Rocky Mountain Great Dane Rescue, Inc.

Dr. Roberts ran some bloodwork and got the results back yesterday on an ACTH stim test. Gracie has a condition called Addisonia. Basically what this means is that the body doesn’t have enough adrenal gland release and can’t handle any sort of stress. To treat this, they started her on a replacement of mineralocordicoids as well as prednisone.

Dr. Roberts said that her condition could very well be closely related to her housebreaking struggles because it can cause some urinary issues.

Gracie will need long-term maintenance for her condition. Her new family will need to give her about $60/month of medications including prednisone and fludrocortisone.

Dr. Roberts said that she will probably need to be in ICU until Monday or Tuesday. She is skin and bones and is still in critical condition. Gracie has a long road to recovery ahead of her. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers!

1-3-2006

I am happy to report that Gracie was released from the hospital and is now safe and sound in her foster home for the remainder of her recovery.

Her spirits have improved drastically and she is now showing signs of being the Dane puppy that she is! She has 2 foster sisters named Cricket and Kahlua to play with and they hit it off right off the bat. As you can see in the photo, Gracie and Cricket were showing off their new toys.

Gracie is on a special diet and has many different medications to take throughout the day. She is currently eating two cups eight times a day to try and put on some much needed weight. Her foster mom is a vet tech at Douglas County Animal Hospital, so she is in good hands and Ashley will work with the doctors to closely monitor her progress and make sure that she gets everything she needs.

1-06-2006

Gracie weighed in at 68.8 lbs yesterday, so she has only gained .5 lbs. She has proven to be a pretty picky eater and we have not seen the weight gain we would have hoped, but we are slowly but surely making progress. Dr. Roberts suggested we feed her whatever she will eat, so we have experimented with a bunch of different brands. Right now she is eating a mixture of Science Diet Puppy, IVD and canned Maximum Calorie.

As far as her house training goes, she is doing okay. Some days she has no accidents and others she does, but it will take some work to teach her completely. She seems to take her cues from other dogs, so hopefully they can show her the ropes in that department.

Her personality comes out more every day that she is on her medication. She is clearly feeling much better because she is starting to be naughty and get into stuff like a normal Great Dane puppy should!

1-12-06

Gracie just recently weighed in at 72 lbs, so she is slowly but surely making progress in the weight department. She is eating really well and loves the dry food mixed with canned food. She is food aggressive with the other dogs, which is understandable considering that she was starving to death. Her foster family is careful to feed the dogs in separate rooms and supervise during meal times which addresses this issue.

During the first few days at her foster home, Gracie kept them up all hours of the night. She had to be let out every few hours and poor Ashley and Matt didn't get much sleep, but we are happy to report that she has finally adjusted to the schedule and is sleeping through the night. She gets up when Matt does early in the morning to go potty and then goes back to sleep until Ashley gets up a little later.

Gracie has not had an accident in the house for several days now. She does not tell you when she wants to go out yet, so her foster parents are letting her out every few hours and staying with her until she goes potty. When she goes outside, she gets lots of treats and praise, so she is really starting to get the hang of house training.

Gracie continues to do well with the other dogs overall, but she does have a tendency to get jealous of attention. She is very needy right now, but this is certainly understandable and she is still learning her place in the pack. Most of the time, she is busy wrestling with the other dogs and she loves playing toys!

1-19-06

Gracie is doing great! She is almost done with the nausea/diarrhea meds without incident so far. The potty accidents have been minimal and she has made it two nights without any incident. She is eating about 6 to 8 cups of dry food and 3 cans of wet throughout the day. She plays well with others, although she struggles at times with really little dogs. She appears to just be curious and doesn't necessarily realize her size. She is such a loving and affectionate little girl. She loves her crate and taking naps with her fleece blanket. She has to situate her blanket just right! This morning she had it over her like a sheet.

01-24-06

Gracie hasn't been feeling well lately and we have continued to struggle to put weight on her. She has battled with watery diarrhea on and off for a while, so we took her back to the vet. She weighed in at 70 lbs, so we have had a slight set back in her weight gain. Gracie's fecal revealed that she still has hookworms so she was given another dose of Panacur, which will hopefully put that problem to rest at last! Sometimes it can take quite a few dewormings to be completely effective, so our fingers are crossed.

On another note, Dr. Skolnick at Pets on Broadway has recommended that we try an alternative treatment for the Addison's called Desoxycorticosterone pivalate (DOCP). DOCP is a mineralocorticoid that is given as a monthly injection, which will cut down on the amount of daily pills Gracie will have to take long-term. Dr. Skolnick's goal is to eventually get Gracie off of the Prednisone for good once we get some weight on her and get her back to healthy.

Gracie has been spending some time at a doggie day care for socialization during the days. She is doing really well with dogs of all sizes now and really loves to play. She continues to do wonderful in her crate and is really adjusting quite well to the routine in her foster home. Gracie is a typical Dane who likes to relax on the couch and is really starting to come out of her shell personality-wise.

As far as training goes, Gracie is learning sit, no, down, attention and come. She's not reliable yet, but she does pay attention to people fairly consistently and is eager to please and making good progress.

01-30-06

Gracie has had a really great week! She is feeling much better finally and is starting to act like a typical Dane puppy should. She is very playful with toys, dogs, and people and just loves attention. Gracie's foster family weighed her tonight and we are overwhelmed with joy to report that she is up to 84.5 lbs!!!

02/07/06

Gracie has consistently been gaining about 1 lb per day and she is now up to 92 lbs! We can hardly believe how wonderful she is starting to look. She and her foster siblings romp and play all day and she is starting to out muscle Lulu the Dane now that she is putting on weight. We are thrilled with her continued progress.

02/16/06

Gracie Lou has had a minor set back. She only weighed in at 90 lbs this week. Nevertheless, she did have diarrhea and didn’t eat very well over the weekend because she wasn’t feeling well, so losing a couple lbs isn’t really surprising.

She is eating 4 cups with 1 can of wet food twice a day, sometimes 3 times a day. She gets her supplements and Prednisone and her spirits are wonderful!

Her foster family has been working on the potty training because this last weekend was another setback in that department as well. Just in case, her foster mom developed a rubber sheet (so to speak) for her bed. She took the bed out, put it in a lawn trash bag and then put the cover over it. Since she's deaf she can't even hear the bag crinkle when she moves. Of course, now they haven't had any accidents!

Gracie took another trip to the vet today and we took in a stool sample to make sure she is worm free. Unfortunately, the fecal revealed Giardia and Clostridium, so she is on another round of Metronidazol. It was also time for another shot of DOCP, which isn’t her favorite thing in the world, but she is a trooper and it appears to be working well since we haven’t had any more episodes.

02/21/06

Gracie is doing great! She has had her second DOCP shot and seems to be doing well with it. She is eating about 5 to 6 cups twice a day now and her stools are normal.

Gracie is doing great with the dogs both at home and at doggy daycare. We haven't seen any aggression in her, even over food. She has accepted her role as submissive and does not feel the need to challenge the Alpha in her foster home.

She is extremely playful and will need a lot of toys. She LOVES tennis balls, but usually just eats them.

She is still lacking some patience, especially when it comes to attention, but like most rescue Danes she was just starved for attention previously. Gracie loves to cuddle and wants to know where her people are, but can go lay down on her own.

She is almost completely potty trained. She isn't reliable on telling people she has to potty all the time, however it is the same spot every time if she makes a mistake. Her foster family has found that by blocking off her unsupervised access to the downstairs she won't potty inside. Her forever home will just have to let her out on a really regular schedule and she will do fine.

We had some very exciting news this week and a drug company called Novartis read Gracie's story and has graciously decided to donate her DOCP shots for the remainder of her stay in foster care. Thank you, Novartis, for your incredible generosity!

Gracie is now off of medical hold and ready to go her forever home when the right family comes along!

04-03-06

Gracie's road to recovery continues to present new speed bumps along the way. She developed a bad case of "happy tail" and after weeks of bandaging and attempting to help it heal naturally, we were instructed by Dr. Scolnick that the tail was damaged beyond repair. Miss Gracie had to undergo yet another surgery on March 28th to amputate the part of her tail that was dead.

She is now recovering and doing very well in her foster home! She is definitely NOT a fan of the e-collar, but she is leaving the bandage alone for the most part, so she doesn't have to wear it as long as she is supervised. At night when she is in her crate, she likes to torture her foster parents by running her "lamp shade" along the cage and making all sorts of noise so that everyone can feel sorry for her.

Her foster mommies are going back to the vet this afternoon to have her tail re-bandaged and checked out. She will be done with the tail meds in two days.

Gracie is very anxious for the perfect forever home to come along! She does have special needs, on account of being deaf and having Addison's, and her monthly medical and food expenses will be approximately $200, but she is well worth the investment. She has so much love to give and lights up the room when she comes in!

04-04-06

Alex and Tiffany, Gracie's foster mommies, have decided that they cannot live without Gracie! We are overwhelmed with joy at this happy news and feel that they were mean't to be together. Gracie continues to flourish in their home and she has a Dane sister named Lulu (who was also adopted from RMGDRI), a lab/rottie/dane mix brother named Henry, and a lab brother named Morgan to play with. She will also get to go to daycare whenever she wants, work with Kari on training, and they will continue her vet care with Dr. Scolnick. She could not have found a more perfect forever home! A very happy ending for a very special girl.