Zane's Wobbly Journey

Spring brings a bit of a rebirth for Zane

2011-04-24T08:08:00.000-04:00

Zane has adjusted well as a tripawd. He spends his days on the back deck enjoying the sunshine while being shaded by giant sunbrellas. He rules over his kingdom with a watchful eye.

Barking has become a favorite activity so we have been piece meal putting up privacy fencing around our backyard. It's been a slow process but we are almost there. Zane's view of our neighbor directly behind us has been fully blocked and now another section where kids play in a pool all day has been blocked. So now we don't have the danes charging the fence so much.

Cancer sits on the back burner in our house as much as we can keep it there. We have opted out of doing the every 3 month xrays to see if mets are showing in the chest. We can't afford it for 1, and we can't do anything with the information for 2. So we shall remain blissfully ignorant and continue to treat Zane as normally as possible.

Zane had a small non healing wound on his stump where the skin from his incision has healed by turning in on itself and creating a belly button. It's his stump button. It has been a constant problem area. He's had a track record of being reactive to internal sutures and clearly this has been a problem. He has developed big abscesses in the area where his sutures remain under the skin. His body doesn't break them down as it should and they remain there causing irritation and inflammation.

As if we haven't had enough to deal with, this stump button has leaked fluids and required a lot of aftercare. We found a wonderful emergency care vet a couple months ago that took great pains to help get this problem under control. She works an over night urgent care program at a regular vet hospital. It has worked out really well to bring Zane in late in the evening during urgent care hours when she is not busy so she can work on flushing out the area. We've all done our share of ewwwing at the yucky stuff that pours out of this wound. Zane takes it all in stride and just enjoys the attention :)

We feel like we might have finally made a break through with the wound. No yucky drainage stuff for about 2 weeks now! That frees us up to deal more with Daizy Lu who just had her first acl surgery 2 weeks ago. Oye vey! That makes for our 9th acl surgery. I think Daizy will need a post of her own.

Happy Easter all!

Time to let go of the spare

2011-03-30T18:03:00.001-04:00

Dogs are born with 3 legs and a spare... Well, it's now or nothing we decided. With the infection in Zane's leg, the odds of getting it cleared up were pretty slim. Often amputation is the route to go with severe bone infections. We didn't know exactly what was going on and our doctors were not clear either. So we had two situations that both called for an amputation.

We were money poor at that point. Kayla Lily and Zeke both had acl surgeries in August and September respectively. Then in November we did the hardware removal on Zane. First estimate that came in for the amputation was over $2400 at a specialty 24 hr care hospital. Holy cow! We were panicked.

I started shopping around- awful to think that you have to "shop" for reasonably priced surgery but we did. We were unwilling to use a general vet that could not offer overnight care. We knew that due to Zane's poor healing track record, he would need 24 hr supervision and damn good pain drugs. We found a 24 hr vet hospital that offered us the surgery for $1700 with 24 hr care and constant pain management via IV. We scheduled the surgery.

Upon meeting the surgeon, we soon realized he was not too optimistic about the outcome of an amputation for Zane and our ability to care for him afterward. His demeanor was a bit unsettling and we left with an uneasy feeling that morning. Greg headed out of town once again for work and I spent the day alternatively fretting and praying that God would lead the way, whatever He chose. That evening, the surgeon called. He had problems during surgery and Zane lost blood pressure. They were able to get things back under control and he was awake now and in recovery.

I visited the following morning and Zane was awake and in decent spirits all things considered. Geez, that was the hardest post surgery visit I have ever made. The shock of seeing such a giant dog without one of its limbs is something you just can not prepare for. Exactly a year earlier, I had visited my friend Luke the day after his amp. He is a Great Dane who is just a few months younger than Zane. Still, it wasn't enough to ready me for Zane. I sucked it up, held it together, and moved forward. Zane had no choice in the matter so I rallied ahead for him.

I had him stay one more night at the hospital for monitoring and then came back the following morning to bring him home. He greeted me outside and made it into the van easily enough with 2 doctors assisting. I wondered the whole way home how I would get him out on my own and up the 3 steps to the house. I called on my super hero powers. Between using the ruffwear harness and a sling, we inched our way toward the house. Once in, he flopped down on the nearest bed and I breathed a sigh of relief.

His recovery was complicated by a lot of drainage, bruising and after effects from the anesthesia. He had considerable trouble walking for the first week to 10 days. He just seemed to be so uncoordinated all of a sudden. We wondered if we had made a bad decision. True to his nature, though, Zane figured it all out and started hopping around better day by day. By Christmas, he was showing off in the backyard and attempting play with his pack mates.

Another bump in the road

2011-02-24T08:43:00.000-05:00

Another winter is drawing to a close and Zane is quite happy to see moderate temperatures return. He spends as much of his day laying out on the deck as he is comfortable. We just built a new deck out in the woods for the dogs to lay out on once the temperatures get too warm so we hope he will switch over soon.
Last summer progressed nicely as Zane enjoyed his first non surgery and non recovery summer in a long time. He still battled a slight limp in his right leg and had sutures that were slowly working their way out from under his skin. We kept them clipped back as they poked out. His body has never been fond of suture material and doesn't break it down as it should.
By fall, I was fed up with it all and asked for the remaining hardware to be removed from his knee. I felt that it was contributing to the chronic irritation in the area. A couple other vets confirmed that it could be an inflammatory response so we scheduled surgery for my birthday, November 9th.
My surgeon checked the joint at my request and when he noticed the area around the joint looking a little odd, he took a biopsy. A week later, I had the shocking results. Cancer
A likely result of chronic inflammation, cancer set up camp in Zane's knee. He has histiocytic sarcoma. It's a more unusual cancer and not nearly as common as osteosarcoma is in Danes. The general protocol is full leg amputation. No big deal for your average dog. After all, they say dogs are born with 3 legs and a spare. We didn't feel that Zane had a leg to spare. As a wobbler, he still has compromised balance. He has ataxia in his front right shoulder that causes his foot to sometimes knuckle under when walking and when bending down to sniff the ground. So amputation was out.
We met with an oncologist and did all the standard staging tests. We expected the worst since the problem had been going on for quite some time. Surely the cancer must have spread. Much to our astonishment, he was free of cancer in his major organs.
When Zane came home from 2 days of hospital testing, he suddenly went lame in his right leg. It had only been about 2 weeks since his surgery but he had been getting around quite well. The leg swelled and swelled. He stopped walking entirely. Greg was out of town and for 4 of the longest days of my life, I struggled to get 135 lb Zane to eat and to move enough to potty outside. He resorted to holding his urine for 12 hour stretches. He was developing a massive infection in his leg.
After 2 weeks of not walking, Zane surprised me in the kitchen one night by hobbling out on 3 legs. The next morning I called the oncologist and said that I wanted to do the amputation.

Zane's recovery from June 09 - April 10

2010-04-28T09:54:00.000-04:00

Zane's spring update

2010-04-28T09:39:00.001-04:00

Zane is doing well. He is loving the cool mornings of Spring. He will spend as much time as I allow him to hanging out in the backyard. He loves to wander through his "jungle" where he can nibble on the leaves of his favorite trees- the white ash tree. He loves to lay on the deck on one of his soft deck beds and enjoy the shade under one of his big sunbrellas. He won't have much longer before the heat of the day takes over and forces him back inside with the air conditioning. He gets very weak in the heat and certainly prefers these more moderate temperatures.

The winter passed uneventfully for Zane. That's a first for him so a welcome reprieve for all of us! After the events of last year, we all needed a break. We are so thankful that Zane continues to do well.

Following the knee surgeries of last year, Zane developed more neuro issues. It was said that the additional strain on his neck came as a result of coping with the gait issues that were a result of the knee issues. Zane had an emergency myelogram to determine his sudden problems last June. He ended up needing another decompression surgery. That surgery took so long that Zane's surgeon had to do it in 2 stages. Zane stayed in the ICU for a week while he recovered from the surgeries. We visited daily and brought him his favorite foods to keep him eating. As soon as they could get him off his pain drip meds, we brought him home.

He could not sit up sternally or hold up any of his body weight. He was essentially non functional from the neck down. We knew his chances of improving would only come if he were at home where he was most comfortable.

Days went by with no improvements. After 2 weeks, we constructed a stretcher and brought him into the city for acupuncture. That evening, he was able to start lifting the front of his body upright so that he could sit up sternally with support. It was amazing. We continued with flipping him every 4 hours on his aerobed and lots of PROM. I used a couple of types of horse brushes to massage him throughout the day. He was fork-fed chicken and beef throughout the day and drank his water from a syringe. He continued to make slow progress. We followed up with more acupuncture sessions and saw improvements following each one. At 3 1/2 weeks post surgery, Zane was able to stand upright with assistance. He was slowly walking again by 4 weeks post op.

Zane was the perfect patient throughout the whole ordeal. Never one to complain, he just rolled with things. He was perfectly happy to allow us to slide him onto a blanket so that we could carry him to the bedroom at night to sleep close to us. He would even help us by edging his body on to the blanket as he grew stronger. He would give us fair warning by howling when he needed to potty so that we could get the pee pads ready for him. We never doubted that we were doing right by him. Enjoy the pictures.

Zane and the giant rope toy

2010-04-28T09:18:00.001-04:00

Pretty girl Zala

2009-11-19T11:29:00.000-05:00

Zala Bu

2009-11-19T11:25:00.000-05:00

Zala Bu is missing one of her big lower molars on each side of her mouth. They never came in. So sometimes her tongue falls out when she is sleeping. Charming example of poor genetics, huh? She has Addison's Disease and came to live with us as a foster in August of 2008. She never left and is a permanent member of the Z pack now.

Zane's summer

2009-09-13T07:40:00.004-04:00

Well, where did we leave off? Oh, yes, Zane was having some "issues" with his knee....
From the beginning of Zane's issues with his left knee, I was concerned that he could be having some additional neuro issues. We always kept tabs on that but let the blame fall on his knee for everything. In the beginning of June, I was again seeing more neuro issues. He was often knuckling on his front right leg and would actually support himself on his wrist when bending down to sniff something on the ground. Occasionally he would trip or stumble when walking. Again, the vets said it was probably the unsteadiness of his back leg and to have patience. In the middle of June, I made an emergency trip in to our rehab vet office for another set of knee xrays. We could see swelling around his knee. A quick email of the xrays to our knee vet and we had a diagnosis..patella tendonitis. More pain meds and rest for Zane. Oh, and a new offer for a treatment to help Zane's slowly healing knee.
One of the vets at the office where we do rehab has started doing stem cell treatments. They harvest stem cells from the dog to put back into an area of poor healing. It has a really great success rate and they offer to do this for Zane at a much reduced rate of $1700. Greg and I talk it over for a couple of days and decide that this is a really good opportunity for Zane. All the doctors on Team Zane think this is a really good option for him. We schedule the surgery for 2 weeks out and allow his knee some more quiet time.
The neuro issues continue to increase and I keep a checklist to discuss with the vet. In my head, I can't sort out which problems are due to the knee and which are due to neck issues. I go over the list with Zane's knee surgeon and he recommends that I go over the same list with the neurologist and get another check up. If all is clear in the neck, then come out with Zane to see him for a check up. Ahh...if only I could get these 2 wonderful surgeons in the same city!
Neurologist says to bring him in the following day, no appointment necessary. Zane is now barely walking and trips outside to potty take 15 minutes at a time because he has to rest before walking back in. Meanwhile I have my mom staying with us for the week. So on a Thursday, I drop her off at the airport and then make a beeline to the vets with Zane.

Zane and Zala waiting for the pool to fill up

2009-08-04T15:08:00.003-04:00

Rehabbing the knee and enjoying those bubbly water jets

2009-08-04T15:06:00.003-04:00

Zane's twin peaks

2009-08-04T15:00:00.005-04:00

Spring 2009 brought more surgeries for Zane....

2009-05-21T13:37:00.005-04:00

You would think by now we would have had enough with surgeries for Zane. Unfortunately, his body said otherwise. In February, he suffered a partial tear of the ccl in his right knee. Right on schedule, since about half of the dogs with ccl ruptures will tear the other ccl within a year. Rather than wait for the tear to get worse and start causing Zane more pain, we opted to go ahead with surgery quickly and try to head off any additional problems. Seemed like a good enough plan.

Zane had another TTA surgery on February 12th. The surgery went well and he was able to come home again on the same day. He took all his pills on schedule and easily resigned himself to being leashed for potty time out back. He had a much easier time getting around than last year and didn't seem to have as much pain. He was recovering well aside from a lot of seepage from his incision. We kept that in check as best we could by applying pressure bandages.

Ten days later, disaster struck. I noticed Zane toe touching more than usual with his right leg and not putting much weight on it. By the following morning, he was having a really hard time walking. I took him out back to potty and he stopped walking. I couldn't get him to move. After about 5 minutes I bribed him with a ride in the van. He limped off to the van and we headed to the ER for xrays.

More bad news for Zane as something went wrong and he had a tibial crest failure. On the xrays, it looked like a broken leg to me. His surgeon took the weekend to figure out how he would like to repair the broken Zane and order a bone block for grafting. By Tuesday the cadaver bone was in and I drove Zane back out for another surgery. This time he spent the night. He came home wearing a huge "Carolina Blue" cast to further protect his leg.

Ten days later, stitches were removed and we tried going cast- less. A few days later and I was in with a local surgeon to wrap Zane in another cast for stability. This one we did in bright green since St Patrick's Day was quickly approaching. That lasted about a week. In general, he continued to do well even though he was much more cautious about using the leg.

Another week or so later and Zane was suddenly coming up lame... again. Through the course of a day, his knee cap developed some twin peaks. Off to the ER for more xrays. The pins that were used in his revision surgery were backing out. So the following day we scheduled surgery with a doctor we didn't know to go in and get the pins out before they broke through the skin. Another new incision and more healing to follow. Oh, and another $1000 bill.

Certainly not the way we envisioned this knee repair to go. We thought this one would be so much easier since we were just dealing with a partial tear.

7 Months later and what has Zane been up to?

2009-01-02T07:31:00.005-05:00

I know, I know...way over due on the updates!

Zane has been doing very well since surgery back in May. His rehab was coming along nicely but something was still off with Zane. I was sure of it but just couldn't put a finger on it. Everybody suggested that I be patient, after all the poor dog had just been through 3 major surgeries in only eight weeks time. It was his personality that seemed down. He wasn't eating well and his weight was starting to drop. He was occasionally vomiting in the morning after getting up. My intuition is good so when I had finally convinced myself that he wasn't right, I took him into my regular vet and asked to run a full blood panel and fecal. I asked for everything to be sent to an outside lab. I was a little suspicious of whipworms since I had a foster dog last summer that had them. They can hatch in your soil and stick around for a long time to reinfect your unsuspecting dog. We were pretty surprised with the results.

Zane had a major coccidia infection brewing in his gut. Generally, this is a puppy parasite problem and healthy adult dogs can keep this parasite in check. However, it can present a problem for dogs with weakened immune systems (thanks to the prednisone) and dogs that are under stress ( 3 surgeries) and are in otherwise poor health. Zane stayed on antibiotics for another 3 weeks and showed a gradual improvement after about 10 days. He started to eat again and his energy level perked back up. We did a follow up fecal check a month later and all came up clear.

I learned 2 things from this experience. First, do fecals more often than at the yearly check up. We now run them 3 times a year. Second, only do fecal checks by centrifuge. Fecal floats don't show everything and if I had relied on that method, as I had in the past, the coccidia would not have been detected.

The summer resumed and Zane enjoyed hanging out on the back deck under his giant umbrella with the misting fan blowing cool water his direction. My pack loves to play in the doggie pools so every day we would refill with fresh water. I know, a bit of a no- no in a drought but the other neighbors do it with their kids so why not with mine?

I started back up with another dane rescue after taking a bit of a hiatus from the rescue I had been with previously. This group promised more organization and an active volunteer group. I had been sending them Danes in need of rescue for months now so I finally jumped on board mid summer. I agreed to help out at meet and greets (adoption events) and was up to doing short term foster for special needs Danes.

I'll save that whole story for another post but know for now that the pack has grown!

Zane has had several follow up visits with his neurologist and all is healing well. He runs and plays with the other dogs. When he has had enough I tell him so or he just heads off on his own to my bed for a little rest time. He looks great and is enjoying life. We are enjoying it right along with him!

Happy Birthday Zane

2008-06-26T14:39:00.005-04:00

It's birthday number 2 for Zane. It's hard to believe all that he has been through in a years time but he is a healthier and stronger dog for all of it.
Zane has now been to 2 underwater treadmill sessions. He has taken to it pretty well and has a nice smooth gait when he is being buoyed by the water. The tank gets filled almost to hip height. Since Zane holds his head lower than normal, they have to be careful to not get the water too high or his nose might dip down into it. He walked for 2 separate 2 minute sessions on Tuesday. We are working up to 3, 3 minute walks per session. It doesn't seem like much but walking in water is hard work. Five minutes in the water is equal to 40 minutes on land.
At home, Zane is taking one 8-10 minute walk daily. We will slowly increase the time walking as he is able to tolerate it. I allow him to wander the backyard freely as long as someone is there to stop him in case he tries to play. He has demonstrated that he can run quite smoothly now too. We keep that to a minimum though! He is building up his stamina by trotting through our small wooded area. When he is tired he comes up to the deck to lay on one of his mats under the umbrella.
Zane's progress is great. At his 4 week post surgery check up, his Dr stated that he is doing great neurologically. When you flip his paws over to check for ataxia, he flips them right back where they belong. Way to go Zane!

Nearly 2 weeks since the latest surgery

2008-06-02T18:56:00.002-04:00

Zane is doing very well. He has resumed eating and drinking but still hates taking all his medicines. He so hates his painkiller, Tramadol, that we have stopped giving it to him since he seems fine without it. The antibiotics are still a challenge to get into him. For a while, I was able to mix them in a little soft butter and then slap them on his tongue with a tiny spatula, clamp shut his mouth and blow a little air in his nose. They would slide right down his throat. One day however, he got his mouth back open just long enough to spit them back out. To show me just how much he hated the whole procedure, he spit them directly at me and nailed my whole side. I had Dane slobber mixed with (now)liquid butter and pills sliding all down my arm and leg. It was pretty nasty getting hacked on by my dog. He seemed rather amused as he ran off to the other room. I swear he acts like we are trying to poison him.
Zane's gait has been improving as well. It seems that his bionic knee is healing nicely and he doesn't limp on it anymore. He has returned to his favorite sleeping grounds, formerly known as my bed, and gets up and down on his own. We still keep him confined to "his" room (formerly known as the spare room) when we have to be out of the house. He even knows what it means when I tell him to go to his room and heads right in. He has a special Winnie the Pooh comforter that we got after the last surgery and he just loves to bury his face in it. He is also back to drinking out of the bathroom sink faucet. He just stands in front of it until someone gets up and turns it on. Sometimes he even does this in the middle of the night. Today he practiced climbing in and out of the tub (with my assistance and watchful eye) while Zoe and Zeke drank from opposite sides of the tub faucet. I have no idea where Daizy Lu was as she certainly missed out on all the tub fun. Had she known, she would have been right in the tub with Zane! I can't wait to get out the kiddie pool after Zane gets his staples removed. I bet Daizy will just love it!
Speaking of staple removal...tomorrow is Zane's 2 week checkup. He should be getting his staples removed as we find out what the next steps are in his recovery process. Hopefully, we will get to start doing rehab soon....keep those fingers crossed.

Day 2 & 3 post decompression surgery

2008-05-23T21:35:00.002-04:00

On Wednesday, Zane had a relatively long night. We were up and down with him all night. He slept off and on most of the following day (Thursday). He made several trips outside for potty breaks but was unable to urinate. He didn't eat or drink all day. By late afternoon, I called our regular vet to see if I should bring him in for fluids. He suggested that might help with the bladder issue. I guess there is concern over bladder infections developing after spinal surgeries. Zane went to the vets and got some sub q fluids and an antibiotic shot. He was able to urinate when he got home...woohoo! The things we get excited over...
He even ate a can of food but still wouldn't drink anything. It was another long night for Zane and Greg and me as we all got up and down a few times. Now the whole pack is into this routine and everyone gets up. They all go out for middle of the night potty breaks and then rush back in to see if they can get any of the food that Zane won't eat.
Friday morning brought a much perkier Zane. He ate a can of food later in the morning and was much steadier on his feet as he made the rounds outside. He laid out on the deck for a while with his sun umbrella over him. Once he came in he was very sleepy. He slept for a long time and then had trouble walking again. I noticed that he was very warm, like burning hot. I checked his temperature and it was 104.4. I covered him with cold packs and a cool, wet towel. I made arrangements to bring him into the neurologists even though he was off for the day. I checked him 45 minutes later and he was up to 105, even with the cold packs surrounding him.
He was barely walking but managed to get in and out of the van for the trip to the vet. His vet, who was off for the day, just happened to stop in at the hospital and was able to check out Zane. He said that Zane was doing well neurologically. He was suspicious of a potential bladder problem and so advised putting him on Cipro and Cephalexin. That brings us up to 26 pills a day now, not including supplements. The vet techs showed me how to do the sub q fluids at home and off we went. Once Zane made it home, he went to sleep for a while. He did manage to potty outside before bed but he still wouldn't eat or drink.

Slightly overdue update...

2008-05-22T07:08:00.005-04:00

So two weeks have passed and no word from me.... lest Zane be alone in his pain, I too have developed my own set of cervical issues. I guess it's the price to pay for getting Zane through all of this. I have a degeneration problem at C4-C7. Sound familiar? Yup, that's Zane's problem area too. So for now, while I get frequent chiropractic adjustments, I avoid the computer since that seems to aggravate my neck pain the most. Before I sign off to wallow in my own self pity, I will post an update on the Zaniac.
Backing up to Zane's knee issues....I took Zane out to Veterinary Specialty Hospital in Cary to see Dr. Clark and do a fresh biopsy of the knee. Dr. Clark showed me on the xrays where Zane's fall on April 24th caused the breakage of two little tines in his implant. His said that this was just a slight set back in healing. Damage to the implants could cause a feeling similar to a deep bruise. Zane took a pretty hard fall to break a titanium implant. He assured me that the implants were still secure and that the bone was healing all around them. Phew! He didn't even need to knock Zane out to do the biopsy. Zane is so good about procedures. He just stood there like no big deal. So pending the results of a bacteria free culture, Zane will be set to go for his final neck surgery.
During the time waiting for biopsy results from May 6th until May 15th when we saw Dr. Clark to draw a second biopsy, I saw days when Zane was more wobbly than others. The day we went out to Cary was one of the worst days for Zane. Without a doubt, we all knew that the second surgery would be necessary to relieve the pressure on Zane's spinal cord. I called Dr. Bergman and we scheduled the decompression/ laminectomy for Tuesday May 20th.
Over the weekend, Zane's knee continued to improve. Since he is on bed rest from the fusion surgery, we can't let him take any walks. I think this frustrates him a bit because he seems to feel pretty good most of the time. He gets up and down without wincing and seems relatively comfortable.
Surgery part 2 day arrived and I dropped Zane off at Carolina Veterinary Specialists at noon to prepare for his surgery. Dr. Bergman called me after surgery to let me know that Zane was in recovery. He said this had been a difficult procedure in that the area of surgery is in the deepest part of the neck. He prepared me for the possibility that this would be a set back for Zane. We would just have to wait until morning to see how much this would affect him and to be prepared as he may not be walking.
It was a long edgy night wondering how Zane would pull through this, his 3rd surgery in 2 months. One of Dr. Bergman's techs gave me a call first thing in the morning with a status update. Zane is up and walking! He's doing much better than expected. She said that they would like to keep Zane for one more night so that they could keep him on heavy duty pain meds. I set up an appointment to visit Zane at lunchtime. Two hours later they called back to let me know that Zane kept "breaking out" of his x pen in ICU to hang with the techs. Dr. Bergman decided to release Zane to go home since he was so mobile.
I picked up a very groggy Zane in the afternoon. He couldn't stay standing for long. I did manage to get him home and in the house on my own. He slept intermittently for most of the evening with one trip outside to go potty. He had a lot of hind end weakness but could get to a standing position with help. He clearly has neck pain. He is wearing a pain patch to give him a nice continuous infusion of pain meds as well as taking Tramadol, Gapapentin, and Metacam. So now we just wait and see....again.

Wobbler's Surgery Part 2

2008-05-06T10:14:00.003-04:00

Today Zane is scheduled for the second part of his cervical surgery. This procedure is called a lateral laminectomy and involves shaving down a portion of a vertebrae or two to allow easier movement of the spinal cord. The surgeon will go in through the top of the neck for this procedure. The last surgery was done on the underside of the neck.

We are back from the vet hospital. Yes, we, meaning Zane and I. I asked the doctor to take an xray of Zane's knee that he recently had surgery on. He has been limping on it more now than he was a couple of weeks ago. They take xrays of his neck after the surgery anyways so I didn't think it would be a big deal to do the knee then as well. Well, apparently Dr. Bergman was concerned about the knee as well and he chose to xray it before doing the spinal surgery. It turns out that Zane still has a lot of fluid in his knee surrounding one of the implants. They think this is a bone infection. So they biopsied the fluid and will culture it to see which antibiotics will be most effective in fighting the infection. Zane was on 3 different antibiotics for 3-4 weeks after his incision had opened up.
This is not good news. I will wait to hear from Dr. Clark (ortho surgeon) regarding the next steps in clearing up this lastest development. Dr. Bergman (neuro) noted that the implants sometimes need to be removed to allow the infection to clear. Yikes! Meanwhile, he is back on an antibiotic while we wait for the culture to grow.
The spinal surgery has now been postponed. Dr. Bergman did not want to risk having that infection move over to the new surgical site. He was very pleased at how well Zane is doing right now. He thinks that we possibly may not need to do the second surgery. We will wait and see how he does while the knee infection gets treated. So for now, everything is up in the air.

Gearing up for Round 2

2008-05-05T16:55:00.004-04:00

Zane is having a great day. He woke up about 1:30am for some pain pills and breakfast. He then slept the rest of the way through the night. He has had several potty trips outside and is walking better all the time. On his second trip outside he decided to lay out in the grass for a while. I pulled up a chair and enjoyed some quite time in the sun surrounded by the pack.
Zane has even figured out how to roll onto his back again. This is his favorite sleeping pose. I can tell that he is really comfortable when he is on his back and his "happy" tail is wagging away.
I am hoping that I can get some food in him this evening. He won't be able to eat tomorrow morning since he has surgery in the afternoon. He hasn't eaten all day but I think it is in protest. He hates the taste of the Tramadol pills and I think he thinks I am sneaking them into everything he eats now! If he would just swallow his food whole like Zoe and Daizee he wouldn't have to worry about biting into those bitter pills! Not Zane, though, he has to chew everything thoroughly...so he can spit out those nasty little pills.
Tomorrow's surgery is called a lateral laminectomy/decompression. This will involve shaving out the inside of C6-7. It will open up the spinal canal in that area to allow more room for the spinal cord to move without impingement. This surgery could take a little more immediate recovery time for Zane. He may not walk right away if there is a lot of swelling following the surgery. He will still have 2 months of total bed rest ahead of him.

Day 4

2008-05-04T22:19:00.000-04:00

Zane is quite a bit perkier today. He is occasionally eating canned food and Nature's Balance dog food rolls. He really likes those dog food rolls. They are like a dry summer sausage. They seem to be the easiest for him to chew. He still seems pretty uncoordinated with chewing and getting food out of a bowl. Zane likes for me to spoon feed him his canned food so I willingly oblige him!

My biggest concern for him right now is his back left knee. He is favoring it and it creates problems for him when he is turning or getting up from a down position. Just a few days before his surgery, he fell down while barking. When he got back up, he held up his leg. I was concerned and called his surgeon but he was off for the day. The tech recommended upping his tramadol and felt that he was probably just sore from the fall. She reassured me that there is not much he could do to really mess things up from just falling over on his leg.

Zane spent a good part of the afternoon laying in the shade on the back deck. Our back deck has all day sun so we bought a huge umbrella to shade part of the deck for the dogs. It's 11 feet across and sways with the breeze. The dogs seem to love it. We throw a few beds out there and close off the gates so everyone can take an afternoon nap.

Zane's highlight of the evening was drinking fresh water from the bathroom faucet. I was surprised that he could comfortably move his neck that way but it clearly did not bother him. He was so happy with his fresh water that he repeatedly went to the faucet during the night for us to turn it on!

Day 3

2008-05-03T20:46:00.001-04:00

This morning Zane had woken up in quite a bit of pain. Since we had to run Zeke into the vets to get his infected anal gland rechecked and drained, we decided to bring Zane in for a help me feel better shot. It wasn't the best day for this, a Saturday, and our vet was swamped. We had to wait an hour for the shot and Zane was totaled drained by the time we got him home. He was so drained that he couldn't even sit up to get out of the van. We got him out of the van and uprighted him, but his feet and brain were not working together. He just couldn't walk. We had to carry all 140 pounds of him into the house. We laid him down on his bed and he didn't even move. We hoped that we hadn't "broken" him carrying him into the house. I spent the next few hours napping on and off while checking to make sure Zane was still breathing. Any time he moved, he would groan and I would immediately wake up.

Later in the afternoon, I offered him some food and he ate a little. I was out in the kitchen cleaning up his dishes when he suddenly came charging out of the bedroom. He had to go potty in a big way. We didn't make it outside in time before he released his first #2 since Wednesday. We did make it out in time for #1 thankfully.

His energy seems to come in spurts like that. He went straight to his bed as soon as he got back in the house. The rest of the evening passed quietly. Thank goodness we didn't break him!

Day 2 Post Fusion Surgery

2008-05-02T20:28:00.002-04:00

Zane is hanging in there today. He is tired and sluggish and not overly interested in food. He didn't drink all day until the evening. He has made it outside to pee a few times. He heads outside energetically but runs out of steam very quickly. Twice I ended up sitting in the grass with him while he regained the strength to make it back into the house.
The technical name for Zane's surgery (part 1) is cervical distraction/fusion of C4-5, C5-6,and C6-7. He had a diskectomy done at these sites while titanium screws, bone cement and bone grafts from his shoulder were used to put things back together. We paid over $400 for those wonderful titanium screws (all 24 of them). The bone cement was $268. He has a ventral midline incision (underside) of his neck with about 25 staples. He has 4 staples closing the site where the bone grafts were removed from his right shoulder.
It is a little challenging to put a harness on Zane since the front straps rest on his incision site but he doesn't seem to mind. Collars are forever off limits with Zane. They could reinjure his neck. Last week Zane's good Ruffwear harness broke so I ordered him two replacements and they just finally arrived today.

Zane is walking!

2008-05-01T08:47:00.003-04:00

Good news this morning! Zane is already up and walking. The doctor says that he is doing as well as can be expected. Zane will stay at the hospital until early afternoon so that they can give him a few more doses of the really good pain meds. I am so relieved to know that he is able to get up on his own. I have been cautioned however, that next week's decompression surgery is the one that could set him back for a bit. So we will do a little happy dance for todays success and live in the moment!

Zane is home now and resting. He clearly has pain and he holds his head very low and stiff. He has made it outside to potty twice and ate a can of food for dinner. So now he has finally laid down to rest.

The Big Day, part 1

2008-04-30T14:32:00.005-04:00

Well today is Zane's big surgery day. I could not be any more nervous about this but I am focusing on staying positive. Zane's surgeon just called to say that he would like to do the surgery in two stages. He will do the fusion today and then next week follow up with the laminectomy. He feels this will be less stressful to Zane as the surgery to do both procedures is over 4 hours long. He would prefer to not keep Zane under anesthesia that long. He also assured me that we would get Zane back home as soon as possible. He appreciates that Danes are a rather sensitive breed and feels that Zane would be less stressed at home. I feel better already....

It's 5pm and I just got the call from the doctor that Zane's surgery went well. Zane is awake from the anesthesia and is resting. His xrays show that everything is as the doctor wants it. If he is not too painful tomorrow, he will be able to come home.

I can't even begin to say how different the mood of the house is right now. All the other dogs are so quiet. Zoe has been sitting by the front door just watching the world go by. Of all of them, I would think she would appreciate the peace and quiet the most. Zeke and Daizee have been playing together a bit but mostly just sitting out on the deck. This morning, Daizee was so sweet. She knew that Zane was not feeling well and she gently nitched up and down his neck with her teeth. She was giving him a little massage that he was loving. Then she cleaned his ears for him!

Tomorrow is the big day

2008-04-29T08:53:00.002-04:00

A little behind in posting....
Zane's incision has finally healed over and I am going to have what is left of his sutures and staples removed today. Last week, I started weaning him off the prednisone in preparation for his cervical surgery on May 6th. By the end of the week, he was getting really wobbly. He lost his balance while barking at our neighbors from the back deck and crashed down kind of hard on his back legs. He held up his bionic leg after the fall and limped. The following day, which was Friday, he still limped and acted sluggish. I put in a few calls to the vets on Team Zane and it seemed that everyone was off for the day. I ended up speaking with one of the nurses that cared for Zane after the TTA. She assured me that there is not much he could do to damage the implants and that he was probably just sore from the fall. She recommended that I give him additional Tramadol. She was great to talk to as she formerly worked with a neurosurgeon and is well acquainted with what Zane will be going through with his upcoming surgery. She was right on the money and the extra Tramadol had Zane feeling a little better the following day.
On Saturday, Zane's neuro surgeon, Dr. Bergman, left a message saying that we could move up the surgery to this week to prevent any further problems.
So here we are just a day away from what is to be hopefully the final surgery for Zane. He has been put under 5 times in the past 6 months for various tests and treatments. Hopefully this will be the beginning of stabilization for Zane.

14 pills for breakfast

2008-04-02T08:26:00.003-04:00

Zane is on a new antibiotic regimen to ward off any nasty bugs that may be hanging around his incision site. He is taking Antirobe, Doxycline, and SMZ. Add in some Tramadol for pain control and some Prednisone to reduce spinal swelling and Zane has quite a breakfast cocktail! Then we do it all over again after dinner.
Yesterday Zane went back to our regular vet in the afternoon. He did a nice job of restitching Zane and removed the loose dangling staples. Zane was nice and calm while the vet stitched him back up.
We finished off the afternoon with a small ice cream treat for Zane on the way home. We also stopped for carry out pizza...always a favorite with the pack. Poor Zane was going nuts smelling it all the way home.
We have officially broken in the new van now. Last week, Zane dripped blood on the new, overpriced mats and yesterday he enjoyed hanging his head out the side windows for a bit. Nose prints are on nearly every window and there is already a bit of fur floating about. Thank goodness for leather seats which have already been smeared with blood and covered with fur. They clean up nicely!
Today I should receive a new collar for Zane. It's called a "no bite collar" and is designed to stop licking. Hopefully, this should keep Zane from licking when I am not around. I have needed to keep a close watch on him lately so that he doesn't keep licking at his incision. Now I am just dying to get out of the house for a bit and not have to worry about coming home to an open wound.

Drip, drip, drip

2008-03-31T13:11:00.004-04:00

And the leaking continues...
Dr. Clark, the vet who performed the TTA surgery gave us a follow up call yesterday and now this morning. He is concerned about the leaking as well. Hallelujah! We are not being overly neurotic. Dr. Clark recommends that we up the antibiotics. Thankfully, I have a good storehouse of antibiotics so we are adding in SMZ and amoxicillin to the Doxy that Zane is already taking. There is also a bit of an odor to the incision site which makes us think even more that it could be getting infected. I got the go ahead to wrap Zane's leg to keep him from licking at it. We are to change the dressing each day to make sure that no pus starts draining. I am really impressed with the follow through from Dr. Clark. I have never had a doctor, let alone a surgeon, check in so often and I am very thankful for his thoroughness and caring.

A leaky Dane

2008-03-30T11:48:00.000-04:00

This incision site is driving us crazy! On Friday night, it looked like part of it had opened up so we took Zane over to the ER. Last thing we wanted to see happen was this thing tear wide open again, especially in the middle of the night. So we wait our turn and the ER vet looks at us like we are nuts and says the incision is fine and all this bloody serum drainage is normal. Fine, with tail between our legs, we pay the $83 bill and head home. Ok, so maybe we are just a little overly concerned. The incision never drained or opened in the week following surgery but supposedly this is all normal now...
Now on Saturday morning when we get up and check the incision, all is the same. Later in the morning, however, we notice that the stitches have come unknotted and are starting to unravel. Back to the vets we go...got to hurry because they are only open half days on Saturdays. The vet throws in some staples and says not to worry. They waive the office visit fee and we pay $20 for the staples. In case you are keeping track, that is now $263 for the incision that won't stop draining.

1 week + 1 day following TTA Surgery

2008-03-27T21:00:00.002-04:00

So this morning around 9:30, I take a peek at Zane's incision and remark at how great it looks. It's healing up beautifully and the edges are sealing up. We head outside for a potty break and some fresh air. Come back in a little later and Zane settles down for a rest while I hit the computer to check the morning mail. A few minutes later, I hear big, slurpy licking that can only belong to Zane. I walk around the corner to check on him and there it is, a big pool of blood sitting in a wide open incision. I slap a maxi pad on him and some bandaging and headed out to the vets. Since we had just been outside, he was still in his harness and I still had on my sneakers so we were able to make a quick getaway.
Once at the vets, they recommend sedating him so that they can clean out the incision and resuture it. All goes well and I bring a very groggy Zane home a couple hours later. The rest of the night is pretty quiet while Zane slept off the anesthesia. Cha - ching, there goes another $160.

Day 5 Post TTA

2008-03-24T12:31:00.006-04:00

Zane is doing great! I am so pleased with how quickly he is recovery from his TTA knee surgery. Each day, I have seen significant improvements. Today, he is able to get up fully on his own to stand and walk. He has no problem getting on the furniture to sleep. I guess with 3 weeks of a painful leg, he figured out how to get on the couch without using the sore leg.
The swelling in Zane's leg has almost disappeared at this point. I was pretty fanatical about keeping cold packs on his knee for 20- 30 minutes every other hour. The packs would actually be hot when I removed them. His leg is still pretty red but it looks better every day. We have started doing very gentle range of motion exercises to keep things limber. He doesn't seem to mind.
Today, Zeke even tried to entice Zane into a game of chase. Thankfully, Zane didn't even attempt to get up. There was a lot of rooing and smack talking going on but that was about it. That will probably be my biggest challenge....keeping everybody from wrestling and chasing. For now, they are satisfied with mouth wrestling and stealing toys from each other. A couple times a day, I pull out a big bag of toys and everybody plays romper room style. The we pack up all the toys and end the play session with a cookie break. I think it keeps Zane from getting overly bored. He is always ready for a good nap afterwards.
Speaking of naps...Zane has been sleeping so well during the day that he has been restless at night. He gets up and wanders, which of course makes me nervous that he may fall. I always end up getting out of bed myself just to put him back in his bed. So Saturday, I called my vet and asked for a sedative. The rx said 1-2 pills so I went light and gave Zane just one pill at bedtime. What a sweet night it was! He only got up once and that was just to reposition himself on a different bed in the room. Yesterday, though, he looked wasted all day long. His eyes were so red and droopy. The effects of the meds lasted from 10:15pm to dinnertime the following day! Despite sleeping most of Easter Sunday, he did ok last night (without a sleeping pill) and only got up once to go potty.
The potty breaks in the middle of the night are a pain because we have to get him in his harness and put a leash on just to take him in the backyard. Otherwise, anything that catches his interest will cause him take off running. He will need to be leashed for the next 2 months to take potty breaks. The prednisone is to blame for these late night sessions because it causes the dogs to drink a lot.
At this point, I am looking into rehab for Zane. He can start in another 10 days. I don't think he will need much in the way of physical therapy but I just want to make sure he starts to use his leg properly. I know that he will love the underwater treadmill. He has always loved to submerse himself in deep water. At just 2 weeks post surgery, his orthopedic surgeon will have him start a walking program that involves 5 minute walks, 2-3 times per day. Zane will have a 4 week recheck and then xrays at 8 weeks to check bone healing.

TTA Day

2008-03-21T12:43:00.005-04:00

Zane and I left for Raleigh at 5:30 on Wednesday morning for Veterinary Specialty Hospital of the Carolinas. Dr. Clark has become the newest member of "Team Zane," our group of doctors that work to get Zane as healthy as possible. Dr. Clark briefly explained the procedure to me and what to expect regarding Zane's recovery.
Zane and I went out for a drive and then waited at the hospital for another hour or so until it was his turn for surgery. He made several new friends out in the waiting room: Rosie the Golden, Diamond the Lab, and Chin Chin the Akita.
It only took a little over an hour for the surgery. Dr. Clark gave me a call as Zane was coming out of anesthesia to let me know that all had gone well. The diagnosis for Zane included a ruptured cranial cruciate ligament and medial meniscal cartilage tear. He said that Zane could head home at dinner time if he was up to it.
I stopped by the hospital at 5:30 and the nurses let me know that he was doing well but that they were unable to get him to stand. They said that I could leave him for the night or try back later. I offered to get him standing if I could be allowed out back to see him. As soon as he saw me, he wagged his happy tail and started to get up. That's my boy! I headed back up front to pay the bill ($2100) while they cleaned him up for discharge. It took 4 nurses to walk him up front and get him in the van. Zane was great about it the whole time.
Zane was starting to get painful towards the end of the ride home. I suspect that his pain blocks were beginning to wear off. From personal experience, I know how rough it is when that transitions happens. He cried most of the night and we were up every hour or so to comfort him.
By morning, he was pretty sluggish and not willing to get up to go outside and potty. He refused all food and water. I gently "shoved"his pain pills down his throat to keep him on schedule. He takes 2oo mg of Tramadol every 8 hours. It is his only option for pain control since he is also on Prednisone (a steroid). I checked his temperature and he was at 103.3, with 101 being normal for him. I gave the hospital and call and talked to one of the nurses. Dr. Clark immediately called back and agreed that I should take him to my regular vet for sub Q fluids if he didn't start to eat or drink by afternoon. He even gave Dr. DeQuick a call to let him know Zane's status. I love that kind of follow through!
Zane and I headed back to bed to catch up on our sleep. At 11:45, Zane woke up and attempted to stand. He was ready to go outside! I got him saddled up in his harness and used the towel under his stomach to guide him and we headed outside. Thanks goodness for the ramp. Zane did his business and then came right back in. He collapsed as soon as he got in the doorway. I made him lunch and he happily ate it so I knew we were back on track.
Dr. Clark called again in the afternoon and I was able to give a much more positive report on Zane. Dr. Clark stressed the importance of not letting Zane stay down too long or we might risk him getting pneumonia. Yikes, been there before with Daizee Lu. Well, Zane must have heard him because he made it in and out several more times during the afternoon and evening.

Time for another roadtrip

2008-03-18T21:17:00.002-04:00

Zane and I are all geared up for another roadtrip. Tomorrow we are heading to Raleigh to meet up with Dr. Clark of Veterinary Specialty Hospital of the Carolinas to talk about a TTA surgery to repair Zane's torn CCL. If all goes well, Zane will get this surgery in the afternoon. The TTA procedure uses titanium implants instead of the steel plates used in a TPLO. The procedures are quite different. The TTA offers a quicker recovery which is really important to getting Zane up and moving again. I'll post more about the procedure and add up some links soon. We will be spending the night and hopefully returning on Thursday afternoon.

Coming up to breathe...

2008-03-12T16:12:00.006-04:00

Well, it's been a week since all hell broke loose. Zane is now walking again or rather limping, since his knee is still painful. Zane made steady improvements each day as the inflammation from the myelogram subsided. By Thursday evening, he was able to walk out to the backyard with assistance. By Saturday, he was able to walk around the yard on his own.

Some of the things that I have learned about caring for a dog with sudden medical issues....

1) Teach your dog to eat from a spoon or fork while he is healthy. When they are extremely ill and lose their appetites, they associate spoon feeding with especially tasty food treats from their humans. My dogs always know they are getting something great when it's on the end of a fork (like yummy scrambled eggs). Also, since Zane couldn't bend his neck, he had no way to get the food from the bowl. He had trouble chewing too so we relied on good, holistic canned foods. Another food we like is by Nature Balance. It's a semi moist dog food that comes in a long tube. It looks like summer sausage and is somewhere between a canned food and dry kibble. My dogs love this food. It smells great and is easy to feed since you can cut off slices for feeding. I will never be without this food in my pantry for feeding emergencies.
2) Build a ramp so you can get your dog in and out of the house without struggling up stairs.
3) Get a good harness like the Ruffwear webmaster. I should earn a commission on the sale of these harnesses since I am such an advocate for them! LOL We were able to lift Zane up and into a standing position with this harness. We could steady him while he tried to walk and offer him support so that he wouldn't fall over.
4) Keep dog diapers on hand as well as waterproof crib pads. They will save your dog beds and carpeting from the inevitable leaks. "Depends" also makes a disposable absorbent pad that you can place in the areas that the dog sleeps.
5) Crib mattresses can make a wonderfully waterproofed dog bed for a Dane. Cover it with a crib sheet and it will blend in with any decor. It's also cheaper than most dog beds ($40 in Walmart).
6) Just like with a newborn, sleep when the "dog" sleeps. For some reason, sick dogs seem to be more restless at night. The first night that Zane came back home, he was awake and trying to stand every hour. I eventually slept on his bed for a while with him!

We are gearing up now for the surgeries. I am looking to schedule surgery to repair the knee first. We feel it is important to get Zane walking on all four legs before we do the neck surgery. Zane can potentially have difficulty walking for 2-3 weeks post surgery (neck) and I will need him to help himself as much as possible. Since Zane will be down and out recovering, he won't be putting any additional stress on his neck. About a month later, we will go ahead with neck surgery. His knee can continue to recover while his neck heals as well. I am still searching for a local surgeon to perform the knee surgery. I would like to use a new technique called a TTA. It promises a speedier recovery..... You can read more about the procedure at www.ttasurgery.com

The MRI that didn't happen....

2008-03-05T18:00:00.006-05:00

This week sure has started out with a bang. On Monday morning Zane had his first color echocardiogram. I felt that it was important to assess Zane's overall heart health before he undergoes anymore anesthesia. With two potential surgeries in the near future and a MRI, Zane will be "put under" quite a bit in a short time. The echo went well and there are no signs of potential problems. That was a huge weight lifted off my chest. I know that he is not out of the woods, however, as dilated cardiomyopathy can strike quickly and without warning even when there are clean echos. For now, I will focus my worries on other issues.

Zane was scheduled for his MRI to take place once we finished the heart testing. The Dr called me about 30 minutes after I left Zane and told me that he could not do the MRI as the gold beads were interfering with the imaging. I questioned him about this before we ever scheduled the appointment but he said that he had done it before. Dr. Durkes was adamant that a MRI could not be done on Zane. He said that the beads have a magnetic quality. Apparently, sometimes it works and other times it doesn't. Zane has over 300 beads in his neck so I would bet that caused quite an issue for the machinery.

Since we couldn't do the MRI we agreed to go ahead with the myelogram. We knew there was a strong chance that we would have to go that route in order to get the answers we need. Dr. Bergman told us that we would need to leave Zane for the night so they could monitor his reaction to the dye and make sure he got everything flushed out of his system. He cautioned us that sometimes a dog's Wobbler's symptoms could be made worse by the procedure but that it should clear up in a few days, with less than a 1% chance of a fatal reaction.
Dr. Bergman called us a couple hours later to let us know that all had gone well. He sees atrophy of Zane's spinal cord at C6-7 that he is very concerned about. The problems at C4-5 and C5-6 are not as severe but could get worse over time. He requested a radiologist to review the findings and offer a second opinion.

The following morning (Tuesday), Dr. Bergman called us as we were on our way to pick up Zane. He told me that Zane was doing much worse than the night before and that he could not lift his head or even sit up. He said that we could leave Zane there longer for follow up care or if we were up to it we could bring him home. We immediately elected to bring him home. I know strange environments can be very stressful to dogs. Danes are very susceptible to stress and can even bloat as a result. We felt he would do better at home. They wheeled Zane out on a gurney and as soon as he saw us he gave a little tail wiggle and sat up. We got him loaded into the van and headed home. He had not eaten at all while he was there so I stopped on the way to get him some extra tasty foods. He did not move for the entire hour that we rode home. I worried about how we would get all 132lbs of him into the house. He could not even sit up for more than a minute. He was dead weight to carry in. I have no idea how I got the strength to help Greg carry Zane up the front steps and into the house.
Zane spent most of the day sprawled out on his mattress in the living room. We could not leave him alone at all. He would try to get up and flop over if we were not right there to lay him back down. He was so pitiful and we wondered if he would ever get back up on his own.
I fed him canned food and warm broth throughout the day. We put him in diapers and spent the rest of the day cleaning up urine leaks and doing loads of laundry! All the other dogs were very quiet for the day and cautiously sniffed him whenever they passed by. Daizee could often be found laying nose to nose with her best buddy. I gave him 100mg of Tramadol every 8hours and 40mg of Prednisone once daily. I have learned that Prednisone should always be given in the morning to mimic the body's own natural cycle of cortisol production.

As if all that wasn't stressful enough, it rained all day. By early evening, a tornado watch had been issued for our area. The winds picked up around 7:30 in the evening and I started to get stressed/ panicked that something was about to happen. I have awesome intuition. It's generally pretty dead on. Within minutes of coming back into the house to warn my husband that large branches were dropping on the house, two 75' tall pine trees came crashing down across our driveway and landed parallel to our house. Our 2 vehicles were crushed. Our car is only 1 year old today and the van, well it's a '95 but it's like gold to me. I use it to do dog rescue and for transporting all 4 of my dogs. The "totaled" value of it is only $1500... but for the purpose it serves, it is probably worth more to me than the car. I can't exactly replace it with that kind of payout. So now I guess we will be car and van shopping very soon.

We headed off to bed with heavy hearts. Talk about having a bad day.....

Catastrophy strikes

2008-02-22T18:57:00.007-05:00

Seems like with a Wobbler's dog, you are always waiting and watching for the "what next?" Well, I got the what next on Wednesday evening. Zane was outside hanging with the pack. I was calling them in to the house when I noticed Zane fall and yelp. He didn't get back up. I ran out to him and steadied him as he tried to get to his feet. I knew immediately that it was one of two potential problems. Either he had hurt his back and a nerve was pinching and messing up signals to his leg or he had torn his ACL.

My vet had already left the office for the day so I had to decide whether or not to head out to the ER. We've been to the ER with our dogs before and have concluded that unless it's life threatening, it's not worth the money or time. We're glad they are there for emergencies, but it best be an emergency and therefore worth the money. Zane did not appear to be in pain as long as he was off the leg. We decided that we would wait until morning unless he worsened overnight. I even let him sleep on the bed so that I could keep an eye on him.

He made it through the night ok and we took him straight to the vet specialists/ER first thing in the morning. My hope was that we would get to see an orthopedic specialist and/or our neurologist in the event that there were any issues diagnosing Zane. We got lucky as they put Zane right in with the neurologist. He watched Zane limp along for a few minutes and then did a few checks of the leg. With a heavy sigh, he confirmed my suspicions of a torn ACL, no orthopedist needed for this diagnosis.

Now, I have been through two torn ACL's already with Zoe, the Lab and I think I know a thing or two about their treatments. No problem, "so when can we schedule his TPLO?" I ask. Then the ball drops...Zane is not a candidate for surgery. His Wobbler's is viewed as being too unstable. What??? I thought Zane was doing pretty damn good. Not so says the good doctor. The fact that Zane is still on Prednisone shows that he is not progressing and therefore is not stable.

Now starts the flurry of questions. Dr. Bergman suggests stabilizing Zane's neck via fusion surgery and some other procedure, the name eludes me, that involves cutting down some bone to allow the spinal cord to move more freely. Yikes...back to square one. He spent a long time fielding questions from Greg and I (much longer than my initial visit back in Sept) and gives us some technical papers regarding the procedure. He urges us to take our time thinking about what we want to do next as he doesn't want to rush us into a decision. We scheduled an appointment for a MRI, which he assures us he can do despite the gold beads being in Zane's neck.

I also scheduled an echo cardiogram for Zane. I have been learning about dilated cardiomylopathy (DCM) in Danes. In order to know if your dog has any heart issues, you need to do regular testing. It's recommended to do a baseline echo at 18-24 months. Once a dog shows visible signs of heart disease, it it usually to late to treat it effectively. I had an echo scheduled for March 17th but now I have moved up the date. Before I make any big decisions about such major surgeries back to back for Zane, I want to know that his heart is stable.

So now we wait for those tests to guide us further.

2008-01-25T15:51:00.002-05:00

Zane has done pretty well for the past six weeks. Up until two weeks ago, he was taking 20mg of Prednisone daily. Then I started tapering his dose to 10 mg daily per Dr. Durkes instructions. The past week has seen some changes in Zane's stability and he even had one day of knuckling under with his front paw.

I am using his orthotic brace now for his outside time to help protect and stabilize his neck. Up until now, I haven't used the brace much with Zane. He clearly does not like it and goes running in the opposite direction when he sees me pick it up.

One of my biggest challenges is keeping control over the amount of playtime between Zane and Daizee Lu. Daizee clearly loves Zane and plays with him every chance she gets. Once outside, they are like Titans clashing up against each other one minute and then rolling in the clay dust the next. After a rousing play session, they like to commandeer opposite ends of the couch for a good long nap together.

Zane visits NC State Vet School

2007-12-05T12:24:00.001-05:00

Zane had a rare treat on Friday. He made a guest appearance at a seminar on prostethics and orthotics for a class of up and coming vet students at NC State Vet School in Raleigh. He loved all the attention from the students. He enjoyed trotting around the lecture hall, up and down the stairs, and in and out of the rows of seats. Jeff Collins, of Canada, makes all types of prosthetics to help dogs with disabilities live the best life possible. He demonstrated his equipment to the students and used Zane to model a neck brace for dogs with spinal problems. He took measurements of Zane and consulted with 3 neurosurgeons and an orthopedic surgeon to get input on the angling of the brace. Zane seemed unaffected wearing the brace. He appeared to be more comfortable in it than his traditional cotton and tape wrapped brace. Now that Jeff is back in Canada, he is busy building the brace that will hopefully further stabilize Zane.

Meanwhile, the prednisone seems to have helped Zane greatly. He is still taking 20mg once daily. I believe that we are to start cutting that back to a half dose very soon. Since we needed to cut off Zane's brace for the fitting on Friday, I decided to try the towel wrap brace. I tri-folded a thick towel and tightly wrapped it around Zane's neck. I used 2 very large and wide buckle style dog collars to hold it in place. On Monday, a friend of mine sewed down the folds of the towel and attached velcro for ease in removal. I have been letting Zane sleep at night without the wrap. Daizy Lu, our foster Rottie, loves the velcro and tries unwrapping Zane all the time. I don't feel that this towel wrap provides as much stability as the wrap that Dr. Durkes puts on the dogs post implants. We should have our new brace this weekend and I will post pictures for the curious.

Riding the rollercoaster

2007-11-16T08:56:00.000-05:00

The week has moved on and Zane seems to be doing better with the help of the Prednisone and his neck brace. He is moving a little easier although not nearly as well as he did in the month following the implants. He is back to climbing up on the furniture and getting into trouble in other ways! His rear legs are not in sync with his front so he is back to sideways running and kangaroo hopping.
The prednisone has helped Zane get his appetite back. He lost 3 pounds during his backsliding and wasn't very interested in eating...well at least not his food. He doesn't really love the Science Diet that we feed him to comply with Dr. Durkes advice to keep the calcium down to limit Zane' growth until he turns two. He prefers the Canidae that he used to eat and that Zeke still does eat. I have made a compromise and add about a third of a cup of the Canidae on top of the Science Diet to get Zane started. He is also drinking like crazy and several times this week we have made potty trips outside in the middle of the night. This is not much fun with Zane as he never comes right back in. He likes to go exploring in the dark!

7 Weeks Post Surgery...and backsliding

2007-11-12T16:05:00.002-05:00

I haven't been the best blogger lately. I like to write when I have good news to share. I don't like to write about my worries. I've been worrying a lot lately...my wonderful sense of intuition has been dead on once again. When I sense doom, I prefer to ignore my intuition and not act on it, hoping that things will pass and maybe this time I will be wrong.
For the past 2 weeks I have been watching Zane and noticing his movements seemed off...just little things about the way his back right leg would jerk out to the side at times, other times he would be slow to rise and appear very stiff. Last weekend, Greg threw me a surprise party for my big 4-0 and I noticed that night how tired Zane appeared. He tried hard to work the crowd but he was tripping and falling again. As the week progressed, Zane started becoming more and more unsteady.
On Thursday, Zane's friend Luke from the rescue came to visit for the weekend. His foster Mom was going out of town so we offered to watch our buddy. Luke came to the rescue as a stray with a severely damaged rear leg/hip. We raised the funds to allow him a second FHO surgery and follow up rehab in an attempt to save his leg. It worked beautifully and now that Dane runs like the wind. He can out run all of my healthy, able bodied dogs any day. Luke was a good distraction for our foster dog, Daizy Lu, as it gave her someone to wrestle with other than Zane. Zane did his best to join in on all the fun and it seemed to wear him down even more.
Friday afternoon I phoned Dr. Durkes to address my concerns. He recommended that we put a neck brace back on Zane and call him Monday morning with a status report. We could not find the neck brace supplies anywhere in and out of town. We tried all the specialty stores and finally settled on using leg wraps made for horses. We created a brace for Zane but knew it was only temporary. He continued to become more unstable. By Sunday evening, he looked worse than before his surgery.
This morning, I called Dr. Durkes at 7:45 (he's an early bird) and he recommended we get Zane on some Prednisone to help reduce the spinal swelling. Thank goodness I have my own pharmacy of vet meds...always a little of this and that on hand. I also called my regular vet to have him help rewrap Zane's neck. By lunchtime, we had Zane back in his fashionable neck brace. He gave him a shot of steroids to help jump start his system. Now we just sit back, wait, and pray that this helps Zane come back around again.

4 Weeks Post Surgery

2007-10-23T15:00:00.000-04:00

Zane continues to progress nicely. He really enjoys romping in the backyard. He no longer tires the way he did prior to the surgery. We followed up with Dr. Durkes and will continue to heed his advice regarding Zane's activity level. We are advised to always be careful of activities that could strain Zane's neck. The new tissue growth there will never be as strong as the "original equipment." No more games of tug... guess we won't be giving Zane that 4 foot long rope toy that we had stashed for Christmas. We thought it was so cool since it was Zane size!

Our new foster Daizy Lu has come down with an upper respiratory infection and pneumonia. She is not doing well. It's a challenge to get her to eat, but she does seem to enjoy being spoon fed the good canned food. We use Merrick and Eagle Pack canned foods and all the dogz just go nuts when I open a can. They don't normally get canned food so they are enjoying their spoonfuls whenever Daizy gets fed. Zane actually jumps up and down like a kangaroo when he sees me open a can!

3 weeks Post Surgery

2007-10-17T10:48:00.000-04:00

Great News! On Monday, I phoned Dr. Durkes for our 3 week follow up call. He felt that Zane was stable enough for us to remove his neck brace. He was pleased to hear that Zane was doing things we had never seen him do before and that his gait has continued to improve. I thought that Zane would be running around like a nut case once I took it off but he opted for a nap instead. It must have felt odd to him.

By the afternoon, Zane was back to stirring up trouble. He has really taken to our new foster dog, Daizy Lu, the Rottweiler. She loves him too and can often be seen licking his mouth and grooming his ears. We try to keep a close eye on their playtime as we don't want Zane to overuse his neck muscles while they continue to heal. I can't help but wonder whether or not Zane is actually aware that he has more control of his body now. He seems to just go about his day business as usual!

2 weeks and then some....

2007-10-11T20:11:00.000-04:00

I've fallen a little behind on the updates because my schedule has been so busy lately. So here is a run down on what's been going on this past week.

Saturday

Zane had his first public showing since his Gold Bead Implant Surgery. We had an adoption event at our local Petco and Zane came out to greet the visitors and tell them about Rescue. I think he enjoyed his time for the first hour but then was ready to go. Like Mom, he has limited patience for social events. We hung in there together and vowed never to stay so long in the future. While Zane loves to greet people of all ages, he clearly gets tired of all the commotion. At times, he would just charge towards the door to make a break- a-way for the van. It was fun to see his Dane friend Luke who has stayed at our home in the past. We helped raise money for Luke to have hip surgery #2 to repair a bad break from his running-as-a-stray days. Soon they will both be able to play together. Zane also enjoyed hanging with his Dane friend Itsy from the Rescue. They chatted about old times and marveled at how much taller Zane is now and how much wider Itsy is now. Once Zane made it home, he crashed on my bed for a good long nap.

Sunday

Zane stayed home today while I headed to the Rescue to help with Open House. It was another super hot day out in the blazing sun. Where is Fall? Many people came out to visit with the Danes and their friends. Their applications will be reviewed and hopefully more dogs will be finding new homes by the next open house. Several of our rescue dogs left for their new furever homes. Always a blessing to see them get new homes!

Monday

Impromptu road trip to Augusta, Georgia. My rescue friend Renee joined me on a journey to the Dog Pound to check out a Dane mix in need of rescue. The dog turned out to not be Dane. We selected six dogs to bring back to the rescue. This shelter has an 80% euthanasia rate. That means that for every 10 dogs that walk in to the shelter, only 2 actually get to walk back out. They haul a truckload of dead dogs and cats to the landfill every day. Horrifying. We chose dogs that would have been euthed the following morning. Not a single dog that we brought back was a Great Dane but each one is still precious.

Tuesday

A day of recovery! The whole pack enjoyed a lazy day together. We played ball, drank from the communal water bucket, and caught up on snuggle time.

Wednesday

Another road trip! This time it's to Mountain City, Tn. A young Dane had been owner dropped off at a rural animal shelter, along with two other dogs. One of the dogs was put to sleep the day before for food aggression (like that's not fixable?). The Rottie would be next as he was limping. Tough decision here...all time high number of dogs at the Rescue (with 6 new ones that were not Danes) and Rescue owners reluctant to take a Rott....what to do? Can you leave a dog's companion behind when you know it will surely die? I took the Rottie for a walk to see how friendly it was. It walked by my van and hopped in. Easy enough. I got the Dane next (he has cherry eye) and we headed back to NC. The Rottie was clearly in pain so I dropped her at my vet's to be boarded for the night so he could xray her in the morning. I also needed to buy some time to figure out what to do next.

Thursday

Yet another road trip! I stayed within the state today as I headed out for a 2+ hour drive. Turned out to be a waste of time as one of the animal control officers released the 2 danes to a different Rescue yesterday. They were holding the dogs for me to pick up and failed to communicate this information to each other. I am frustrated at the waste of time but happy that the dogs are rescued. Spoke to the vet regarding Daizy Lu's limping. Turns out that her paws are all torn up and raw. Every step is painful for her. She will need a month of healing. I brought her home so she could have a soft surface to walk on while I try to place her in a Rottie Rescue. She is getting along well with the rest of the pack. Zane has tried playing with her but I shoo him away because I know she is in so much pain. He actually seems to understand. She is even sleeping on his bed tonight!

11 Days Post Surgery

2007-10-05T18:48:00.000-04:00

Zane continues to do well. His ability to keep up with the other two dogs is amazing. The greatest improvement that we still see, is how well Zane can run now. He twists and turns his body and keeps on running. Occasionally, I still see him take a tumble when he is wrestling with Zeke but is it really out of the ordinary? Zeke does somersaults and flying leaps from the top of the furniture and cannonballs into Zane so I think that would take just about any dog off his feet.

He also continues to impress and annoy us with his new found ability to stand up on his back legs to reach things that were formerly out of his reach. He's just getting into all kinds of trouble now! I swear that dog laughs at me anytime I give him a hollering for misbehaving.

Zane is a 120lb puppy, no more no less. Zeke stayed puppyish for a long time when he first came to us. I think he was well over 2 before he stopped getting into things on a regular basis. He still enjoys chewing up a Croc every now and then. Zoe, on the other hand, was an angel from the get go. She was always sweet. We never had any trouble with her chewing up things while we were gone. Even when she was out of commission for her ACL surgeries (2 within a year), she would sweetly chew a bone until she drifted off to sleep.

Not Zane. Chewing bones gets Zane excited to chew other things. We have more chew toys in our house than you could imagine. There are bones lying on the floor of every room. Nothing like flying out of bed in the middle of the night to get a vomiting dog outside and landing on one of those bones. Or there is always the good toe jab you get from inadvertently kicking one as you head back to bed in the dark, after cleaning up the vomit mess because you just weren't quick enough this time.

Many people have recommended Kongs. We've got them too. We have to buy the largest and heaviest because power chewer Zeke blasts through the traditional red ones. Nobody likes the hard black ones. Hand a dog one of those 5 pounders and they give you the fake out. It looks like they are taking it ...until they let it roll out of their mouths and onto your foot!

Chewies are still my best friends. Give a dog a rawhide and you can have 5-7 minutes of blissful peace. Unless you are Zane and your Chewie runs out before your brothers. Then you must get within 12 inches of his face and bark relentlessly until Mom gives you another Chewie. Works every time!

1 Week Milestone

2007-10-01T21:08:00.001-04:00

Today marks one week since Zane had his surgery. At the one and three week marks, we check in with Dr. Durkes via phone. He is pleased to hear that Zane is running well and that his back legs are no longer flying out to the side. Zane can also turn around in tight spaces now and doesn't always need to back out of areas like hallways. He can make turns as he is running without having his feet slide out from under him. I haven't seen him fall in days while out in the backyard playing. Zane still tires easily but that is expected to improve over the next couple of weeks.

While we were in Indiana, the Dr. explained to us how to loosen the neck brace if it becomes too tight and causes Zane to have trouble breathing. It has appeared as though the brace has been impeding his airflow so we did cut into it a bit to loosen it. We then retaped the whole thing. At least the brace is all shiny white again...for the night anyways!

Zane was getting into more trouble again today. He took a bunch of boxes from off the dining room table and shredded them all over the living room. Our table is much higher than a standard table; it's counter height. What Zane is doing is actually pretty amazing. He is standing his front legs up on the table to grab the stuff that's piled in the middle to keep it out of his reach. He has enough leg control now to stand up that way. He has always been a counter surfer with just his head but now he's even putting his front feet on the kitchen counter. He thinks it's pretty amusing. For today, so do we! Now tomorrow will be a different story.

I was out of the house quite a bit today. I figured the pack would sleep well as we were over run by teenagers most of yesterday for Jordan's 15th birthday. They had a marathon session of eight player Halo 3 running for most of the day. The dogz didn't think a whole lot of all the noise and seemed a little stressed by the end of the day. They crashed even before I left the house this morning to go on a rescue run down in SC. Apparently it was Brindle Day as I had the honor of pulling not one but two beautiful female brindle Great Danes out of animal controls in both North and South Carolina. Tonight, I just got word that we will be taking in another female brindle Great Dane that is being owner surrendered to the Rescue. We don't often see brindles at the Rescue but when we do, they always come in threes! Two in one day seems to be a first. Zane was part of a round of three brindles that were surrendered to the rescue last spring. Lately we have had such a run on black Danes that it's nice to get a little color variety in for fall! I love being able to help these sweet dogs get placed into new homes. Here's a link to the website for the Rescue. I will add pictures of the new girls on Tuesday. Their names are Sara and Lady and they will be on pages 6 and 7 of the adoptable dogs. www.greatdanerescue.org

Day 5 Post Surgery

2007-09-29T20:43:00.001-04:00

Zane is clearly feeling much better today. We know this because he is driving everybody crazy again with his "insane Zane" antics. Apparently, he needs to make up for lost time and seems to be in over-drive today. My Crape Myrtle took another Dane hit today. Zane greeted me with yet another leafy branch that he had stripped from my favorite tree. He has also been taunting poor Zoe all afternoon...I think she had been enjoying her respite from his constant play attacks.

Zane started the morning out early by getting up with the other two in time for breakfast (6am). As per Dr. Durkes suggestion, we have switched Zane's food. He needs to be on a very low calcium food with low to moderate protein for the next year while his body continues to grow. Too much calcium in his food will allow a build up in his spinal column that could impinge the free movement of his spinal cord. All the dogs have been eating a very high quality holistic food for the past six months. Unfortunately, I have had to switch them to a lower quality food to meet these new requirements.

Zoe also has been gaining weight on the super premium food and we need to get her on a better weight control regimine. She has had two ACL surgeries and is just not fond of running around like the boys. It's really important that we keep her weight in check to not over burden her now arthritic knees.

Hopefully we have seen an end to Zane's fever. He appears to be responding to the change in antibiotic. He still tires very easily and we are encouraging him to not over do it too soon!

*** Editor's Note: Please be certain to breeze through the blog to get an idea as to how Zane has progressed. Gold Bead Implants were not successful in treating Zane's symptoms and we pursued surgical options with very good results. ***

Day 3 Post Surgery

2007-09-27T09:02:00.001-04:00

Zane is definitely not himself today. He has difficulty getting up and moving. He felt very warm, so I took his temperature and he is running a fever. I sent out a quick email to Dr. Durkes and he suggested that we change Zane's antibiotic and monitor him. According to Dr. Durkes, this is not normal to be so lethargic and listless. I already switched his antibiotic and will be making a stop in at our regular vets office later this morning.

Zeke decided to get Zane moving and initiated a game of chase in the house. Up and over the furniture Zeke went until Zane got into the game. Then they took it outside, crashing through the screen door and out onto the deck. Zane even chased Zoe through the yard. One thing was sure hard to miss, Zane is running much better! He could run faster and smoother and caught Zoe off guard when she couldn't out run him!

Later today...

Zane had a visit with his regular vet, Dr DeQuick of Lakewood Veterinary Hospital. He gave Zane sub-cutaneous fluids and we saw an immediate improvement. I also came home with ice packs for him to lay on to help bring his fever down. Zane was on Baytril (an antibiotic) which has a generic equivalent called Cipro. In the past, when Zane had an upper respiratory infection, he did not do well on Cipro and needed to use a different antibiotic called SMZ. I hadn't connected that the two drugs were nearly the same. Hopefully this switch to SMZ will have him feeling better in no time.

Day 2 Post Surgery

2007-09-26T22:00:00.000-04:00

Zane has been very sleepy today. He is not his usual self. I am concerned that he seems depressed.
He has alternated between laying on his mattress out on the deck and inside on the couch. Every now and then he gets a little energy and trots around the backyard. He seems to be moving more smoothly already.

Zane will only eat if I add canned food to his dry. He just isn't very interested in food right now. He hasn't even tried swiping anything off the counters all day!

Day 1 Post Surgery

2007-09-25T22:00:00.000-04:00

Zane was pretty groggy for most of the evening after his surgery. He took a walk around the outside of the hotel and then settled down for another long nap. He woke up hungry and gobbled down a small bowl of food.
Getting up from a lying down position is a real challenge for Zane. He needs to shift his weight differently now as a result of the neck brace. If we try to help him, he just gives up and puts his head back down. We find it's best to just let him figure it out on his own.

This morning he was eager to head outside for a walk and even trotted for a bit. He ate his usual amount of dry food. I also gave him some canned food to get him started. I could tell he was feeling more like himself when I caught him swiping Greg's donut off the table. He didn't get too much of it, just some frosting, so I saved it for DH (dear husband)to eat later. Anything at nose height is fair game to Zane!
Yesterday, we made arrangements with Dr. Durkes to stop by this morning before heading out of town. We paid him a quick early morning visit. Zane was happy to see him and gave him the usual leans that Great Danes are so famous for. Dr. Durkes seems to think Zane is off to a good start and is pleased with his good disposition.

We all survived the grueling 11 hour drive back home. At times, Zane was clearly uncomfortable. I propped him up with pillows whenever possible. I even sat in the back of the van sometimes to hold his head up. Zoe and Zeke were good sports about letting him have the back seat for most of the ride. Once home, Zane enjoyed pooping to his hearts content all over the backyard...must have been such a relief! Zeke was happy to be reunited with his favorite tennis ball. Zoe was just happy to eat dinner...she's such a good girl!

Zane's Big Day

2007-09-24T17:00:00.001-04:00

Zoe's tummy timer, the one that says it's time to eat now, went off a little early this morning. She greeted us in bed with her usual onsalught of kisses and got us all moving after a very restless night.

Zane needs to be at Dr. Durkes by 8 am and with an empty tummy. He has not done his business yet as he hates to potty while on a leash. As you can imagine, this creates a problem for us when we are traveling. Make mental note to forewarn Dr. Durkes that Zane is rather full.

Dr. Durkes spent plenty of time explaining the procedure while examining Zane. He answered all our questions and the ones we didn't think to ask.

We left the office and went off to explore the little town of Marion, Indiana. We found a great pet store and stocked up on treats, bones, and toys for the pack. Zeke even got a new jacket...he hates to get wet but will gladly take a walk in the rain if he is wearing a jacket.

We noticed that wherever we went, people knew about Dr. Durkes! Just mentioning that we were only in town for the day was enough of a tip off for people to question us and ask if we were here to see Dr. Durkes. He is clearly a big fish in a small pond (make that a very small pond).

We arrived back at the office just before 1pm. Zane walked right into the room on his own. His wild happy tail let us know that he was glad we were back for him!

Here's the scoop:

Zane came out of the procedure and anesthesia very well. Upon waking, he stood up on his own. This is a positive sign as Dr. Durkes said that only half the dogs willingly get up on their own.
Zane's neck is wrapped from just behind his ears to where his neck meets his shoulders.
The neck brace is very firm but is crucial to good healing after the implants.
We were instructed in how to loosen the brace should it become too tight.
Don't get it wet! Did I mention how much Zane loves water?
We could see plenty of holes where the beads were implanted.
Zane has over 300 of these pinhead - sized gold beads in his neck.
Normal exercise is fine. No excessive jumping. No playing that involves twisting of the head or neck. No rough housing with the other dogs....Zeke, that means you.
Antibiotic for 12 days to protect against any bacteria.
Watch for the improvements.

Dr. Durkes feels that Zane has the potential to make good progress. Zane is one of the youngest Danes that he has treated. He feels that we have caught this early enough that Zane should lead a long healthy life. Heavy sigh

Road trip

2007-09-23T22:00:00.000-04:00

Today we set off on our 11 hour journey to Indiana. One wrong turn by Greg (dh) set us back an hour and a half, making the total trip time 12 1/2 hours! We are so lucky to have dogs that travel well. The entire Z pack came along... Zoe, a 3 year old Chocolate Lab and Zeke, a 3 year old German Shorthaired Pointer.

Comfort Suites offers a special rate for out of towners coming to see Dr. Durkes. They welcome dogs and don't charge extra fees. We had a beautiful room with 2 beds and a couch. As usual, we covered all the furniture with sheets to minimize dog hair being left behind. Zoe was happy to sleep on the couch and the boys took over the beds.

We drove the pack over to a beautiful park just up the street. Everybody burned off some excess energy on the walking trails. Then back to the hotel to get some sleep before the big day.

Choices

2007-09-22T11:00:00.002-04:00

Zane's MRI showed clearly that he has Wobbler's Syndrome. I wondered whether it was a necessary expense to diagnose Wobbler's in Zane. When I sent Zane's spinal xrays out to Dr. Durkes, the specialist in Gold Bead Implants, he wrote back that the xrays were inconclusive. This was a first for him, he can almost always diagnose Wobbler's by viewing xrays and looking for certain changes in the vertebrae. Not my dog, however.

I scheduled an MRI immediately to put the issue to rest. The staff at the Iams Imaging Center in Raleigh, NC (at NC State vet school) were awesome! They let me stay with Zane and keep him comfortable while he received his anesthesia. They called exactly an hour later for me to come into the recovery room while he woke back up. The doctor treated Zane as though he were my valued child and for that I am so greatful.

The test cost $1600 and my neurologist had the results the very next morning. I would definitely recommend going this route if there is any doubt as to the diagnosis.

What is Wobbler's Syndrome anyway?

2007-09-21T11:00:00.002-04:00

Wobbler's Syndrome is a neurological disorder that affects primarily Great Danes and Dobermans. Other breeds can be affected by it but it predominantly shows up in Danes and Dobies. Signs of Wobbler's often show in the early "growing" years with Danes and in the middle years with Dobies.

Clinical definitions and the textbook signs to look for didn't always measure up with the symptoms that Zane was exhibiting.

In Zane, here's what Wobbler's looks like:

Walks with his head down....generally in line with his back, doesn't carry his head high and proud.

Rear legs don't move in sync with his front legs and looks very clumsy. When running, it looks like his back legs aren't keeping up with the front legs. He will use a jumping motion with the back legs to keep up with the front.

Tips over easily. Poor center of gravity. Loses balance while running and falls flat on his side.

Knuckling over with paws on any of his legs.

Difficulty coordinating his motions when tired. Has trouble getting in the van once he is tired. It's as if he doesn't know which foot to move next.

Incomplete head shakes. He does an abbreviated form of head and body shaking. He doesn't get a full ear flop going. He can't shake the water off after a bath or dip in the doggie pool.

Ineffective scratching....just can't get his leg to connect with that itch.

Holds head at a tilt.

Toenails are angled outward and worn down from dragging on the ground when he is knuckling over. They are hardly ever long enough to trim.

In the midst of all the symptoms, Zane still runs around and plays like any other dog. He gets into mischief, by digging up my plants and trees. He loves to dig holes under the deck and lay in the fresh wet clay. He will play chase the Pointer with the ball and terrorize the Lab looking for bunnies in the woods. Counter surfing is Zane's specialty and he always knows when we have, by accident, left something within his reach. His favorite grab was a huge apple pie that flipped over on the way down to the floor. Bad dog!

Answers

2007-09-20T16:00:00.001-04:00

This is not the beginning of my journey with Zane towards those ever so elusive Gold Bead Implants. We have been on this journey since last April when I first researched treatment options for dogs with Wobbler's Syndrome.
I met Zane back in the middle of April. He was a tall handsome fellow with a beautiful dark face and the most expressive eyes that I have ever seen. I found his unusual way of walking me while holding my hand in his mouth rather endearing.
Zane is a beautiful Great Dane puppy that suffered from some unfortunate circumstances in life that landed him at Great Dane Rescue of the Carolinas at a mere seven months of age. I started volunteering there in April, just eight weeks after his arrival. I knew something was not right about this dog as he could not walk but a few steps without looking as though he might tip over. I began researching possible reasons for his problems. Everything pointed to Wobbler's Syndrome. The treatment options and the long term outcome for dogs affected by this disease are not great. Traditional surgery to correct the spinal problems can cost anywhere from $3000- $5000 and up depending on the severity. The risks that accompany the surgery are also high...paralysis being the most frightening.
As I searched the internet, I came upon stories of other dogs that had Gold Bead Implant surgery to slow the progression of Wobbler's. I saw hope for this sweet dog.
The GBI surgery also comes with a high price tag, one that the Rescue can not easily afford. By Mother's Day, I knew what I needed to do. Zane would just have to come home with me while I raised the money and pursued the medical treatments necessary to make him healthy again. Zane became our first foster just two days after Mother's Day.
We spent the summer undergoing acupuncture treatments, fighting a nasty bout of dog flu, spinal xrays, and testing for a variety of other diseases. Although everything pointed to Wobbler's, we didn't have anything definitive to prove it. Most recently we met with a neurologist who also saw clear signs of Wobbler's. The only way to know for sure, however, would be to do a MRI. So we drove out to NC State for this ever so expensive test ($1600).
We now have our answers...