a total blockage. The bad news is my owner cannot afford the surgery. So they've sent me home with 3 bottles of pills and special food. And my owner now owes a lot of money just for that and the tests they did! Can you help me? Every little bit will help and I would surely appreciate it because I've been doing so much better over the past two months and I want to keep feeling better!

Click the button below if you can help by making a donation - every little bit helps and THANK YOU! Woof!

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Update on Lady

Lady is doing much better! If she could just get away from ALL THESE DARN CATS! :) Everytime she turns around, one is checking her out, sitting beside her. And she wants NOTHING to do with them. Nothing. Nada.

Anyway...Lady has improved a lot. I mean to the point where her previous condition (yeast infection all throughout her body) has totally begun to dissipate. The knot on her leg has gotten smaller, and the itching has been less. Her energy is returning - she even initiated play with a toy tonight!

So I'm thinking, two things have changed. She's had the antibiotic for pancreatitis, and her diet is also different - she's had homecooked chicken and rice this week. Obviously the pancreatitis is a stomach related flare-up...usually caused by too much fat/greasy foods. The swelling, itching, feet licking and other stuff were related to the yeast problem (which she was previously on Ketaconzale for).

I know the antibiotic probably straightened her stomach issues out. But would it have helped these symptoms which then caused the yeast problem? I'm not sure. I've already been through stomach issues with Max, and after hundreds in vet bills and analyzing everything the dog was eating, I determined corn was the issue...pulled him off of corn, and viola! No more problems.

So now I'm thinking with Lady...there's something she's allergic to in the food. Being that I feed Royal Canin German Shepherd food to both of them, and it's very bland, it should be pretty easy to figure out. Funny thing is, the food is mostly made up of chicken and rice - same thing she's eating this week. BUT...it does have barley...it does have oats...it does have soy. One of those things could be causing the problem.

I also had a discussion with my mother - who has celiac disease (gluten intolerance) - about this. I stated to her that I wondered if DOGS could get this same thing. This morning, I did a search and found this website ~> http://www.dogtorj.net/index.html

VERY INTERESTING. I spent hours there reading. It appears this can DEFINITELY be an issue with dogs that causes a TON of health issues, and I really appreciate this vet putting this valuable information out there!

I've read a lot of websites with posts with a lot of dog health issues. One thing I keep seeing over and over are successes from pet owners changing their pets FOOD and paying more attention to DIET. I mean I've seen long-term successes being discussed. "My dog had this health problem and I changed to such-n-such food and he hasn't had a problem in 5 years..." - that kind of success is what I mean. Not the "I got my dog some meds and now he's fine" posts. I'm talking long-term...and most of the time, many other problems also dissipate with the changes made relating to food and diet.

I decided to also change a couple other things, just in case her condition is not related to food/diet (though I'm 95% sure it is). I've washed her bedding in plain hot water (no detergent) - just in case there is some sensitivity to the detergent. Never thought of that until I read something about it on the Great Dane Lady's site. I'm sensitive to chemicals myself, so I really watch the use of them here in the house. The detergent doesn't bother me, but that doesn't mean the dogs can't be sensitive to it!

And...I got lucky and acquired a new (slightly used) vacuum cleaner from someone on my Freecycle list. It works wonderful! Much better than the old one which has been on its last leg (wheels?) for quite some time. I've been working on getting this house majorly cleaned this week as a result, and maybe getting rid of more of the dust-n-dander is helping things too.

Lady's antibiotics will run out this weekend. I'm going to keep her on the chicken and rice for at least a week beyond that and she if she keeps responding well. If so, I'm either going to keep cooking for her (which is amazing...as I do NOT cook...LOL), or I'm going to find her a dog food she can have which is gluten-free. I've already found one...and I may do a mix of the two and see how it works.

And after reading the website, it almost makes me want to change my diet as well...so that may happen too! Maybe. :)

You mean 4th of July has come & gone?

Wow. I didn't even realize we had a holiday. Why? Because I was at the emergency vet for hours with Lady that night. Her condition got worse on Saturday the 4th, to the point where I saw blood and was sure it was "the end". Turns out, she has a case of pancreatitis. I guess it must be considered "mild" since she was sent home with us.

She had a shot, and was prescribed a GI Mix (Kaeopectate with Albon) and Metronidazole (I'm sure I've spelled that wrong). She had to stay off food until today, and beginning to day, we start back slowly with a boiled chicken/rice mix.

She's had no more gastric issues since she got the shot at the vet. She was allowed water yesterday in small amounts through the day, along with her meds. She kept that down/in just fine, and followed us around all day expectantly looking (i.e. BEGGING) for food. She looked so sad when I told her she couldn't have food! It was PITIFUL!

Today I'm giving 1 cup of the "easy stomach mix" (boiled chicken and white rice). I'm splitting this 1 cup up into 3 meals through the day to see how she handles it. So far, she's had serving #1 and is doing okay.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed she'll respond okay, because if she doesn't it can mean hospitalization and I am completely out of money. I had to take all of our bill paying money plus borrow $100 just to pay the emergency bill! I don't know what I'm going to do about the bills which are all due right now. Sigh.

I hate having sick babies and I hate not being able to pay for their care when it's needed. :(

Lady in June

This is our dear Lady. Allyson got this cool photo of her a couple days ago and we framed it and put it on our kitchen wall. Lady isn't doing so well the past couple days...and we need some prayers for her!

Lady is almost 10 years old and has been with us since she was about 1 year old. She is the BEST dog we've ever had...just so good. She came to us as a stray, and she was totally trained! I knew she belonged to someone, but we couldn't find her owner. We put up signs and ran an ad in the paper. No one called. About 3 weeks after that, she went into heat, and then I took her and had her spayed. At that point she became ours.

Lady's been having such a rough time lately...please send up some good thoughts and prayers for her. She has a terrible yeast infection, and one of her front legs has a knot on it. Unfortunately I can't find out what's going on, because I don't have enough money for the x-rays or bloodwork or other things she needs done. We've had her on Ketaconzale for the yeast and then Vetprofen for the pain, plus I'd started giving her Cosequin (glucosamine) - all of which helped a lot!

But just the other day, she started having stomach issues. The vet said it's probably the Vetprofen as its hard on the stomach, plus the Ketaconzale depresses the appetite, which made her not want to eat her food (though she wants OUR food!) Now I've pulled her off all of her meds, the vet told me to give her Prilosec and boiled chicken and rice. At this point, it's not working well...she's still having issues. He told me it takes a while for the Prilosec to start helping and her stomach to settle down. This dog has always had an iron stomach, so I'm a bit concerned. She's been on Vetprofen and Rimadyl before for pain and never had issues with the meds...but then this time she'd been on it 3 weeks where before the longest was 10 days.

I really hope she can get better, but I'm concerned there might be an underlying issue...the knot on her leg really worries me. I've played the lottery recently using some of my change, hoping I could win enough money for the vet to do the necessary tests. Seriously...I did...went it there with rolls of pennies and nickels and dimes. I'm sure the lady thought I was NUTS. (she was right) Unfortunately, I didn't win!

All I have to offer at this point is prayers for her recovery from whatever this is. Maybe that will be enough. But it would help if my readers could say a prayer too. :)

P.S. If you look in her eyes you can see Allyson's reflection as she took the photo!

Lady

Lady has been feeling left out because we've been taking so many photos of the kittens...so here she is in her own feature!


She's so sweet!


Very attentive.


I even made up a greeting card design featuring her. :)

Here she is laying in her favorite spot on the driveway. I've been trying to think of a good theme for her and I figured getting older is appropriate. She used to be solid black and each year, she gets more white on her face, feet and belly. The inside of the card featuring this image reads: Happy Birthday (from one old dog to another). :)

InJoy,
Jai

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#54 Getting Older Greeting Card