Degenerative Disc Disease

Coulee just can't seem to get a break. We are pretty sure it wasn't her teeth that was causing the problems a few weeks ago - it was her spine. While she had her dental, we decided to X-ray her neck and spine as she'd been having some minor neck issues over the past year.  I'm glad we did.  The vet has discovered degenerative disc disease in multiple locations in her lumbar and thoracic areas.  

The disease can progress in three ways - gradually, suddenly or not at all.  Right now she is "just" experiencing pain. The next level would be loss of motor control and loss of proprioception (when you turn their foot over and they don't flip it back because they aren't even aware that it is flipped), then paralysis, and then finally the inability to feel deep tissue pain.

Sigh.  Poor Coulee.  Apparently when something can go wrong, it does.  She doesn't even have a single thing that puts her in a high risk category - her sex, breed, weight, and physical fitness are all on her side. This is most commonly seen in dogs like dachshunds and corgis who have long bodies, and short legs.

The good news is, she will be able to run and fetch toys off the ground again once she recovers from an episode (8 week recovery time) as it is important she stay in good shape.  So that makes me happy and nervous, all at the same time.  I've explained that when she plays fetch she does it whole heartedly and I think when we have our appointment to discuss things, I'll be ready with pictures so that the vet will truly understand, but at the moment, she is convinced it will be OK.

The only immediate change to her lifestyle will be no more jumping.  We'll have to change the way we play fetch to make sure she never wants to leap up to catch the toys (which is fine and easy to avoid) but also no jumping on and off the bed or in and out of the vehicle.  I've ordered a ramp (that will hopefully fit in my car!) and in the meantime I'm borrowing one.  Today's challenge will be teaching her how to use it.

I don't really have any more information than that. When we go back in for her teeth recheck in a little over a week we'll take a look at the x-rays and talk more with the vet.  Because she has multiple spots in her back that don't look very good, I'm assuming that this has been happening gradually so my biggest concern is that it will continue to gradually get worse and there will be no way to avoid it no matter how careful we are. But I guess we'll tackle that when/if it happens.  In the meantime, we'll be taking it one day at a time.

Who needs teeth anyway?

Poor Coulee ended up getting 3 of her far back molars pulled yesterday.  Good thing she doesn't chew her food.  :)  It was a pretty long surgery - longer than expected.  Even the on-call vet that evening had heard of it.  LOL.  (I called to make sure that some bleeding was OK - which it is by the way.)

Because it was so long, they probably released her a little earlier than they would have liked to, but it was either that or spend the night, and I really didn't want her to spend the night.  She could barely walk and her little tongue was sticking out for a few hours. It was cute and pathetic all at once.  Poor thing.

Our night was restless - she couldn't seem to settle for long in one place.  She kept scratching at the door to go out and after a few of those not resulting in needing to go outside, we stopped jumping out of bed and hurrying downstairs and instead just told her to lay down again.

This morning is much, much better - as expected.  She even grabbed a sock to carry around with her so we know she is feeling better already.  She is loving her canned food and had no problem eating a full meal.

It's going to be a long 2 weeks of no fetching but we'll survive and after that, she'll be better than ever.

Snow!

Beach Day

Life has been busy.  I've been trying to catch up on work and my volunteer stuff since our vacation.  Catching up on work is a never ending battle but by Monday I should be fairly caught up on the volunteer stuff.

Right before Thanksgiving Coulee gave us a little scare.  One morning, she just wasn't herself - she wasn't eating right and she was so "blah" that she didn't even want to play fetch.  It scared me.  Quite a bit. Turns out it may have just been some rotten teeth in the very back of her mouth. It's actually a little bizarre - all her other teeth look great and her far back upper molars are literally black.  After just a few doses of antibiotics she started to snap out of it.  We have her dental booked for Tuesday and we'll be getting both of those pulled.

We still aren't completely convinced that is was just her teeth... The vet thinks that they were probably causing pain for some time and shouldn't have brought on such a drastic change in her behaviour.  Her blood tests came back normal so we don't really have any more leads.  It's possible the antibiotics we put her on for her teeth could also be helping/masking the other issue.  We'll see what happens once she is off them.

We've been enjoying walking at our usual winter place but the beach is still the place where they have the most fun.  We got out there last weekend and I hope to be able to get there again some time this week.

Coulee has been enjoying the really warm fall weather we've been having because that means it's still swimming season.  :)

It's been nice to see a smile back on her face.

 And a spring in her step.

As an aside, I've been torturing Lacey with a cowboy hat.  :)  I couldn't help myself when I saw it.

The fact that she was willing to play with it on convinced me that she doesn't totally hate it.  ;)

And besides look at that smile.  :)

Thanksgiving

This past weekend was Thanksgiving in Canada.  We headed to my Dad's place to hang out with them and my sister's family.  Dad is conveniently located about half way between the two of us.  :)

We went on lots of walks, had lots of relaxing time and just basically hung out.  I even got to nap one afternoon.  :)

I didn't take a lot of photos but Deb wanted a family picture as when they were visiting family in Ontario earlier this summer they realized everyone had really old photos of them. So on our very last walk, I snapped a few for them.  If I'd been thinking, I would have asked for them to take some of me and Marlin.

Day 12 and 13

Sorry - got a little behind there but I wanted to finish of our vacation before I forgot.

Our Day 12, we met up with Dad and Shelley (who were driving home from Ontario) and did most of the waterfall/lake hike I wanted to do the day we had car problems.  We didn't have time to make it all the way to the lake, but we got to see quite a few waterfalls along the way.

This was the busiest trail we'd been on. There must have been at least 5 cars in the parking lot, but while hiking we only crossed paths with one or two groups.

None of the waterfalls were particularly big, but they sure were pretty.

The weather was calling for a snowstorm the next day, so we decided to cut our holiday short by one day and head home.  That night after the hike, we headed back to the cabin and packed up so we'd be ready to go bright and early the next day.  We had some poor driving conditions along the way, but nothing horrible and from what we read afterwards, it looked like we made the right decision.

It is definitely an area we'd like to return to in the future.  Aside from the cold weather, we couldn't have asked for a better vacation.

Days 8, 9 and 10

Well these last few days have not gone according to plan.  Day 8 was SUPER windy so we decided to get some errands done.  We did some laundry and shopping and basically just hung around.

On Day 9 we made a trip to Yellowstone - and good thing too as the park is now closed!  The weather was horrible - cold, rain, hail, snow, wind.  We ventured out no more than a mile from the car at each stop and I never wanted to risk my camera as even if it wasn't raining when we left, it usually was by the time we got back.  We visited the canyon area and it was gorgeous but I've got no pictures.  For wildlife we saw 4 river otters coming down the bank towards the river. It was super cool - they walked nose to tail and kind of looked like a giant, shiny centipede.  :)  We also saw two very young bears. It looked like a baby with an older sibling.  There was no mama in sight which made us pretty sad to see as we are pretty sure the bigger one was nowhere close to big enough to be an adult.  We also saw some more bison and elk but you know, "Been there, done that". LOL

Day 10 (today) had beautiful weather.  We got ready quickly and were ready to head out on a long hike that would take us past 11 waterfalls and end at a lake.  We got out to the truck and realized it had a flat. No big deal, we could handle that.  I distracted the dogs and Marlin got to work. He got all the bolts off but could not remove the tire.  He was very frustrated. I suggested we call AMA and he thought that was silly - it was just a flat.  Over an hour later he finally caved - mainly because he thought he'd busted one of the bolts that hold the tire on.  Then the tow truck then took about 1.5 hours to get here.  :(  At this point, we realized we were never going to get out in time.  The driver had a sledge hammer so together they got the tire off and the spare on.  Turns out the bolt wasn't busted - it just got loose and ended up in the wrong place.  It ended up being a much more minor problem than we were anticipating, but it still managed to kill half the day.

We decided to cure our blues with some retail therapy in Bozeman.  They have a very cute downtown. I managed to keep the purchases for myself to a minimum but got some Christmas presents purchased.  Yay. I think that is my earliest start yet.

Fingers crossed that tomorrow we get that hike in!  We plan on meeting up with my dad and Shelley and they are closer than they thought they'd be, so we'll be able to do the long one we want to do.

Oh and I've decided to start up the Project 365 again starting October 1.  I'm hoping to finish the last three months and maybe keep the momentum going into the new year.  We'll see how it goes.  Today was the dreaded self portrait....  I kind of like it. The blade of grass blurring the front of my face helps. :)