With dogs with dysplasia or who are recovering from dysplasia surgery, one of the best therapies you can do is water therapy. Walking the dog in water for the extra resistance, letting the dog swim for the exercise and to take the weight off of their hips for a while, and generally getting the dog to use their injured legs in ways that don’t create impact injuries.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a swimming pool and can’t really afford to put one in at a rental house. And then there’s maintaining a pool to human standards, the extra insurance, and the fences and alarms that my city requires be installed around any swimming pool.
I could just use plastic kiddie pools, but I tried that before. They chewed up two of them ($25 each) last year.
Solution: a 300 gallon, $200 stock tank meant for watering livestock. I’m calling it the “redneck hot tub” …
I think we’ve had a few Jagd Terriers pass through our rescue and have just passed them off as “wire haired terriers” … it’s always nice to be able to give something a name that people can look up!
Two weeks later, we finally got Henry’s tooth out of his head. The poor thing. He’s had to go two weeks with this
But! The cool part? THE VET SAVED IT FOR ME! Oh my god, cool.
(I’m such a nerd.)
In all it's gory glory. Only the right 1/4 or so is normally exposed.
For the veterinary nerds, that’s tooth #204, the upper left canine. I didn’t realize how far it normally sits inside his jaw. (He’s gotta feel like he just lost three rounds with a mack truck right now.) The vet also said
For everyone else, this is why it needed to come out. Check out the fracture. The purple/red spot near the tip is the root of the tooth, and you can see where the outer enamel fractured off.
Root and enamel fracture
Poor guy. He’s lived with that for the past two weeks.
As part of my ongoing education campaign against the drugs that veterinarians regularly give their patients in handfuls without telling them the risks they’re running (i.e., Previcox), I present this dolittler.com article about the risks of NSAIDs. Humans can eat NSAIDs like candy. Pets cannot!
Henry’s going under for an extraction next Wednesday after he broke his #204 canine (upper left) when attempting to bust out of his crate. For the near future, days when I might need to crate him are definitely ‘work from home’ days. We couldn’t do the extraction right away because his CBC showed a high white blood cell count — which a physical exam confirmed. His stomach was a bit distended, hot, and grumbly. It probably would’ve gone unnoticed otherwise, but anesthesia would have been a huge risk with the infection like that. This is why you always pay for the pre-surgery blood panel! Every time!
In the meantime, he’s not enjoying life that much. I’m soaking his food and trying to make life as pleasant as possible for him. He WANTS to chew on stuff, but his mouth hurts too bad for it most of the time.
After deciding he needed a ‘job’ … I’m hoping to start volunteering with a local volunteer search and rescue team. They provide resources for people who think they have dogs who would fit in; considering that he’s bred to track and hunt and he ‘tracks’ here in the neighborhood on walks (not to mention tracks where I go and tries to follow me through doors and walls…) I think he’d be well-suited seeing as he’s already mastering most aspects of off leash obedience. If not, the volunteering will still be worthy for me and I’ll gain a lot of training knowledge from people who have to work with and lead their dogs.
A link was posted on a behavior mailing list that I monitor to this PDF about “leadership vs. dominance in dog training”. After some intense discussions with some other dog owners who can’t seem to stop using “alpha dog” and “dominant” for the life of them… well, please forward the link on. 
Edit: A few more resources:
I took Henry off of Prozac about four weeks ago since he was showing signs of no longer needing it.
Last week, he flipped out and tore up the miniblinds in the front of the house, all his stuffed toys, and some rags that were piled outside the laundry room. Ok, I can deal with that… we’ll just go back to crating him. Yesterday, he tore the door of his crate *inwards*. It’s not supposed to swing that way.
Today, he flipped out inside his crate, and left a giant puddle of drool. He also seems to have fractured the tip of another of his canine teeth, although there’s no blood or root showing. I’ll drag him out to the vet for a look-see at his tooth in the morning, but he’s definitely going back on the prozac.
Poor psychodog.
I received word today that Henry’s former owner has been paralyzed from the neck down due to an injury he received while doing a jackass-quality dare at a party.
Best wishes for his recovery. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. I feel very bad for secretly (or not so secretly) feeling a bit of renewed faith in karma…
As spring has sprung, Henry seems to have come out of whatever shell he was in. I can’t explain it other than that … he still won’t stay in the crate for very long (and I still can’t figure out how he’s getting out), but other than that he’s a different dog entirely.
Gone are many of the unreasonable nervous “flashes” that once characterized his behavior. He’s still shy, but he’s not automatically anxious. He doesn’t beg. He doesn’t prance in place when he can’t make up his mind. He’ll engage Eowyn in play and chase her in toys, and he’s properly submissive to her when she demands it, and challenging at other times … not automatically freaked the heck out like he used to be. It’s an interesting change, and I don’t know how to define it otherwise.
The downside: I can’t turn my back on him sometimes. He’s downright CLEVER about raiding the compost pile, filching things off the countertop that might be good to chew on, and finding things to eat that aren’t for doggies. (Now if he’d just play with his toys and leave he stuff on the counter alone…)
I’ve been reducing his prozac dose over the past month or two, but haven’t had time to do much with either Henry or Eo because my work schedule has been ratcheted up and I’ve had garden and other chores to do every minute. Since he seems to have come out of his shell somewhat, I’ve taken him off of the prozac entirely as of last Saturday … we’ll see what happens. Maybe my long, dark, psychodoggy night is over!