Eye trouble – the chronicles
Rory's improved eye – no really
Edited to say: All the vets I have seen have been brilliant. It’s not their fault my dog is an odd ball and incredibly difficult to diagnose. Thanks for all their help this far… I’m sure I’ll need more of it. 
Rory is suffering what I like to call ‘undiagnosable eye trouble’ or UET. This eye problem is causing me both mental and financial strain – about £600-worth so far, plus a trip to the doctors for me because he gave me conjunctivitis (a byproduct of whatever is wrong with him).
The timeline of stress (that’s its official name)
Friday PM – All ok as I go to bed
Saturday AM – Eye so swollen I have to take him pretty much straight to the vet, he can barely open it and I’m not loving the idea of having to rush him to the vet on Sunday. Vet has a good poke around, says she can’t see anything in the eye, that he’ll probably be fine on a course of eye drops – very strong, stinging eye drops I might add – until Thursday. If he is fine by then the vet says he will probably be fine and doesn’t need to come back in. There is a passing suggestion of Rory having to be knocked out so the vets can have a proper look. It’s glossed over. I’m relieved it doesn’t seem necessary.
Saturday PM to Thursday PM – Swelling gradually goes down. Eye is almost back to normal by the end of Thursday. I follow instructions and stop putting the eye drops in.
Saturday AM – Eye is looking a bit more swollen again. I call the vets and make an appointment for Monday evening.
Sunday AM – Rory’s eye is back to being so swollen he can’t open it and as it is getting progressively worse I have to take him to the vet. I time it so I go within the clinic times (ie tiny percent cheaper than total weekend out-of-hours). I see another vet, she’s lovely. She pokes around in his eye. Tells me she’s never seen anything like it. Recommends putting him back on the eye drops and coming back on Monday evening. I have to cancel the Monday appointment I’ve already made and make another with the practice partner. Me and Rory head home again.
Monday PM – Me and Rory meet the very lovely practice partner. He tells me that he’s not sure what’s wrong with it either. Pokes around in it and still finds nothing. He recommends putting the eye drops in for a full course of seven days and coming back the following Monday. He seems to know what he is talking about so I agree. I feel much calmer after meeting with him. He mentions the eye specialist based nearby in passing.
Monday PM to Wednesday AM – I put the eye drops in, as directed, every day, several times a day. Rory hates it because it stings. (At this point none of the vets have told me the eye drops sting, so I’m left thinking the dog is completely overreacting.) His eye gets progressively worse, not better. By Wednesday it’s absolutely huge and closed. I have a work photoshoot so I make a vet appointment and organise for my grandparents to take him. It’s another different vet. She’s never seen anything like it. She gives him a steroid injection, and as per my note arranges an appointment with the specialist for the Friday. She recommends I keep putting in the eye drops.
Friday AM – Rory’s eye looks completely normal as a result of the steroid injection on the Wednesday. It shouldn’t do. The effects normally wear off in 12 hours. The specialist does every test he can think of and they all test as within normal ranges. He steps back, looks at me and sighs. He says that as far as he can see the eye is normal but clearly it is not. Without seeing it blown up he can’t tell me what might be wrong – we do discuss the potential for an allergic reaction or a foreign body in the eye. He sends me away with instructions not to do anything and if it blows up again to bring him back in. I ask if there is a reason the eye drops didn’t work the second time around, he says no, if they work once they should work again. Not doing anything means no eye drops, no medication at all. As I leave he says ‘hopefully it will all be resolved and I won’t see you again’. I say ‘I guarantee we will be back’. He nods knowingly. He says to contact him whenever I need to. He is very helpful, makes lots of helpful suggestions and tells me straight what he’s thinking. I like him. He allows me to vent about how disappointed and frustrated I am with the situation. He agrees. Me and Rory head home.
Saturday AM – Rory’s eye has already started to swell. I call the specialist and make an appointment for Tuesday evening. I speak to a veterinary nurse who agrees I should probably put the eye drops in over the weekend but to make sure I stopped Sunday night so it would be flared up for Tuesday.
Sunday AM – The eye is significantly worse. I am nervous and uncomfortable about it. Rory is depressed and lethargic for the first time in the whole process. He is clearly in pain and is not interested in anything. About mid-morning I notice there is a small amount of bleeding in the conjunctiva. I keep an eye on this but it stays pretty much the same. He spends most of the day sleeping.
Sunday PM – Rory is getting more and more uncomfortable. Suddenly he goes from being completely asleep to violently scratching at his eye. I look at it. The bleeding is significantly worse. He is now pacing and clearly upset. I call out-of-hours at my vet (for the third weekend in a row – what was I saying about Timing), discover that they are very expensive and remember that they could do nothing last weekend either. I call the specialist practice. Another vet at the practice is on call and advises I bring Rory in. My friend who is visiting at the time drives us there. This vet, another new one, the sixth now, also is floored by Rory’s swollen eye and looks genuinely shocked at his appearance. We discuss the drug options in order that the specialist can see Rory the next day without too much masking, but also makes Rory comfortable. More poking around in his eye. Some talk of potential nerve damage or allergies. I go home with Rory on ‘speed’ so he’s buzzing. Before I leave I make the appointment for the following afternoon. Once home Rory settles down to sleep. When he wakes up three hours later his eye is stuck together, when he opens it a whole load of bloody pus comes out. Gross.
Monday PM – The eye is looking better but not completely healed. The specialist is frustrated that the other vet did not call him in the night before and says that the medication means there is no chance of taking swabs or of him being able to see the reaction full-on. I’m not charged for the emergency call the night before because of this. We wouldn’t have been able to take swabs anyway because of my eye drop application over the weekend. Rory is apparently a mystery still. The specialist says he can now see that it is not an allergic reaction which leaves the most likely cause to be something that either had been or is stuck in the eye. He switches him off steroids and on to other drugs. Other drugs that amount to 10 tablets a day (4 different types) and 2 different eye drops, 3 times a day. We’re to stay on this for two or three weeks. I’m given drugs for two weeks and asked to keep in touch. Specialist calls me in just before I leave to take some photos, apparently Rory is going to be in lectures or something. He’s that *special*. Yes he’s certainly special… *Rolls eyes*
Tuesday AM – Tuesday AM – I continue with the course of treatment. It seems to be working and Rory’s eye returns almost to normal, with one difference. There is a lump in the corner of his eye. I take photographs of this and email them to the vet. Monday evening I start reducing the medication down as discussed with the vet.
Tuesday PM – Rory’s eye is already looking a little more swollen. The lump is no longer visible. I continue with the treatment.
Wednesday AM – I realise I only have enough medication to last until Monday when I am supposed to be seeing the specialist again – except Monday is a bank holiday. I am *not* having another weekend/bank holiday vet visit. I call the specialist’s practice. There is some confusion over how many drugs I do or do not have – mainly from my side. The specialist is to call me back.
Wednesday PM – Specialist calls me back. Tells me my photography is another league (well… you know… *blushes*) and suggests I take all his photos from this point onwards. We discover I have been given less drugs than necessary. Specialist arranges for me to pick them up from my normal vet the next day.
Thursday PM – I drop by the vets to pick up the drugs. They aren’t all there and my vet is busy. I have to rush off. Later I have a long and complex conversation with my normal vet where he tells me Rory is on the top level of drugs he can safely have. I arrange to pick up the missing drugs. All the drugs now have different names and doses so it’s like learning a whole new system.
Friday AM – Tuesday PM (TODAY!) – His eye seems to be stable on the medication at the moment and I’ve finally got to grips with the dosages. We’re in a routine. Next appointment is next week and the drugs will run out two days before. Wish us luck.
By the looks of it, Rory might need to be knocked out to have a look at the lump (*sad face* scary stuff), but maybe not, so I’m not thinking about it. Dogs eh? Lucky we love them. And the vets have been fab, the vets receptionists now know me and Rory by name. Unfortunately it’s not just the eye thing we’ve needed them for. Fortunately we’re insured!
Rally-O (80)
Claire (@HaslemerePetCo) and Patch show the workshop how it's done
Me and Rory tried some Rally the other day. We are already taking agility lessons, but more of that to come… Rally is different.
Rally-o is a mix of agility and obedience. You move around a course following the instructions on cones until you finally pass through the finish. If you do an action wrong, then you get penalty points. I think you also get penalty points if you run over the ideal course time. Lowest score in the quickest time wins. You get the idea.
Now for some reason that is beyond me, there are two different ways of doing Rally, Talking Dogs and APDT. I don’t know why this surprises me… there are also two ways to do agility (Kennel Club and UKA). The two types of Rally signs are similar, sort of mean the same thing, and have a different amount of sits. (Bear with me, I only did a one day Rally workshop). The benefit of the Wagtails Canine College workshop that I attended, is that they introduce you to both types from the beginning. Personally, although this was a bit confusing at the start of the day, I think that it is better to learn the differences and the different signs from the very beginning so they become almost instinctive.
Anyway, enough about the confusing technicalities. How did we do? Well after the initial shock for Rory that he was not allowed to charge everywhere (like I said we are agility nuts at the moment) he got everything, pretty much first time. My dog is a genius: this was to be expected. Now, I, on the other hand, struggled. The signs were all new and so confused me. I gave Rory commands late, which resulted in him reacting too late. I was taking photos, which slowed us even more! In summary, Rory was brilliant, I was rubbish. Having said that, by the end of the day, with lots of instructor support, we were definitely getting there!
At the moment I crave the excitement (and the physical energy burning for Rory) that agility brings us. I can’t afford to do both at the same time so Rally will be taking a back burner for me, for the immediate future anyway. I would recommend it for those with dogs that like to think, and I can see major benefits for older dogs whose limbs won’t be up to the strains of agility. And if you want to compete, and do well, but your dog is not built for speed then Rally is more for you. How many of us are going to beat a Collie in a flat-out race?
As I write this, I can see @HaslemerePetCo and @HaslemerePets‘s Patch in my mind. (See picture above.) He loves Rally. His tail wags the whole way round. He is brilliant at it. And he is proof that everyone should give it a go. No-one could resist the chance to make their dog that happy!
Check out a video of @HaslemerePetCo and Patch doing a Rally round below:
Rory is awesome (75)
Yeah, ok, i’ll admit it, most people think their dog is the most awesome. It works the same way as everyone thinking that their friends are the best friends, that their way is the best way and that they are never wrong. I digress…
Rory is awesome, and here is why:
1) He never judges. Even when I am a mess, and wound up, and annoyed or crying. He doesn’t care. He just waits until I’m ok again and then checks to see if I want to play. Which brings me to point 2.
2) He never buys into my bullsh*t. If i’m having a hysterical breakdown, he will completely ignore me. No solid, supporting dog here. Oh no, he isn’t having any of it. He wants me to get over it and play with him.
3) He comes everywhere with me and never complains. This is just because he is awesome.
4) He makes me feel special because he stresses when I leave him, even if I leave him with someone he knows. Proper whining, crying. But only when he can still see me, randomly.
5) He has great hair. Enough said.
5) He makes me get out and do things. He is that kind of dog. You have to do things or he is bored.
6) He is a genius. After three lessons of agility we moved up – the course should be fifteen weeks. He remembers things I don’t. He can remember where he left a ball three months before. He is too clever, but that is a good thing.
7) He bounces everywhere. Kind of like tigger. It’s cute and it makes me laugh.
And he likes odd numbers, which is why i’m ending on seven. How do I know? Well I just do.
World Agility Championships 2010 (74)
I struck it lucky last week, or more specifically two people struck out. My friend was let down by both the people who were meant to be attending the World Agility Championships with her. Such a shame. I was sad for oh, about two seconds, before I realised that the email everyone in the agility club I had received was offering us tickets. Sorry, ME(!) tickets. As long as I got back to her quickly. Oh there are definitely some benefits of getting your email to your phone!
I’m a bit of an agiity newbee, so I was really excited about going and seeing the best in the world competiting. The WAC is held every other year, in a different country each time, which is another reason to not say no… it was only a few hours from us this year, next year it could be in NZ or Oz.
Talking of NZ and Oz, they had to borrow dogs to compete with, talk about making your job five times harder! But you know what, one of the New Zealand handlers won her section with a borrowed dog so it just goes to show it can be done.
Russia pretty much swept the board. They had clear hand signals and direction, they were fast and driven.
I learnt a whole lot, and now I want to compete. Me and Rory have only had two agility lessons so far but i’m super keen. You would not believe how much a learnt about tactics and how to run a dog. And even about the different styles of training.
I am so ready. Bring on the tests, and maybe in a couple of years we’ll be competing at the World Championships. You never do know, do you?
Timing (69)
No, this blog post is not about training. Although timing is of course a key part of that. And no, it is not about being late, although I am quite often late by a few minutes. Don’t take offence if I ever do it to you.
It is instead about Rory’s timing. When I was about to go away on holiday, the morning I was flying out, he got ill. Very, very ill in fact, all over my house. It came from both ends, all over my carpet in my front room and all over the kitchen. The house stank, I hadn’t packed and was due to be leaving him in just a few hours. It is the only time since he was a puppy that he has ever had an accident in the house, and only the second time he has been sick. Horrible, horrible timing. I could smell it from upstairs in the shower. It is worth noting that I had already been downstairs and let him out in the garden, let him do what he needed and let him back in. *sigh* But like most dog owners would be in this situation, I wasn’t mad. You can’t be when they are ill can you? When I got downstairs wrapped in my towel he had squeezed himself into the tiniest space by the sofa, with his head on his paws, looking so sad, and refused to move. He stayed there while I did a botched job of clearing up. I had to take a trip out before I came home from holiday to pick up some de-odoriser. It turns out this was really just a warm-up.
On Saturday, we were on our way back from a fairly new walk that took us about an hour and a half, when Rory stopped dead. His face disappeared into the grass. I failed to notice until I was a fair distance ahead. When I turned around I was sure he was eating something he shouldn’t be. I started yelling “LEAVE IT” across the field. He ignored me, the cricketers on the other side of the fence looked in my direction. “Will you LEAVE IT!’ I started striding in his direction… Rory started hobbling in mine. I was about twenty feet away and I could see the blood trail he was leaving in his wake. This. Was. Not. Good. Luckily we were only about a two minute walk from home, as there is no way in hell I could carry him any distance. I’ve had enough problems carrying him to and in to the car since.
We got home fairly quickly, albeit via a cricketer who wanted to tell me Rory was “a nice looking dog”. Blood everywhere. I put my canine first aid into action. I attended an Animal Aiders course only a couple of weeks ago. Could not see the wound, as Rory would not keep still, so washed out the whole pad with saline and then bandaged it. Left it for two hours, while Rory sulked in his bed. When I took it off the bleeding had stopped, but he was still non-weight bearing. Time to go the vet.
Except he’d chosen the bank holiday to hurt himself. So the vet was only open between 5-6 and, of course, additional charges applied. Carried Rory to, and then from, the car. Waiting room, blood all over clinic floor once new bandage I’d put on for travelling was taken off. (Vet was impressed i’d got it on at all.) After some difficulty it was accessed he has a puncture wound, which you could not tell if it still had anything in it. If he has not improved by tomorrow then he might need surgery. (He is looking improved thank goodness.) Antibiotic injection, painkiller injection, antibiotic tablets to take home, painkillers to take home, elizabethan plastic collar I haven’t used, vet done bandage. Thanks very much, that will be £150 please.
So, apart from the Bank Holiday fees, was there anything else bad about Rory’s timing you might be asking? Well yes. Yesterday (Sunday) me and Rory were supposed to be striding around the cross-country course at Badminton Horse Trials. Anything else? Well yes, we were meant to be attending our first Rally workshop today. That must be it? Well unfortunately no. Thursday is our first agility class.
Bloody dog.
Running post (64)
I wrote a running post, over on the other side… Live. Love. Learn. Write. and it explains what running with a Labradoodle was like today. You might want to check it out, then again you might not. Whatevs.
A dog is as intelligent as… (62)
Image from Mollypop's flickr photostream
…a two or two and a half year old according to Stanley Coren, a leading canine researcher. I discovered this after it occurred to me earlier that although I regularly think about my sister’s parrot having the intelligence of a three year old, I never really think of the implications of Rory’s intelligence (although I regularly talk to him like an adult human).
As you would expect this intelligence differs from breed to breed, with Border Collies coming in first, Poodles in second, and German Shepherd’s in third. Dogs in the top 20% of dog intelligence will be able to understand up to 200 words. However, the average dog has the capacity to understand 165 words including signals, which isn’t too shabby. He also asserted that dogs have a basic understanding of arithmetic and would notice mistakes in simple sums.
In addition it was discovered that dogs could deliberately deceive other dogs and humans to get rewards… Don’t I know it!
You can see the article where I read about this, here at Science Daily.
Break
There will be a short break in blogging here, and over at Live. Love. Learn. Write. I may or may not get a chance to blog inbetween. Should be back blogging around the 12th Apr, sorry for the interuption, and see you very soon! 
xxx
Negative and positive training (53 #oneaday)
There is a whole lot of debate at the moment about positive reinforcement training, versus punitive training. I have used both, with the same dog, and thought it might be useful for me to share.
In the beginning I was introduced to the world of punitive training. I think most people are. Rory jumped and bit, which upset me a great deal. I knew he just thought he was playing, and did it when he was overexcited but that didn’t make it better. It hurt, it was ruining my relationship with him and any chance of bonding. I had a whole range of advice from flooring him (a dominance move that just made him worse) to kicking his back legs out from under him (which didn’t work, apparently a first for the trainer who suggested it). Eventually I went to someone I very much dislike and asked her advice. To her credit, considering she openly suggests using shock collars and can be vile to her own dogs, she was helpful and suggested a coke can filled with coins as noise aversion when he jumped up. This worked for a while.
But, what actually worked long-term was asking him to sit for food. I’d love to say this was instant but that is really not the case. I had to teach him to sit, wait and take treats gently when I said ‘ok’, otherwise he would just jump all over me. It took work, as most good things do, but long-term major score! *Touch wood* this is not something he does anymore. A shining example of positive training if ever there was one. I can not emphasise enough how much this changed the bonding between me and my puppy. It made a whole world of difference to our lives.
Actually, once I stopped demanding things from my dog everything improved. His recall was always subjective, depending on whether he decided the grass was greener on the other side or not. I’m not going to lie and say it’s amazing now, but it’s pretty good. Good enough that it works 80% of the time, which I think is probably higher than average for a dog walked mainly off-lead. And our bond has improved, to the point where I can’t pass him off to someone else mid-walk and leave because he will pull to get back to me, he will always follow me after saying ‘hello’ to a new dog, and despite all this he knows I am coming back and never appears to suffer separation anxiety.
I love my dog and would never dream of using extreme negative training again. Rory is who he is, and I love him for it, all bouncy four paws of him. That’s not to say I don’t yell, because I do. This applies particularly when he is rolling in something, like earlier today. But, having variations in the tone I use with him means he is very clear when it is unwanted behaviour, without any requirement for the use of a shock collar or spray. Our life together is better now. I think the only way those using punitive training methods will understand that positive reinforcement is better, is by us who have experienced both, sharing our stories. Preaching never helps. So here is my story, what’s yours?
Doggie sicky (48 #oneaday)
Rory pulled a sicky today. If he was a kid he’d be off school and milking it. About lunchtime we were out walking and he started coughing. Now i’d be thinking no big deal, but this other dog at work has been coughing too, so i’m a little concerned. But it wasn’t ‘kennel cough’ coughing. Oh no, this was a ‘I have a mini dog stuck in my throat’ coughing, which continued for about half of the walk. Then he really coughed and threw up some flemmy disgustingness. (I love my dog.)
The coughing pretty much stopped then. I started to relax a little more. Got back to the car, had him jump in, changed my shoes, looked back in the crate. He was breathing really heavily, and about three breathes at once, not a regular rise and fall like it should be. I watch for a while. Panic. Call the vet, make an appointment for this evening. Vet receptionist makes me panic more by telling me that it sounds serious and don’t I want to bring him now. I respond with a stony silence.
Fastforward a few hours. I’m at home, standing by my backdoor watching my dog intently. It’s a hard task BECAUSE HE’S RUNNING AROUND LIKE A MENTAL DOG. Clearly he has recovered from his ‘fake sick’ moment. There is no coughing or wretching, no heavy breathing despite the mad rushing about. I’m sure he was putting it on.
I call the vet, cancel my vet appointment, hang up.
The dog looks at me… and coughs…
