Zara update 3/4/2024

A lot has been going on! 

Let's start with the health stuff:

Zara has been on antibiotics again for UTI symptoms, she was on baytril for the primary bacteria and we finished that. But she still had symptoms so another urine culture later there's a secondary bacteria that we are treating with clavamox.

About 10 days into the clavamox she started having times where she'd pant a lot and then get up every hour from around 2am-7am to get water (she'd drink for like 30s to 1min at a time) or wanting to go out. So yet another vet visit, another urine culture and blood work. Bloodwork looks good! Urine culture doesn't show any bacteria growth (thus is good). But the question remains, why is she so uncomfortable during the night? She would also pant randomly during the day when laying down when nothing is going on.

The panting has decreased as we progressed through the clavamox treatment, so that's good. She has still had a couple days where she got up in the middle of the night/early morning to drink a ton of water or wanting to go out to pee. I'm waiting on them to call back with next steps if any, I'm ok if they just wanna wait until the clavamox is done to see if she's still doing this. My main concern is that something else is making her very uncomfortable. And at this stage in her life my priority is that she is comfortable and as happy as possible.

Slightly more positive health update:

The vet prescribed Cerenia which is a motion sickness drug, since Zara is having vestibular syndrome symptoms. Mostly her eyes have a rapid side to side motion when she's looking at something or in rest. The Cerenia has greatly benefited her appetite and her motor functions. When she's on it she doesn't hug the wall as much when walking, and is agreeable to eating more food. When she's not on it (they only gave us 4 days to test), she bumps into things a lot and it is a struggle to get her to eat even high value foods like Hamburger or bacon. Hopefully will have a refill of that soon so we don't lose the 2lb she gained while on it.

Speaking of eating, she doesn't really eat on her own anymore (usually she'll eat high value food on her own), I've been putting the food directly into her mouth and she'll swallow it. I'd like to get her back to eating normally if possible, but with her current weight and antibiotics I can't really risk her not eating at all. So we'll continue with just putting food in her mouth, she let's me know when she's done by leaving or throwing the food at me (she has good aim, from her practice throwing tennis balls when she was younger).

Play time has also changed significantly, she will still chase tennis balls but isn't interested in picking them up. So fetch is now just throwing the ball across the apartment, and going with her to where it lands and she touches it with her nose then turns around to wait for the next throw. It's kinda sad to see, but I know play changes a lot as a dog gets older and I'm happy she's even kind of active. We do still go on hikes, just a 2 mile that we try to go on weekly depending on weather. It takes longer but she likes going out into nature, and sometimes meeting other dogs.

Now onto quality of life. I'm going to call a hospice service, laps of love, to chat with them. I don't think it's quite time to let Zara go yet, but I can't ignore the fact that she's slowing down a lot and I'd like to have some plans and a 3rd party to chat with about her quality of life.

For all of February we put days into 3 categories, good days, in-between, and bad. In-between days typically have some things that are good (walking, activity level or eating) and some things that are bad. Here are the results:

Good days: 10

In-between days: 10

Bad days: 9 days

So almost an even split between all 3 for February, I had previously decided if bad days > good days then it was probably time to let her pass on soon. But she's had an ok month with good days outnumbering bad days still.

This month isn't starting off great with the last couple days being bad, but I'm hoping that when the Cerenia prescription is filled that will help her quality of life. The big question mark is what's going on with her being super uncomfortable. It could be anxiety since the neighbor dog occasionally barks, and Zara is a little too good at anticipating things to repeat. But I'm not sure... I will update the blog when I have more info.

Now onto the best part, Zara photos!