Woof's troubles.

Woof has chronic pancreatitis. If you don’t know what pancreatitis is basically the pancreas becomes inflamed and forces digestive enzymes into the abdomen. These enzymes get to work doing their job but unfortunately they are digesting other organs in the body. This as you can imagine is quite painful and can even be deadly.

Woof went a long time without being diagnosed because he wasn’t showing the typical signs. There was no fever, loss of appetite, vomiting, diarrhea, dehydration, depression, or difficulty breathing. He would get tense in his abdomen and have these episodes of extreme pain as he ran around the house and dragged himself along the floor biting whatever was in reach. These episodes would last 24 – 48 hours off and on and varying in intensity. We went to several vets and none could figure it out or seemed to be that bothered by it. Our current vet gave us a few options, scope him which we’d have to likely travel out of province, exploratory surgery which had its own risks as it was very invasive or just for the heck of it test for pancreatitis.  We opted to test for pancreatitis just to say we did, not expected it to be positive but they were.

Pancreatitis can be brought on by a whole list of things, it’s not a one size fits all diagnosis and you may never know the true cause of it. We have no idea what caused Woof’s. Some breeds are prone to it, sometimes being fed a high fat dog food or fatty human food such as bacon, being overweight, side effects of medication, low protein, high fat diets and even an injury to area can bring it on among other things. Females are more prone to it than males and usually it occurs in older dogs. But it can happen at any age. There are also two different types of pancreatitis, acute and chronic. Acute is the more severe and quick. It is often a one time thing if the dog survives but caution should be taken to avoid it happening again. It can cause a build up of fluids in the chest and abdomen, cause kidney failure and random bleeding since the body’s blood clotting abilities are affected, it can be fatal. Chronic is when the pancreas is permanently scarred, it’s a low grade inflammation that is reoccurring. It will require the dog to be on a low fat diet for the rest of its life.

So then we had to find a food. Of course the common choice was to feed one of the veterinary Rx diets but I’ve never been a fan of them, I don’t like the ingredients and I don’t like the companies themselves. I told myself if I absolutely had to I’d put him on it, for his sake but I’d try other foods first. We tried him on Natural Balance Potato & Duck LID, 10% fat. It didn’t seems to work out for him as he was still have quite a few episodes but it was hard to tell as we were living with my parents and my father had a habit of feeding the dogs whatever despite being told not to. So we switched to Chicken Soup for the Soul Weight Management, 6% fat. Shortly after this we moved out. He’s been on this for 6 months now and only a few episodes usually after he’s gotten into the garbage, got into the other dogs food or was given something we didn’t thing would set him off like a tiny bit of popsicle. I’m not happy with his overall condition on this food though, his coat tends to be greasy and dull, his ears dirty and lately he’s being licking at himself obsessively. So when we were in town last week for a funeral I picked up a new bag of food to try. Go! Sensitivity + Shine Salmon, 12% fat. I started him On October 29^th so very early days yet. Keeping fingers crossed as I’m a big fan of the company and food.

Yesterday evening when we went out he managed to get at the garbage despite it being put up in what we thought was out of his reach. 3am this morning he was pacing the house, I thought maybe he had to go to the bathroom as he often gets distracted when he’s outside and forgets to go. He did pee right away but still seemed off when he came in. I tried to feel his abdomen but he was reluctant. I ended up giving him a pepcid and tramadol just in case. He was restless but didn’t seem to be in any pain, he finally settled shortly after 5am and I headed back to bed. He was given his breakfast and I did dishes, leaving the garbage can down on the floor, I ended up catching him with his head buried licking of the remains of pasta I had scrapped out of a bowl. A little after noon he became restless again, his abdomen was a little tense but nothing striking I gave him another pepcid just in case and shortly after he settled again, got his supper and has been fine ever since. I can’t say if it is the new food that bothered him or the garbage raiding or maybe it wasn’t his pancreatitis at all, who knows. He’s been known to be gassy and we all know how uncomfortable that can be. So we’ll see and keep our fingers and paws crossed.