A dog was found wandering in a Texas town with wire wrapped around its mouth. http://www.nbc5.com/index.html
Posted on 04/11/2007 2:28:57 AM PDT by BagCamAddict
They don’t physically regenerate, but they often recover a lot of function after an acute poisoning episode. Many cats who have been critically ill with acute kidney failure from the contaminated foods, are being gradually weaned off fluids as their kidney function returns. Some will end up not needing ongoing fluid therapy at all; others will require much lower daily quantities of fluids than they needed while the toxin was still in their system — depends on how much permanent physical damage the kidneys sustained.
As for me, my only renal failure kitty is a 21 year old whose renal failure is due to being ancient, not due to any poisoning. He’s gotten fluids every single night for almost 2 years now, and will continue to need them for the rest of his life.
I hope people whose pets have sustained permanent damage requiring lifelong fluid administration won’t rush to put them to sleep out of the belief that the pet will regard the daily needle+fluids as some sort of torture. My kitty LOVES getting his fluids. He lies on my bed and purrs up a storm, because he gets combed during fluid admin and thinks that’s just the most excellent treat. If I’m late with his fluids, he gets up on the bed and parks himself in The Spot, glaring at me if I’m within glaring range. Other people train their kitties to look forward to a special food treat, like pure tuna, right after (or even during) fluids. There are various ways to convince cats that getting fluids is fun, and a little patience and creativity on the part of the human will accomplish that objective. I don’t have any personal experience with dogs and fluid admin, but know that many people have trained their dogs to accept it readily (not surprising, since dogs are generally more trainable than cats).
PS: As for “costly”, treatment through the critical stage is indeed costly, but long term fluid admin isn’t, if you buy supplies in bulk from the least expensive sources (which is almost never a vet). At 150-200mL of lactated ringer’s nightly, along with needles and admin lines, I’m spending about $20 a month.
Our Mellie was really attached to my husband, but when she was sick, and I was the person administering treatment, she and I developed a totally different relationship than we had prior to her illness...
Not sure if you saw this thread or not.
I wish there was a way to get the word out to the many people who are suddenly facing the choice between putting a beloved pet to sleep and long term home nursing care, that the home nursing care thing can actually be very positive for both the human and the pet, and is also not terribly expensive. I don’t trust most vets to get the message across because frankly most of them don’t have a clue what’s involved in effective, low-cost long term care for an animal with diminished kidney function. Most vets are selling fluids with accompanying line and way-too-big needles for $15-25 a bag. I even recently saw a report of $50!! For a large dog, this could easily run up to $1000/month.
A couple of years ago, on the feline renal failure group (the Feline-CRF-Support Yahoo Group), someone posted about their vet who’d been charging around $15/bag. The vet responded to her client’s protest by offering to match whatever price the client could find on fluids elsewhere. When the client showed the vet what fluids cost at Brico Medical Supplies ( www.bricomedicalsupplies.com ), the vet was flabbergasted and immediately stopped ordering fluids from the overpriced veterinary supplier that had been telling her the prices it was giving her were “discounted”, and switched to Brico.
I guess it’s only in fairly recent years that many pet owners have been willing to do this sort of thing for their pets, and most vets who are practicing now graduated from vet school back when it was unheard of, and most of the rest were taught by vet school professors who always regarded it as unheard of.
If you can think of any efficient ways to get the word out, please go for it, and let me know if I can help. I’m afraid there’s a short window of opportunity for the many pets whose owners assume long term nursing care would be miserable for human and pet alike.
I know what you mean about the strong the bond that develops with a pet you’re providing with intensive treatment over a long period. My current kitty is the second ancient kitty that I’ve done this with. The first one was over 15 when I adopted him from a shelter out of pity, and became seriously ill about 2 years later. When I adopted him, I never thought I’d bond with him as much as with my other cats that I’d had for a long time, especially since he was not a cuddly kitty by any means. Boy was I ever wrong about that. I got ultra-bonded and I think he did too, because he turned into a cuddle-bug and always looked happy to see me approaching him, even though it was often with a pill or a needle or, in the last few months, an enema syringe!
We are getting closer to a smoking gun. Cornell identified new crystals and they are on the right track.
I am not ruling out anything at this point. Even the genetically modified food aspect.
Interested in where this mystery will ultimately lead!
People on the k9kidney list are really good about explaining sub-q's and it was just discussed on our cocker list the other day... it's the people who never get on pet lists that are clueless.
I’m afraid there are a lot of people who just don’t realize there are lists like these, that can often provide better info than their vets, due to being totally focused on single condition.
True and vets sure as heck don’t want to tell them...
Bump. Stop buying Chinese products.
Perhaps post this info on the Pet Connection blog about the recall ?
Have you seen this article in the International Herald Tribune?
In recent months, Xuzhou Anying appears to have posted several requests on online trading sites seeking to purchase large quantities of melamine.
In one March 29 posting on a trading site operated by Sohu.net, a Chinese Web site, people who said they were with Xuzhou Anying wrote, "Our company buys large quantities of melamine scrap all year around." There were also postings on several other online trading sites, like ChemAbc.net.
The composition of that "melamine scrap" might explain the "red crystals" seen in the Cornell samples.
Interesting article, to say the least. If credible, it confirms the theory that the melamine was added deliberately, and also explains how and why a substance that has been described in previous reports as "relatively expensive," and therefore not economically feasible, was used.
A dog was found wandering in a Texas town with wire wrapped around its mouth. http://www.nbc5.com/index.html
Actually I think in many cases the vets don’t know about them either. And I suspect that most people who can afford to, end up spending more at the vet, because their standards for maintaining a pet’s health and extending its life are raised by all the info on these lists. A large number of the new joiners on the Feline-CRF-Support group have taken their cat to the vet, and had the vet tell them there’s really nothing that can be done, and that it’s time to put the cat to sleep. Some of these cats are still living happily several years later, with their owners having spent a good deal more money at vets than if they’d just put the cat to sleep when the vet advised it.
What a cute dog... what kind of slime does this to an innocent animal? We really need stronger laws for animal cruelty — especially since in too many cases it leads to human to human issues.
I can’t tell you how many vets seem to give dogs or cats no chance when that isn’t the case. I saw it time and again on the Cushings list and people would come on and say they have a vet who doesn’t even want to treat, says there is no hope... makes you wonder why some go to school to become vets.
I really think it’s the time lag thing. It’s a pretty new part of our culture that people are willing to spend huge amounts of time and money to keep their pets healthy and extend their lifespans way beyond what nature had in mind. Until fairly recent years, if vets suggested long term medical treatment for a pet, 99.9% of owners would say no (and quite a lot still do). So most older vets — those who have mentored and taught the vets who are now middle-aged — just never got well-informed on the details of what’s involved. I’m sure it will change, but it takes time.
For perspective, the Feline CRF group gets a number of cat owners from the UK, and it’s like pulling teeth to convince a UK vet that it’s actually possible and practical for a pet owner to administer fluids at home, even on a short term basis. The veterinary culture there is well behind that in the US. In many cases, people have had to take their vets piles of print-outs from the group’s posts and US veterinary professional sources, to convince the vet that home fluid administration isn’t a wildly irrational idea. In some cases, even measures like that haven’t worked, and the owner has had to shop around 3 or more vets before finding one that can be persuaded that an ordinary pet owner is capable of inserting an admin line into a bag of fluid, attaching a needle to the end of the admin line, putting the needle into kitty, turning on the flow, reading the marking on the bag to see when the desired amount of fluid has gone in, turning off the flow, and pulling the needle out of kitty.
My bad.
Like China (IHT is a PRC publication) cares about violating all of our copyrights.
Sick bastards.
I couldn’t get the article to come up, but I’ll keep trying.
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