{23march2012: Arby's}

While the cat's away the mice will play. Or while Jason's away the girls will eat fast food! :)
Jason does not like fast food. He'll eat it if we have to, but it's not his first choice. I on the other hand love me some fast food every so often. And since he's gone I figure now is the time to indulge (though interestingly enough he's eaten more fast food in Singapore than I have since he left - lots of late nights at the office).
One day I saw a commercial for an Arby's beef and cheddar sandwich and it was stuck in my head. So after the dog park the other week Darwin and I did a quick run through the drive through. Now, Darwin is on a diet (she's lost 3 lbs so far!) but I think everyone deserves a little treat every so often, so while I got my beef and cheddar, I got Darwin a plain beef sandwich. Boy was she happy about it.




Mmmm. Fast food. :)

{10feb2011: more food!}

Let's continue on the birthday celebration kick!
I really started celebrating Darwin's birthday on Saturday.  It started with a special breakfast.

Kibble topped with a small bit of rice, a fried egg, and a strawberry!
Jason and I went out that night with friends and as a treat Darwin got a leftover slider from her bff, Juneau.
{there's something delicious for me in this paper towel!!!}

She managed to slip the hamburger patty out of the slider while I was snapping away so her second treat was the buns!

Sunday was Great Dane day at Marymoor (many weekends of Marymoor to catch up on) and then we hurried home for a bath and the Superbowl! Darwin also got a pig ear as a pre-birthday treat.

(Who knew pig ears were so crunchy!)


On Tuesday night, we still had tomatoes left over from her birthday dinner so I spruced up her regular dinner (raw veggies and ground meat, a scoop of kibble, and her supplements).

{20june2010: hfd}

Happy father's day to all the dad's out there!
Darwin's dad, Jason:

And her doggy dad, Atlas:

And my dad:



So after back and forth discussions about how much Darwin's homemade dinners are costing (if they are that much more than her normal kibble), I've decided to blog about it to keep track!  
Today we went to the market to stock up on meat and veggies. We picked up cauliflower, broccoli, kale, parsley, and ground turkey (it was on sale).   We already had at home carrots (bought a 3lb bag last week for a couple bucks) and eggs (carton of 18 for about $2.50). 
ground turkey (3lbs) $6.50
cauliflower (2.62lbs) = $3.89
broccoli (2.74lbs) = $4.07
kale = $ 2.49
carrots = $2.00
eggs  = $1.00
total  = $19.95 
With everything we bought we got about eight 2 cup servings, which breaks down to about $2.50 per serving.  We actually have extra broccoli, cauliflower and kale that we can eat ourselves so it actually is less than that.
Week one we were blending her veggies almost nightly.  Week two we started blending enough for two meals.  Week three I wised up and decided to make a weeks worth and store them in the freezer and we'll just defrost each days dinner serving in the morning for that night (hopefully we remember).



The one thing about blending her veggies is we need to make sure everything's blended down well, because any chunks get spit out on the floor.



Since our last vet appointment on Monday, we've been working daily on touching her feet and feeling her backside with a "let me look" command and today when we went back to Dr. Kelleher she said she could tell we've been working with her!  Woo hoo! 

Btw.  Bess is having a really rough month.  If you could pop on by and wish her a speedy recovery on her latest snaffu (be warned, there's a picture that's not for the squeemish), I'm sure her family would appreciate it!

{15june2010: needles round 2}

We went back for our second visit to Dr. Kelleher yesterday.  Jason was able to come with us this time and I think it helped because we were able to control Darwin a bit more and Dr. Kelleher was able to place a few more needles than last week and even did some electroacupucture.


After the acupuncture she did a bit of chiropractic work on Dar, saying that she still feels a lot of stiffness in her lower back.
Darwin's doing well on her diet.  She LOVES her homemade meals and I think she's slowly shedding some of her roid weight.

(Let me note that a blender is not the ideal gadget to grind up raw veggies, but we don't have a food processor (oh how I wish we did), so this will have to do for now.)



I've been trying shake off some comments that the doc made to us yesterday but the more I think about it the more it bugs me.  When she was checking Darwin out, she was testing her reflexes in her back legs and when she picked up Darwin's left back foot and bent the toes down Darwin turned and let out a growl.  Not a ferocious "I'm going to eat you" growl, but more like a "what the heck is happening to me" growl.  Dr. Kelleher said she didn't like that Darwin growled and that she thought it would be best to put a muzzle on her for the acupuncture treatment in case Darwin decided to bite.  I was ok with that as she's the doctor and while I don't think Darwin would bite, it's better to be safe than sorry. 
Then while she was treating Dar, she made a comment about how Darwin is our first dog and how a Great Dane isn't the best dog to "start out with" as they are very big and you need to have total control over them and we don't have total control over Darwin because she reacted when her feet were touched and wouldn't let herself be manipulated to be examined and worked on.   I know that we need to work on Darwin's acceptance to being touched and handled especially by strangers, but at the same time I don't think it's a breed specific thing of her being our first dog and being a Dane.  
At the end of the session Dr Kelleher gave Darwin a small treat as a reward and then walked away and tried to call Darwin over.  Darwin walked over, but then walked away and the doc made a comment (I can't remember exactly what she said) about how we need to work on that as that wasn't good.
Darwin loves attention, but a lot of the times if people want to say hi to her, she'll go over and sniff them, but then walk away and not hang out to be petted.  Does that mean we don't have her trained or totally controlled?  I just figured she was being indifferent to the attention and that was just her being her.  
I always thought we've been doing a pretty good job with Darwin, especially for her being our first dog.  I know there are things we need to work on with her but I really don't think she's that out of control.

{10june2010: needles}

Good news!

So Darwin's neurologist called last week with basically the same results.  He got Darwin's xrays from our vet and looked over them with the radiologist and two other surgeons and they all couldn't determine her pain or rear end weakness.  Dr Sanders thinks Darwin is a "rare example of hyperproliferative soft tissue".  He thinks she "may be subject to a limited activity lifestyle" if we cannot control the pain.  I asked again about what he thinks about taking her to see Dr. Kelleher and he thought it would be the best thing.  

Ok, that's not the good news.

Here's the good news.  So I emailed her last Tuesday to get on her waiting list and figured it would be a while till we could go in and see her.  She emailed early Saturday morning saying she had a cancellation for Monday and we could have that appointment!  Woo hoo!  

So Monday afternoon Darwin and I jumped in the car for a 30 minute drive north to see Dr. Kelleher.  I brought along all of Darwin's records and we went over how all of this started with her staying with her doggy mom and dad.  She was very excited about Darwin's case as we had done everything we could with traditional medicine (xrays, neurologist, MRI, Meningitis treatment, more xrays, etc) and after checking Darwin out she felt like chiropractic and acupuncture would totally help.  She said in checking out Darwin's spine she confirmed my suspicion that she was probably t-boned from the right side by her dad.  She found Darwin's right shoulder was really stiff, many disks were out of alignment going down her back, her pelvis was a little crooked, and her left side was super sensitive.  She did a few adjustments along Darwin's spine and then started with the acupuncture.  

Darwin did really well with the acupuncture, which surprised me, the only time she seemed to be uncomfortable with it was when Dr. Kelleher tried to insert a needle in her lower left side (her sensitive side) and Darwin jumped up.  

Dr. Kellelher noticed that Darwin is a tad overweight due to being on the Prednisone, so Darwin's now on a diet!  We're looking for her to lose around 7lbs to get her back to her 115lb range.  Now Darwin will only get 3 cups of kibble (she was at 5, and up to 7 with the Prednisone) and 2 cups of homemade food.  She gets to eat more raw meat and hard boiled eggs, and a mix of ground veggies.  Dr. Kelleher says vegetables like broccoli, kale, parsley, carrots and cauliflower are good "back building" veggies.  She also said Darwin could get raw chicken necks.

Sorry, iphone picture.... but doesn't that look appetizing?! 

Darwin seems to like her new diet, but is not a fan of chicken necks.  Monday night she ate them, but she won't go near them now.  If they are in her bowl, she won't eat.  Last night I took them out of the bowl and she ate just fine.  I tried to give her a chicken neck on its own and she totally rejected it.  She sniffed it, gave it a lick and turned her head away!  Thank goodness they are cheap ($0.99/lb) because I threw them out! 
Darwin also getting new supplements.  A Chinese herb mixture, doggy daily vitamins, Vitamin E, fish oil (she was getting this salmon oil but Dr. Kelleher recommends getting a human grade fish oil high in DHA), cod liver oil, Choline, and Lions Mane mushroom.  These are supposed to help her brain and nervous system.  It's a lot to get used to in terms of how much and how often, but I'm sure we'll get the hang of it soon.

The only slightly bad thing is that our insurance doesn't cover holistic medicine so all the visits we make to Dr. Kelleher will add up.  Eeek!  We'll see how it goes!  We have another appointment next Monday and then another one in early July.   I'm feeling pretty confident that she'll be able to help Darwin and get her back to her normal self!