Don't know whether to be angry or to cry....

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Acolyte

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I took Jura (my greyhound) back to the vets tonight. For a month now she has been being fed 3 times a day on anything which might put weight on her - puppy food, oily fish, eggs, raw meat etc. She hasn't put on any weight at all
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I mentioned to my vet that I had read one of my mum's veterinary dog books at the weekend (I did say that giving a little knowledge to a lay person was a bad idea!) which suggested to me that Jura has a problem with her endocrine system.

So now I have had to pay out another £116 for a third set of blood tests, so he can check her blood protein and other levels. If that doesn't show anything all he can suggest is putting her on Hills Prescription Diet, which has a higher protein level - but since she obviously isn't absorbing anything then I really don't see that will do any good at all.

So I am left with the decision whether to have her PTS, or to accept that I have a greyhound which has a good quality of life but is totally emaciated and has a lousy coat.

It's horrible
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I'll reply - I don't know the answer, but when I got my lurcher (rescue dog) she couldn't handle anything other than cooked rice and tripe, and it really put the condition on her
 
Is she actually losing weight or staying stable?
Is she happy/healthy in the state that she is or does she have other medical problems?
It's always an awful decision to have to make so the quality of her life now must be taken into account.
Good luck.
Kaz
 
Thank you M_H
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I have tried pretty much everything I can think of for her (she does love rice and tripe!) but still no success
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I am holding on to the hope that the 3rd lot of blood tests tomorrow might show something up
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She has been stable since I have been taking her to the vets - about 3 months now - but she is still terribly thin
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The first set of blood tests showed a slightly impared liver function but not enough to cause the extreme symptoms she is showing now according to my vet - she does also have a heart murmur (she is on Vasotop) but she really does enjoy life.

We went for a walk yesterday and she was skipping along like a 'normal' dog in the sunshine
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- I think that is what makes it so hard, if she was lethargic, or unhappy, or not eating I would have no hesitation in having her PTS as the kindest thing for her
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ooo I'm surprised, I may have a wee suggestion....

having encountered something similar before, i know it goes against general advice....
But cooked meat, removed from the bone as worked in the past!!

God knows why, but fresh raw meat did nowt, plenty of cooked chicken / lamb etc, worked a treat! Although it does get you earache of the vet!
 
Hey, I will try anything so thank you Boltonrider, I am off to the supermarket tomorrow to get some cooked meat
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It has got to be worth trying every option
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Oh, and I like your sig - my 'supposed weight loss' ticker was removed quite quickly when I realised it wasn't actually moving
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My lab is very hard to keep weight on - u can always see his ribs. I feed him on puppy food and it keeps him at a steady weight and means he has lots of energy. Different breed tho I'm afraid so might not help...
 
i have whippets and no problem putting on weight, but you could try breast of lamb raw.....try always feeed meat raw, but some dogs are naturally thinner like us humans
vets always suggest 'hills diet'as its exspensive

if she happy and looks well and the blood tests come back normal, maybe thats way shes going to be
and shes wormed regualary

oh what about fresh rabbit ...can be abit pricey though
or maybe try a different vet....recommended greyhound vet and get a second opinion

let us know how you get on
 
I'm not sure what other symptoms your Greyhound has but my Whippet has Addison's Disease which if you Google, you'll see has many symptoms, including weight loss and lethargy and eventually kidney failure. My dog was diagnosed at age 2 and is now 14. With medication and Hills Prescription KD she has done great. She's also had a couple of near misses with kidney failure. She's now just started to lose weight again and after regular blood tests, we've just increased her food. We're in the US and my vet told me this disease is becoming more common. Hope your doggie gets better soon. You could PM me for me details, such as medication etc.
 
Have you tried her on a feed for sensative stomaches????

Worked wonders for a cat of mine. I like you spent a lot of money on blood tests, and also scans of her stomache as we thought she might have cancer.

Nothing came up in the bloods or the scans. She was loosing weight fast, looked awful, and was in considerable pain. Oh and had the most awful diahorea (sp).

Changed her feed to Hills Sensative Stomach and the turn around was amazing.

She is back to her old healthy self.
 
Thanks for the idea
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- unfortunately when I put her on puppy food it upset her stomach and gave her chronic diarrhoea, it was James Wellbeloved which I always thought was quite mild?

She is on Vitalin for sensitive stomachs now - 30% lamb and 25% rice or something like that - it seems to suit her, but still no weight gain
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Thanks for the ideas - she was on Hills Science Diet for a long time as it was the only thing which kept weight on her, but even that doesn't work now
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I am going to try for the meat option again and see whether that does anything for her

I was thinking of a second opinion too but my vet is the one used in this area by Greyhound Rescue West of England (who I got my greyhound from) so I decided in the end that he should know enough about them
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Well, thats what I am hoping
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I will let you all know how the blood tests turn out today, thanks for the reply
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That is really interesting, thank you
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- I will go and google it then will PM you if I think it might be this - she has shown a slightly impared liver function in her blood tests so far
 
She is now on a sensitive stomach diet - the Vitalin one I mention above - it seems to suit her, definitely no diarrhoea etc
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I might try a different brand of sensitive food and see if that does her any more good? At the moment I only am buying stuff in 2.5kg bags as I am changing it to see if anything will do her any good!
 
Weight takes time to be put on - and changing diets continually may do more harm than good. Royal Canin and Hills are excellent - but I don't know anything about Vitalin.

However, if the dog looks healthy (apart from skinny) and has a zest for life - then really, I wouldn't be panicking in your shoes.

Good luck.
 
All my dogs are fed on raw green tripe. It smells absolutely disgusting but they love it and it doesn't upset their tummies. Its also good for putting weight on. I don't know all your girls history but it might be worth a try. I get mine direct from the slaughter house, but you can get frozen tripe from some of the big pet stores I think. My vets are quite happy for my dogs to be fed tripe, and often comment on how good their teeth are (I feed the tripe in large pieces so they can tear at it). As long as she is enjoying life I would try not to worry too much about her weight, hard as it must be.
 
if she truely does have food intolerance or inflamatory bowel disease then she might need to go on something like Hills z/d or Purina HA and possibly a course of steroids as well. Ideally before going down this route you need to take gut biopsies to confirm the diagnosis. This requires a GA and is quite invasive and expensive so sometimes we just trial treatment. I have had several animals respond well to this. Does she ever have any sickness or diarrhoea? I wouldn't be thinking of Addisons just with the symptoms you've described so far.
 
Oh Star, you are a vet, how wonderful
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- a second opinion online (although I do recognise it is very difficult for you to assess Jura just on what I have said on here!)

Todays blood tests came back absolutely normal again (that is the 3rd set of tests, the only slight problem identified was with her liver function in the 1st set of tests but that is now back to normal)

The vet has now suggested I put her on Eukanuba intestinal food, so I have ordered some for her today and it will arrive tomorrow.

She has been on steroids for a while now, both an anabolic steroid injection on two occasions (the vet didn't give her a 3rd injection yesterday as the two previous ones had made no difference at all) plus some tablets to stop the skin inflammation she was suffering with. Sorry I don't have the names of the steroids with me at work; they did stop the skin inflammation but otherwise do not seem to have improved her condition.

I find it odd, but she has not really had any sickness and diarrhoea through the whole process really - she was sick a couple of times when she was on Zentonil for her liver, so I was told to stop giving her the Zentonil, but otherwise she has only had diarrhoea when I tried feeding her James Wellbeloved puppy food - I guessed it was too rich for her?

I suppose I will see how she is after a few weeks on the Eukanuba stuff! The vet said today that she simply is not processing her food properly, but he cannot find any reason why
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PMSL - I remember when I was a kid my mum fed her dogs on slabs of green raw tripe, as you said it absolutely smells horrible
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but the dogs all loved it
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I have fed her tripe which I have got in frozen blocks from a pet shop, she loved it, ate like a horse, but unfortunately it didn't put weight on her
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have tried to PM you, but your box is full.

i suspect she was on pred for her skin. this should work for the guts if you are dealing with IBD, but they normally need to start on quite a high dose, and then gradually reduce it as they start to gain weight in combination with a specialist diet like z/d or Purina HA. Treatment normally takes several months.
 
Sorry, I have emptied some PMs now! Yes that stuff sounds right for the steroids, but she was on a low dose - one tablet a day then quite quickly down to half a tablet a day.

I might go back to my vet and ask him about the Hills/Purina stuff if I don't get any results with the Eukanuba, thanks for the advice
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James Wellbeloved gave my 9 month old border an upset tummy, I have just changed to Purina puppy sensitive, recommended by a friend, so far so good.
 
Thats interesting - I have to say I chose it because I always thought it was one of the more 'natural' all in one foods?

Hopefully Jura will like the Eukanuba stuff.... mind you it seems she will eat anything nowadays (definitely NOT the case this time last year!), she just can't do anything with it poor thing
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