What's Up With Athena?

Ok, so we've been a little MIA the past few days here on the blog besides some random pictures posted on Facebook of Athena's daycare shenanigans and our warm Portland weather.  Sorry about that!  Life seems to just be busier and this heat doesn't help my motivation to write.  I decided that today should just be a catch up day to let everyone know what Athena's been up to.

1.  Who's a Canine Good Citizen?

Not Athena.  Nope, we haven't yet tested for CGC.  As many of you know, over the past couple of month's Athena has been enrolled in a CGC prep class and has been working hard to master the ten test items.  The five-session prep class was Athena's best training class by far.  Usually Athena is the class clown, always trying to rile up the other dogs and not pay attention to her parents.  However, during CGC prep, Athena was an absolute star student and our trainer used her for all of the test demonstrations.  We have REALLY been looking forward to testing Athena for CGC because we feel that she's ready now more than ever.  We were suppose to test on the last day of class which was suppose to be on June 16th.  But, June 16th has come and gone and Athena is still just a CGC in training.  Our trainer decided to postpone the test until late July or August to give the other class participants more time to practice before testing.  At this point, Athena is probably the only one ready to test from her class (I'm not saying that's she's necessarily ready to pass!) and so we will wait until our trainer schedules the test in the next month or two.

Getting yummy treats in CGC class!

2.  Our first flyball tournament is in 10 days!

I just looked at my calendar and had a mini panic attack when I saw that our first flyball tournament is in only 10 days!  We've been hard at work practicing to get Athena ready to run as a green dog (she won't actually be in he tournament, she'll just be with the team practicing as a dog in training).  Athena has had some ups and downs in flyball over the past few weeks and the ups definitely make me so excited for our first tournament, but the downs (not bringing her ball back over all jumps, running around hurdles, putting pressure on other dogs, acting like we've never practiced before...) totally frighten me.  Alas, I'm sure that our first tournament will be quite the experience and we'll have plenty of stories to share when we're back.

Flyball practicer!

3.  Athena's belly bumps are a mystery...

It's been a few weeks since we shared about Athena's most recent trip to the vet to get her bumps and scabs checked out.  She went on two weeks of antibiotics and Benadryl and things cleared up pretty well.  However, some bumps and scabs were not completely gone and a couple of new bumps appeared, so we called up the vet and Athena is now on a second round of antibiotics.  We also took her off Benadryl for the time being and put her on a steroid to help with the itching.  It's been a little over a week since the second dose of antibiotics and steroids, and things were REALLY starting to clear up until she developed a couple of new belly bumps the other day.  We have an inkling that the grass is triggering the tummy bumps, but we're not 100% sure.  Our vet has suggested seeing a dog dermatologist if we can't get things under control.

Thean loves to eat grass...

4.  We're SO hot!

Us Portlanders are milld weather people.  We look forward to the summer for 70 and 80 degree weather.  Personally, when the temperature starts to creep past 80, I am miserable.  This past week we've been having temperatures in the upper 90's (like 98!) and it has been pretty awful.  Seeing as this hot weather is rare, the majority of people here in Portland don't have air conditioning in their homes so it gets REAL hot.  It's tough to take Athena out during the day because the pavement is just too hot for her paw pads, and the sun is too bright at the park.  She doesn't seem to mind too much that she's been lacking in the exercise department though.  The mix of steroids and hot weather makes for an extra tired Bean!

This girl is jumping for joy because it's starting to cool down!

5.  Athena is a midnight muncher

On Friday night Athena did a little something that she's never done before.  She crept out of the bedroom and into the living room while we were asleep and found a bag full of dog treats and food samples.  When we woke up in the morning, we noticed four treat bags and two food samples had been ripped open and demolished.  Athena also looked like she put on a good five pounds over night.  Our little skinny Bean was a BIG fatty all of Saturday with bloat.  I of course freaked out and Googled all of the signs and symptoms of dog bloat.  Luckily Athena didn't exhibit much besides being a big lug all day. Nine poops later, Athena was back to her normal self and ready for Sunday!

I took this picture on the day of Athena's bloat.  Can you tell how bloated she is?

Well, that's about all of the major updates I have for you.  Athena wishes everyone a very happy 4th of July and hopes that you will cross your fingers that she's not too afraid of the big booms (AKA fireworks)!

A Trip to the Vet: Scabs, Puss, and the Itchy Scratchies

Many of you are well aware of our most recent trip to the vet from our Facebook update on Monday.  We called the vet on Monday morning because Athena had an allergy flare up that got a bit out of hand and we figured that we'd better get it looked at.

Athena shaking as she awaits her turn to see the vet

On occasion, Athena will break out in little red bumps on her belly if she eats something that she's not suppose to (we are thinkin' she's allergic to white potatoes, possibly chicken, grass, and who knows what else).  Every time that Athena gets the little red bumps, they just go away on their own after about a week.  Well, a month ago Athena got the usual little red bumps after eating one too many chicken treats at the Doggie Dash.  However, we noticed that the bumps weren't going away and some were getting bigger.  Most recently we noticed that Athena had little scabs all over her body (mostly around her tail, backs of her legs, and her tummy, but a few popped up on her chest and even a gigantic one on her head).  I thought she could have fleas, but we didn't find any and still thought it strange that her belly bumps weren't clearing up.

The event that caused the bumps...

Now, you're probably thinking that we're horrible dog parents for letting the situation get that far (we're talking about three weeks of bumps and then scabs).  Well, we already had a vet visit scheduled for the end of June to get vaccines, so we thought that we might be able to wait it out seeing as Athena really didn't seem bothered by the belly bumps or the scabs.  Things got worse over the weekend, however, and Athena developed new belly bumps with puss.  We knew that we needed to get it looked at right away.

After three of us pulled a shaky Athena out from under the chair, the vet was finally able to examine Athena's skin and determined that her recent allergy break out probably just got a bacterial infection.  It's a good thing that we went in though, because since some bumps developed puss, we definitely needed antibiotics to treat the infection.

Benadryl is EXPENSIVE when Athena has to take 4 tablets a day!
 I got the mega-sized bottle making each pill only $.05.

Now Athena is on an antibiotic for two weeks and will be taking 50mg of Benadryl every eight hours for the rest of the summer (or as needed for her year-round itchy scratchies).  The Benadryl is making her drowsy, but overall she's in good spirit.

Things are starting to heal up after 2 days of antibiotics

Does your dog get the itchy scratchy allergies?  What do you do to keep them at bay?

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A Trip to the Vet: Allergies

So, last week Athena was feeling a bit under the weather.  All of a sudden her eyes were very red, runny, and had goopey green/yellow discharge throughout the day.  Along with these sad looking eyes, Athena was also experiencing some loose stool.

You gotta wear them stunna' shades when you got the eye funk!

Of course we went WebMD crazy and tried to figure out what causes "red goopey eyes and diarrhea" in dogs.  Most sources pointed us in two different directions: allergies or virus.  From this information, we tried to think of anything in the environment that may have caused these symptoms in Athena.

Last Sunday we attended our first Portland Pit Bull Parade, so we thought that maybe Athena caught something from being in close contact with other dogs.  We also remembered that Athena had a homemade dog treat from another dog owner...and being the novice owners that we are, we didn't ask what the treat was made of because as of yet, Athena hasn't show signs of any food allergies.

We also started giving Athena some new treats last week.   I am going to be so upset if it is these new treats causing the allergies because I bought two bags of them just because they are so super cute and Halloween themed.  Meet Boo Bars:

After trying to diagnose Athena's issues on our own, we called the vet to seek advice.  They suggested that it was probably some sort of allergy causing the symptoms and told us to call back if Athena continued to show symptoms after another couple of days.  Because I'm a worry wart responsible dog owner, I called the vet back only a few hours later to schedule an appointment.  I couldn't stand looking into Athena's sad blood shot eyes with green boogers anymore!

Seeing as we couldn't get an appointment until the following day, we tried to do the best that we could to keep Athena comfortable at home.  Throughout the day we applied warm compresses to both of her eyes and wiped away any goop that formed.  We also added 100% pure canned pumpkin to Athena's dry kibble to help firm up her stool (we added a heaping spoonful to her kibble at breakfast and dinner).  Pumpkin is pretty much a miracle worker because it only took a few hours to works its magic on Athena's poop.

The next day we ventured to the vet (for the third time in the past two months I might add-- see last time's visit here).  The vet determined that Athena's symptoms are in fact probably stemming from some sort of allergy.  Since we have only had Athena for two months, it can be hard to determine whether or not the allergies are environmental or from food.  She told us that many dogs experience seasonal allergies, so it might be the case that Athena has fall allergies.  We can't be totally sure of this though until we have had her for a full year and determine if similar symptoms arise next fall.  The vet also told us that it's possible that her symptoms could be food related (either from the new treats that we fed her, or even from the one homemade treat that she ate at the Pit Bull Parade).

With that, Athena cost us a pretty penny at the vet (interesting how each visit just gets more expensive...).  Aside from the general checkup, she also had a fluorescein eye stain to ensure that a scratch wasn't the cause of her eye irritation.  Once that was shown to be clear, she was prescribed Neopolydex eye drops to treat the eye irritation.  We are suppose to give Athena one drop in each eye every 12 hours for the next two weeks.  PLEASE tell me how it is humanly possible to put drops in a dog's eye?!  Twice a day?!  For two weeks?!  Oh no, Athena is not having it.  It has been a major struggle to get those dang drops in her eyes.  Any tips would be greatly appreciated!

Athena's eyes almost totally cleared up after the first dose of eye drops though.  The redness is pretty much all gone and she only has a very tiny bit of eye discharge.  Her loose stool is also a thing of the past.  So from now on we are on allergy alert.

I tell ya, pitties and their allergies!