DOG HEALTH AND MEDICINE

Dogs, like people, experience all kinds of pain because of conditions that range from arthritis to neurological disorders, and their owners want to do what they can to relieve their discomfort, and sometimes out-and-out suffering. Can laser therapy help? The answer is not a straightforward yes or no.

My 12-year-old Scottish terrier, who has been ill for over a year, received a diagnosis of Cushings Disease in the spring. Her doctor did not prescribe any pharmaceuticals for her. Is there a homeopathic treatment available that will lessen her symptoms?

There are six types of cancer that make up the majority of malignancies striking older dogs: lymphoma (cancer of the lymph nodes), osteosarcoma (bone cancer), mammary cancer, mast cell tumors (mast cells are immune cells found all over the body), soft tissue sarcoma (cancer that takes hold in connective tissue like muscles and nerves), and one called hemangiosarcoma. Hemangiosarcoma, with its grim prognosis, may be the diagnosis a dog owner least wants to hear. Chris Stickell of Monkton, Maryland, has now heard it twice - first with one of her golden retrievers, and then with another one from the same line, 10-year-old Bailey.

Gloria Mooney is worried. Her dog, Sparky, all of a sudden began to have trouble opening his eyes. It was not completely out of the blue. Weeks earlier, he had what she calls a skin breakout, with ulcers (open sores) appearing all over his body, including inside his mouth, his nostrils, eyes, and so on. Those areas were breaking and failing to heal. Sparkys veterinarian assumed some kind of allergy was responsible for the problem and prescribed steroids and other medications, which cleared up the open wounds everywhere but in the corneas of Sparkys eyes. The cornea is the clear outer surface of the eye, and problems there are serious. The cornea accounts for more than two thirds of the eyes optical power.

Weve talked in these pages about the famous Japanese dog Hachiko, who went to the train station every day to wait for his owner to come home from work - even for years after the owner died, until his own passing. The dog, who became a national symbol of loyalty in Japan, was found to have had four meat skewers in his stomach (think kabob sticks) at the time of his death. They didnt kill him - cancer did - but they could have.

Say mites, and many people think mange, a highly contagious disease often referred to as scabies or sarcoptic mange. Caused by a species of mite known as Sarcoptes scabiei, it occurs when the microscopic animals burrow through a dogs skin, causing severe itching and irritation. Treatment consists of oral and/or topical drugs that kill the mites, with the dog perhaps being dipped in a medicated shampoo. Ongoing treatment over the course of several weeks is critical, as the drugs kill only living mites, not eggs that havent hatched yet. The eggs need to mature so the continued drug administration can take care of that next generation of mites, too.

Great Dane mix Menace had survived myriad allergies, gastrointestinal problems, mange, bloat, and a blockage in his intestine but kept going. In his later years, says his owner, Cathy Sutton of Franklin, Massachusetts, his back end was giving out. He started to lose control of his bowel. And his neck always had a huge strain on it and was tight all the time because he was compensating with his front end for his weakened back end. When he was 12 years old everybody told me that was as long as he was going to live.

I know Ive told you guys a couple of times already that our shiba inu Rosie takes a drug called Proin twice every single day. It increases the tone of the sphincter in her bladder so she doesnt dribble urine in the house by accident. Normally, we have no problem getting it into her. We call out, Rosie, Franklin, its time for your meds! and both dogs come running, Rosie to get the pill wrapped in a tight little wad of American cheese and Franklin just for the tiny wad of cheese. (There aint no way Im not gettin in on some of that, he told us early on.)

Several months ago you published an article that talked about a medicine called pimobendan that could stave off the symptoms of congestive heart failure and thereby keep a dog with that condition healthier for a longer period of time. I have a 12-year-old beagle, Chewy, in that situation. She has been diagnosed with congestive heart failure because she has a heart murmur and an enlarged heart but does not yet have major symptoms of the disease - not really any weakness, difficulty breathing, severe loss of appetite, or cough.

I have just gotten a Great Dane puppy, eight weeks old, and the vet said I should feed her food for large-breed puppies because it has less calcium for its calories than food for smaller puppies. I said, You mean more calcium, right? because a big dog like a Great Dane needs more calcium to build bigger bones. But the vet insisted that food for large-breed puppies has less calcium. How can that be?

Tufts veterinary nutritionist Deborah Linder, DVM, DACVN, doesnt just counsel people who have to make sure their household pets dont eat each others food. She has to contend with plate-sharing issues among the animals in her own home. I have a dog and two cats, she says, and everybody wants to eat everybody elses food, but they all have different medical diseases and have to be on separate diets. Yet they all have to be fed at the same time or they get very upset and go around howling.

Poor little Scottish terrier Newt was barley two months old and had been in his new home only a few weeks when, according to his owner, Jackie Strom, he kind of rolled over on his back, his arms and legs going. His eyes were sort of in the back of his head, and he lost control of his bowels. It probably didnt last much more than a minute or so.