Heidi Makes It Outside Today

After a late finish of college basketball, past midnight, the hounds and I woke up to temperatures near freezing. I am still standing by my "winter is over" announcement of a few weeks ago.

You can see the yard and field is not only getting very green with the recent rain, but heavy frost this morning. Sadie and Stella were not out much longer than to sniff a couple areas, dump their tanks and head back into the house for that morning nap.

By noon, the temps were nice enough for Heidi to make her grand entrance outside. As the weather gets warmer she will come outside more often and stay longer. Her skin is still looking fairly good but found out this past week that her skin breaks out with peanut butter and strangely enough ... carrots.

About 9 days ago I started her on a no grain, venison, lamb meal, no potatoes blend of kibble. Last year the vet recommended duck or venison as her protein source. I don't know why I still look at different foods, she has eaten all kinds and her skin basically stays about the same. Anyway she enjoyed checking out the driveway today.

Sadie let me know the field was dry enough for a walk. We thought the chance of deer two days in a row were slim. Plus I was hearing heavy machinery in the field behind us where the deer were yesterday ... doing some logging. We headed out leash free, the 200mm lens on the camera while Heidi stayed back to lay in the sunshine.

It wasn't soon after we started that Stella found something that interested her so much she wouldn't leave. Once she saw that Sadie and I had made the first turn she decided she might want to catch up to us.

She finally caught Sadie but stayed near me on the path for most of the way to what I call the half way point of the walk, where we turn and head home.

Both of them decided to see what I would do if they hung back and ignored me calling their name. Once they saw that I was going to keep walking, they started jogging toward me. I really think that both hounds like going at their own pace, hanging behind then and getting in some good runs ... it's good exercise for them.

Upon our return Sadie and Heidi checked out each other, neither nose was sunburn after today.

I might go out and get a little fence repair done this afternoon. Only two NCAA basketball games tonight and tomorrow, so I will tune into those. My book reading has taken a backseat recently. For some reason I don't have the same urge to read that I had last month. It is just too quiet today.

Not much going on today here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Heidi's Basset Hound Skin Issues Stabilize

About this time last year I was taking Heidi to her 2nd new vet in 4 months. The vet changes were an attempt to find the cause and solution to Heidi’s Basset Hound skin issues that exploded at the end of the summer in 2014.

When I adopted her in July 2011, vet records showed she did come with skin allergies that would require treatment. In certain parts of the year, those treatments might be a monthly shot. At the time she was prescribed Ketoconazole but had a steroid shot of Depo Medrol the day before I picked her up.

Over the next 20 months Ketoconazole lost it’s effectiveness, meaning the treatment was not working longer than 2 weeks compared to months in prior years. Her treatment changed to Vetalog steroid injections.

Like the medication before, it eventually became less effective. Her last steroid shot did not last 17 days before her skin was back to where it was before the Vetalog injection. I decided I needed a 2nd opinion.

In October 2014 after an examination I was given a choice between two treatments for her skin condition. I chose Atopica, along with a shampoo prescribed 3x per week. The prescribed plan was daily capsules for 1 month and then decrease the dosage. Her skin never looked better after 30 tablets. I was happy with the skin improvement but she was very lethargic and that concerned me. Due to the severity of long-term use, plus side effects (Heidi was showing), I was reconsidering the choice of having her on a daily dose.

Before Atopica Treatment

After 6 Weeks of Atopic Use

After 6 Weeks of Atopica Use

The goal was 1 tablet per month. We would start cutting back dosage to every other day, then twice per week. Within days of changing the dose to twice per week, her skin condition flared up worse than what it was months before. The vet wanted to move her back to a daily dosage.

With Heidi showing signs of some of the listed side effects, namely very lethargic. She barely made the walk to her food/water bowl, along with zero activity. I decided to discontinue Atopica. Her tail was always lowered and she never did her routine of daily morning sprints around the living room. What I was reading about long-term use was turning me off on the medication.

My decision was not to continue giving her Atopica.

A neighbor is a vet but his office was 16 miles away, a direction I rarely traveled. I decided in January 2015 I’d have John look at her. Basically Heidi’s 3rd vet in a 6 month period. ALL of this is discussed in detail on my blog hosted by Blogger — the older version of this blog.

At that time Heidi’s skin was so bad he did not think she would ever grow hair back on her paws and rear shoulders. Even though he found in his studies that only 3% of canine skin allergies were food related, he suggested a ‘grain free’ dog food, one that I had been feeding her for the past year. I changed brands of ‘grain free food’, with very little improvement.

February 2015

He thought her allergies were more environmental allergies instead of dog food allergies (only 3%). From February until May 2015 I gave her a daily shot of RESPIT. Yet, I was told I may not see any signs of improvement for 6-12 months.

With little to no visible improvement from February – May, I stopped the RESPIT injections. With more research, more emails to friends … I decided to change her food to minimal ingredients and only one protein source. I also decided to take her off all medications.

May 2015

May 2015

May 2015

We traveled west for a week in June 2015. There were no signs that her skin was getting worse in a different environment and a change of dog food to Fromm’s very basic blend with chicken, chicken meal and grains.

With a change back to basic food, with rice and barley, chicken, chicken meal and no medications of any kind … her basset hound skin condition did not get worse. Looking through her file of photos in date sequence I could see slight improvement with hair starting to grow back on her paws, rear shoulder plus her stomach started to clear up.

August 2015

Upon a recommendation from someone who had positive results on their basset hound’s skin condition, I changed to Earthborn Holistic Dog Food, grain free. Multiple sites ranked their food 5-stars. All ingredients are USA based. It is manufactured 70 miles from me, so the cost is below the standard price for dog food of that quality.

I liked the changes of Heidi’s coat and skin at first. After a couple of months she started itching more, almost obsessively, along with a ‘greasy’ feeling to her coat, I could smell yeast from her ears (first time) and skin. I decided it didn’t matter if it was rated 5-stars, I was going to change food brands.

I tried their different protein sources … with the same results.

It was also in June 2015 that she became “skin and bones”. Was it the stress of the camping trip out west? Was it the RESPIT shots I gave her for 90 days? Was there not enough carbs in the ‘no grain’ food to help her maintain her weight? All blood work showed normal readings. The vet could not come up with a reason for her 13 pounds of weight loss in 10 months. In the 2 months prior she had lost 7 of those 13 pounds.

In the past couple of months I have mentioned without going into detail, that I had changed her dog food back to ‘grain’ dog food with only one protein source. I started a probiotic supplement with her food for her immune system in October 2015. Her skin has shown improvement with that supplement and has stabilized. My spreadsheet log for Heidi’s skin condition that I update daily, shows there is not a difference in improvement between ‘grain free’ and dog food with brown rice and barley included.

In fact I find that her skin looks better — longer — feeding her Diamond Naturals with Chicken and Chicken meal as the only protein source. I tried their Lamb blend but within a week her skin flared up enough that I stopped feeding her lamb and lamb meal immediately.

The times I tried Fromm for Large Breed, with duck, chicken and chicken meal being the protein sources, her skin would become red and inflamed within a 7-10 day period. Changing her back to Diamond Naturals, her skin improved.

It is interesting that as the day progresses, not every day, her rear hocks will become red and inflamed. I have changed blankets from wool to cotton — no difference. I have periodically have soaked her with Epsom Salts with mixed results. Sometimes it looks like it makes a difference, other time it looks like the skin is irritated by the Epsom Salts soak.

Bottom line … feeding her Diamond Naturals, with chicken and chicken meal along with the probiotic supplement, there is NO yeast smell coming from her ears or body. Her coat is shiny and soft but not oily and does not smell. Hair has grown back on her paws but not with the normal thickness. Her belly is clear and normal skin color. Her rear shoulders have improved with skin texture that is now the normal softness even though parts of it are bare.

January 2016

Remember the vet in February 2015 didn’t think hair would ever grow back on her paws and rear shoulders based on the severe damage she showed. In that January 2016 photo you can see the white hair on her rear shoulder has tried to fill back in, where in the February 2015 photos above, you can see the hard crusty elephant type skin.

I forgot to add, currently her energy level has never been better … like a puppy. She IS gaining her weight back slowly but surely, 2 pounds at a time it seems. Her tail is wagging and she does her morning sprints around the living room until Stella decides that she wants to play … then Heidi stops.

So, we will stay with the same dog food currently fed. She will still be supplemented with Probiotic Miracle. I have noticed she doesn’t really like having her picture taken with the Nikon D3200 but with an iPhone I no longer have, I am not able to get a picture of her before she moves. Consequently, less really good photos of Heidi are available.

I will continue to post photos and updates on Heidi’s skin condition.

An Afternoon Of Study

It’s been almost 10 years … 10 years? Yep, 10 years already, since I last worked behind the scenes of a website inside a control panel. It could be long tedious work for those that were not ‘geeks’ or ‘experts’ …. like me.

So today with the hounds sleeping their normal hours, the temps colder than I prefer, the dog food bought, the FJ filled with some gas and a fresh bag of coffee … it was time to refresh how to set up websites hosted by someone other than Blogger or WordPress.

I’m still not finished, but making progress and actually remembering more than I thought I would.

The hounds want to go “.com”

Today still included the periodic trips outside. It was clear blue skies and sunny … still the hounds didn’t go far nor wanted to.

After some consideration I decided I was not in the ‘teacher mode’ this morning with Stella and was willing to take the chance with her shut in the bedroom with Sadie while I made a short trip to the ‘big city’ … just downtown.

She passed in flying colors, just like she use to and was thrilled when I was walking in with a 40# bag of dog food. She thought it was all hers.

The feedback seems to be very positive about the hounds each having their own blogs. Ownership of the photos are still in negotiations. Sadie, Stella and Heidi are unwilling to budge in what they are offering for exchange.

I think tonight is going to be watching a movie from my collection unless I find a movie on tv … doubtful. I pay Directv for more ~250 channels and rarely watch more than 7-8 of them.

All is good though, with a couple of bags of M&M’s with peanuts, Keebler’s Pecan Shortbread cookies and some ice cold milk.

It’s a pretty quiet night here in the ‘tropics’ of Southern Indiana.

Some Friday Rants

The photos today will be tied to no specific subject. I’ve picked them at random and it’s possibly a change of pace. All these photos are on the blog for the first time. All comments will be approved.

WP’s comment process is that all first time commenters require my approval. From your 2nd comment on no approval is needed, it’s live when you enter it. ALL photos will enlarge if you click the photo, in any format they are in. If you “hover” your cursor over the photo you can see the caption.

It’s been one of those “Seattle Days” to me this afternoon. It reminds me of the ten years I lived in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) and those winter days would be very similar to what the hounds and I have experienced today here in the ‘tropics’ of Southern Indiana. If you are wondering, it’s like this … 44°, feels like 36° dark overcast clouds with either intermittent rain or a steady light rain, aided by 20mph winds. Felt warmer in Breckenridge Colorado in January with sub-zero temps.

So it was pretty easy to stay inside, forget taking photos of anything outside … and drink coffee. After all that is where I started my coffee habit, while living on Whidbey Island. It took 38 years before I started drinking coffee. The hounds were more than agreeable to the plan of the day. I am too but I need to get out to replenish the kitchen cabinets and refrigerator with food. Otherwise the comment today by the Spotted Dog Ranch may have some merit … Stella and I need a caterer!

So with that in mind, I decided my Friday afternoon post or early evening post for the day would be just a page of rambling, a few photos from the past and a rant or two a few rants thrown in. I mean life is good but there is always something to complain about in today’s world.

All I'll Say Is 1977

Before moving forward I will say the weather outside did nothing different to hounds lifestyle today except cut down on the number of trips they went outside. They had no interest in going outside just to stand in the rain. Smart hounds and I reassured them by repeating to them how good they were.

So Heidi did her normal routine after an early breakfast … grabbed the big living room chair. After scratching the thick Mexican blanket into the perfect pile, she has been sleeping there the rest of the day. A quick trip outside after lunch of course but right back in to the chair.






 Sadie and I played some indoor fetch. The game didn’t last more than 5 minutes before she stretched out for a day of sleep. Stella was the same way, sleep before anything else. No playing, no bone chewing, no whining for food … just indoor sleep, let it rain.

 

 

 

Sadie Goes No Further After Seeing The Rain

 

 

 

I am becoming more acclimated to WordPress. I love it. I have noticed though from what I posted the other night about my likes and dislikes. How stupid can one be to post things like that, only a few days later or the next day … have your answer on how the simplest things work? I see the spellcheck icon at the top of the screen … but I am writing this post from my “dashboard”. I love the dashboard … but there is a different “inside” page somewhere else where you can write new posts, edit them, etc .. that doesn’t have the spellcheck icon.

Inserting photos right now and see from doing from the Dashboard is different than the other pages where I wrote, inserted photos and posted them. Here I can’t there I could put multiple photos in one group.  HELP!!!!! If I am on my blog at .com, clicking the ‘edit’ button gets me to where that different page is, where I can edit photos and group them together.

I finally figured out the photos, how to link them so they explode to a large size when you or I click it. I’ve cleaned up all of the pages listed at the top of the blog, fixing all the photos so they will enlarge when clicked. Winston’s Story alone had over 100 of them to fix.

A Mini Cooper can be an SUV or a Truck bed when hauling 500 pounds is required!

Photo by Owner In Mini Cooper Forum

My 2009 Mini Cooper S at Home Depot

I want to take a time out here for my first rant of this post …………….

Ashley I don’t know who you are. After 19 months of getting MY new Verizon phone number, your friends, your late night texts, your debt, your bill collection calls, your ex boyfriends and those calls offering you ways of just getting out of all of your school loans and PAY NOTHING!!! Still haunt me. You get more phone calls in a day than I get in 3 months or longer.

I love Verizon phone service. I like my new number that is 19 months old … I DON’T LIKE ASHLEY!!!

So back to WordPress or WP as many use. I’ll use WP from now on, it’s techie sounding. Things are going very well with the change in blog platform. I am glad I moved the blog. Do NOT look or expect the long list of blogs that I had on my old blog. Sorry, I tried it with 53 different blog links but after looking at it … it made the new site look cluttered. It does take away the ability for readers to find new bloggers though.

Which would you choose?

Speaking of another rant.

Where else can you work for three years or less for multi-millions of dollars per year. Get fired due to poor performance and land a job within weeks MAKING MORE MONEY??? I want all the pressures that come with the job. Why would it matter, in this profession you will get paid your total contract whether you work or get fired … NFL Head Coach. You can also be a MLB Manager, a NBA coach and but not as fast, a College Head Coach and get the same results. Where do I sign?

The View From My Overpriced Seat At Yankee Stadium 2003

The hounds and I have had a couple of recent offers to head west, lay in the sun and get away from the cold temps, rain and snow. After seeing my friend’s rescued Mastiff rolling on his back in the hot sunshine on a yard of nothing but grass … no weeds, no yard moles … the offers are tempting. Not sure if, when or what will happen.

For new readers, and blog followers … over to the right sidebar on the Archive drop down menu will give you 4 years of posts where you can witness my decision making process or the lack there of.

Politics I will NEVER get into on this blog, nor any discussions about politics will be on this blog. I’ve never liked politics to begin with and this last decade has made me even more cynical. When my long time friend from college mentions it at times in our conversations … he tells me to read “March to Folly” by Margaret Tuchman. It was written around 45 years ago, give or take a couple. My friends says it has all the answers to today’s circus called the world. “Just relax and enjoy all the news” he keeps telling me.

As my profile states, I am a college basketball addict. There will be a weekend full of games, sliding around and in between the NFL Playoffs. I know I need more televisions but ‘remote channel changing’ during commercials of one game can keep me updated. Plus taping two games on the DVR at the same time also helps.

The hounds will sleep nearby through all the games, with dreams that I will have some food occasionally that can be handed to their begging faces. I run a pretty tight ship around here, so they don’t get many handouts from the bowl of people food.

Sorry that this post is jumping all over the place. I could but won’t go back and put it in some sort of sequence. I have to spend all my spare time on this post editing photos before publishing it. You can always just scroll through the photos. :)

A friend and I are 99.9% sure that all of the scratching that Heidi does is not allergy related. Not food related, Not environmentally related. Has it turned into an obsessive habit? Whatever it is it has been driving me nuts at times. I do wonder though, I just changed the ingredients in the Earthborn Grain Free food. This is the first time she has had Turkey as the #1 ingredient. Could be be turkey instead of a habit?

The more I type this in the “dashboard” the better I like it. All I can say is the other screen I’ve been writing my posts in looks like the same screen you use to edit old posts or photos. I’ll think of it eventually. I figured it out. That other place to do posts and photo editing is via my blog site and clicking the edit button … where I am heading now.

I have to ask though … why two different places to do similar jobs?

I need some feedback on the photo slideshow located near the top on the left sidebar. I thought when I installed it you could stop the slideshow, click a photo and have it explode to a big photo, like the ones in the blog posts themselves. Can’t do that. I also thought those light arrows and the pause symbol would only appear when you hovered your mouse over the photo … not so, they are there all the time.

My only other choice is to go from a slideshow to a grid of 100+ photos but that gets back to my issue with cluttered sidebars and something I would like to stay away from on this blog. So send me an email or comment to this post about your thoughts on the photo slideshow of a 100 or so favorite photos.

Next question?  {scanning the room for a raised hand}

Is this it? Is this all I have for today’s afternoon post? I really thought I’d have a lot more ranting going on but I have lost my train of thought. Plus I have to go through some older photos, insert them and edit them ~takes longer than Blogger photos … but they do look nicer.

Now THAT Is Some Snow - Bertha

Ah here’s one … Apple’s Photo Program that replaced iPhoto sucks!!!

I have followed the rules of the Photo program all the time. I have had it since it came out and was shoved down Mac user’s throats a few months later. As I trek through my thousands of photos that were transferred from iPhoto to Photos, a lot times as I look at old photos (like now), they might have a small yellow warning icon .. to let me know “The Referenced File is Missing”. Where did it go? Those photos transferred ok at the time they were  uploaded.

How can that be?? I’ve only transferred my photos a few different times to get rid of that message!! Luckily I kept my iPhoto program on my computer just for ‘special’ occasions like this. So, I do have that referenced file but I’m not sure I am going to transfer it into Apple Photo again. Isn’t the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result? It says “over and over” not “a few different times”. :)

That is about all for Friday – IF you made it this far, THANKS for reading!

Have a great Friday night – from the ‘tropics’ of Southern Indiana.

New Dog Food & No Damage By Stella

This morning I was talking about different dog foods. A few days ago I posted photos and wrote about Stella's separation anxiety and a lot of damage.

Well in the past 2 hours, I bought a brand new type of dog food and rearranged my bedroom so Stella would not continue to tear the wall apart that was next to the door handle.

Last March, my vet (John Royal) suggested I try 4Health Duck & Sweet Potato for Heidi's skin problems. He had a client that showed a certain breed of dog, that had similar skin issues as Heidi's. Another words ... severe. He didn't know the name of it but it was Tractor's Supply's brand of no grain food. It's made by Diamond.

I have a 'gut' feeling this is going to work for her for a couple of reasons. One, there is only ONE protein source (duck, duck meal), whereas all the other brands that have Duck as their #1 ingredient also added chicken or lamb further down the list of ingredients. I have always suspected that the chicken or lamb could be an allergy problem, especially after emailing Fromm Dog Food and hearing them say that chicken was a problem.

Why did I wait so long to try it?

I am trying it now because I am desperate for Heidi. The bison, chicken, lamb, duck with chicken meal, pork, and the duck with quail and chicken meal never really worked. All no grain food. The times I tried to put her back on Diamond Naturals Chicken and Rice ... her skin was red within 2 days.

So the Diamond No Grain I bought for her November 30 is now for Winston, Sadie and Stella since it was time to buy food for them. The 30# bag will last Heidi almost 2 months.

It took 38 minutes and 31 miles to drive to Tractor Supply in Bedford. That was less time and less miles than driving to T&T Feeds in Bloomington, plus they had a great selection of all the different dog foods, just a much lower prices.

I'm sold.

Before I left, I moved my chest of drawers from the west wall of the bedroom to the small south wall that is between the door and the closet door. That blocked the wall so Stella could not dig into the wall and continue to tear it apart like she has the past two times I've left the house.

I also opened the right closet door all the way, then locked the baby gate perpendicular inside the close to give support to the closet doors from behind pushed in and also block Stella from getting into my cloths that are on hangers.

I am not sure what changed for her but when I got home 1:40 minutes later, there was zero damage and no signs where she tried to tear down the baby gate or try to move the chest of drawers. The door was NOT scratched either.

That is a great thing.

Dog Food Indecision Continues

It's time to buy dog food for Winston, Sadie and Stella. I've analyzed this over the years to the point that I am tired of it. I know for good food and the best bang for the buck, Diamond Naturals for Large Breeds, 40# bag and $33 including tax is the best overall choice. I can drive right downtown 2 miles away and buy all I want.

All three hounds scarf the food up, they love it ... but they seem to love any kind of food put in front of them. Switching back and forth between Diamond Naturals and Fromm I have always noticed a change in their energy levels. Their stools are firmer. Their coats are soft and shinny. The bag will last 15 days instead of 18 days before I got Stella.

I am still so tempted to go buy a bag of Purina Dog Chow. Grain is the source of protein, corn etc. No meat but "meat flavor". That would give me 10 more pounds and $11 less. A huge savings. The propaganda train says that dogs HAVE TO have meat as their top ingredients. Then why is Purina Dog Chow still being manufactured after 80+ years?

Does the expensive, highly rated food prevent health issues? All 3 hounds have a clean health history.

Now Heidi is a different problem. Her skin allergies flared up beyond control in June 2014. The steroid shots stopped working after 7 days. We tried Atopica but it was said to be dangerous plus I could not afford the cost. I tired RESPIT shots but after 15 weeks there was little change. Did I stop those shots too soon? Those shots did make her lethargic thought.

She has been on the most expensive and no grain food there is over the past 15 months. Even longer but never changing the past 15 months ... except the brand/mfg. I have a spreadsheet to track her skin condition, changes in food, any supplements, etc. Her skin never really changes. She still chews non stop, itches, craps in large amounts ... more than any of the other three hounds. In the mornings her skin looks the best ... by late at night it can be flaming red with raw spots where she has chewed.

I thought of putting her back on Earthborn No Grain, but looking through my spreadsheet I saw no differences than now with her on that food. With the Diamond No Grain we just switched to on November 30 she seems to itch and chew a LOT more than before. I could buy her a new bag of something else and have the other three hounds finish her Diamond No Grain. A 15# bag will last her a month.

I was thinking last night "what if ... ", I was to change her to Purina Dog Chow and it worked!!! What if that would happen. What a joke that would be after spending close to a $1,000 in meds last year on her and nothing really worked.

It's a gamble isn't it.