Dogupuncture

Haven't had a lot of free time lately to post. Things have been off-the-chain busy. One of the things we have been up to is acupunture with Button. Or as I like to call it, dogupuncture. We went to Everhart Animal Hospital in Baltimore, which has a vet that works in Chinese medicine and she determined that Button may have what Chinese medicine would consider a liver/blood deficiency, which would contribute to anxiety, fear, and also joint and skin issues. Button has had all of those things in the time he's been with us.

Here's a quick iPhone shot of Button the Pincushion.



Can't say for certain if we think it's "working" or not, but he definitely tolerates it very well and does seem remarkably calm after the procedure is over. And we've been able to cut his pain meds down from a pretty hefty 300 mg per day dose to 150 a day. So that's a good start. He's also coming off the heavy-duty rest and we're letting him play and walk more to hopefully start building up muscle in his rear end again. So far, so good.

Doc Meets Rescue Ink

This was a super-busy weekend--yesterday Tucker went out on a walk in the Inner Harbor with his pit bull friends to show some support for Pit Bull Awareness Day. Today Doc and I went to Baltimore Humane Society to do some demos and a B-More in Control class during the Rescue Ink visit to the shelter.

It was tons of fun, and the Rescue Ink guys hung out to do photos and autographs.

Doc and I didn't get an autograph--Doc probably would have slobbered all over it anyway--but we did get a photo with the guys.

Funny thing to note: When Doc first got out there, he was his typical Doc self. All hyped up and excited to be meeting people and doing things, so he was pulling and kind of nuts when he first got out there. I think that one of they guys was afraid I wasn't going to be able to handle him, because he ran over and tried to help me . . . admittedly, I was kind of worried about some of the other dogs who seemed to be milling around . . . but anyway, he tried working with Doc, but the trick to Doc is less is more. Touching him gets him more excited, and sometimes just getting his focus is the way to go. So several people had hands on him, which meant he was having a harder and harder time containing himself, and he kept turning around to lick faces, figure out why he was the center of attention, etc. Hilarious. But we did finally get our photo. And Doc went with me off to the parking lot and stayed in a nice, calm down afterward, believe it or not. Silly pit bull.

More on Broken Dogs

So I posted earlier that Button has two busted knees . . . how busted, I don't know, but there is likely one very torn ACL and one may be partially torn. He's been on limmited activity and some NSAIDS while I figured some things out, and now Button's going on an adventure.

After doing a ton of reading, agonizing, and a good deal of crying, we've decided to adventure into the world of "conservative management" and holistic vet treatments. I've talked to my traditional vet about this, and while he's obviously not sure what kind of result we may expect from it, he said it certainly can't do any harm to try. And we have an appointment on Wednesday with a local holistic vet that works in a conventional practice--she specializes in acupuncture, and she works with herbs as well. The goal is to make our next 8 weeks of confinement and rest for Button as stress-free and comfortable as possible. Regular vet will provide us with the good old Western pain meds that we've known to grow and love, and perhaps the holistic vet will have some treatments that complement what the regular vet does. I'm also hoping she'll have some ideas and tricks up her sleeve to help calm some of the demons in his head . . . . Poor Button has made leaps and bounds since we took him in, but he still has so much insecurity and frustration. Just this morning I took him outside for a walk, and a guy across the street was using some kind of powertool saw thing. Button's ears went back, the corners of his mouth turned up, and he army crawled his way into the corner near the fence. He hasn't done that in forever. Poor kid.

News from Missouri

Just saw this slideshow from Riverfront Times posted up at the Pit Bull Forum, thought I'd pass it along.

This story, too, from St. Louis Dispatch.

I don't think I've mentioned it here before (because I was under gag order) but it seems like everyone who's been part of this thing has been blogging, Facebooking, and posting about it, so . . .

I actually went to St. Louis for a weekend in August to help care for these fight-bust dogs. I wanted to see with my own eyes what the aftermath of one of these busts looked like. Nothing glorious or pleasant about it--lots of shit scraping when there are 500 dogs housed in one place. But there were a lot of really nice dogs taken in out there. A few that made me profoundly sad, since I knew this would be, quite literally, a dead end for them. One in particular touched me, and I just learned on Friday that she was euthanized. I'm sure she didn't pass her temperament test, and frankly, it's a testament to the temperaments of any of the dogs that make it out of there and into homes or rescue that they managed to keep it together for so long in that environment--bunch of gamedogs, taken from the only lives they'd ever known on chains in a yard, in confinement for months. Good luck to those--Kiva and Fanny and Jakob and Faye and Camilla and all the others that I've been reading about as they move on to new lives and learn about the world.

Floyd Boudreaux's Family Sues

The Boudreaux family, members of which were acquitted of dog-fighting charges last year, has filed suit against the Lousiana SPCA.

The story states, among other things, that:

The state trooper who investigated the case testified at the Boudreaux’s criminal trial that he believed the SPCA would house the animals and did not know the dogs would be euthanized.

A representative from the SPCA testified that no one person at the nonprofit animal welfare group made the decision to kill the animals but that there was a general assumption that the dogs would be euthanized.

Dalton said the killing of all 57 of the Boudreaux’s dogs has effectively ended the family’s legacy of breeding the “Eli” bloodline.

He said the raid and subsequent killing of the dogs was so distressing to Floyd Boudreaux that he “had a heart attack five days after it happened.”

All of the Boudreax dogs were killed before this trial even went to court. This story says the dogs were killed within 24 hours of seizure.

It'll be interesting to watch this case unfold.

Really Don't Have a Lot of Time to Respond to This

But you can read it for yourself and tell me what you think.

Probably the one and only comment I'm going to spend time making right now is that painting anything with too broad a brush--whether it be pit bulls, dog owners, or bloggers--results in some really blurred lines when you get up close.

Last Day to Vote for the Mobbies!

This is the last day to cast your vote in the Mobbies, the Baltimore Sun's contest to recognize Maryland's Outstanding Blogs. I was nominated in the "Misfits" category, and so far this blog is at number four. If you read this blog, and you like it, please cast a vote--how cool would it be to have a pit bull blog among the top 3 in that category?