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Post by Brooke on Feb 25, 2010 22:50:10 GMT -5
HEEEEEEEEY! Sheesh! I'm late! Thank you! Was not my favorite. I hit 30 this year. Holy cow!
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Post by Brooke on Jan 12, 2010 21:19:45 GMT -5
I started Kuma on Canidae when she was approximately 2 years old. She's almost 9 now. For the last couple years she has had diarrhea off and on fairly often. It's been pretty uncontrollable when she has had it. The gas has been increasingly getting worse over the last couple of months. It's gotten to the point where the stench has woken me up at night and I guess that's when I started looking at the food. I recently remembered that they did have a change in their packaging about 2 years ago and that's when most of the problems started.
As for the cancer... a year ago (I think) November she had a tumor removed from her leg. The vet we were seeing at the time did not feel it was something cancerous and told me it was not necessary to test it. He felt it was just a fatty tumor.
In May of last year she lost complete vision in her eyes. I spent approximately $2000.00 from that point 1. trying to find out why she lost her vision (which we never figured out) and 2. putting her on antibiotics and various steroids in an attempt at getting it back
She did get her vision back however it's wavered. I've had to have her on and off of steroids. She had another lump removed on her leg..(I want to say sometime in August). Same exact spot as the first one. That one turned out to be a cell mast tumor. She had a couple others which were not cancerous removed at the same time. One was a cyst and the other was a pari-anal gland tumor. I decided it was her last surgery. She didn't weather it well.
So she's been on Eagle Pack for the last 3 days. No more gas at all (THANK GOD). Her stomach has not gurgled anymore. No more gagging. Her eyes do not seem as red as they have been. We will see how the eyes do but I think the stomach stuff at least seems better. Could be a lot of compounded problems but I figured since it all started around the same time it was cancer. I'm starting to feel a little better that she may have more time left than I was beginning to anticipate.
Here's hoping....
All I can say is that I'm so enfuriated that I've been a loyal customer of this product for the past 7 years and this... is how they repay us.
I seriously feel that if I didn't take her off that food, if it never dawned on me that the food may be the issue and not all the other stuff we've been dealing with, that this food would have killed her... And who knows... what if it is all tied together? I can't imagine what this is doing to so many other pets. It breaks my heart.
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Post by Brooke on Jan 9, 2010 23:54:00 GMT -5
I'm with you Loey. I can't imagine the day that Kuma will be gone but the last year has made me realize that may be sooner than later. I will be an absolute wreck when it happens.
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Post by Brooke on Jan 9, 2010 23:14:52 GMT -5
I have been feeding Kuma Canidae chicken and rice since she was about 2 years old. Now at the age of 7-8 she is all the sudden having issues with some majorly horrific gas .... every ... single... day, predominantly after she eats. She's begun having diarrhea regularly off and on and seems lethargic spuratically and has been gagging off and on the last couple days. I have recently had cancerous tumors removed from her. I have had this pit in my stomach that she's still got it somewhere within her because she still just does not seem right however I just don't have the money to go through all the major tests since the last surgery. I've spent well over $2000 on her this year with her at the vet. I started doing some reading about her dog food tonight because I did notice that their packaging sizes have changed over the last 1-2 years however their prices have not... She's seemed like something just hasn't been quite right...and seems to progressively be getting worse. I'm starting to notice that she seems worse at night and early morning. I feed her around 8 pm. I came acrossed this... www.consumeraffairs.com/pets/canidae.htmlI'm switching foods tomorrow...
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Post by Brooke on Nov 18, 2009 22:56:02 GMT -5
I'm so sorry Loey. I hope you are doing ok. I'm starting to see this in my not so far off future. It is insane how hard it is... even though she's still here. I am so not looking forward to this.
Take care
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Post by Brooke on Nov 18, 2009 22:51:43 GMT -5
Man! He is so stinkin' cute!! Peeka's ears used to lay on top of her head. Well... one of them did. She was all lopsided for awhile. ;D I miss her!
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Post by Brooke on Oct 23, 2009 17:22:48 GMT -5
Wow! He's so beautiful! ;D Aww! Makes me want another one again.
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Post by Brooke on Oct 3, 2009 21:37:56 GMT -5
I always liked Yuri, my dog Kuma had a nephew named that.
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Post by Brooke on Sept 12, 2009 21:19:29 GMT -5
Awww! Congratulations! You are going to have a blast! I can tell already!
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Kuma
Sept 12, 2009 21:16:58 GMT -5
Post by Brooke on Sept 12, 2009 21:16:58 GMT -5
Thank you
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Kuma
Sept 8, 2009 22:08:43 GMT -5
Post by Brooke on Sept 8, 2009 22:08:43 GMT -5
BTW, for any of you that haven't heard yet... I finally got engaged a couple weeks ago. At least I have a small ray of sunshine...
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Kuma
Sept 8, 2009 20:54:28 GMT -5
Post by Brooke on Sept 8, 2009 20:54:28 GMT -5
Well... I have an update. Kuma did for the most part recover the majority of her vision. I think she got most of it back but she's not 100%. They tested the pressures in her eyes again today and found the left one is reading about 17 which is normal and the right is reading 9 which tells us that there is inflammation for an unknown reason. It used to be switched which is puzzling. All in all things were going ok up until about two weeks ago.
During the Purdue trip they had found a tumor under her tail which they had indicated they felt it to be benign. I think that being in the back of my mind regardless of it being benign just really is working on my brain. They did tell me they couldn't tell for sure unless it was removed and sent in for testing.
I noticed she seemed to be losing weight... or so I thought. Not that she couldn't afford a little but they actually told me today she was 4 lbs heavier than she was at the last appointment. For a few minutes I thought I was just over-reacting and maybe we were ok.
She was losing a considerable amount of fur which also isn't abnormal for this time of year but at parts of her I was starting to see her skin it was thinning so much, she was scratching and there was a lot of flaking and dander. I'm used to this long GSD type coat and it's so short now which it has never been. Can't say it was too alarming because I had changed her from Canidae chicken formula to lamb. Not necessarily for any reason other than it was a little cheaper.
I did this one other time and ended up switching her back to the chicken formula because she hadn't reacted really well at the time. Honestly I didn't know if it was the food switch that caused it or she had either gotten into something I wasn't aware of or was going through some kind of bug. She had gotten really bad diarrhea... sooo... I attempted the switch and I have again switched her back to the chicken and decided to take her in because I just had this gut feeling... We are attributing the hair loss to different types of allergies.
This weekend I took a mental day for just me and her. I dropped my kiddo off at grandmas and took her to the self service dog wash at Petco. While I was bathing her I found a new tumor in the same place as one we had found and had removed a year and a half ago. This one has turned out to be cancer. Unfortunately the prognosis isn't great since this one is a mast cell tumor. The area that it's in is more boney and they wouldn't be able to remove it in a very clean manner since they like to remove at least 2-3 cm of tissue around the tumor and there's not much to take there.
I figure if I'm going to have it removed to have that and the one beneath her tail done at the same time however... it will cost me 700.00. On top of the 1100.00 I've already spent this year on all the other tests and trip.
I have to say I am considering it though...
She's 8, and everyone is reminding me of this but... I'm just not ready to let go yet... I figure this is my last ditch effort. This girl got me through so much... she gave me reasons to get out of bed some days. How can I possibly let her go?
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Kuma
May 24, 2009 9:54:27 GMT -5
Post by Brooke on May 24, 2009 9:54:27 GMT -5
They did find a mass under her tail which had some cells they were concerned about. They sent it along with a urinalysis for some testing. I should know the answer to on Tuesday about that. They were concerned about this being Lymphoma cancer however they took some x rays of her lungs and said that usually if there's cancer the first place it starts spreading to is their lungs and they didn't find anything abnormal anywhere else other than that mass. They didn't find any tumors or cancer in the eyes either thank goodness but said that her retinas have completely lifted from the wall. She has no vision in her left eye and nearly all the vision in her right eye is gone but we think she sees some shadows sometimes out of that one.
Its an adjustment but she seems to be doing ok with it. She doesn't appear to be in pain. They did say pending the results of the tests it sounds they are narrowing this down to being more of a defect in the Shepherd line than something life threatening. Which is something I will happily take after this week!
They put her on steroids and said that it could help reattach and help repair her retinas. Potentially she could get her vision back. If that is going to happen we would start noticing that within 4-7 days however she could still have damage to her eye and an impairment still.
I just have to learn to be more aware.I feel so bad for her. Its difficult with the baby's toys because she's running into stuff and it's hard in such a tiny house to keep it in a way that she knows where everything is. We're trying to pay more attention. She doesn't know how to tell us she needs to go out anymore so we just have to remember to not wait on her to give us her normal signals.
I'm hopeful the tests come back ok but I'm feeling a lot better. More optimistic anyway. This week has wiped me out!
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Kuma
May 22, 2009 6:52:53 GMT -5
Post by Brooke on May 22, 2009 6:52:53 GMT -5
I don't know how I'm going to get through the next day...
Last sunday Kuma lost vision in her left eye. Yesterday... she lost vision in her right eye. After 5 days of vet and er visits I feel helpless. They are telling me that her retinas are detatching from the anterior wall. Today we are driving her to Purdue University to see a veterinary ophthalmologist. I am hopeful we will have answers but scared out of my wits to hear them.
I'm ok with the blindness... I can live with that. I am not ready for what may be causing it. 8 years and she seemed perfectly healthy up until Saturday night. This dog still doesn't have a gray hair. She's always been docile and mellow. No changes what so ever, so this has been extremely hard to digest. I am wiped out and I don't think there's an hour that has passed where I've been conscious and not cried. All these years and she's always been the same. It was hard to see this coming.
This dog has protected me from people who've tried to hurt me. She's saved me in so many ways. Got me through my divorce and North Carolina... she's lovingly accepted my son. She's been with me through every change. I am so not ready for this.
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Post by Brooke on Mar 29, 2009 0:24:22 GMT -5
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