ask Cyndar
SPANKY UPDATE II:
Again, thanks everyone for the ideas and support.
The night after the McDonald’s experiment, we went with cat food, mixed in with some hamburger. He ate the equivelant of about two of the little cat food cans, along with a few biscuit treats and a hot dog (with his meds inserted) later on. Last night I bought three cheeseburgers, minus the onions, and he split em 70/30, so he ate about two of them. And he’s drinkin a bunch of water, which the vet says is good.
The coughing hasn’t gone away, and his weight is either the same its been the past week or even lower. So, we’ve got another vet visit Saturday which will likely be followed by a trip to the University of Missouri Vet Clinic. Supposedly it takes forever to get an appointment, but our vet (who I went to high school with) is an alum and thinks he can get Spanky in straightaway.
How we’ll pay for all this is a topic for another thread but both sets of parents, who realize Spanky is the closest thing they’ll have to a grandson for quite some time, have been very helpful in that regard. No need for SpankAid 2001 just yet!
If I can figger a way to put up a picture so y’all can see him I’ll do so.
Thanks again!!
Survey,
If you have a digital pic of him, e-mail it to me and I’ll post it for ya. In exchange, I’ll show you some pics of my black shar-pei. It’s hard to catch him awake, but I’ll do my best. 
For a little less expensive doggie meal, you can try what my mom always made for under the weather dogs. She’s boil up some carrots and beef liver, then make white rice in the liver/carrot water. Chop up the liver and carrots and mix them back in. (This does make the house stink, but it’s a great alternative to fast food.) Never seen a dog turn down this concoction, not even the one who had eaten a whole tennis ball and was awaiting it’s re-entry into the world. (Mom wasn’t a vet, but she worked with a vet, bred and showed dogs and ran a kennel.) I hope Spanky continues to improve
Survey, you might want to see if your vet has the foods P/D or A/D. They are both made by Hill’s, the company that makes Science Diet, but these are prescription diets. P/D is a canned food that is for sick or debilitated animals, has extra nutrients and all in it. A/D is similar, but it has the consistency of baby food, and is more for animals that are recovering from surgery or are severely debilitated. Plus you can mix the A/D with water and make it a “soupy” consistency. I used A/D with one of my cats when she was just a 2-week-old scrap of a kitten, and she LOVED the stuff. Both foods are a little pricey, but they may help. Good Luck!
As promised to survey, I posted pictures of Spanky. You can see them here:
http://fff.fathom.org/pages/zette/spanky1.gif
http://fff.fathom.org/pages/zette/spanky2.gif
Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. Isn’t he cute?
My puppy, Buduardo Rodriguez, is in the puppy hospital as I write, getting a [whisper]gonadectomy[/whisper]. It lifted my spirits to see the picture of Spanky. Hope he’s doing okay!
Scarlett67 Scarlett67
Your wrong, sorry but you cannot feed garlic to a pet dog! It’s a no no enough of this is toxic. Here take a good read at this.
Cisco5, you have responded to an almost 15 year old thread; there’s a very good chance that doggie has passed on and a number of the posters have moved on, too. Even though you’re right about garlic, back then it may have not been as well known.
This is called a “zombie” thread and you can expect several posters to swoop down with “Living Dead” jokes for the next couple hours/days. Take it in stride, read the posting dates in the future, and welcome to The Dope. They’re mostly a good bunch.