What if your diabetic dog is lost?

Space Canine Patrol Agents (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Here's an issue I've hardly touched on, and I have to thank the ASPCA for making me think about it.  On the Fourth of July, I received an email from them with the headline "What to do if your pet is lost."  I remembered when that actually happened to me, with the added complication that my dog was on insulin. 

Tony liked to go off on his own, so we were always careful about closing doors and making sure he hadn't been digging under the backyard fence, but sometimes he just managed to slip out (little dogs can get through very small spaces).  When he was first diagnosed with diabetes and put on insulin, I worried about this, so I ordered him a new I.D. tag.  The front had his name, but underneath that it said "I have diabetes."  My name and phone were on the back.  I should point out that one of my worries with him getting loose was that the people who found him might want to keep him, since people went crazy over him every time I took him anywhere, so I had already had him microchipped.

Well, one night his new tag was tested.  It was about 10PM in early September, and my brother in law Steve wasn't paying attention when he went out to get something from his car.  Tony was off to the races.  We all went out and searched the neighborhood, without any luck.

You can imagine how happy we were when, right after we got back to the house, the phone rang (with good news).  It was a man who lived on the other side of the subdivision (I wish I could remember his name), and he had Tony.  Steve (who felt very guilty) volunteered to go get him.  It turned out that for some reason only a dog would understand, Tony had gone to the back door of that house and started barking.  The man opened the door to see what was going on, and Tony ran in, just as if he owned the place.  The man told Steve that he called as soon as he saw the tag that said Tony had diabetes.  So, not only did we get Tony back, but we didn't have to spend the whole night worrying, which had happened in the past.  And that was a real possibility, according to Steve, who said that when he got there, the children of the house were playing with Tony -- and they were not happy that he had to leave.  I can see someone waiting to call until morning, considering it was late.

My advice:  get the microchip, but be sure to put the diabetes on the dog's tag.  It's a little bit of insurance that might make a difference. 

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A High-Risk Breed



Hans on St. Vrain Trail, Colorado. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I just received the WebMD Healthy Dogs newsletter, and there is an item of particular interest.  They have a slideshow of the health issues associated with the 25 most popular breeds.  According to them, the Miniature Schnauzer is prone to diabetes (the problem they cite for Pomeranians is hair loss, which my Tony did not experience until his cancer was very advanced).  At any rate, if you have a Miniature Schnauzer, keep an eye out for symptoms like excessive drinking and urination, and make sure he or she eats right and gets plenty of exercise.  Of course, that's good advice for any breed!
I've got a couple of videos listed below with these very cute dogs performing tricks, and the first thing that struck me when I saw them was the rewards they received.  I hope the humans are keeping track of how many treats they're getting.

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Wait a Minute --Maybe Dogs aren't People

Right after publishing my last post, I realized that I hadn't put up any pictures, so I went looking for one.  Aargh!  You would not believe how many REALLY DISTURBING pictures and videos of extremely overweight animals are on the web.  And it's disturbing on more than one level, too.  Can you say "animal exploitation"?  I think it's entirely possible that some of the people who are uploading these (especially the videos) let their dogs get this way on purpose.  But maybe I'm just being overly cynical and suspicious.  Maybe not. 

However, the thing that I found most ironic was the title of my last posting -- hence the title of this one.  Unlike excess weight in people, a pet parent can usually prevent or treat this ailment without a lot of problems.  This isn't true for people, for a wide variety of reasons that I can't get into here, and I know this from personal experience as well as from keeping up with the research in this area.
 
Now, if your dog has his or her own line of credit at the grocery store, yeah, you're going to have trouble controlling intake, but otherwise, you are the human,  you are in charge of the food and exercise, and you need to make the effort.  Talk to your vet.  If you do make a sincere and serious effort and the weight does not come down in a reasonable amount of time, see your vet again.  Also see your vet if you aren't trying to slim your dog down and he or she suddenly does it anyway:  this is one of the classic symptoms of diabetes!

And no, I'm not going to post any of those disturbing images.  If you can stand it, just go to your favorite search engine and search "fat dogs" --and prepare to be appalled.