LeviTag Archives

Today is Levi’s 12th birthday. Wow.. he made it! And he’s doing pretty good, for a 12 year old collie. I took Levi to the vet on Thursday last week, because he still is in pain once in a while and he worries me. He had lots of checks. They aspirated all his bumps (he has three, one is quite big), and they are all fatty. They took chest x-rays to check out his lungs because he’s been having a weird wheezy cough. None of the other dogs have it, so it’s not bordatella. He had full blood work, which came back good.

He’s been licking his bum, too, but he came back okay about that, too. He doesn’t do it enough that he’s red or raw. The vet said maybe he’s cleaning his own anal sacks. Which I guess is fine, though kinda gross.

So he’s now on adequan and rimadyl. I know rimadyl can be bad long term, but he needs some help with his arthritis. He’s also on duralactin and glucosamine. I still want to get him some acupuncture, too. And the other dogs are not allowed to push him over, or he spends the day on the memory foam toppers on the bed and sleeps. Because he gets sore. My poor baby boy. I just adore him.

Here’s a video of him doing agility from back in 2008. His weaves never were good. Maybe his back always did bug him, I don’t know. I hope not. But I didn’t force him, I just tried to make them happy. He did so good at agility, except for the weaves.

He loves his birthday pizza, so do the rest of the dogs!

Yesterday the dogs were running out the back door and Chase bumped into Levi, and Levi went down. He couldn’t get up on his own so I lifted him up. Unfortunately, since then, he’s been in pain again. Walking with a bit of a roach back and very tentatively. I don’t want to keep putting him on prednisone. But I did give him some of the trazadone today to help him feel better. It’s time to really get serious about this. He’s already on Glucosamine, but I’m going to call Cottonwood Vets and ask them about Adequan, as Dr. Hennemen said that it could help him. I’ve also ordered some Duralactin for him.

I’m also going to look into getting him acupuncture on a regular basis. Unfortunately my schedule is really messy right now, since we are transitioning to five day work weeks, but at the same time I have time off the next couple of weekends because of flyball and then agility. But I’m going to make the time for my Levi, as he means the world to me and I want to give him everything I possibly can to make him feel better.

Levi did so good at camp… but really he is fine, if he’s not pushed over, if his back isn’t twisted. That’s where his pain comes from. The arthritic bridge in his spine. He’s my heart and soul, this boy. I wish he could live as long as me. He’ll be twelve in just under a month. He still has to have some good years ahead of him. I’m thinking of looking into Reiki as well.

Maybe the cooler weather will help him, maybe it will hurt him, I’m not sure. Fortunately we don’t have any metal buildings around to keep the cold in, if that’d make him worse. My boy… I want him to get better. Even though I realize he is on the downward slide of his life now.

Well Levi is getting old… he’s our last oldie for a while. And we want to keep him around for a long time, happy and healthy. Since he’s been having problems with his back, he doesn’t like to do the stairs much anymore. So we decided to build him a ramp from the back yard so he doesn’t have to walk up and down the stairs. The first picture is just of the stairs.

Of course every project ends up being a lot bigger than anticipated. We got this wood from my work place years ago. They were doing construction and gave it away for free since they were going to just throw it out. So I snagged it in my Toyota Pickup and brought it home.

It’s been on the side of the house, but we use it now and then. Lucy’s chair was made out of the stuff, too. And free is always good. It’s thick sturdy wood. The above pictures is the platform that my husband thought Levi needs when he comes out of the dog door. If he angled down right away, it might be bad for his back, so we put up a platform first.

I had to get a picture of Jet sunbathing on the stair. So cute, he’s the only dog we have little enough to sleep on a step.

It was hot outside when we built it, mid 80s… though summer would have been hotter. This ramp was a bigger project than we thought, maybe some Beverage/Sommelier Jobs would have been easier to do! But we kept on. And I thought the edges would be dangerous and Levi might fall off the side. Like he fell off the pier (was pushed my Tatum, actually) at camp a month ago. So I insisted to my husband that we put sides on the darn thing.

Levi or Tatum could both fall off, they are not the most limber of dogs in the world. Jet and the Border Collies would fare better, but they are also younger.

So it’s all done, railings and all. Well actually not all done, we need to paint it and put some sand or something on it so the dogs don’t slide down. Us too. It’s pretty solid because of the thick wood, and my husband does an excellent job of building things. It was kinda a pain to put the sides on, but I do think, when all the dogs ran out full speed barking at something, Levi would be the one to fall, and that would have been bad.

Another cool note, our neighbors were giving up their fire grate today, it was on the front of their house with a sign. And I’ve needed one for a long time! Since we moved our TV room upstairs, I want to have fires in the fireplace again. But we’ve needed the fire grate, and now we have one! It’s super nice, too. Solid and way better than the last one we had. I dusted it off and put it up.

And yes that’s a mattress we have on the floor. Levi likes to lay on it. And we only have one chair in the living room upstairs. And a bean bag my sister gave us. We don’t want to haul the couch up, and we don’t have room for it anyway. So we sack out on the mattress to relax. And Levi loves it too, it’s his special bed.