Animal Insting

I'm going to start today's update by talking about ME, because that's my favorite subject!  And what I'm going to tell you about me is that last week I had a thyroid test, and the results of that test were that everything is dandy with my thyroid.  But like I told you before, my hair is getting really thin, and even though I have been taking melatonin for almost 3 months, my hair is not getting any thicker.

So Dr. Patricia is trying to talk to Dr. Senter, the dermatologist, but he is a very busy man, so she is having trouble getting ahold of him.

On Friday, Nicky went to see Dr. Patricia, and he got a 3-year rabies shot and a 3-year city license.  Also he got a microchip and a bordatella vaccination.  And he had some blood taken out of him for a heartworm test and a titer to see if he needs to get a distemper shot, which probably he doesn't.

Dr. Patricia looked at Nicky all over, and she listened to his heart and lungs, and she looked in his mouth, and she said that he has something called CUPS.  You might think that CUPS are what you drink coffee out of, but in this case, you would be wrong, because the letters stand for Chronic Ulcerative Peradental Stomatitis.  So that's why most people call it CUPS, because it's hard to say (or even remember) all those big, long words.

Well, I didn't know what CUPS was, and neither did Mom, so we looked it up, and here's what we learned:  when a dog has this disease, he gets sore places inside his mouth, like wherever the insides of his mouth touch the plaque that forms on his teeth.  The plaque is caused by bacteria, so it's like the dog is allergic to the bacteria, and that's what makes him get sores in his mouth.  This is what you call an auto-immune disease, because you are allergic to something inside your own body.  It seems crazy to be allergic to your own self, but it happens sometimes.

Nobody knows for sure why dogs get CUPS, or why Maltese dogs seem to get it more often than a lot of other breeds.  Here's a picture of a dog's mouth who has CUPS.  The arrow points to a sore place that got started because it was touching the tooth.

Nicky's CUPS disease isn't too bad, so maybe he won't have to have all his teeth pulled, which is what happens in really bad cases.  The way you treat CUPS is that the dog takes antibiotics and also gets his teeth brushed every day.  Mom is trying to get us used to having our teeth brushed, but she hasn't got too far yet.  And a lot of days she forgets to even do it.  But I wish she would remember, because the toothpaste tastes really yummy!

Anyway, Nicky will have to go see a special veterinarian dentist, which will probably be expensive, like visits to specialists usually are.

Oh, and Nicky also has a growth under his tail.  It looks kind of like a little brown mole, and I don't mean the kind of mole that lives underground in your garden and eats the roots of your flowers.  This mole is not very big, and probably it isn't a scary sort of mole, but we don't know how long it's been there.  So Dr. Patricia wants to take it off, and she wants to do that now, while the mole is small, and there is still enough skin there to stitch up the wound after the mole is cut out.

So that's all I'm going to tell you about Nicky.  Barry and Mel are still busy having diarrhea in the yard most days, and Barry farts big, stinky farts a lot.  Nicky has diarrhea, too, sometimes.  But I have nice, firm poop.  Mom often compliments me on my poop, so that makes me feel quite proud of myself.  Dr. Patricia wants to do bloodwork on Barry and Mel to see what's going on with them.  Mom thinks that Nicky already had a bunch of bloodwork done, but she has had so much stuff done for so many dogs and cats lately that she can't remember who got what.

And speaking of cats, Charlie and Chloe seem to be okay right now.  Charlie had a cough last week, but it's gone now.  His weight is down to 18 pounds and 11 ounces (from 27 pounds at the start), but he still needs to lose a few more pounds.  He complains a lot about how Mom is starving him.  Chloe weighs about 9.5 pounds.  She lost a bunch of weight when she had pneumonia, so now Mom is trying to fatten her up a little.  Mom has started feeding the cats in separate dishes, and that means she has to watch them eat so that they don't eat each other's food.


Well, now for an update on Mom.  Mom has been busy lately because her friend LaDene is in the hospital.  Aunt LaDene fell down on Wednesday and cracked a bone in her knee, so she is not supposed to walk on that leg for a while.  She will not have to have surgery, but she can only go around in a wheelchair, which she can't use in her own house, so she will be in a rehab place for a few weeks.

Meanwhile, Mom has been going to Aunt LaDene's house every day to feed her cat, Trix, and to pick up the mail.  Also yesterday Mom had to water all of Aunt LaDene's plants, which took awhile because she has a bunch of them.  But not as many as Mom has.  Then Mom has to go to the hospital to visit Aunt LaDene and take her mail to her.  So doing all of that is making Mom a very busy person, but she is still trying to find time to stay home with us dogs because she loves us.

Okay, I guess you are totally up to date now.  We are all just a very busy little family, and if we are not busy running up vet bills, then we are busy napping.  It's a dog's life, and we have to make the most of it!