any and all advice wanted and welcomed!

[Scarletwaggy]

I have not been on the site in quite a while as everything has been flipped upside down the last year or so. To begin with Hello everyone! As some of you have read before I lost my baby Scarlett about a year and a half ago to cancer. She was only 2 years old. It broke my heart so badly that we adopted little Idgie Mae. Idgie Mae came from a lady in Salisbury MD whose boxer had a litter of 5 or 6. Idgie was the runt and it was very apparent she was not favored. Idgie came home to us November of the same year we lost Scarlett. In the year or so that we have had her she has been one of the biggest handfuls we have ever had. She is very hard headed (I know typical boxer) she’s been very difficult to train, and she has a continuous issue with her neck. She has been to the vet for it and every time she gets to the vet she acts fine. Let me start off by saying I am probably a little too vet happy after losing Scarlett at such a young age. Idgie goes to see her vet Dr. Divine every 3-5 months and sometimes more than that. We have a wellness plan and if she needs anything, nails clipped, anal glands expelled we go directly to her vet. She is even on a dental plan so she gets her teeth cleaned twice a year. So she is well cared for as far as going to the vet regularly. I digress, this time things are different. She’s been down for a week as of today. She is refusing food, and she is refusing water. The vet prescribed a bland diet which she has completely turned her nose up to. She is on Methacarbamal 3 times a day and she’s on Tramadol 2 tablets every 12 hours. With this medication she is constipated (the little that she is eating) she went almost 3 days without a BM. She has since gone to the bathroom and I am getting her to eat chicken and brown rice over her blue buffalo dry food and she is eating some baby food ( I have checked for food without onion powder and grapes) and I have put some of her canned blue buffalo in the blender and I am syringe feeding her. The vet says she has lost 4 lbs in the last month (she had a full exam on March 17th they did blood work gave shots and she checked out with a clean bill of health. healthy weight healthy teeth and gums and her blood and fecal tests were all in great shape. she does have seasonal alopecia but we are going to treat that with some melatonin once she snaps out of this spell. The vet is concerned because she went in last Thursday due to her lameness and not wanting to eat. She came home and gobbled up her dinner like she was all better. The next day Friday she played in the back yard and ate like normal. Friday night I tried to help her up onto my bed and she screamed and snapped (she did not bite but she was showing me she was hurting) the following morning my boyfriend went to pet her on the head and she cowered down and screamed at him. I am at a loss. The vet again today said that she gave her a full exam (rectal and physical and said she’s hard to read. she cowers sometimes and others she does not. They want to keep her on the meds, and if things don’t get better they want to send her to a specialist, I don’t really want to go down that road. My concern is her still being hurt after a week, and her not wanting to eat. If anyone has any ideas of something I can try to entice her to eat and get her better I would love any and all input.

- A worried Boxer Mommy-

 

[FoxyRoxysMom]

I'm so sorry to hear about your struggles with the little Idgie. I'm not sure if I missed something other than the lameness and no appetite but did something happen a week ago that caused her all these issues and to be on medication or is that what she was prescribed for her symptoms? Just curious as we had our girl get a pretty bad sprain in her shoulder from a fall and did the same thing when she was pretty young as far as acting a bit out of sorts.

Either way, we're sending positive vibes for you guys in hopes of getting some answers.

 

[TwoDogs]

Are you feeding her at floor level or in a raised feeder? I've known dogs who refused food and water because lowering their head to eat was too painful (simply switching to feeding from an elevated feeder resulted in a sudden appetite increase). If her neck pain comes and goes, it might explain why she sometimes eats just fine and other times refuses the food.

 

[Scarletwaggy]

I'm so sorry to hear about your struggles with the little Idgie. I'm not sure if I missed something other than the lameness and no appetite but did something happen a week ago that caused her all these issues and to be on medication or is that what she was prescribed for her symptoms? Just curious as we had our girl get a pretty bad sprain in her shoulder from a fall and did the same thing when she was pretty young as far as acting a bit out of sorts.

Either way, we're sending positive vibes for you guys in hopes of getting some answers.

We appreciate your love. She plays so hard and is completly wild in the back yard playing. she has one of those large red Jolly balls and she runs with it and jumps with it. she leaps off the steps all the time and we have a cat that she absolutly loves and she chases the cat and plays rough with the cat. As far as being able to pin point an instance No unfortunalty I didnt witness a fall or a struggle. :/

I'm so sorry to hear about your struggles with the little Idgie. I'm not sure if I missed something other than the lameness and no appetite but did something happen a week ago that caused her all these issues and to be on medication or is that what she was prescribed for her symptoms? Just curious as we had our girl get a pretty bad sprain in her shoulder from a fall and did the same thing when she was pretty young as far as acting a bit out of sorts.

Either way, we're sending positive vibes for you guys in hopes of getting some answers.

 

[Scarletwaggy]

Are you feeding her at floor level or in a raised feeder? I've known dogs who refused food and water because lowering their head to eat was too painful (simply switching to feeding from an elevated feeder resulted in a sudden appetite increase). If her neck pain comes and goes, it might explain why she sometimes eats just fine and other times refuses the food.

Her food bowl is on the floor. however one of the first things we did try was lifting it up. she just didn't seem intrested in eating at all. even treats she would spit them back out which is not Idgie, she loves food all food and the blue buffalo meatballs are her favorite, and she wouldnt even touch them.

 

[Scarletwaggy]

I picked up Idgie from the vet yesterday afternoon and they told me to increase her methacarbamol and to keep up with the tramadol. When I got her home she had been off all medication for 24 hours (as the vet needed her to be free of all medication to do the exam) She was the best she has been in Days!!! She was hungry, She was thirsty she had a BM she was her normal self. I restricted her playing as I know she can easily reinjure herself. She slept like a baby last night and this morning she was acting like she was still feeling good she ate about a cup and a half of her dry food with some wet mixed in and she went out and did her business. I hate to go against the vet's orders, but I kind of feel like the medication is making her worse. Fingers are crossed that I am doing the right thing by not administering the medication but this is the best she has looked since last week!

 

[FoxyRoxysMom]

Oh I am so glad to hear she is doing better! The struggle of the medication is one we're pretty familiar with as well. I believe someone else has mentioned this as well that our boxer babys just seem like they are lightweights when it comes to medications. I know when we have our girl on pain meds she's absolutely cranky and a little fiesty and has snapped so we don't give her any unless absolutely necessary. I'd say call your vet and let her know she appears ok and ask if there's a possible side effect of the drugs causing all the moodiness, etc. I know I tend to be pretty vocal too with the vet and they're not there to see the changes, we are so we do need to "speak" for them sort of sometimes.

Either way, we're thinking of you guys and hope she continues on to do better

 

[Scarletwaggy]

Thanks

Oh I am so glad to hear she is doing better! The struggle of the medication is one we're pretty familiar with as well. I believe someone else has mentioned this as well that our boxer babys just seem like they are lightweights when it comes to medications. I know when we have our girl on pain meds she's absolutely cranky and a little fiesty and has snapped so we don't give her any unless absolutely necessary. I'd say call your vet and let her know she appears ok and ask if there's a possible side effect of the drugs causing all the moodiness, etc. I know I tend to be pretty vocal too with the vet and they're not there to see the changes, we are so we do need to "speak" for them sort of sometimes.

Either way, we're thinking of you guys and hope she continues on to do better

 

[johann]

My boxer boy has spinal spondylosis that has spread to affect 4-5 vertebrea. It took us over 2 years to finally work up to needing tramadol twice a day, and even then- he was really off and tired for the first few weeks. Did you get an xray of her neck, back, and hip area? We found out Johann's back issue because we were looking for an obstruction- and it showed up incidentally on the xrays.

On his bad days, he doesn't want to eat (we and our vet thought it was GI for a very long time) because it's painful. He also struggles and will hold his urine/stool because it's painful to move his back/hips enough to go, to the point that he has accidents.

If she's better off the pain meds, I'd try to keep that. She could have just tweaked something and needed a little bit to feel better.