Feeding the dog...

Since I just spent the last 5 hours cooking food for Freya, I decided it is time for a new post. I know I am horrible at keeping up to date with this blog, thank god my income does not depend on this... However I do want to continue posting updates because I know I have helped some people out there and I want to continue helping others.

As I said, I just spent 5 hours cooking 46 Potions of dog food that has now wandered into the freezer. Why do I cook my own dog food? This is not the stuff she gets every day. This is the "wet" dog food that we all buy canned a few times a month for a little "extra nice" dish for the pup.

Because I find the canned dog food very expensive and in a lot of cases not even healthy for a dog, I have been making my own wet dog food for years. It all started with my last dog, Odette, she had liver issues (as you can read on the blog) and we had to watch the things we fed her very closely - that was when I started making my own dog food and my own dog treats. You can find quite a few recipes on the blog - I often just throw things together in a pot (meat, veggies and a base such as rice or noodles), cook that for a while and then bag it - it is that simple.

Now another huge advantage of cooking your own dog food that I want to share with you today - is the savings. Now lets see what I worked with today:

So to sum up, at 46 portions, each weighing around 220g, of a beef, chicken or fish dish, packed in vacuum sealed bags, comes to €0.365 per portion. Without the vacuum sealed bags it would be 0.29 per portion, however those plastic bags do safe a hell ton of space. Last time I packed the dog food in little plastic containers that you can just wash, and I needed nearly 3 times the space for only 35 portions. 

Decide for yourself if you want to spend the time cooking your own food. For me it has become a hobby and once every half year I spend an entire day shopping and then cooking Freya's food. Firstly because it is cheaper, secondly because I know what is in it and I can control what she eats.

Life with the shy one... Freya - Part 1

After the death of my dog I knew I had to get another one soon as for me life without a dog in the house just feels like something is missing. My boyfriend decided we were ready for a dog of our own and we started our search for the new family member.

We tried to get a dog from the shelter, but shelters in Austria are apparently very picky. I am a person that has a lot of experience with dogs, as you can see on here with all my fosters, experience with diseases because of Odette and dog nutrition. However the shelter in Krems denied us a dog. Firstly because my uncles' dogs have chains on them and secondly because I once mentioned Cesar Milan who is (according to them) way too rough. So we gave up on that and just decided to search online. I still wanted to rescue a dog and I knew I was going to find a way on the internet.

On an Austrian site we found a dog that was so cute on the picture I immediately fell in love. She was a street dog rescued from Bulgaria. She was born on the street, guessed to be about 5-6 months old and she has grey, black and white fur. The marking in her face is something I have never seen in a dog and I just couldn't stop guessing what breeds might be mixed in her. After seeing her picture I started thinking of names, and I fell in love with the name Freya - the Nordic goddess of love and marriage.

On our way home - so afraid...

On November 1st. we got in the car, drove an hour and a half to meet her. She was so afraid, hiding under a table, not coming out - not even for a treat. The owner pulled her out from under the table so that we could at least touch her once. As soon as you let her go she was back under the table. Her ears nearly inexistent as she pulled them so far and her tail was constantly touching her belly cause she just couldn't let loose. We stayed there for about an hour, considering how we were going to deal with a dog that shy and afraid and how it might turn out in the future. The longer we stayed, the more I fell in love.


We decided to adopt her and paid the fee, signed the contract, picked her up and put her in the car. On the drive home we stopped once to see if she had to pee. She was on the leash, freaked out on us, tried to get away and nearly got out of the collar as it was a tad too big. I picked her back up and put her back in the car. At home we carried her up the stairs and she went straight into the kennel that we had put up for her.


Our vet guessed her to be a bit older so we are assuming her birthday is April 28th, a special day for us.

Too afraid to come close - but look, she has ears !!

The first 2 days she didn't eat or drink, she tried so hard not to have to go outside, and on the second day when she finally peed outside, we were celebrating. Then she started eating out of my hand. And more and more she started to trust us. She started coming closer, started sleeping in the little basket next to the couch, she came for cuddles and even started sleeping at our feet. She stopped running away when we opened drawers or the fridge, she ate in the kitchen and even stopped hiding when hearing an unknown noise.

Now, she jumps on the couch for cuddles, and she even has started playing with toys - a thing she never did before. On walks on a field we can even let her off leash, she comes back to us immediately, as soon as we call her. She loves to meet other dogs and even though she may still be afraid of strangers, she loves it when people cuddle with her on the couch.

Sleeping next to the couch, with her favorite toy

I am so proud of her and how we deal with the adventures of a shy dog, how we got her to come out of the cage, eat and not be afraid any more will be explained in this series "Live with the shy one... Freya"

Life with a sick dog... Part 6 - The end

This post is quite late. To be exact it is 1 year, 7 weeks and 4 days late. But a lot has happened, I was so extremely hurt by the loss and for a while I had given up this blog.

The beautiful puppy that we adopted, had to be put to sleep on November 14th, 2014. She was only 2 years old, we had tried everything, it was just for the best. Odette was put to sleep, as a result of another liver issue causing seizures. The shunt operation the year before worked but more shunts started growing causing the blood to once again get carried around the liver instead of through it. The ammonia level in her blood was so high they couldn't even measure it any more. We tried everything over the last couple of days to save her, but it was in vain. We decided to be strong for her and let her pass over the rainbow bridge so she can stop suffering.

And to remember her, I want to tell you a little bit about her: Odette was perfect. Only 2 years old but so much experience and she's seen more of the world than some humans ever will. She loved everyone and anyone who has met her will just say that. She loved walks and to play with her ball for freaking hours so at you got so mad at her for bringing that ball again. Despite her internal problems she had so much energy and she was so full of life. She absolutely loved carrots and was so skinny any model would have been jealous.

Odette was crazy smart and learned really fast. At 12 weeks she knew how to sit, stay until I released her and how to pee on command. She hated lying down but I can't even blame her. Took quite a bit of convincing to get her in a proper down position "Odette, lay down. Down. DOWN !! All the way, all the way, elbows on the ground !!" But she would do it to make you happy. She loved to please, anything to see a human happy.

Last year she went blind and she didn't even let that stop her. Running into things and taking three times as long to find her freaking ball didn't take her energy away at all.

Odette loved everyone and boy, did she love to jump at people. Annoying for some (especially men as she tended to hit you right in the balls) but who could be mad at her face for long ? When she came up to you during dinner it wasn't to beg for food. It was so that you would pet her head and give her an ear massage.

She was so gorgeous, had the perfect fur, soft and smelled good. She loved to sleep under my blanket but she also loved her kennel. She could be alone for hours, though occasionally she would pee inside. She didn't have the biggest bladder but neither do I so I can't be mad at her for that.

When she met another dog she first got scared. Pulled her tail between her legs and sat down. Then she'd start wagging it and when the other dog turned away she'd start a puppy attack.

She never barked, apart from in her sleep which was the cutest bark ever. And she made little whining noises when she was annoyed with us stupid humans, again can't blame her.

She was too good for this world and I am glad she is no longer suffering. Though she held on for so long, she was such a warrior. No more pain for you baby girl, no more suffering, no more vet visits, I know they scared you. Thank you for the amazing time I got to spend with you, you will always always be my puppy, my perfect first dog.

Play with all the people up there, catch all the balls you can and meet all the other dogs we already have sent to heaven. One day I'll be up there with you and we'll cuddle, play and learn new tricks once again. So many things I wanted to teach you, so many places I wanted to take you to and so many things I wanted to cook for you and now I missed the opportunity.

I will never forget you, you will always be in my heart. I hope you understand why we released you from this place, you are in better hands now. I love you and always will little one, my puppy. ♥♥♥

One of her first days with us - she always slept under my blanket...

Recipe 5: Banana-peanut butter cookies

There are so many dog-treat recipes online, so I kind of read over quite a few and just made my own recipe out of them. For Christmas my parents bought me bone-shaped cookie cutters so they even look professional.

What you need:

• 2 bananas
• 500g whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup low fat milk
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons peanut butter

The process:

• Puree banana
• Mix in egg, milk and peanut butter
• Mix in the flour and knead
• Roll it out as thick as you'd like (anywhere from 1 cm to thicker than that) and either cut into squares or use a cookie cutter.
• Put it in oven at 175 for about 20-25 minutes.

Feel free to try these treats ! They taste slightly of banana and peanut butter (no surprise there), be it a bit bland.

Tip: If you cut them into very small pieces these can be really helpful for clicker training. 

Travelling with your pet... Part 1 (By plane to a different country)

In this post I want to explain the steps we went through and make a list at the end of things you need to keep in mind and get done when you are travelling with your pet to another country.

Let me start by saying this: for any trip under 6 months, especially if it requires flying I would not consider taking my dog on a plane with me if the destination is outside the country or EU. Now why would I rather leave my dog back home in the hands of friends, relatives or a temporary kennel is due to the medical requirements, paperwork, medication, transportation requirements, costs, jetlag and physical and mental exhaust the trip can have on your pet.

In June 2013, my husband and I moved from Canada to Austria. We had 90kg luggage spread over 4 suitcases, by far not enough weight considering all the things we had acquired over the last 3 years we had spent in Toronto. And then there was the matter of our dog. Our 9 Kilo light, 21 inch tall, beautiful, 8 month old puppy Odette. We were lucky as for travelling from Canada to mainland Europe is relatively simple (England, for example, would have been a lot more complicated).

Let's start with the paperwork and medical requirements. Researching this on the Internet was very complicated as each resource seemed to be talking about slightly different requirements. We ended up contacting the Canadian Food Inspection Agency directly since they were mentioned everywhere, and just asking them about the exact requirements. They emailed us back quite quickly with the paperwork we had to get filled out. It was a 5 page document that we had to take to a vet along with the pup. He did a quick checkup, signed the paperwork and that was done. Of course he charged us for this, but we will closely examine this in the cost section. We did have one problem when we took the filled out paperwork to the CFIA, we had printed the sheets on separate papers, however upon getting there we were told they had to be printed back-to-back... I was pissed off that no one had told us about this before, but once again we were lucky as our document had 5 pages, the last page (with the signature of the vet) we kept and the other 4 we printed back-to-back and I filled them out right there again. The lady helping us was very nice and calm even though I was ready to yell all kinds of insults (which I am sorry for, but come on, we prepared and re-read the requirements over and over again and it didn't say anything about printing requirements).

As for medication we were on the one hand lucky because as we found out afterwards, Odette wouldn't have needed anything. The doctor gave her a deworming medication because the phrasing on the papers can be highly confusing - deworming medication are needed for the UK, not for most mainland-Europe countries.

Transportation requirements for a long flight like this were again a bit more confusing. Most airlines only allow 1 dog per luggage compartment and 1 dog per cabin. Odette of course was too tall to go into the cabin so we had to put her in the luggage compartment. Air Canada does not allow dogs in the luggage compartment from Mai-September because of possibility of overheating, so we had to fly Lufthansa. The requirements for her kennel were simple, it has to have openings on 3 sides, for ventilation), and you have to supply water for your pet. We put in a big bottle with a nozzle, kind of like rabbits, hamsters and guineapigs often have. Furthermore the animal needs to be able to stand and turn around inside the kennel.

Cost was a very important matter. The vet appointment cost us $200 (checkup and filling out of the paperwork), the kennel we were lucky to get for free (otherwise you are looking at another $200 if you need to buy one that size), the plane ticket cost us $400 (due to her size, the next kennel size down would have only been $200). The CFIA confirmation of the documents cost another $20. And it costs us a lot of time to get everything done. Booking the dogs ticket needed to be confirmed, the driving around from vet to CFIA, bringing the dog and the huge kennel to the airport, with an animal you need to be there 3-4 hours before take-off... Consider all this.

Jetlag and physical and mental exhaust on the pet - Odette was very exhausted after this trip. She had soiled her cage, had diarrhea that lasted for a week (and horrible diarrhea that she was not able to control), had trouble eating and drinking and for a day or so whined a lot when she wasn't near people (maybe she felt a bit abandoned, in the plane, I do not know). And this is the reason I would not consider taking her on a plane trip if it is anything down from 6 months - it's just too hard on her, and I think most dogs. The luggage compartment must be very loud, she does not know what's going on and despite the fact that we gave her something to calm her, she was quite distressed.

So to sum up these points for you:
- Contact the agency that needs to sign off the paperwork directly and ask them for requirements and the paperwork. All the blogs and people giving advice can differ quite a bit, and every country is different. I also would not recommend using services that do all this for you, for about $30-50 because I do not believe it is worth it (unless you are in a country where you do not speak the language).
- Consider the cost. All in all, Odette's journey cost us $620 (could have been nearly $1000 had we not had the kennel yet). Also consider the time-requirement and driving around you'll have to do !
- Make sure the transportation requirements (set by the airline and IATA) are met.
- When you book your ticket, immediately book your animal too - if there is already a dog booked on said flight, they probably wont allow a second one so you'll need to change it. The longer you wait, the more complicated this gets.
- Make sure you know the size of the kennel, weight of the dog, and cost of the ticket.
- Plan for enough time to the airport.
- Consider something to calm the dog (herbal or not, something is better than nothing).
- Consider the mental and physical effects of this trip. If your dog already has separation anxiety, a journey like this could just aggravate it.
- Last but not least, get your dog used to the kennel before you have to fly. The day of, your are excited and that rubs off on your dog, trying to get him/her into a kennel it's never been in before (especially if it is not a fan of confinement) can be very hard and mean added stress to him/her.

Hope this helped. If you have any questions or suggestions, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Life with a sick dog... Part 5

The eyes have been fixed. Well at least as much as it was possible. On November 27th Odette went back to the clinic in Vienna for the eye surgery. There were a few more issues than expected. They were not able to insert the artificial lenses, in one eye the cornea had started coming off, which made surgery even more complicated. We told them to go ahead with it anyway.

She had to stay at the clinic for a bit, but a couple of days later we got to pick her up. She looked so tired, kept squinting because the light must have been irritating for her renewed sight. Sam sat with her in the back of the car on the ride home and all she did was whine the entire time, just like the time after her liver shunt surgery.

For about a week she got two kinds of pills and three different eye drops (also different ones per eye). Then she got the pills and two different eye drops, one of them only every second day. It is quite complicated to keep up with all this medication and give it to her properly, but it is just something you have to commit to.

She was wearing the cone for nearly an entire month and she had check-up appointments on Friday, December 13 and on the 27th, and will have another one in late January.

For now she is also still on the special food, which she will stay on for a little bit longer. After we arrived back in Austria on January 15, we took her to the vet for yet another blood-test to see how her liver is doing: Her ALT was still a bit high at 191 (normal range is 10-100, last test it was 318), but according to the vet the ALT takes a while to go down, so those high results are all right. Her ALKP however was FINALLY normal at 151 (normal is 23-212, last test it was 253). The vet suggested we still keep her on the special diet, but I am feeding her a little bit of normal stuff too, to get her used to it slowly. Once the current bag of special dog food is empty (which will probably be another month or two) I will have a final blood test done to see the results again. Once it is down to normal (if it actually will go to complete normal - fingers crossed), I will start cooking my own dog food and treats again and I will make sure to post them on here once again - I cannot wait !!

So overall, it seems like this crazy, unwanted adventure is coming to an end, and I am so glad about it. We have to make another check-up appointment in Vienna for her eyes, but they look really good. And her liver results look better than we had expected or anticipated after the surgery.

I just hope that from now on she will live a long and healthy life, considering how much she's been through.

Life with a sick dog... Part 4

Update:
It has been about 7 weeks since Odette had her liver shunt operated, and her stomach barely shows any sign of this.

About a week ago we did some more tests, blood levels and a gallbladder-acid-stimulation-test, I just wanted to share these results with you (including my interpretation of them) and what will happen in the next few weeks. If any of you know what these tests tell us, feel free to share this in the comments, I would love to hear different inputs.

Basically, the important blood test results I am focusing on are ALT and ALKP as those two indicate how the liver is doing. First time these were tested at our vet was on September 9th, the second time was November 4th. So two months and one expensive operation later...

ALT is normal from 10-100 U/L, first she had 684 on her second test it was down to 318.
ALKP is normal from 23-212 U/L, first was 328 and the second test showed 253.

These results are (according to the vets) quite good. The liver takes a while to regenerate and it is good that we are seeing this progress. When I first saw it I was shocked because it still seemed so high and I was no longer sure "are these results so good because of the surgery or because of all the medicine and special food she has been getting ?". Anyways, doctors say they are good, so let's just believe that for now.

For her Gallbladder-acid-stimulation-test she had to have blood taken twice. Once on an empty stomach and then again two hours after having eaten, in order to see how her gallbladder would react to the stimulation. The base reading was 12.6 umol/l which is normal (anything below 20 is). After stimulation it was up to 354.4, which seems very high. I could not find what the "normal" range is after stimulation, but 354.4 is definitely above it. However the vet at the university clinic said it was no reason to worry (yet), so we are trying not to.

Our next vet-steps continue on November 26th at which point my father is taking her to Vienna for another eye-checkup. If everything is all right concerning her eyes, they will be operated on the next day and she will no longer be blind. Basically what happens is that they destroy her cloudy lens, suck it out of the eye and insert an artificial lens instead. These cannot get cloudy (so even as she gets old, she will never have this problem again). Update on how this went will follow soon, wish us luck for yet another surgery !

At this point, I would like to give a shout-out to my amazingly supportive parents. When we got this dog, I was telling them (and myself) how I had saved up enough money to support my dog, pay for food and vet costs, ship her over to Europe and buy her toys and treats for about 2 years, without needing a job. I did not take into account that she may have bigger medical issues that might need attention and might  need to be taken care of. My parents stepped in and have paid for all these vet costs ever since they started arising and until these issues are dealt with. Without them the only option I would have had at the time would have been to wait until she starts suffering from her liver shunt or glaucoma, or to put her down when she was just an 8 month old puppy. Considering how much money my parents have spent on a dog that isn't even their own, I cannot express my gratitude enough. Vielen, vielen Dank, ich und Odette haben euch lieb !!

Life with a sick dog... Part 3

Update:
The surgery was about 3 weeks ago. Since then she has been behaving like her complete self.

She got her stitches out last week and even though it couldn't actually hurt her, she definitely made it appear like she was getting slaughtered. Man, that little puppy has a lot of power. Last time I checked her weight was about a week ago, and she was still at around 10.3 kg, so no more weight gain, but I will check it again soon.

In 3 weeks we are going to the uni clinic for a checkup to see how her blood results are looking now.

If you ask anyone that has met her about her general behavior, they would all tell you that she is behaving as if nothing happened.

Pictures and Videos of Odette below. These were all taken from October 9th to the 12th so you can see how well she is doing, especially in the videos.

Odette at the Thanksgiving dinner

This is how I wake up every morning...

Life with a sick dog... Part 2

Update:
The surgery was a week ago. I got to pick Odette up the date after the surgery. There was a big shunt, which they closed off slowly with cellophane, but since they also found a few small shunts, they cannot say how her liver will recover.

Since I got her back, she was very whiny and tired for about a day. After that she was her normal self. She got a cone of shame with the words "don't take it off"... Having fostered so many dogs I know that I can take it off as long as I watch her, don't let her lick or chew on her stitches.

She's on antibiotics, lactulose, painmeds, meds to help her stomach cope and eye drops. Some of these once a day, others 4 times a day... It's a real hassle to keep up with it, but having done it before it's all right. She is still on a low-protein diet and will need to stay on it for 6-8 weeks.

In a week she will get her stitches out. And in 5 weeks we are going back to the clinic for a checkup. There is a possibility that her liver will grow to proper/normal size, but since there were some small shunts we wont know until we do another blood test in 5 weeks.

On a more positive note, I've only had her back for a week and she's already gained a kilo. She now weighs 10.6 kilos ! Crazy considering the vets from the Toronto Humane Society guessed her final weight to be around 5 kilos.

All together she is doing really well. I am very proud of her, she did really well during surgery and her scar is already completely healed. Once we know how her liver is doing we are going to look into the eye surgery again to make her see once again.

Her stomach.

The entire thing was cut open...

She wants to lay down on the chair,
but is having some trouble...

So I moved the second chair closer.

Poor baby is missing Sam...

Life with a sick dog... Part 1

After not posting for a very long time, I want to write a post on our dog, Odette. She is the puppy, formerly Rose, which we adopted on February 13th. Since then we have moved her half way across the planet, to Austria where she will live with us for the next (rough estimation) 3-5 years. A post on travelling with a dog will be made soon, to share our experiences on this, for anyone who might need it.

In this post, however, I want to talk about a more serious issue we've been facing with Odette and what we are doing to solve it.

What happened:
Just about 2 months ago, during a bike ride, Odette jumped out of the basket at the front of my bike, did a bit of a flip, but seemed fine apart from a little cut on her lip. About two days later I noticed that her left eye looked a little cloudy and that the lens looked like it was broken into three parts. Over the next few days her eye would look completely normal, and then very cloudy so we took her to the vet. He said that she might have a cataract, but decided to send us to the animal clinic in Hollabrunn with an eye specialist for animals. The morning of the appointment her right eye looked exactly the same like the left one did just 3 weeks prior. A cloudy and "broken" lens. On the one hand I was shocked because now both eyes were affected, on the other hand it gave me something to properly show the vet instead of "just" describing it.

Once there the vet looked at her eyes we knew that she does have a cataract and on both eyes. It is hereditary and had nothing to do with the fall she took. At this point we are about 4 weeks in, since we noticed the change in her eye and we were told that she could only see out of her right eye about half of her normal vision. In order to restore her sight we would need eye surgery where they break up the clouded lens with ultrasound and insert a new, "fake" lens that also cannot get cloudy. Her vision would then be near-perfect. Since the vet was going to be away and wanted this to get operated on as soon as possible, she sent us to another clinic, the University Clinic for Veterinary Medicine in Vienna, which has some of the best doctors in all of Europe, if not even the world.

Once there we did the same examinations as before and it turns out that Odette is a perfect candidate for eye surgery and has very high chances of a perfect recovery. However something bothered the vets, the results of her blood test. Her ALT and ALKP results were unusually high so we did another blood test to rule out any false results. Same happened again, all pointing to a faulty liver, most likely due to a "liver shunt". With these results the doctors did not want to operate on her eyes because the anaesthesia would be too hard on her body.

The quick facts on liver shunts:
- A liver shunt is basically a blood vessel that develops either before or after birth, inside or outside the liver. It's a blood vessel that is not supposed to exist and that transfers blood around the liver instead of through it. The liver cannot do its job and cannot remove any toxins that are in the blood. They end up going straight to the brain causing neurological issues (such as seizures).
- Shunts outside the liver can be easily operated on, shunts inside the liver not so much. If the shunt can be operated on, there is a survival rate of over 95% (Stats taken from U of Tennessee).
- Shunts that are present before birth can cause symptoms such as underweight dogs, diarrhea, occasional vomiting, but also seizures, weird behavior... These shunts can be operated as the liver can develop to its proper size after surgery.
- Shunts that develop after birth normally develop because the liver has a defect in general and can generally not be operated because they would re-appear.
- Shunts that cannot be operated on can be managed medically with a low-protein diet, antibiotics and lactulose for the rest of their life, however 50% of all dogs treated medically die within 10 months of diagnosis (Stats taken from U of Tennessee).

Story continues:
Another week later we did an ultrasound to try to figure out if her shunt is inside or outside the liver. Everything points to a shunt outside the liver that developed while she was still in her mothers body, as she has always been a tiny dog (though her brother was twice her size), has had diarrhea on and off (which we always found reasons for such as "she just got new meds", "she needs to get used to Austrian food and water"...), etc...

And now: 
Tomorrow, on September 23, she will have a laparoscopic surgery to look at her liver in more detail. If it is only a shunt outside the liver, she will have surgery right away, most likely restoring her liver to a normal within the next 2-4 months and letting us operate on her eyes within the next 6-8 weeks.

The only thing we are waiting for tomorrow is a call after the laparoscopic surgery: Is the shunt inside or outside the liver, is it one big shunt or many small vessels. If the shunt is outside and just one big one, she should be completely fine and I will get her back after about 3 days. However if the shunt is inside the liver and/or if it is a lot of small vessels rather than one big one, we will not be able to operate. If we cannot operate we are not sure if we can get her eyes fixed either and then her life span would probably be drastically shortened.

Please wish us luck and/or pray for her. I hope that the call tomorrow comes and tells me that they were able to operate and that she is doing well in recovery. I will keep you all posted.