Mickey the Itchy Hunter …
Ever since we’ve had our beloved dog, Mickey, he has had skin issues. At first he was diagnosed with mange. Then the vets thought it was a food allergy. Eventually it was determined that he was allergic to dust mites and mold.
For the past 8 months he has been receiving allergy shots twice a week. In addition to the shots, he was on antihistamines two-to-three times a day. He often needed to go on antibiotics if he scratched until he opened his skin, and occasionally he would need to take steroids both as a topical cream and orally. The latter makes him act a bit odd. Aggressive, but only when pushed. Normally he is very easy going even when prodded by his younger, smaller, ruder canine companion, Haley. But when he is on steroids he has a wild look in his eyes and is more likely to respond with force when Haley pushes his buttons. Recently we started a new treatment for Mickey‘s allergies.
When Mickey had surgery recently to remove a benign cyst on his back, the doctor who did the surgery said that his blood work showed that the steroids were having an adverse effect on his liver. Luckily this could be countered with yet another drug; however, this news gave us the courage to switch to the newer treatment our allergy specialist vet had suggested many months ago. We had been hesitant to try this new treatment because it was relatively untested. We were concerned by the lack of long-term data, and how our older dog would respond. Knowing that the current treatment was hurting his liver was the spark we needed to change treatment directions. Our vet’s opinion that we would be much happier with the new treatment—and more importantly, that Mickey should feel the benefits of the new treatment—helped us make the decision. The bonus is that with the new treatment we shouldn’t need to administer additional drugs.
Mickey has only been on the new drug for a few weeks, but so far we are very pleased with his progress. He’s less itchy, his skin looks much better, his coat is softer and shinier, he smells better, and—most importantly—he seems much happier. So keep your fingers crossed with us please.
Muttluk Love …
When we first told our friends in Maryland that we planned to move to Vermont, most responded by asking “how will you deal with the cold!?” Since we honestly had no clue what the answer to this question was, we eventually established a sort of party line response: “We don’t mind the cold, it’s the commuting in the cold that we don’t like.” This is true. Sarah and I are both more comfortable when we are cold than when we are hot, whether it is inside or out. We also hated commuting to our jobs in the city on cold days.
On cold works days we had to bundle up to walk a mile to the Silver Spring Metro stop, where most days we had to wait on the elevated platform while the wind whipped around us. Once we were on a train, it would inevitably be blasting the heat, and as more people got on at each subsequent stop the train would get very warm. The fact that more people took public transportation on colder days—especially if it was snowy or icy—meant that in addition to being hot, one would have a great deal of difficulty removing layers for the 30-45 minute ride due to the extra bodies, all of whom were wearing extra layers themselves.
Once we arrived at our respective stops, we had to walk various distances to our offices, again bundling up against the cold and or wind. Once at our offices, we would strip our layers to work. I can’t speak for Sarah’s office, but mine was frequently warmer than I would have liked. (My office mate next door to me, however, was always cold and blasted the heat in her office.) If we didn’t bring lunch, we had to also bundle up to go out for food as well. At the end of the day, we’d turn around and do it all again in reverse.