Lottie's Eastern Medicine Adventure

It's been a busy summer for Lottie Moon and her buddies -- multiple trips to Michigan and camps, dog parks and lots of deaf foster puppies at the house.  But I wanted to write a bit of an update on Lottie's seizures and seizure-related behaviors, namely her OCD digging and barking and pouncing, and her night terrors.  I've noticed that many double merles seem to have similar problems, so I wanted to mention again what Lottie's vet is doing for her, and our journey towards successful management.

Lottie has been taking Chinese herbal mixtures 2 times daily that her vet has prescribed.  These are specifically chosen for Lottie based on her symptoms, her personality, and her chi, or energy, flow.  She is also eating about a teaspoon of black strap molasses with each meal.  This provides magnesium to help control seizures.  I have switched her food to a fish protein, instead of chicken.  In Chinese medicine, chicken is a "hot" protein, and fish is a "cool" protein, and seizure patients require a cool protein.

With these changes, there is a marked improvement.  Lottie has not had another seizure since the one she experienced originally (that I have seen, anyway), and her OCD behaviors have become much less frequent and much less intense.  Her night terrors completely stopped for several months, but recently she has begun them again, but in a different way.  Now she will periodically jump and snap at another dog, or a pillow, in the bed, then go back to sleep.  Previously she would jump and snap, but then get up and run away, vocalizing and snapping at nothing.  This less intense form of night terrors started when we moved to a different bedroom in our house, so I don't know if that change might be responsible for this.

Overall, she is a much calmer girl, and we have achieved this without drugs, for which I am thankful.  We will talk to the vet about the current night terrors, and see if we might be able to get that under control a bit more.  Lottie still remains a source of wonder and love for me, she has a piece of my heart forever!  Love my Lottie Moon!

Paradise Revisited, DSA 2013

Lottie and the furgang, plus me, arrived in Michigan 2 weeks ago for Lottie's second year of Dog Scout Camp (and my 9th!). It was a super-busy week for me, since I'm staff and agility instructor, and not as tiring for Lottie, since she was one of six of my dogs to accompany me, and this camp seemed particularly busy for the staff. We didn't have a full camp, but we had great campers, and stayed jumping with lots of enthusiastic students.

Last year Lottie managed to get her Dog Scouts Certification, along with a surprise agility badge (Obstacle 1). It was a surprise to me since I didn't think she would take to agility so well, but as always, Lottie is capable of more than I expect.

This year, we made some progress towards her agility Obstacle 3 badge, she just needs a bit more confidence on the teeter. We'll get there at the July camp.

 Also, she learned to "play" the banjo, working towards her Musical Shaping badge. The "banjo" is actually a Barney toy banjo (yes, the icky purple dinosaur, Barney), which plays a song when you put your hand through the center hole and break the laser beam, or whatever Barney magic it is that creates the electronic sound. Lottie learned to stick her nose through the center when I presented the banjo to her, but I think for the badge I want to teach her to play the piano, it will me more dramatic and flashy, more Lottie Moon-ish! She's enthusiastic enough to do it, so that is one of our goals for the July camp.








She had her new sister Spring with her this year, and they really enjoyed playing together in the Play Yard. I don't understand why my dogs all love the Camp Play Yard so much, since our backyard at home is about four times bigger, but for some reason they go bonkers-crazy when they get to go to the one at camp. Whatever.












The July camp is coming upon us quickly, I'm hoping to get some flashy badges to add to Lottie's collection . . .

She's waiting for cheese

Relaxing with Keebler

Tango doing his favorite thing in the world

Spring and Pascha enjoying the pond

I was suprised and honored to get this award at Camp for "Seeing Into Darkness!"

Glamour Shots

Photographer Jerry Stephens saw the story that NBC4 did on Speak! and he decided he wanted to help us by photographing all our beautiful double merles.  So it was a big DOG PARTY one afternoon that resulted in some beautiful photographs of Lottie Moon and all her DM buddies that we can use on the Speak! website.  Check our party pictures here, and then check out www.SpeakForTheUnspoken.com to see the professional results.   And give a shout to awesome Jerry, too,  at www.JerryStephensPhotography.com

Party On!

Spring, deaf border collie
in training for agility. 
Follow her on Facebook at Starring Spring

Gunner.


Anahmay, Dhalia, and silly Lottie Moon



Spring and Lottie

This was Spring's first outing,
and she was a bit nervous.

Keebler

Spring seemed to really like Jerry

Raquel has her hands full with Kamo and Keebler!

Me and my deaf girls

Kanella

Attempts at a group shot

Kamo

Keebler



Pet Expo 2013

Well, considering how much fun I had with Lottie Moon at last year’s Pet Expo, I have to say this year was even better!  Every time I have Lottie out at an event like this, I’m always so proud of her.  She know how to work a group, this girl does!  She is so pretty and happy as she walks along, always willing to stop and greet any admirer as she meanders through the crowds with me.  When I stop to shop, she lies down and calmly surveys the world around her, the world she can see so very little of.  She is just amazing, and I feel so lucky to have her in my life.

 

This year we were super busy, because we were also there to promote Speak For The Unspoken.  Victoria was working the Petsmart booth again this year, but Raquel and I wore the awesome shirts that Raquel designed to advertise S4TU.

People kept coming up to us saying, “Oh look, there are the deaf dogs!”  It was like we were almost famous.  Raquel brought Kamo and Kanella, and Victoria brought Dahlia, and I brought Lottie and Keebler.

 

 Lottie seemed to remember the ladies at the Reiki Center booth from last year.  Again this year, Lottie loves her Reiki!

I also had Tango with me, because he was entered in the dock diving competition.  Tango the Wonderdog managed to get a second place in the Splash division finals, with a jump of 6 feet plus. 

 On Sunday, I stopped on the way to pick up a new puppy for Speak.  He’s a wonderful little deaf aussie named Gunner, and his new foster parents were at the expo to meet him.  I think they were instantly in love.  What a cutie-pie, who could resist??

We met a great lady at the Brilliant K9 booth, and we all got phat harnesses for the dogs to wear at events.  We’ll get personalized tags for the harnesses that say “Deaf” and “Blind.”  I hope to get Lottie’s tags in the pink sparkle, because that would totally be her.  She’s a pink sparkle kind of gal.

 

All in all, a very busy, busy, and WONDERFUL weekend promoting the deafies and having fun with our fur-kids.

Doctor, Doctor



Lottie waits happily in the OSU vet clinic

 A few weeks ago, Speak for the Unspoken brought a new blind/deaf Aussie into the Speak family.  Dhestyn was a Pennsylvania girl who had an appointment at Ohio State University for an evaluation and consult with an ophthalmologist before going into foster care.  Victoria and Dahlia, Raquel, and Lottie and I all went to OSU to welcome Dhestyn and her awesome rescuers, and to learn what we could from the doctor.

It was interesting.  The doctor told us that one of Dhestyn’s eyes responded to light, the other did not.  She felt that Dhestyn could see very limited light and movement from her best eye.  She equated it to being in a car with heavy frost on the window and trying to see out.   She told us that both of Dhestyn’s retinas were still intact, but could detach at any time.  She felt this would not be painful, but could cause some pressure discomfort if blood built up in the eye, so to be watchful for that.  She said any of the microphthalmia dogs such as Lottie would be susceptible to detached retinas.  I asked if any of these types of microphthalmia dogs ever had any sight improvement?  I said that Lottie no longer seems like a blind dog to me anymore, she rarely runs into anything, and seems to look up and around now, following movements, unlike when she first came and focused almost exclusively on the floor.  The doctor said no, these dogs conditions do not improve, but they learn to cope so well that she hears this all the time from owners who swear their blind dog has improved and can now see.  She said they just learn to cope so well that they fool everyone.  She also said that these dogs see better in bright light than in dim light, which seems to be the opposite of what my friend the human optometrist had told me.  Lottie will focus and bark at objects in moonlight, while in sunlight she doesn’t seem to notice.  It does seem to me like she sees better in dim light, but I’ll have to observe her more with this new theory in mind.



Lottie and Dhestyn

  

            

Then the following week Lottie had her first appointment with the wonderful Dr. Rogers at Veterinary Alternatives (www.veterinaryalternatives.com) .  Dr. Rogers seemed excited to work with Lottie, as I explained her seizure, and seizure-like behaviors such as the OCD patterns and the night terrors.  Dr. Rogers is a holistic vet, who specializes in Chinese herbal medicine and acupuncture.  She prescribed some herbal mixes for Lottie, and recommended I feed her a fish protein food instead of the chicken protein she currently is eating.  She said seizure dogs tend to be, in Chinese medicine terms, “hot”, and chicken is a “hot” food as well.  She thought Lottie would benefit from a “cool” food, such as fish.  She also recommended I continue to give her magnesium in the form of black strap molasses, as I have been doing, but she felt I should be doing it daily instead of just a couple times/week.  So, new food and more molasses for Lottie!  We will see if this and the Chinese herb mixture will help calm her and keep her seizures at bay.  All in all, a month of doctors and new medical information to think about for my beautiful little girl.

Three deaf/blind dogs pose for a picture -- and each one thinks they are looking at me!!