For you dog people or breeders , I have a question . What is your experiance with canine pancreatitis ? ( I hope I'm spelling that right ) . My ex has an older doggie ( 13 or 14 ) that I picked up for her at the vets Monday AM after a few days stay . He wasnt eating , vomiting yellowish foam and very weak . They had to put an IV in to hydrate him and some medicine and kept him for several days and nights . You dont even want to know about the bill He's doing better now , eating , drinking lots of water , and getting more active . The vet said its caused by a combination of age , fatty diet , low exercise and STRESS of all things . Ex has been feeding him Iams lamb and rice canned food for years . I'll be taking care of him for a week or so while she's out of town . I put him on a bland diet of steamed rice and lean ground beef with all the fat drained off. He seems to like it and eats all of it . I'm thinking he would be better off with that , or maybe some cooked chicken or turkey mixed with the rice , some peas etc . All homemade chow instead of that canned food . The vet is out of town for a few days so I cant querie her about food and diet .... of course they want to push their special food they sell at the office . I did a Google search , but any suggestions and first hand experiance with this would be very helpful . The vet said it could possibly be a chronic condition if he doesnt get better . Oh , and I give him just a wee bit of Red Cell liquid vitamins ( its for horses , originally bought for the pigeons in with his drinking water , that seemed to perk him up . And I'm getting him back to exercising a little every day too .

Thanks , hambone

Hi There, Hambone, I do wish you LOTS of luck on this one.. I never had good luck with it myself, and it usually has a grim outcome.. Do keep us posted, and contact that vet as soon as you can .... His age is going against him for one thing, and dogs age so much faster than us... As I remember, it is 7 yrs to our 1, so if he is 13 in dog years, he is 91 in people years....

Hi Hambone, how is the little dog doing? Do keep us posted, we are all concerned. Hope all is going well..

Hi Bob,

I'm sorry but I had no advice either to offer you on this one. I'm a "pigeon specialist" before anything else and medical problems with dogs or any other mammals are not my strong suit. Good luck with the dog and I do hope that she will be ok with good care. Let us know how things are.

Hello all , and thanks for the concern . He's hanging in there , and doing better than he was when I picked him up last Monday . He's just getting old , and with that comes health problems , just so much you can do . . Trying to make him comfortable , but for now he's doing OK .

hambone

Hi Hambone, is he on the RX diet now, or are you still feeding him? Hope all goes well,

he's on the canned Science Diet from the vets , I made some brown rice with veggies , and baked chicken breast all mixed up , which he likes . Lots of fresh water . Nothing can be over 9% fat . He seems to being better now and holding his own

hambone

I just wanted to let everybody know the little guy is doing better today . He had a rough night last night , and it had me really worried . I think part of it was getting used to eating solid food again and his stomach was really hurting him . Today a turn around and he's been getting his strength back and he's up and going . BM's are returning more to normal .

Thank goodness for that !

I'll keep ya posted and hopefully its good news

hambone

Hi Hambone,

Thanks for the update and it's good to hear that he's doing better today at least. Do you have this dog permanently now or are you still just looking after him for the short term? I wonder if probiotics would be a good thing or not for a dog?

Hi Brad ,

He belongs to both me and my ex , and we switch times taking care of him . She works a lot of hours , so right now its better he stay with me while he recuperates and I can keep a close eye on him . Kind of a canine joint-custody thing

The probiotics is a posibility , I'll do some research on the internet and check into it . I am giving him a special diet from the vets , and vitamins in with his water at the moment . Hoping to get his strength built back up .

Thanks for the concern and I'll definately keep updating

hambone