Loving my Oldies

It is really heartbreaking. They do look stunned, poor little babies. What you and your colleagues are doing, @grizabella, is just so heartwarming. Our world would be so much poorer without you.

Yes, you are right. Mezza finds it difficult to go down and does it very slowly. She is now following Simba’s lead and lifting her leg on the deck. I can no longer leave my “downstairs” shoes on the floor

You get Nutrigel from the vet. It smells (and probably tastes - I haven’t tried it ) like molasses. I use a medicine measure like this. I put in a little bit of nutrigel and bone broth, crush up the tablets and then give it to Tamar via syringe. IMG_1001 by Cynthia Waters, on Flickr

Don’t panic yet. I have a large deck and eight fairly steep steps at the back !! The ramp built especially because the dogs were getting old is hardly used now . Tamar still uses it come upstairs, but she has to get downstairs first. And now the dogs think that the deck is outside ....... no further explanation required. Luckily I have a groomer just down the road who can supply me with mountains of newspapers.

Well, that was my first thought, but examinations don’t show anything and he can bolt down the stairs when the leads come out. Wish they could talk human . . . . .

Hi @PANDI-GIRL. Simba is still with me. So many enquires, so many unsuitable. I guess people don’t read or somehow think they are exempt from certain criteria such as “not suitable for apartments.” Sooty is doing really really well as you will have seen from my thread on her. My four: Mezza, Bunter, Tamar and Jeune go on as usual. Jeune is now 18 and is quite well considering she has a tumour (under relative control with Piroxicam) and has those little granules on her eyes which require eye drops thrice daily. My puppy, Tamar, is now 15 and I think she is deaf now and showing signs of dementia in that she gets “caught” between chairs and walls. Bunter is now about 16/17 and has become grumpy in the past year. I have to muzzle him to groom him and if I pick him up he fights me and tries to bite me. This is so sad because he really wants attention and cuddles. He is always close to me when I am at the dining table and when I am on the couch, he lies so I can drop my hand over and scratch his head. Mezza hasn’t lost another ounce, but he seems to be okay. I had his coat dramatically trimmed at the beginning of summer , but I became used to it. They keep me poor financially, but rich and happy in others............. Just don’t ask me about the toileting habits of old dogs.

She sure is, LG. Strangely though, since those first couple of times, she will not go up or down the stairs . I even bought a roast chicken to try to tempt her up, but even that failed and she LOVES her food. I’ll try again later this evening. Back yard gets north/west sun and is very very hot.

No, she will be up for adoption eventually. Hard as it will be . . . . .

Finally !!! Photos have transferred from phone to computer so I can Flickr them: fullsizeoutput_a7e by Cynthia Waters, on Flickr fullsizeoutput_a7d by Cynthia Waters, on Flickr IMG_0994 by Cynthia Waters, on Flickr IMG_0993 by Cynthia Waters, on Flickr fullsizeoutput_a7f by Cynthia Waters, on Flickr

Thanks @Boronia. Sooty does quite well really, wandering all around the place. She does bump into things, but never with great force. At the moment she is enjoying licking my legs.

@MARY H B, I have nearly gone mad over the years with some of my dogs eating barely enough to keep them alive. And I’ve posted exactly the same as you have and spent $$$$$ on trying all the foods and treats in which to bury pills. One of my dogs was impossible to medicate in the normal ways because she was like your Angel - food was something you had to endure to stay alive and there was no way you could force a pill down her throat (I hate that anyway) or put it in food because she wouldn’t eat. I have found success in two ways: 1. For the dogs who are difficult to feed, I crush up tablets in a tiny bit of Nutrigel and home made bone broth and syringe this mixture. 2. With the other dogs who will eat, I also found the skin of roast chicken was 100% fool proof provided the pills were wrapped up tightly so the dogs couldn’t work it around and spit the pill out. All other things, cheese, omelettes, liverwurst, cabanossi, etc didn’t work at all. I’ve stopped using the roast chicken skin as it is very fatty and both the dogs whom I medicated like that are a bit overweight. I now buy human grade chicken mince and bury the pills in that and that, thank goodness, works as well as the roast chicken skin without the calories. In desperation, I also have medication (Anaplex) for the dog who wouldn’t eat and was skin and bone. As she is a fluffy Maltese x Shih Tzu this wasn’t noticeable until you picked her up. My heart used to sink as she was so skinny and a feather weight. Since being on the medication, she is now a good weight (maybe some would say plump ) and when meal times comes, she is bouncing around as if on springs. Anaplex is quite expensive, but worth its weight in gold as it does the trick. I have recently (after seeking advice from my vet,, of course) started giving another of my dogs Anaplex and although it took about a week to kick in, she is now eating so much better. This latter dog is 18 so she is watched extremely carefully and she does have a tumour, but she was going up to two days without eating and losing weight at a frightening rate. She is now eating at nearly every meal; not a lot but enough to stop the weight loss. Hopefully this is of help.

I read the whole thread and did not notice the date until @ryansmithnzmade his post. We need a thread “I wonder what happened to . . . . "

Adorable

@Boronia, I can’t open any of your vids - even those on the joke threads . Any ideas??

Oh dear. We miss them so much. Your babies are just so beautiful, @grumpette.

Sooty weighed in at 3.53kg yesterday. So thrilled. I would guess another 800gm would do it and vet seems to agree as he thinks her ideal weight would be “low fours”. I’ve had to loosen her little collar, so the weight is now starting to be evenly distributed and I no longer get a shock when I feel her hip bones. We even went for a tiny little walk the other day when it was a bit cooler. She seemed to enjoy it. I certainly did: to see her sniffing and walking steadily with confidence was just wonderful. I have some lovely photos for you @persephone but they won’t transfer from my phone to the computer . It should happen automatically, but iCloud seems to be refusing to help !!

Why can’t they give her a bath and a proper clip??

Hannah is practising puckering up to shower her baby with kisses

Me too

I think so.

Ebony and Ivory - la la la From this: fullsizeoutput_a64 by Cynthia Waters, on Flickr To this: fullsizeoutput_a77 by Cynthia Waters, on Flickr

Nah, @persephone, although it is very sweet of you to say so. I am but a bit player in the scheme of things. Sure there have been a few little doggies over the years, but think of those who have been rescuing and rehoming for years, dealing with the pounds, the ghastly puppy mills, owners who expect someone to take their dog at a moment’s notice because they want to go on holidays, etc etc. I’m glad you feel that way about Sooty; she is remarkable and even the rescuer, who has been around the rescue traps for a long time so has seen more than her share of “cases”, wondered whether we had got her in time. I know for the first few days, I was almost too concerned and worried to go to bed !! As for new comments - I am sure they will all be positive from now on. The vet was pretty impressed with her on Friday. I just hope the news will be as good about me, because, come meal times, Sooty is a real danger to me She keeps her nose on my legs to make sure I don’t get away before the bowl goes down.

She sure is. She has a way to go still as her coat is dull and fine, and her skin a bit flakey, but early days still - only four weeks on Sunday night. I was looking at the first photos I took of her and they still made me want to cry.

Sooty weighed in at 3.3kg today. Little vid from a couple of days ago: IMG_0581 by Cynthia Waters, on Flickr

Do you have a garden? Could he have been playing and jumping around? Some of the grass plants in my garden have very sharp leaves and I worry when my foster, Simba, goes ploughing through them chasing a ball or something that has caught his eye.