Ask questions and share about your pet's health to help others.
My rescue dog Copper he is amazing, protective and overall a huge part of my familys life. He looks like he has dachshund in hin the length reminds me. Recently we started seeing a limp in his back left leg. He has not been hurt at all. I thought maybe a sprain from playing he does get wild with the neighbors bigger pup. So we gradually notice it getting worse over the week hes limping and the muscle has all gone. I have been walking him maybe gain some back he wont even put pressure on his back leg. Its been a couple weeks and we come home and there is blood comong from his genital when the part comes out. It seems as if he has no control o er it anymore. My heart is hurting and i dont want to put him down he is only 2 years old but he seems missreable. He does not speak it (cry) but the look in his eyes tells me everything i need to know. I do not have the money now to go to vet and pay 1,000 tell i get a new job. Please anyone if you have been through anything similar or any home remedies to ease him.
I think my dog has IVDD, she is in pain in her neck and when she walks she keeps her head down and her neck muscles are twitching, i would like to know what to do in this situation to give her relief what medicine are safe for her, specially in my situation and where i live. i couldn’t afford it.
Hello,
If you go to my blog at kmdvm.blogspot.Com you can search Ivdd in the search field and read about the cases I have worked with.
I cannot over emphasize how important it is to see a veterinarian. You will not be able to acquire the medications needed to adequately control the pain without a vets assistance.
I hope your pup is feeling better soon.
** cat who is veracious around feeding time help**
Hello! I have 3 cats that are patients there. I have had 2 cats, Blink and Havoc for about 5 years now. They are biological brothers. They have always shared everything and we never really had any problems with food or their weight.
About 2 months ago, we adopted a blind cat, Gemma who is about a year old. Her foster said that she would free feed her at her house and that she never really had any aggression with food. I’m not sure what happened because once we adopted her and brought her back here, she has became very veracious with her food. Our solution now is to feed her the dry food in a separate room (we feed her according to the package instructions) because if we do not, she will race through eating her food so she can start trying to eat the boys food as well.
With wet food, I monitor them and am constantly shooing her away so the boys can finish their food as she always inhales her food super quickly.
When we separate her, she will cry until we open the door and then she comes running full speed to the food bowl.
I’ve never really seen anything like it! She is so sweet and other than that there really is no issues I’m just looking for advice if there is anything I can do to make feeding time not so chaotic.
I want her to feel secure that she will always be fed but I can’t leave food out because I don’t want my other cats to eat hers.
I guess my question is, is this a behavior that can be changed or do we just work with it the way we are now? She seems to have a lot of anxiety around food and I’m sure being blind doesn’t help so I wasn’t sure what else we can do.
Thank you!
In all seriousness, get her bloodwork done. A cat that crazy about food might have a thyroid or other medical issue.
You’ll probably have to separate to feed for a long while yet. If she starts to calm down about it, maybe you’d be able to try feeding in like…a dog crate, perhaps. In the same room, so she can smell their food. It’s a good test while allowing them the ability to eat their own food peacefully.
You can also try bowls which only open for the right collar. Amazon sells them, but they are NOT cheap: https://www.amazon.com/Sure-Petcare-SureFlap-Selective-Automatic-Stress-Free/dp/B00O0UIPTY/ref=sr_1_17?crid=O9337BSZVCPE&keywords=cat%2Bautomatic%2Bopen%2Band%2Bclose%2Bbowls&qid=1695900727&sprefix=automatic%2Bopen%2Bcat%2B%2Caps%2C57&sr=8-17&ufe=app_do%3Aamzn1.fos.f5122f16-c3e8-4386-bf32-63e904010ad0&th=1
I have those bowls that only open for the right cat. Expensive but so worth it…
One of mine needs to take medication twice a day but doesn’t take treats and both are very slow eaters. So I either had to seperate them the whole day, or she wasn’t getting her medication.
As Laura says, get her checked up and if everything is fine, maybe try feeding her more?
I have learned that kittens and young cats can eat as much as they want, so they can learn that there is always enough food. This way they get calmer with food later on. Also – young cats burn a lot of more energy than older ones. Some can eat more than double the recommended account and still not get fat.
Also maybe feed more wet food. It has more volume than dry food, while having less calories. this way she feels full faster. You can also add a bit of water for more volume. A friend of mine added special food cellulose for more volume for her cat.
Suspected IVDD: my 14 yr old Jack Russell has been experiencing some severe what looks to be muscle spasms. Took her into the vet and was told she may have joint pain or a neurological nerve pain. They sent me home with pain meds gabapentin, anti inflammatory carprofen and vitamin antinol to see if she got better. It was four days and she didn’t really seem to get better.
Then she seemed like she was developing some sort of serve cough. Took her back to the vet and they said she has some bacterial respiratory infection (also took X-rays) but I suspected kennel cough which they could not tell me 100% for sure, so was sent home with antibiotics. She is up on her vaccines and the only place she has been is at the vet because we don’t have any other dogs around us at home and haven’t been taking her for any walks due to her pain.
It’s been 5 days now and the cough is getting better. However, she is having muscle flares up everyday, multiple times a day. She is panting a lot and seems to be in a lot of pain. The meds don’t seem to be helping a whole lot.
She can still walk but is wobbly. Her legs tremble. I can see her legs are very stiff. Her back looks a little raised. She is still going to the bathroom on her own, but is wobbly.
I’ve put some paw grips on her feet since we have tile floors and some more rugs around the house. I’ve also tried to give her messages which she sometimes allowed me but she’s a Jack Russell and they have their own kind of personality.
What should I do? Any advice? I hate seeing her in so much pain.
Hello,
I think it sounds like you are worried and unsure about your pets condition. In cases like this I recommend two things:
1: ask your vet to help clarify and solidify your pets condition. Just explain that you are worried and want to make sure you are doing everything you can.
2. Ask friends and family for help in finding a vet they trust and call them for a second opinion.
I would also ask about more pain management help, like robaxin or even something stronger, and make sure you are following the very strict cage rest guidelines. These guys just stay in a cage to rest for 6-8 weeks. They only go out for bathroom breaks.
Also you can follow dodgers list in facebook. They are helpful.
Good luck.
I’ve switched vets three different times in the last couple of years. Every time I go to the vet there is just really no real solution given other than meds and then come out with a minimum $300-500 or more bill. Tests look normal and basically just have to deal with the problem on my own. To me there are not many vets that are really trying to help or maybe they can’t help. (Have not done an MRI yet, it’s so expensive).
My dog also has a very stubborn personality. She wants to do what she wants to do. She doesn’t do well with crating. She can be aggressive at times and want to bite. Regardless of her pain, she wants to walk around and “be nosey.” She has to know what’s going on and what we are doing. She has to be around us at all times. I feel like I have to be stationary in order for her to relax. She only eats on her time and if she likes the food (changed food so many times due to refusing to eat). It gets hard with giving her meds when she’s so picky.
She is currently on Methocarbamol muscle relaxer and seems to help only for a couple of hours if that.
I’ve been trying to switch her from carprofen to prednisolone but vet said there should be a 3 day wash out period. I feel like I just can’t wait 3 days with her in so much pain without having an anti inflammatory.
I am lost and cry for her everyday.
My dog actually had a seizure tonight, so we took her to the emergency room. After some tests, it looks like she has low calcium which may have caused the seizure and the leg tremors and muscle spasms. The ER vet doesn’t think her symptoms are associated with IVDD. We are keeping her overnight at the ER while they are administering calcium. She is to be transferred to internal medicine tomorrow to find out the cause or more information. Any thoughts/advice?
About seventeen days ago,our cat was bitten by another cat,she wasn’t treating as the same so we brought her to visit doctor the next day,
She had fever and had stopped eating,
They started antibiotics,we had vaccinated her about two months ago,so they decided that vaccination is not necessary,
After seven days she started to get worse,
And now we found an abscess in her waist,so they drained it and start another antibiotics and started cleaning the abscess with iodide and h2o2 3 percent,
She seemed to be better after two days,but stopped and again started getting worse so she doesn’t eat and hides from us ,we saw that while cleaning and washing the abscess area under the skin, is getting bigger,an right now after 10 days she is getting worse and worse,can you please give us some directions,please help her,she is in a very dangerous situation and our vet don’t know what to do،
Hello,
It sounds like a more aggressive approach might be warranted. I would ask the vet to consider doing blood work, culture the wound to look for the best antibiotic and hospitalization with iv fluids.
That would be my plan if this were my patient.
Best of luck.
Krista
-EMERGENCY-
Hello Everyone,
I very much need help. To preface this I am located in Los Angeles. On August 18-20 I noticed my cat’s behavior change. He started peeing outside his box, and was irritable. When I noticed glitter in his urine and I white pus material I knew from past experience that he had a UTI.
We took him into the vet and set up a urinalysis. While getting the urine sample his litter box behavior’s was erratic. But no more crystals, and I never saw any blood. And he was always able to go to the bathroom.
This past Saturday (9th) I noticed very early in the morning he was going to the box and nothing was happening. He did it twice in a few hours. He also started licking his private areas. I knew from past experience he was likely he was blocked. My mom is a vet in another state so I was able to bring my concerns to her.
We both agreed I needed to be on our vet’s doorstep that morning when they opened.
Long painful story short I took him in and we determined he was blocked. After going through all the options with the vet and his cat dad we were barely able to afford unblocking him. We waited that day hoping they would call us with good news. SO SO HAPPY! He got unblocked and I was able to come get him and bring him home.
They gave us both pain meds and doses for his crystals, every 12 hours and he got them consistently. We switched to only wet food back at the first vet visit. And since the Sat visit he has only gotten prescript for urinary cats (Royal Canine/Hills)
He was fine for a few days, peeing and pooping normally. I was monitoring everything. Then yesterday morning he stopped going to the bathroom again. All day yesterday, nothing.
We waited all day yesterday. His belly is bloated and he’s getting irritable again. He is off the pain meds now, but still mostly laying around.
This time around he doesn’t even try to go to the bathroom. And he has started licking himself again. Thankfully he doesn’t seem to be in pain. He is eating normally.
We could barely afford to have him unblocked the first time, this past Sat. Applying to Carecredit and Fetch both yielded no results. My roommate and I are trying to figure out a way to have him unblocked again. But with the strike and everything things are just so limited. I don’t want to loose him because we can’t afford to help him.
I have reached out to multiple charities and called so many vets. It’s all taking too long, and we know that it will escalate fast. I’m going to call the vet today and see if maybe we can at least drain the urine. Ideally, we can get him drained and I know there’s a procedure they basically snip the end so it won’t happen over and over.
We can we do?!! Please help!! Call me directly, I don’t even care. I just want to help him 619 931 3747
I have included a picture of our dear boy, he’s 7 and 6 months..so almost a senior. This is his first UTI bout. His name is Jerry, and he’s wonderful.
Hello.
I’m so sorry to hear about your kitty.
Where do things stand now. Did you find anyone to help? Is he urinating?
I have answered this question many times before. You can use the search to see all the previous answers.
I have three dogs. One of my dogs, Angel a husky , jumped over my other dog Adonis, and missed so he landed on him. Ever since, he has been lethargic and he does have hip displasia as he is a pure breed Akita Inu.
Well we went in Friday September 1st to an emergency vet near us at around 5 or 6 pm with Adonis presenting limping and being lethargic and acting not like his normal self. After 30 minutes or so of waiting a technician came out and spoke to us saying how Adonis was very reactive when trying to examine him and asked if they could give him pain killers to soothe him and further inspect him. I told them verbally that they needed to put a muzzle on him because I know how he gets when you touch his legs and poke at him, after the tech came to talk to us we waited a total of 4 hours until they finally grabbed us and told us they thought it was his front paw because it looked “swollen” so they gave us an anti inflammatory and pain killer pills. When adonis was brought in he was able to walk but barely and when they handed him back to us he was unable to stand or walk or lift his head, once we got the paperwork, we were aware that pain killers were not given but he was given a sedative instead and no further examination was made after sedative was given as quote “we are very busy in the back”
Saturday September 2nd all day and Sunday September 3rd morning and part of the afternoon we were at the house watching over him trying to accommodate him as much as we could, we called the emergency vet place to ask for advice on how to relive Adonis since he had not been able to stand up since they gave him back to us Friday September 1st at 11pm and had been holding in his pee and poop.
Sunday September 3rd around 7 we took him back to the vet since they suggested they couldn’t give us advice since they didn’t know exactly what was wrong with him and were confused as to why he couldn’t walk, upon arrival to the vet they took him in on a gurney, and we were seated in an examination room. A tech came in and said to give them a few minutes to examine him, 20 minutes later the doctor came in to tell us she thought now the problem was a disk on his neck and suggested surgery or putting him down but leaned more towards putting him down because he is such a large dog. I asked for an x ray or an MRI but both were denied due to his size (130 lbs). The doctors only recommendation is to put him down and because of his large size nothing else was done and they further prescribed muscle relaxants. This visit lasted 40 minutes at most with very little options on how to further help Adonis.
Please help me understand what is going on and if putting him down is really the option or if this vet is being unethical or not doing enough for my dog. I just want to understand my options and how I can move going forward.
I’d be looking for a veterinary neuro at this point. Did they at least help him relieve himself while he was there?
Not even. The excuse was that he would try to bite me but its my dog, I don’t care. So she never showed us how to do it. Thankfully yesterday, me and my mom carried him outside and tried to massage him again like we found online and he finally peed. he was so happy about it too!
I bet he felt a TON of relief!
Please respond fast I am not sure how long he hasMy cat pepper is a 2 and half year old male nurtured cat I am a 13 year old that tries his best to take care of him recently found out about his uti and don’t know what to do took him to a vet where we’re giving a bill of 500 dollars and pain killers for the cat we could also let him stay at the vet for 3k but our family can’t afford that and I don’t know how to help me cat if I ever loose him I will not be able to handle it
I’m so sorry to hear about your cat.
I’m not sure what your cat needs now? Please clarify your question.
I have a 12 month old male rescue kitten that in the past three weeks has blocked twice. We’ve spent thousands to unblock him. The emergency vet hospitals in my area have all quoted me a price of over 8,000 dollars for PU surgery. He is currently not blocked but is having trouble and discomfort while urinating and his volume isn’t great. He’s on a prescription diet and we’ve done everything we can to keep him healthy. But we feel that PU surgery is inevitable and is our only option to save his life. The emergency vet told us that if we couldn’t afford surgery they would euthanize him for us. He’s the sweetest boy and deserves a chance at a long life. We are desperate for help. We would be willing to travel in order to get him what he needs if that’s what it would take. Please help us! We love our little Loki
Hello,
Im sorry to hear about your kitty, I get this question/request A LOT!
It sounds like he is doing well now.
There are a lot of things you can do to prevent and prepare for any future episodes. You could find an online group to help educate and support you. Or ask to volunteer or work at a cat clinic to help understand how to monitor and care for your cat. Also reach out to your vet for advice.
Call and ask everyone you know about finding local affordable resources.. If you do please let me know.
Things to ask about now, to try to prevent future issues are;
learn how to palpate the bladder at home.
learn how to giv sq fluids at home
ask about starting prednisilone
ask about adding cosequin
ask about a prescription urinary diet
have an emergency plan ready
ask about adding gabapentin (for stress and pain)
if you need a pu surgery call the clinic and i will do all i can to help
here are some of my blogs that might help;
https://kmdvm.blogspot.com/search?q=blocked+cat
I hope this helps
keep me posted
i am trying very hard to help these cases but it will only happen if the public helps me too!
krista
Dear Dr. Magnifico,
First, please let me say a big thank you for getting back to me. We are so grateful for your time and knowledge.
Yes at this moment Loki is doing ok. Friday evening we became very concerned. He was spending a considerable amount of time in the litterbox and making an awful face as he was trying to urinate. I found a considerable amount of urine mixed with light pink blood Saturday morning on my kitchen floor. So we know at the moment he isn’t blocked.
I have exhausted a lot of the suggestions you made without much progress or success. None of my local vets will entertain PU surgery as they feel it is too complicated and dangerous.
Some things we have done at home:
Feliway diffusers all through my house
added extra litterboxes
We started him on prescription science diet food but it has come to our attention that every time he needs more food the emergency vet will need to see him to do a “re-check”. So we put him on non prescription Royal Canin urinary food and have gotten him off almost all dry food and on mostly all wet.
We got a supplement called Tinkle Tonic.
We have gabapentin from his hospital stay but they will not give me more.
I also have a cosequin supplement but want to supplement slowly.
I’m just bringing you up to speed on the measures we have taken so far.
I would love to be able to volunteer it would fulfill my heart. But right now I’m a stay at home mom raising daughters! It’s not my season just yet.
Thanks again for responding!
Vanessa
I just read your blog from April 2023 and I’m devastated because this was my exact experience with Loki except I’m nearly 4,000 in the hole. I’m doing everything I can at home and I’m absolutely terrified that he is going to re block and then we will be out of options all because of how much we’ve already spent. I’m crying even as I type this. Because it is absolutely unethical. He’s just a baby…
Hey, my 11 month, 5 week pregnant cat, suffered a very high fall yesterday, after she managed to escape from the house, and she returned with inability to walk properly on both her back legs, and i suspect it is a pelvic fracture, I’m a broke college student and Cannot afford a surgery, what limited research i did online made to think that euthanasia is the only solution, but I’ve been constantly monitoring her, she is comfortable, resting in her favourite place, she is purring, i fed her with a syringe and gave water to her the same way, i kept her litter box near here, and she did get up and pooped in it, what can I do, please help me save my baby????
If you cannot afford proper care, please consider surrendering her for adequate care. She needs to be seen by a vet immediately…ESPECIALLY if she’s pregnant!
I saw a video on YouTube saying that if they are able to poop and pee, given enough rest, they are able to recover, is it true? I’ve also booked a vets appointment for tomorrow to get their openion. I just wanted to know if this strict resting method works or not, I also arrenged enough to get a surgery
Depending on how the pelvis is broken, it can recover without surgery. You’d need an x-ray to see how it’s broken and if it can recover without surgery. She will need pain medication and her movement needs to be restricted.
The problem is: she is pregnant. Giving birth with a broken pelvis is not only extremely painful, it can kill her and/or the kittens. She may not be able to push them out herself, or they may get stuck.
So even if she does not need surgery right now, she may need a c-section. She needs to be monitored closely if she starts to give birth you need to have a vet where you can go immediatly if she needs help – or depending on how exactlky you know er day of pregnancy plan the c section beforehand.
I wish you the best of luck with her. It’s great that you try to help her and managed to get some money together. It really means a lot that you are going to help her.
Hello.
I’m sure this isn’t what you are hoping for.. but my advice is:
I strongly recommend that you have your cat spayed now. If she suffered a pelvic fracture she may not be able to deliver the kittens and they will die inside her which will kill her.
She also needs to be in a cage 24/7 no exception. If she is rested in a cage for 8 weeks the bones should heal. (I have never had a young cat heal), but I am serious about the cage rest and the spay. I know you are worried about finances but your cat needs to be spayed anyway so let’s try to avoid a bigger problem and more devastating sequela.
Dr Magnifico
Hello
I’m sorry to hear about your pup. It really sounds like he needs to be seen by a veterinarian. For cases like these I tell clients to please pay the cost of rhe exam and then we can at least get some idea of what’s going on. In some cases I try an antibiotic and pain medication and then have people save up for an X-ray.
But a limp is not a reason to put a dog to sleep. The only time I might discuss lameness and euthanasia is if I am worried about cancer. But your dog is very young for this.
Start with a phone call to a vet for an appointment and go from there.