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Thanks very much. I really appreciate your thoughts.

I made the very hard decision to give my little Occy dog his wings today. He was diagnosed with Cushings before Christmas and has been up and down with it. He had a number of other long term health issues and these were all coming to a head recently. He has been unable to play with our other dog for quite a while due to his pain issues from arthritits. It was the hardest decision for me to make, but I think it was the right one. Max sends you wags and licks and hopes to run and jump with you again. He is lying on your bed, wondering where you are. My funny little dog with the bent legs and floppy ears, I hope there are possums and starlings there for you to bark at. I don't know what was in your past, but I do know that you had a lot of health issues and injuries before you came to me. The last 8 years have been a delight. I hope you enjoyed them as much as I did. ETA - correction to the time Occy was with me. RIP Occy

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone for your support and thoughts lately. I gave Occy his wings this morning He had a lot of other issues besides his cushings and they were all catching up with him at once. He was very ill over the weekend, losing nearly a kilo. He was unable to play with our other dog any more due to his pain and I felt that his quality of life was being affected. It was a very hard decision for me to make but I think his time had come.

I wouldn't normally clip him at this time of the year as it is already starting to cool down. He has been sitting there shivering so he has a little jumper on. I don't know if the wash and medication are already starting to work, or the jumper is preventing it, but he has been scratching less today. He is still quite flat

:D Sounds positive so far. Hope it continues along the right path. Occy had a cruciate ligament and luxating patella done nearly 2 years ago now and that leg is quite good. Wish I could say the same for the other three legs.

Occy is on Lysodren. His maintenance dose wasn't sustaining him, (475) so we went back to the loading dose, twice daily tablets. He took his last one on Sunday morning and went back in for the ACTH stim test on Wednesday, when the results came back at 10. He had the cortate last night and again today and will continue having it for about 10 days, reducing it every few days. He isn't having any Lysodren at the moment. He is due to have another ACTH stim test in about 10 days. Vet has said that she will increase the Lysodren dosage slightly for his next maintenance round. He also has a massive skin infection at the moment, so is on antibiotics and malaseb wash to try and get that under control. I have clipped him really short today to try and make that easier to treat. All his allergies are starting to flare up again, hence the skin infection. He really is having a hard time of it lately :D

Results weren't good. Too far down this time. Level was at 10 whatever they measure cortisol in. He wasn't well last night. I had to give him some of the cortate tablets (reversal) but over night he has vomited a couple of times and pooed inside (He NEVER does that, and he didn't scratch to go outside so he must have been caught unawares) so we are off to the vet this morning. I have an unwell cat as well so he is also booked in. Sigh.

Occy went back in today for his next lot of ACTH stim test today. Should get the results tomorrow. Apparently he can never go in for just one thing. Today he also came home with ear drops for a yeast and bacterial infection in his ear. I mentioned that he appeared to going deaf. He is still really itchy. Poor little fellah. He is such a trooper. They really love having him there, he is really easy to work with, doesn't complain at all. They take him out for a wee break and he does his business and comes straight back to them to go back inside. ETA - he was back up to 5.7kilos, so all the hard work had been undone. Such a little porker at the moment

Excessive water consumption is one of the signs of Cushings disease. As the owner of a recently diagnosed dog, I have spent a lot of time lately measuring my dogs daily intake of water. 60ml per kilo in a 24hr period is considered normal. Anything more would be considered excessive. Obviously, there are lots of other things it could indicate, but as that is what I have been dealing with recently, it was first thing to my mind. Another obvious sign of Cushings is a ravenous appetite. From what I understand, Cushings is much more frequent in the smaller dogs, but is certainly still common enough in larger dogs. A trip to the vets will ease your mind

Well, his results weren't good. I mentioned to her that I had noticed his appetite was creeping up again. His cortisol level is apparently meant to be between 30-100 (of whatever it is that they measure cortisol in) and it was 475 So we have to start all over again. I'm up in Queensland this week, so we will have to start the daily dosing again when I get back. Bugger

That's really nice of you to think of them and it makes me think if any DOLer's live on the National Trail they should keep a look out for Bernadette and Rob Sutton and their 4 camels, Black Jack, Teewah, Dodge and Wolf. They're good people. The Trail is at the end of my street, only about 6 houses away. When do they expect to be in the Canberra area? I'll keep an eye out

Occy went in for his check up and ACTH stim test today. Results are expected tomorrow but vet was fairly confident they would be good. On the downside, he has a skin infection - lots of red and crusty bits all over, though he isn't scratching. So on a dose of antibiotics to try and sort that out and regular bathing with aloveen till it clears up. On the plus side, she is very impressed with the progress of his leg and thinks he will be able to get away with no surgery Double plus side, he has lost 300grams, so now down to 5.3kgs. Yay

Sounds lke maybe the bolded part was what made them charge him, if he'd just been like "shorry offishers" and trundled off they prob wouldn't have given a crap. Just my opinion though I wasn't there. I dare say it would be, seeing as the charge is for assaulting a police officer. He has not been charged with any offence for interfering with the police dog. The dog is a police officer and the charge of assault police applies equally to the dogs (or horses) as it does to the human cops. My guess is the assault charge is for the initial offence against the dog, the resist is when they applied the spray and the refuse to leave is just so they could get the daily trifecta

Occy walks around while doing it, Max just stays in one spot. My childhood dog hated being watched while pooing. She would turn her back on you. If you walked around so you were in front of her, she would turn around, but she didn't move away from her spot. Made for some very interesting Mr Whippy shaped piles

Yes, he's doing well. His leg is getting better and better. Back to the vets in a couple of weeks for a check to see that all is still doing well, so I will ask then about his leg. He has stopped holding it up, so maybe confining him has worked? Anyway, see what she says about it.

Glad to hear the results are promising Sorry I missed this earlier - have been away.

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Good news KL (as good as it can get I guess) At least you know what you're dealing with and there doesn't seem to be anything new. Occy actually still had some food in his bowl last night when I went to feed him and give him his tablet. Yay!

Good luck with results today KL I fed the dogs this morning. Occy didn't yip "Hurry up" to me once while I was preparing their food. I put the bowl down and he looked at it, then went and had a pee. Didn't even take one piece with him just in case he starved before he could finish peeing His leg is looking really good too. He is bearing weight on it quite well when at a walk or slow trot. If he thinks he needs to run, he will still lift it, but mostly he uses it. Maybe the confinement has helped.

Bugger! hope all goes well

Thanks for that Bit of reading there for me

That www.k9cushings.net address came up as not found.

Good luck with the results! My vet fees in the last month are pretty scary and I really don't want to actually add it all up but I'm guessing it's well over $1000 already (right on Christmas too. Ouch)

Bugger Juice. Hopefully you get a decent result on Monday. It's hard when they say "test test test" but every single one is killing your bank account just that little bit quicker. He looks like a lovely boy by the way

You need to remember that Occy is only 5.6kg. There's not a lot of him well, there is a lot more of him than there used to be, but hopefully he will get back down to his pre surgery weight of 4.9kg I will take some photos and put them up, probably on the weekend.