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Here’s a valuable and inexpensive lesson. Gabby has aging hips, and she sometimes has stiffness and little troubles here and there occasionally. Thanks to her love of walking she has strong muscles that help a great deal to keep her hips fit. In fact, the vet in this story gave Gabby’s hips an excellent pognosis based upon feeling them and testing her limberness and stuff. The reason for this vet visit was that Gabby had somewhat abruptly seemed weaker, less steady, and less happy. We spent days “barking up the wrong tree” (pun intended!) thinking that it had to do with her existing hip issues and adjusting her medicam and adjusting walk/rest ratio and cooing and fawning over her and so forth. But, the vet visit was s.m.r.t. smart because te vet found the (dog not deer!) TICK! TICK?! But we’re barely past Groundhog Day! In fact, the tick was dead and removed yesterday and left a nasty mark so it probably was on her for a few days, perhaps even back in January. The lovely warm weather has brought beautiful walks throughout the winter, but it has a side-effect. Be warned. Gabby is visibly spunkier and stronger only one day after removing the tick. What a dunce I was! Warm winter means keep the flea/tick defenses up!
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7 responses so far ↓
1
biffngab
// Feb 8, 2012 at 11:30 pm
Oh, and I forgot to add that Biff, by the way, is walking farther than ever since his amputation correction. I’m going to have to find a way to hook him up to a sled and a way to make it snow! Sunshine is a stout little walker too. Her missing back leg allows her a smoother gait and more motion for energy. We’ll have to post a video of her. She LOVEs to spin in place!
Cheers all we love your stories and helpful posts!
2
Judy
// Feb 9, 2012 at 1:22 am
So happy for such a simple solution! May all your worries have such good results!
Judy and Baby
3
riosmom
// Feb 9, 2012 at 2:53 am
Oh ugh! We had a tick already this year, too. They are so GROSS!!! But glad Gabby’s achy muscles had a simple solution.
Rio’s momma
4
etgayle
// Feb 9, 2012 at 9:48 am
what a great reminder to give our pups a good ‘going over’ every day..glad gabby is back in the saddle.
charon & spirit gayle
5
Dakota Dawg
// Feb 9, 2012 at 11:46 am
Yes! Years ago we had an aging dog with spinal myelopathy so she was already almost unable to walk. She became paralyzed and we had even scheduled her euthanasia, when I found a tick. A quick call back to our V-E-T and he confirmed it surely sounded like “tick paralysis.” The way to find it? Can they walk again when the tick is gone? Within hours, the answer was “yes.” Good thing somebody found this on Gabby!
Shari
6
biffngab
// Feb 9, 2012 at 8:32 pm
Thanks so much everyone!
Woof!
7
wyattraydawg
// Feb 12, 2012 at 7:37 pm
Holy Moly! That is scary, we didn’t know a measly lousy creepy worthless little turd like a tick could take down a dog just like that! I hate those things. Grrrr.
Glad you’re all doing better.
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