Our Peruvian Viringos - neurodegenerative disease

It's been a while since the last Zara update, I will try to post a bit more frequently if I can. Zara has been doing alright, she's been pretty itchy (fleas!!!) so she recently got a bath and flea meds and then also a cytopoint injection to help with the itchiness.  post bath time photo She also had a vet checkup, urinalysis and heartworm check. No heartworm so that's good! The urinalysis did show some blood cells and a moderate amount of bacteria. We did the follow up urine culture and it showed the same bacteria as last time (e coli), and she's been showing symptoms of being bothered by this recently. Wanting to go out more frequently but not having anything in her bladder to express, being more needy in general. So we are going for another round of clavamox and then a recheck at 2 weeks while she's still on it. Ready to go home from the vet Energy wise she's still doing pretty good, slowing down a bit but she's 9 so that's expe...

 It's been a long time since I last updated, I'll try to update more regularly in the future. We have been pretty busy since the last update. To start with Zara's health, she's doing pretty well! Only major health change is that we need to express her bladder so she can pee. But most of that is because she has a hard time getting into the squatting position. She knows when she needs to be taken out to go pee, so she hasn't completely lost feeling.  Let's talk personality now. In her old age Zara has become louder, she now barks at dogs first when before this year she was very quiet. So we have been further limiting her interactions with dogs, since she now not only barks back but also barks first when she sees them. I guess she is finally fed up with other dogs barking at her or off leash dogs running at her. She has never been dog friendly,  only dog tolerant and now she has less tolerance for dogs than ever. Energy wise Zara is great, we go for 4 mile hikes wi...

 It has been a while since I posted any updates. Zara is doing alright, she's mostly seems to be very slowly declining in stability. She's still happy and playful, and we take her for walks and throw the tennis ball. She also still has a good appetite and eats well, finally gained some weight. Over the last few months she's been dealing with frequent diarrhea, which only seems to stop when she's on Tylosin. After a few vet appointments she's been diagnosed with intestinal dysbiosis, basically incorrect intestinal biome. Our options were to do a full upper and lower intestine endoscopy or to just continue to treat with Tylosin and then cobalequin for a vitamin supplement. We opted to just treat with Tylosin (one month on, 2 weeks off) and cobalequin permanently. Due to Zara's neurological disorder anesthesia is riskier for her than it would be normally. We are also more concerned with quality of life right now, seeing as the other dogs with this neurological diso...

Got the results back from the urine culture which was taken a little over a week after finishing the clavamox. It came back negative! She is finally infection free! We'll retest in 3 months or so to see if it came back and keep an eye out for symptoms. Zara is doing alright, she has good days and not so good days. Mostly good days. We go out for walks 2-3 times a day, she's still super playful. We mostly just try to make sure she doesn't fall or get injured. Whenever my partner and I work out it's play time and we toss the ball for her inside. She has a little trouble with stairs and getting on and off the couch, but she's adapted pretty well to her wobbliness. I'm just happy she's still with us and still has a good quality of life.

Zara is doing alright, she seems to be adapting decently to being super wobbly. She is however showing signs of the UTI/Infection again. Did another urine culture and the results are that it's the same organism as last time, since she's showing symptoms they have her on the Clavamox again for a couple weeks. Then we will retest. The fireworks that have been going off all month are also bothering her a lot, so she has Trazadone for when those are going off. Hopefully they will stop after 4th of July. Besides that she's been happy and playful. And stubborn as normal.

Zara had a neurologist appointment today, just a consult to see if it looks like she does indeed have the same thing Sonko did. As expected the results of the consult are pretty much the same, an unknown degenerative disease effecting the cerebellum. The neurologist didn't push for an MRI, he didn't think we would have much to gain from it. The slight trunk away when standing still, her stance and her abnormal eye movement when tilting her head up confirmed that she probably has the same thing. He doesn't think the episodes she has are real seizures, but related to her being disoriented because of the disease. It's unknown how long she has, and the recommendation is to just try to keep her from falling and getting injured. When it is time to let her go we are considering donating her brain to be studied, and potentially a necropsy. Still no word regarding the preliminary results of the research on Sonko's brain, the neurologist said he reached out to t...

Zara seems to be doing the same as she was last month, no better and no worse. She's finishing up the pred treatment, I may have skipped a couple days so the weaning off is taking a little longer than it should. She hasn't had any adverse side effects to it though, so it's fine. Her appetite is back to how it normally is, so incredibly picky. She's decided wet food is no good and she only wants crunchy dry food, but some days she doesn't want that either so I mix a tiny bit of bacon grease in so she eats. Zara is still playful, silly, sweet and stubborn. We go out for short walks as often as she wants, and play pretty much as often as she wants. I'm happy to be working from home and getting to spend more time with her. She's had a run of good days recently, starting from last week. Stairs are no problem, and jumping into the couch is no problem. She's still wobbly, but she hasn't almost fallen getting up stairs in almost a week.