WHERE WE ARE AND HOW WE GOT HERE

In retrospect I guess it all started well over a year ago but I didn’t know it at the time. Koty has always been filled with irrational exuberance. At 11 years old I expected that he would soon start showing signs of slowing down. He didn’t. He would get so excited spinning and twirling when we were gearing up for a hike that I was forever telling him “Settle down, remember your age, you’re going to throw something out of whack.” Sure enough, he did.

Summer before last he was out in his quarter acre play pen when I heard a yelp. You may not know, Siberian Huskies would give Sara Bernhardt a run for the drama queen title. Even knowing this I always respond just the same. Sure enough Koty was gimping around and not at all happy.

I treat Koty as I treat myself. We don’t go running off to the doctor for every little thing. I haven’t see one for twenty-five years except to have my eyes checked by an ophthalmologist on a regular basis. My mother suffered from glaucoma and photography would be tricky if I were to go blind. Whilst I am not big on doctors I am big on preventive maintenance. Koty has only been in to the vet for shots.

I decided to just observe him for a while and see how things developed. After a couple of weeks it was apparent he required some intervention. He wasn’t in dire straights but he wasn’t up to par. My guess was that he needed a chiropractor. I asked around and ended up at a vet in Kila about 80 miles from here.

We arrived at our appointed time and were shown to a treatment room. Fifty minutes later, I was counting, the vet blew into the room and, without apology, popped Koty on the spine three times with a thing that looked like a giant syringe. She noted that there was some hair loss on both sides of his neck, laid a hairy guilt trip on me for not having him in a harness and was gone.

As it turned out those three pops worked wonders. Koty was his old self within a couple of days but observable improvement was immediate. Chiropractic treatment is becoming increasingly common and based on my experience I would highly recommend it.

The treatment was great but I wasn’t very impressed with the vet. I’m really not a fan of being kept waiting but some recognition of it goes a long way toward mitigating the annoyance. Something like “Sorry, I’m late.” I also didn’t particularly appreciate her damning tone about the hair loss and harness.

Koty is a puller there is no doubt about that. It is in the very nature of huskies to pull. Can they be trained not to pull whilst on a lead? Most probably and the Dog Whisperer would have my head on a pike. For better or worse I did it my way.

Here is the way it was. I never wanted Koty walking at my side. We are always on hiking trails and that’s single file. I also wanted him to be able to explore more as though he wasn’t on a lead at all whilst I was observing nature and looking for things of interest to photograph. Letting him off lead is not an option. What I rigged up to meet both our needs was attaching a 16ft retractable leash to a ski-joring belt. Ski-joring is something Koty and I do around the ranch in winter. It is where you slap on your cross country skis and harness your dog and hook him up to a belt you wear around your waist. With Koty I kind of liken it to hooking myself up to an unguided missile.

The truth is, I go off in my little world and Koty goes off in his. I hardly pay any attention or even notice his pulling unless I want to take a photograph. Then I reel him in and make him sit which he is reluctantly willing to do. I admit I have a bit of a guilty conscience about not training him properly in this regard. So, what this vet said kind of got under my skin. Somewhere in the back of my mind I didn’t believe pulling was the cause. If it had been it should have shown up a long time ago. Now I wonder if this wasn’t the first sign of Cushing’s.

This past January I took Koty in for his rabies vaccination at the local vet. I pointed out the hair loss to her and she said it could be a thyroid problem and the hair would never grow back. I’m thinking who cares about the hair shouldn’t we test for the thyroid problem? So, at my suggestion we did just that. The tests came back negative and the subject was just dropped. To say that this vet is lacking in initiative would be a gross understatement. The town I live near is very small (pop. 1,000) town. Veterinarian options are limited to say the least. I had always thought if anything serious came up I would find help down in the Flathead some 75 miles from where I live.

We went on our merry way. Then this past August Koty started to tinkle in the house. This was highly unusual behavior. Koty has better personal habits than some people I’ve known. Such an occurrence was completely out of character. I did some construction projects here at the ranch this summer that took longer than anticipated and resulted in me not being as present with Koty as I normally am. I honestly thought he might be doing it to get back at me for ignoring him. He is that smart.

I decided it was time to see the vet again. We took in a urine specimen and got some blood taken. The vet said, “It’s probably dementia, you can get him some diapers.” What??!!! A couple of days later I get a call telling me the blood work was normal.  That was it.

Not long after the vet visit I noticed along with the in house accidents he was drinking more water and his appetite seemed to have increased. Normally, his water consumption which was less than a pan per day now became two which was slurped up like a dying man in the desert.  He who had always eaten like a bird suddenly became ravenous. I used to always tell people that unlike me who lived to eat Koty ate to live. At first I was happy to see his appetite increase to where he cleaned up his food when I gave it to him. Putting it all together I just thought something had to be wrong.

I was fairly sure I wasn’t going to get any help from a vet who never asked a question. I always felt like she was waiting for me to tell her what to do next. I decided to take matters into my own hands and started researching on the internet. Sometimes I forget there is so much information at my fingertips.

I came up with a couple of possibilities but the closest symptoms that fit Koty fit Cushing’s here are the most common.

          Increased/excessive water consumption (polydipsia)
          Increased/excessive urination (polyuria)
          Urinary accidents in previously housetrained dogs
          Increased/excessive appetite (polyphagia)
          Appearance of food stealing/guarding, begging, trash dumping, etc.
          Sagging, bloated, pot-bellied appearance
          Weight gain or its appearance, due to fat redistribution
          Loss of muscle mass, giving the appearance of weight loss
          Bony, skull-like appearance of head
          Exercise intolerance, lethargy, general or hind-leg weakness
          New reluctance to jump on furniture or people
          Excess panting, seeking cool surfaces to rest on
          Symmetrically thinning hair or baldness (alopecia) on torso
          Other coat changes like dullness, dryness
          Slow regrowth of hair after clipping
          Thin, wrinkled, fragile, and/or darkly pigmented skin
         Easily damaged/bruised skin that heals slowly
          Hard, calcified lumps in the skin (calcinosis cutis)
          Susceptibility to infections (especially skin and urinary)
            Diabetes, pancreatitis, seizures

Koty’s symptoms are:

    Increased water consumption.
    Increased urination.
    Urinary accidents.
    Increased appetite.
    Begging and dumpster diving. Never done that.
    Stomach looking and feeling bloated. When I thump it it sounds like thumping     a watermelon.
    Excess panting and suddenly sleeping on the bathroom tile.
    Thinning hair on torso. Koty has now lost the majority of his undercoat.
    Coat changes. I started to notice Koty’s coat seemed a little dull back in the     spring. It wasn’t until this fall that I realized he was losing his undercoat and it     wasn’t growing back.
    The one thing he hasn’t presented with is a lack of energy or inability to jump in     the car or up on the bed. He may sleep a little longer and move a little slower     upon rising but I chalk that up to getting     older.

It seems there are two recognized causes of Cushing’s; a reaction to drug therapy most commonly cortisone or a tumor on the pituitary.

Like me Koty has never taken any pharmaceuticals so it most likely is a tumor. The tumors are tiny and surgery is seldom recommended. Some people have opted for chemotherapy in a tumor situation. I’m not sure how they determined the tumor was malignant they are most often not. I am not inclined to subject myself nor my dog to dangerous and potentially unnecessary surgery chemo or pharmaceutical regimens so I started looking for alternatives. I found Supraglan at Pet Wellbeing.

I was ready to take action but it seemed only sensible to get Koty tested for Cushing’s to confirm my diagnosis before starting any therapy. No lay person should treat their pet without confirming the diagnosis. I went back to the same vet because I figured how hard could the test be? I’d get confirmation and go on my merry way. Apparently, harder than I thought because when the vet called me with the results she said he tested positive for Addison’s. I asked what are the symptoms for Addison’s and she said vomiting, diarrhea and muscle weakness. I noted Koty had none of those symptoms. She said the results were exactly the opposite of what you would expect to see for Cushing’s and maybe she had messed up by not injecting him properly with the test serum. She said I could bring Koty back to do the test over and she would “eat” the $175 cost. She said it like she was doing me a big favor. I said thank you very much and began contacting everyone I could think of to find a competent vet in the Flathead.

Thanks to Holly Bailey, Holly’s Country Home Kennels, the only person in whose care I have ever or would ever leave Koty, I ended up going with a veterinarian by the name of Rick Myers in Kalispell. I called his office and he returned the call within the hour. Score one for this vet. I told him the whole story and he recommended I bring Koty in for testing. The test would take all day because blood needed to be drawn at four hour intervals.

At dawn last Tuesday we headed for Kalispell. When I arrived I was asked to fill out some paper work and soon after shown to an examination room. I wasn’t in the room more than five minutes before the vet entered and introduced himself as Rick Meyers. Score two for this vet. I make it a habit to call doctors by their first name to get a reaction. If they appear offended or put off I cross them off the list. My respect for doctors is not automatic and I don’t care much for those with god complexes. If anyone wants my respect they have to earn it. Designations and degrees do not impress or intimidate me in the least.

After a brief chat I left Koty and spent the day running errands. I was to pick Koty up between five thirty and six. I can’t see worth a toot in the dark anymore so driving home wasn’t an option. I ran out of gas before it was time to pick Koty up so I checked us into the Whitefish Best Western.

I arrived back at the vets a the appointed time, paid my bill and left. I didn’t see Rick and I figured there wasn’t much to say until the results were in so I didn’t think anything of it. After we left the office we walked around the grounds so Koty could get his tinkling done. It was already dark. Out of the darkness a figure approached and it was Rick. We had a talk and he told me the test Koty had had earlier wasn’t even the appropriate one for suspected Cushing’s. No, surprise there. I thought it awfully kind of him to come out in the cold and dark to speak with me. Score three for this vet.

We headed home next morning to await the results that were due in on Thursday. The call came whilst we were out working in the woods. Lucky I even heard the call as I was running the chainsaw with ear plugs in.

Well, we know the results, otherwise I would not be writing this opus. Rick told me there were pharmaceutical treatments that had had good results. I had kind of been dreading the moment I would say I was going to go an alternative route. Much to my surprise Rick was in total support. Not only did he support the idea but asked to be kept informed how it worked because if we had good results he would let others know about it. I was amazed and delighted to have found such an enlightened and open minded man. Score four for this vet and call him doctor.

So, now we are waiting for the Supraglan to arrive. It should be here today. A big snowstorm is headed this way so I’m hoping it gets here before the snow start to fly. UPS can’t get to us once the snow and ice starts piling up.

As of this writing Koty is for all appearances happy and healthy. We are taking long walks in the woods every afternoon and enjoying ourselves to the fullest. Yesterday he dragged home a whole deer hide. It was an incredible feat and he was so very proud of himself. What a trouper my guy is!

Koty with his deer hide trophy. November 15, 2011

©Kinsey Barnard