Trisven13

Its looking worse.... We are now looking at whether a visit to a specialist in Melbourne is going to be of use.

He has gone downhill again and Jana sounded worried. He is not as obviously sick as he was on Christmas Day but he has a temperature of over 41. She has sent his bloods off again for a full work-up to try to work out what it is. His rash is back in his ears which would indicate that whatever he is having this reaction to is here but we're at a complete loss. Nothing has changed in the last week to any other point in his life - the only exception is a large bone that I bought him 10 days ago. His bedding has all been either chucked out or washed since Christmas Day. His crate pulled apart and cleaned from top to bottom. He has only been outside for short periods since he came home as he hasn't wanted to be out there..... I've just got no idea. The bloods will come back in 3-4 hours and we will know more then.

That is really nice to hear Rebanne, thank you - I need stories like that at the moment. He is a bit flatter again today so is going back in to the vet at 3.15pm. Jana rang us to see how he was getting on so I was able to ask her - she said that he can relapse particularly given how sick he was so she wants to bring him back and repeat the muscle/blood tests that she did yesterday.

No but we will get some tomorrow. Whilst he is much better he is still a long way from himself, poor bugger. He just looks so miserable

He is home and doing well. Our vet is wonderful - I can't believe how little she has charged us for 5 days at the vets including Christmas & Boxing Day. She is amazing. He is still quieter which is to be expected and still looks a little uncomfortable but he looks a million bucks compared to when he left. Bart is very happy to see his big friend

And it is wonderful to have a breeder who cares about those things. With Grover having been so sick over the last 4 days we've been in constant communication with his breeders. They have been so supportive - absolutely unbelievable to be honest. Having breeders who care about your dog is lovely too I'm hoping to have my first litter next year with my much loved girl Marie. I will admit that the closer it gets the fear of something going wrong and the risk of losing her gets higher. I'm not sure if I'd want to go back either if something went wrong.

I just went back and read the first post for the first time since I made it..... Its so nice to be wrong.

We don't know exactly but he is recovering like it was an insect bite/poisoning of some kind - he just had a really, really extreme reaction.

He is coming home tomorrow ;) He just has to have some blood tests in the morning for muscle something or other but he is doing well and was almost well enough to come home today. Big Stupid has been a worry over Christmas but is now okay, thankfully. I honestly didn't think he was going to make it on Christmas Day - I'm so glad I was wrong.

Wow - sad news about your boy but fabulous news that she was able to carry them without intervention Norskgra . You must be pleased.

You mean he may have eaten a spider?? Silly big bugger! Glad he's still gradually on the mend. Well he's stupid enough to do it . Steve has sprayed everywhere for spiders and killed at least one white tail so who knows.

Because of our nasty neighbour our dogs are not ever left outside when we aren't at home so he wouldn't have had the opportunity to run around - - lucky dog was inside in the AC!! We couldn't wait and rang the vet and he is slowly improving. His urine is heading back to normal but he is still going to need another couple of days on the drip. Steve is desperate to go and see him but it will just excite him too much. Everything is now pointing towards some kind of toxin from some kind of animal/insect. As snake is ruled out the most likely culprit is spider and, to be honest, I'm thinking poodlefan might be right and he has ingested the venom. Whatever has caused it, he has had a severe anaphylactic reaction. Each day is seeing improvement though so we're hopeful he will be home and safe soon.

usually two or three days after overdoing it - dark tea/ blood urine, and very sore muscles along the saddle. Annie well I took Grover's urine to the pathologist today hoping to get more of an answer & yes dark tea/blood was his urine colour but I'm waiting for an answer so i will just wait. sorry this is Ventrish Trish's oh Steve didn't realize Trish was logged in.

Hope you get a diagnosis soon. Have they considered this? Rhabdomyolysis also known as: (Exertional Myopathy, Tying-up, Monday Morning Disease) This acute exertional myopathy of racing Greyhounds and working dogs is characterized by muscle ischemia secondary to exercise or excitement. Avascularity and lactic acidosis cause muscular lysis, myoglobin release, and a nephropathy. Clinical signs include muscle pain and swelling 24-72 hr after racing. Severe cases are characterized by stiffness, hyperpnea, collapse, myoglobinemia, and acute renal failure. Urinalysis reveals myoglobinuria; serum potassium, phosphorus, and muscle enzymes are increased. Treatment includes supportive care such as IV fluids, bicarbonate, body cooling, rest, and muscle relaxants (eg, diazepam). Prognosis depends on severity. Jana didn't say the name but I'd say that this is what she was talking about when she said that you see it sometime in greyhounds a few days after a big race. He hasn't done anything out of the ordinary though to have brought it on. He actually hadn't been walked at all for a few days before hand as we had been really busy with the gift-wrapping stall and me working nights. He was probably last walked about 4-5 nights before Christmas Day. Jana said that for the next 2 days no news is good news so I'm working on the basis that I haven't heard more so there has been no change. Its very quiet in our house

That was my first question this morning once the results came back but the vet is sure it is not poisoning.

She is leaning towards an insect bite. I asked if it was possible that he had been poisoned and she said that it wasn't presenting in that way.

Blood tests are back. It is not snake bite. :D We don't know what it is and so she will continue to treat him with aggressive fluid therapy and wait. She is wondering if it may be some weird anaphylactic reaction to an insect bite of some kind as he also presented yesterday with a severe rash (I didn't notice that - I was too worried about the more obvious things). Who knows - we'll just keep hoping that he is okay.

Anything is possible poodlefan I suppose. I have NEVER seen a snake in our yard but that doesn't mean we haven't had one as we have a reserve behind us. Just waiting on the pathology results which we are told we should have in another hour or so. Steve said that the urine was really dark, almost black, and just didn't look like urine . Poor Big Stupid.

I've just heard from the vet who said that the good news is that it is not his heart. The bad news is that we don't know what it is. He was peeing red (like red wine she said) this morning and the tests for that show muscle breakdown as you would see in snake bite. We can't work out when that would have happened unless it happened in the backyard before we went for our walk. He was on lead the entire walk and we walked on the footpath so snakebite then is unlikely. Our vet has spoken with specialists in Melbourne and they are perplexed but said that snakebite is top of the list. Steve is just driving a urine sample to the local pathologists for testing and we will hope to know more then. For the moment it is being treated as snakebite and he will remain on a drip for the next 2-3 days to prevent kidney failure and further muscle breakdown. His heart-rate is now down to 80 and he able to stand.

Completely not worried about Christmas charges (though I understand what you mean). When Jana and I spoke before she confirmed my suspicions that he would have died if we'd done nothing. Whilst I'm not someone who would spend tens of thousands to save my dog, thousands are a no-brainer.

Our vet just rang to say that his heart rate is back to 120 (it was 200 when he arrived). She will x-ray him tomorrow and if his heart is normal (showing no signs of cardiomyopathy) then we will look at other things - it could possibly be kidney problems. His potassium levels were almost at zero apparently. I apologised to Jana, again, for calling her out on Christmas Day and she said that if ever there was a true emergency he had been it. She said that most people would have come home to find him dead. Thank God we're boring on Christmas Day!!!! It is so reassuring to have other dog people somewhere in the ethos who I can count on to understand exactly how we are feeling. Thank you all

Isn't hindsight a wonderful thing? You've just described Grover in many ways . I hate not knowing. The vet has said that she will only ring if things go bad. Poor Jana, she is not only our vet but she is our friend and I felt so bad disturbing her on Christmas Day. Thankfully, being German, they celebrated last night and she understood completely why we called her out when she saw him. She had to stand him and hose all the shit and piss off him - Grover despises being hosed and will NOT stand still for it, even if it is a hot day. Steve said he just stood there blankly. He is not even 2 yet the poor boy....

ETA the vet says that she thinks he has a severely enlarged heart. After talking with Fi some of the things that we thought were just him being Steve's best mate are probably signs that he has always had a heart problem. He never wants to do long zoomies - just 5 minutes and stops, we practically have to force him to run when we go out to my parent's property. He pants heavily quite regularly - we just thought it was a Grover/Deerhound thing. Steve can also (despite my stern lectures not to do it) walk him off-lead anywhere and he just stays by his side. He is also undersized for a Deerhound. This dog annoys the shit out of me, I won't lie, but I love him and Steve absolutely adores him. If he survives this today he will have x-rays to try to determine exactly what is wrong with his heart.

Steve is home and the vet thinks he has had a heart attack. She will spend the next 2 hours stabilising him - he has had some valium to lower his severely elevated heart-rate and is on a drip of saline & potasium. She will ring us if there is any change.

Steve's precious Deerhound Grover is very, very ill and I think he is going to die. I'm hoping like nothing else that I am wrong but I have a bad feeling. We all went for a walk this morning at around 10am for 40 minutes - a slow, gentle walk on an overcast day, not very hot at less than 30 degrees. He was panting excessively when we got home so I turned the air-con right up and gave him a drink. It never occurred to me it could be heat-stroke as it just wasn't that hot. 40 minutes ago we could smell dog shit and went into the loungeroom and he was lying in his crate in a pool of shit and urine refusing to get up. He is at the vet and I'm cleaning up. I've talked with Fifi and given some other stuff that we've not really thought about (having no experience with giant breeds before Grover) we think maybe he has a pre-existing problem with his heart though of course heat-stroke is always possible. I feel so bad - I insisted we go for a walk because we're doing WW and I thought it would be really nice for us all to go out for a walk as a family with the dogs on Christmas Day. It wasn't hot and it was reasonably early so it seemed like the perfect day for it.