The Itchies, Part III

So where is all this talk of itchiness and skin allergies and cones leading to? It was meant to provide a bit of history on Leo’s chronic condition and bring you up to date on his current state of itchiness.

Last year, Leo was itchy well into November. I was beginning to worry that maybe his seasonal allergies were going to become a year-round state of affairs. I did tons of research online and kept coming across glowing recommendations for a product called Solid Gold Seameal (read the reviews on Petco if you don’t believe me).

I decided to give it a last-ditch try and started him on the Seameal in December. It took about a month before I saw a difference in his coat but there it was: the bald patches filled in and his coat was shiny and silky overall.

And how is Leo doing this summer, you ask? Drum roll, please: Here we are in August and Leo has only been to the vet once this summer.

This is a huge improvement over the past two summers, and I believe this miracle of skin and coat improvement is due to the Solid Gold Seameal. Forgive me while I perform a little product endorsement here (you can be damn sure I wouldn’t do this if it didn’t work, and no—I’m not getting kickbacks from the company that manufactures it) but I had tried other supplements and shampoos recommended by pet store owners and vets, to no avail.

The Seameal looks and smells like seaweed that has been dried and pulverized into a powder. At first, I had my doubts that Leo would even eat it. Sure, he eats the poop of other dogs and cats without discernment but when it comes to the stuff I put in his bowl, he can be a bit finicky.

Like when I started adding salmon oil tabs to his meals: at first I cut open the tab and squirted the salmon oil on his food. He gave it a sniff and refused to eat. Then I tried mixing the whole tab in with his raw meat; he would eat every last drop, save for the lonely salmon tab at the bottom of the bowl. Somewhere along the line, though, he decided the tabs weren’t so awful; now his bowl is always empty.

So I’ll keep giving him ½ teaspoon of the Seameal with each meal (though I’ve learned to buy it on Amazon; there are better deals on it there) and keep feeding him the expensive raw meat diet (I rotate between lamb, venison and turkey/chicken patties by Nature’s Variety, and keep taking him to the groomer for therapeutic baths. And I’ll keep my fingers crossed that he remains cone-free for the rest of the summer.

And that concludes "The Itchies Trilogy" (I swear).

The Itchies, Part II

Leo’s first summer in Portland was a disaster. After lots of scratching and licking resulted in a visit to the vet, I found out that he had numerous infections. The vet prescribed antibiotics for the infections and steroids for the itching, and so began Leo’s new health regimen.

I squirted cleaner in his ears (though admittedly, most of it just trickled down the side of his furry face, making a mess of his fur, because I was too squeamish to really get down inside his ears). I switched him to a pricey raw meat diet, hoping that real food with no fillers might do the trick. And I dutifully took him to the vet to have his anal sacs regularly expressed. Anal sacs express themselves? This was new to me (and technically, they don’t express themselves—they require someone else to express them).

Eventually the ear infection went away, and so did the staph and anal sac infections. But the overall itching and hot spots proved more stubborn. Several different vets gave me their opinions yet all remained stumped. I spent a fortune on Leo that summer, and still he had little relief from the itching and irritation.

Finally we were referred to a veterinary allergy and dermatology specialist. She remarked that Leo looked very dignified with his gray eyebrows, and took him into a separate exam room. A few moments later they returned.

Her diagnosis? He was most likely allergic to northwest pollens, just like the rest of the population that had moved here from another part of the country (namely, me). “Duh,” I thought. For another $1,000, she could do allergy testing to determine the exact cause of his allergies. I would then be required to give him injections that would, over the course of a year, desensitize him to the allergen(s). And cost lots more money.

I told her I had to think it over, and ushered Leo out the door and into the car where I promptly burst into tears. How could I possibly afford this allergy treatment stuff? And how could I possibly give him regular injections when I had a hard enough time cleaning his ears? Clearly I was a rotten dog owner. Words like “unfit,” “negligent” and “cheap” bounced around in my head as I drove home.

Eventually summer faded into fall and miraculously, Leo’s allergic reactions faded away, too. The itching stopped and his coat became bright and shiny once more—until the following summer, when he exploded with hot spots again. By now I had found a new vet, and this one not only gave him steroids for the itching but also put him in the cone.

Ah, the dreaded cone. Once again, people on the street would point and laugh. At home, we made the requisite jokes (“Son, you’ve got a lampshade on your head.”) Leo wasn’t happy about this new contraption; the cone made it difficult for him to perform everyday tasks. When he tried to hop up onto his couch, the cone would deflect off the couch, sending him back to the floor. Rounding corners took repeated efforts and even smelling flowers was a challenge.
Taking care of Leo in the cone was no treat, either. It was like taking care of a special needs person: after every meal, the inside of his cone was filled with raw meat splatter that I would carefully wipe clean.

Despite my lifelong love of summer and sunshine, I found myself pining for rainy days that would wash away the evil pollens. There had to be a better way!

Here Comes the Sun

Summer made an impetuous appearance here in Oregon last week. One day it was chilly and rainy and I was wearing my trademark skuzzy sweater. The next day it was in the 90s. I hung up my skuzzy sweater with a “See ya in the fall!” finality, threw on my favorite purple tank top and opened up all the windows. It was hard to stay focused on work, and the impulse to step out on our deck and bask in the sun tugged at my brain.

Good thing I was working on a story about the evils of tanning. “Teens Unaffected by ‘Healthy Tan’ Debate” reminded me of myself. Regardless of skin cancer warnings and admonitions that they’ll end up looking like leather handbags, teens continue to tan in record numbers. Why? For the same reason I did way back in the 1980s: because I thought it made me look better.

“Sun worshipper” does not begin to describe my romance with the almighty sun. Growing up in the snow belt of upstate New York, I pined for intense UV exposure all winter long. After being cooped up in a cold, drafty house for five months, nothing could warm me so thoroughly as the sun. It seemed to heat the frozen marrow in my bones. It energized me, and made me feel as though I could emerge from hibernation, triumphant once more.

The first temperate, relatively mild, sun-dappled days of early spring found me pulling my lawn chair from the barn. Snow banks lurked in the shadows along the sides of the house and under trees, but that didn’t stop me from finding the sunniest spot on the soggy lawn and baring my winter bleached skin. This was just a warm-up.

Memorial Day weekend was a good bet for laying down the base tan. Or base burn, I should say. I’m very fair and always burn before tanning. This I viewed as a mere annoyance, a small challenge to be overcome. With enough persistence and dedication, I could weather the burn.

And weather it I did. I suffered more sunburns than I can count. Sunburns that left me in bed for days, slathered with Noxema (for it’s cooling and moisturizing effect), blisters popping up on my shoulders and forehead (and once, even my eyelids), headaches, nausea and chills that made it impossible to do anything but lie there in misery.

Eventually the burn would fade and my skin would peel—first big sheets of it, dwindling to smaller and smaller bits and flakes. You’d think one ordeal like this would send a girl to the drug store for sunscreen with SPF 50 gagamillion.

Not me. Because once the pain was gone and the peeling had stopped, I was brown underneath. Just as a snake or a crab molts its old skin, I would shed the old winter version of myself to reveal a brand new and revitalized version—in my mind, a brown and attractive version.

I loved that a dark tan made my blue eyes appear bluer. That a tan made me look and feel thinner. That it cleared up my bad teenager skin. I even remember telling my mom, at the age of 14, that I loved how no one could tell that I was blushing when I had a tan (being an overly shy girl, one who was easily embarrassed and scandalized at the slightest provocation, this was a true saving grace).

During summer vacations in high school, I was a professional tanner. I never had summer jobs, so tanning was my job. Good thing I graduated and went to college and started working after that. Sure, I would still tan here and there, but time restrictions were a major stumbling block. It’s hard to get a “deep, dark, savage tan” when you work in an office all day.

Then I started noticing some freckles on my face that I hadn’t had as a child. After traveling in Latin America for six months, my best friend growing up (being her characteristically blunt self) was quick to point out that I had “even more” sun damage. And then I began to examine, with grave suspicion, every mole and imperfection on my body, looking for changes and irregularities in shape and texture.

So last weekend, during our heat wave, after writing the story about teens and tanning, we went to the beach. Instead of slapping on the Hawaiian Tropic, I dutifully applied sunscreen. Rather than prancing around in a bikini at high noon, I wore a long sleeve shirt and a hat, and made every effort to stay out of direct sunlight.

No more tanning for me. No more burning. No more molting. I'll stick with the pale skin I was born with. (Besides, it takes a lot to make me blush these days.)

We All Scream for Ice Cream

A few minutes after I took the photo for last week’s post, I discovered a pile of barf on my (semi) new Persian rug. It was Leo’s just-eaten breakfast.

He’s naturally a fast eater--you’d think the bowl of venison/chicken/lamb-patty-mixed-with-dry-food-and-three-supplements was fresh kill that he had to quickly ingest before other predators came along. Or that I starve him (I don’t; he’s at least five pounds overweight, maybe more.)

But that particular morning, I was trying to get a decent photo of him in his little red raincoat while he ate breakfast. He was inhaling his food as usual, but also shooting me suspicious glances. He doesn’t like the camera and having it pointed at him when he was eating must have stressed him out.

So when my gaze swept round the living room and landed on the pile of barf, I felt awful about it. What made it even more awful was that my Tuesday morning phone meeting had just started. Cell phone pressed to my ear, I knelt down to inspect it. (Again, it’s that mothering instinct to examine everything that goes in and comes out of our charges.)

When Leo saw that I found the barf, he decided he needed to have a look at it, too. He trotted over, sniffed at it and then proceeded to lick it. With the phone sandwiched between my ear and my shoulder, I tried to wrestle him away from the barf. But tug and pull as I might, he had decided this was something very delicious. Giving up in disgust, I turned my back to him for the rest of the phone meeting.

He does things that gross me out on a daily basis. There’s the nasty habit of eating poop. Not his own, mind you, but that of other dogs. And cats. Cat poop is his favorite; it’s higher in protein (or so I’ve read online). Our neighbor Bob has two cats that poop all over his lawn, much to his dismay. My fiancé jokingly offered up Leo’s services.

Then there are the things he does to embarrass me. There’s the ill-timed poop: when he decides to lay one down on someone’s lawn just as they come out of the house (I make a grand show of placing the poop bag over my hand and scooping it up). Or the flower garden romp: when he tramples into a flowerbed to sniff around like a blood hound hot on the coon trail, leaving me to drag him out just in time for the owner to pull up and shoot me dirty looks. Or the all-out mayhem induced by cats: he’ll break into a sprint to chase them (not caring that I’m dragging behind on the other end of the leash) or if the cat is bold and stands its ground, he’ll plant himself and bark his deepest, most menacing bark (which just ends up sounding like a bunch of empty threats).

But the most memorable embarrassing moment with Leo had to be last summer. We were out for our evening walk, trudging up a rather steep hill. Somewhere an ice cream truck was parked with its annoying ice cream truck song blaring away. Something about the ice cream truck song (it’s deliriousness? it’s forced gaiety?) always makes Leo howl, and this was no exception. Every few steps up the hill, Leo stopped and howled. I welcomed the rest, for it was a very hot day and a very steep hill.

When we reached the top, though, there was the ice cream truck. And there was a line of parents and kids waiting to buy ice cream. And there Leo decided to plant himself, and howl. He would not budge and he would not stop howling. I tugged at his leash. I pulled at his collar. I tried sweet-talking him with promises of treats. I tried enticing him with encouraging whistles. The ice cream truck continued it’s maniacal tune, Leo continued howling, and the ice cream eaters pointed at us and laughed.

I had to laugh, too. And when I buried my face in his fur (to laugh and to hide) Leo decided it was time to go home.

Flossin’ the Clean Chompers

For as long as I’ve had him, Leo has had foul breath, the kind that makes you recoil in horror when he gives you a kiss. I knew I should get his teeth cleaned but I balked when I heard the price: $360 minimum, plus extra if extractions were required.

Sheesh. Don’t people have anything better to spend their money on? (Shoes, for example?) That was my thinking. But after a conversation with his vet where she warned of the potential health problems that could occur as a result of plaque and tartar build up, much like in people, I decided it was time to drop the cash and invest in this old dog’s mouth.

Cleaning a dog’s teeth is no simple task. Like surgery, it requires general anesthesia and monitoring of vital signs. I dropped him at the vet’s office early in the morning, after a quick walk and no breakfast (the first assault to his system that day). In the afternoon, the vet called to tell me that the procedure had gone well but that Leo’s teeth were badly worn. “It looks like he’s been chewing on a chain for years,” she said.

Well, he probably had been chewing on a chain for years—in New Orleans, I explained. She went on to tell me that three of his teeth were cracked and beginning to get infected around the gum line, and so had to be extracted (bringing the cost up to $460). Yikes! I’d had a bunch of dental work performed recently myself, so the sensation of having teeth pulled was still fresh in my mind (double yikes). Poor Leo.

When I went to pick him up, his eyes were glazed and he was bouncing off the walls. Apparently, he’d been given something to bring him out of the anesthesia. He was agitated and restless in the car on the ride home. I decided to skip his evening walk and brought him inside.

Leo is always hungry, and always underfoot when we’re trying to make dinner. He’ll position himself wherever you happen to be chopping the onions, peeling the garlic or grating the cheese, waiting for any small tidbit to drop from the sky and become fair game.

With no breakfast and three teeth missing, he was hungry as ever. But the vet had warned that anesthesia can cause nausea so I was advised not to feed him that night.

Dinner was not in the cards for old Leo—the final assault of the day. As we went about our dinner prep and ate our dinner and cleared our plates, Leo wandered slowly behind us, head hanging low, stopping now and again to stare at the floor.

Poor guy. He looked like Eeyore. A sad, broken Eeyore with gleaming white teeth and minty fresh breath.

Alas, Leo will never appreciate the importance of good dental health (and if you have any doubts, you should take a look at the findingDulcinea Dental Health Web Guide), but I will certainly appreciate a healthier dog and better-smelling doggie kisses—a far better investment than new shoes, eh?