To Come..

Just thought that I'd let you know that as soon as I have some time, I will try to post some more pictures of the dogs, including some puppy pictures, and some more info on each of the dogs.

Tira's litter consisted of 9 puppies, of which Tasha, Amarok, and Elaine were the 3 that I kept (I originally wasn't going to keep any, ha,ha,ha!)... I always tell people that only keeping 3 out of 9 isn't that bad, right?

Stay tuned!

Tasha and her epilepsy

I thought I'd just talk about Tasha's epilepsy.

She began seizuring at the age of 2 and turned out to have very severe epilepsy. She had grand mal seizures, preceded with the pre-itical phase (or the "Code Red Emergency phase"). Her seizures clustered into groups of about 7, repeating every 3 hours for about 3 days, returning about every 2-3 months. Let me tell you it was a nightmare.

Her first seizure was close to Christmas and by March her seizures were becoming progressively worse. There were also now being followed by a post-itical phase which was dangerous and frightening as she would get up and run around the house without any awareness of what she was doing.

After the vets realised that valium was ineffective, we soon concocted a combination of drugs that, once they were all up to therapeutic levels, completely controlled her seizures. By that fall her seizures had become less severe, and she completely stopped seizuring by the following summer (she was then 3). To my knowledge, she never seizured again.

Sadly, Tasha passed away at the age of 5. She (and all her kin) escaped from the yard when the back gate was left open and died from injuries sustained when hit by a car. Losing Tasha was one of the most heart breaking and life altering events of my life. The time we spent together fighting her epilepsy had brought her closer to me than I have ever been with any other living being, husky or human!

Tasha's meds were:

Phenobarbital
Chlorazepate
Potassium Bromide (KBr)

I will look up her doses and included those at a later date.

I've included some good links on epilepsy on the sidebar, but will also look up some of my old info to see if there are any that I missed. When Tasha first started seizuring, I signed up on the canine epilepsy news group and found that to be a wonderful resource not only for alternate therapies, but also for moral support as I struggled with caring for Tasha.

Please feel free to comment or ask me questions.

Sorcha

More Info on my Alaskan Huskies:

Tira
- Alaskan husky (sometimes these dogs are called Wolf Huskies, but in Tira's case, any wolf lineage is very far in the past, at best).
- Tira is the mum of my other huskies, she is currently 12 years old
- She has hypothyroidism, currently treated with 0.3 mg BID of synthroid
- She has started having problems with hind end weakness but no problems with arthritis or back or hip problems.
- She also has a nasty habit of giving herself ear infections because she keeps sticking her foot in her ear!!!


Tira eats Wellness Fish and Potato dog food which is supplemented with:
500 mg Glucosamine and 650 mg MSM - BID (Flex-All Joint Care biscuits)
500 mg Chondroitin Sulphate BID (Natural Factors)
Essential Fatty Acid Mixture (Arctic Vigor by Canine Health and Maintenance - Canadian)
400 IU Clear Vitamin E (Natural Factors)

I'm not sure that the joint supplements are really of any use as Tira does not show any signs of arthritis and her x-rays are clean. However, as we haven't had an actual diagnosis of her hind-end weakness, I thought I'd keep her on them to see if they help. If they don't, I will begin to taper them (one at a time) and watch to ensure that her symptoms don't worsen with the withdrawal.


Amarok
- Tira's son who just turned 9
- very healthy guy who has recently developed some small skin abnormalities (sebaceous cysts or adenomas? - only the vet can say for sure!)


Amarok eats Innova Senior dog food (as he has a slight tendency towards being a leetle bit rubenesque;) His supplements are:
500 mg Chondroitin Sulphate BID
400 IU Clear Vitamin E

Amarok is on the chondroitin but not the biscuits that Tira takes because as yet he has no symptoms of joint problems and seems to have no intention of slowing down

Elaine
- Tira's daughter (and Amarok's littermate), so also 9 years old
- generally a very healthy little girl!


Elaine also eats Wellness Fish and Potato dog food, she is only supplemented with Vitamin E


Tasha
- also Tira's daughter (and littermate to the 2 other kids)
- passed away at the age of 5
- had severe epilepsy with grand mal cluster seizuring.

Why did I create this site?

As a dog owner, I'm sick of having to spend hours searching for information on ailments, etc., every time one of my three alaskan huskies develops some new and obscure disease. Subsequently I have created this blog and hope that it will contain information and links that will be helpful for other hypochondriac puppy parents, who, like me, flip out every time Fifi has new boo-boo!

Thanks for coming!

Sorcha

Meet my Alaskan Husky, Amarok

So, Amarok is trying to kill me. Yup, he has another bloody (literally) cyst/adenoma, this time on his tummy! The last one (appeared in December, just in time for Christmas) was on his back. So, back to the vet we go, I guess. The new one is a little scary as it has black pigmentation, which is often not a good sign.