Granul – what?

Granulomatous meningoencephalomyelitis.
Have you ever heard of this? Neither had I until September of 2008 when Desi was diagnosed with it.

I’ve posted information on this blog about Desi and I’ve discussed his diagnosis, treatment and recovery with many customers and friends. So much so that people have asked for more information. I am not a veterinarian nor a medical expert but I will be happy to share what I’ve learned. Please consult a veterinary neurologist who has experience treating GME if you suspect your pet is presenting similar symptoms.

Desi wasn’t eating regularly in mid August. We had all the routine exams and lab work done and when his appetite still wasn’t back to normal we had an ultrasound done. It wasn’t conclusive, but we suspected pancreatitis (chronic not acute) so we started him on fluids and with held food to give him a chance to heal. He wasn’t feeling better over the weekend so we did a second ultrasound on Monday morning. The second scan was more suggestive of pancreatitis so we started meds and continued fluids. By Monday evening he was very weak so we admitted him to a veterinary hospital for IV fluids. We aren’t certain what happened, but the vet on call in the hospital called and said he was showing signs of neuro issues. Desi had never had any neurological problems at all previously. In fact even though he hadn’t been feeling well, he was still spot on in his movements and all of his behaviors were appropriate. Fast forward a day or two and an MRI and spinal tap showed inflammation in his brain. By this time he wasn’t aware of his surroundings, was continually circling, was constantly crying out and had had seizures. It was heartbreaking and unimaginable that short of an awful accident, he could change so dramatically in a matter of thirty six hours.

There are several types of GME, Desi’s being multi focal or existing in several areas. You might want to search granulomatous meningoencephalomyelitis or GME, but be aware of the source of the article and before completely despairing that it isn’t treatable check if the author has much real experience with treatment. I learned that typically prednisone is used alone and often that is just not sufficient. I don’t want to suggest that Desi’s treatment is appropriate for all dogs, but for those who have asked or just want to learn more about what worked for him, he’s been on cytarabine which is a chemo drug, prednisone which he’s finally weaned off of which is a steroid, cyclosporin, phenobarbital for the seizures and he was also on Pepcid while taking the Prednisone.

The fall and winter were very difficult for Desi, myself and my husband. When Desi was first well enough to come home he calmed down considerable and was able to rest which he had not been able to do at the hospital. He recognized his name but could only focus briefly and on on person at a time. He slowly started to be able to follow me and in a few weeks he regained some strength. I worked with him twice daily for short rehab sessions every day until he was able to do most things as he’d done before. It’s unclear whether some of his abilities have returned due to recall or retraining. My guess though is that he has recalled most things. Now five months later, Desi is still not quite himself, but he functions well and he is enjoying life again. The differences that are apparent to me as the person closest to him are his emotions are just under the surface; in other words he is very easily excited.

He was never left alone for more than a few hours before he was sick because I can bring him to work with me and almost everywhere I go. Since he’s been sick, he’s never been left alone because he panics. Now that he is off of the prednisone we’ll start leaving him for a few minutes at a time to see how he does. We’ve not returned to agility although we’ve tried a few things that were typically very easy for Desi in the back yard and he’s been able to do them. I still don’t feel he’d be safe on higher contact equipment. I don’ t feel it would be safe just yet.

The neurologist assigned to Desi’s case was fortunately experienced in treating GME and was very diligent in treating him and giving us support over the phone after he was home. His chemo is now stretched to every five weeks and next we’ll work on weaning him off the other meds one at a time. We are very fortunate that he’s recovered to this point. It’s hard to believe that he was as bad as he was and now he’s happily resting while I work waiting for his afternoon walk – wearing his newest Goose Down Filled Dog Coat – sorry, I couldn’t resist. But truth be told, he minds the cold quite a bit since he’s been on chemo and cyclosporin. He wore his coats before he was sick when it was very cold, but now he shivers without them even at forty degrees.

Next time I’ll fill you in on what dietary changes we’ve made since he’s been sick. Desi’s dietary needs are what brought me to Dr. Harvey’s foods which will be on the site shortly. Thanks so much for caring about your animals and taking an interest in Desi.

Happy New Year!

With the frigid temperatures so much of the country is experiencing, Desi and I thought we’d talk a bit about protecting your pets from the cold. Here he is looking relatively shocked at how cold it is outside. Fortunately he has his new Goose Down Doggie Coat with the removable hood. I planned to get the black and golden khaki color for him, but when the turquoise and green came in I just couldn’t resist. So yes, Santa brought two new coats for Christmas.

While it’s true not every animal may need a Goose Down Filled Doggie Coat, if you live in an area with cold winter temperatures chances are your pet needs protection when he or she goes outdoors. Our pets’ ancestors may have been wild, but our most of pets have been living indoors and are accustomed to the same creature comforts we are. In general I tell people if your dog has a healthy coat he or she may not feel as cold as you would without a coat on, but chances are in freezing temperatures, the animal is cold. And if your pet is very young, older or has health issues he or she may mind the cold even more. If you know your dog’s habits well and suddenly he or she is reluctant to go out as usual, it may just be the temperatures. We’ve heard from many people with larger breeds that covering their hips in cold weather with our Goose Down Filled Doggie Coats has made a huge difference in their comfort level. So cover those older hips in the cold winter weather. And even with a coat, use common sense about how long you allow your dog to stay out in extreme temperatures.

Icy conditions and salt also can be harmful to dog’s paws. Carefully check your dog’s paw pads when he or she comes in after romping through ice and snow or in areas treated with rock salt. Clumps of ice and debris can get caught in between the pads and become uncomfortable. I’ve never had much luck with boots for my dogs, but I have found that Musher’s Secret helps tremendously. While dogs’ paw pads are not exactly the same as our skin, the same conditions can cause them to become dry and cracked. So just as your hands feel dry and sometimes crack in the cold weather, your dogs’ paws can become very dry and irritated in this weather as well. A few extra minutes can really make a difference and it’s great bonding time too. If your dog is one who doesn’t like his or her paws touched or having nails clipped, gently massaging Musher’s into the paws can be a great way to get him or her to accept having the paws touched without the fear of the nail clipper. I massage whatever is left on my fingers into my cuticles. it’s safe, natural and works really well!

Have a safe and happy January.
Patti and Desi

Season’s Greetings and Thank You!

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Seasons Greetings and Thank you!

Seasons Greetings!

I’d like to begin this post by saying thank you, to our wonderful customers. My favorite part of this business is hearing your stories about their pets. With this rush of cold weather in many parts of the country, I’ve heard from many of you who have loved the Goose Down Filled Doggie coats you’ve purchased for your best friends. It makes me very happy to know our items work so well for you and I truly appreciate you taking time to email and call to let me know.

I’d also like to personally thank those of you who read the October post and who have sent your good wishes for Desi’s recovery. I’m very happy to report he is doing quite well. He’s still on some heavy duty meds and his neurologist says she won’t totally relax until he’s off meds and doing well for at least a year; but he’s acting more like himself and is much happier. In fact, if you didn’t know him before, you probably wouldn’t notice anything at all. We love him and we’re very grateful to have him with us.

As you plan for your holiday, please think about giving your pet or another special pet one of our special edition Joy – spread it around hoodies. All the profit from that special hoodie will be donated to an animal charity in need of support. We always donate to animal charities and we’d like to do more with your help. You can find the hoodie on our site. It’s done in a beautiful USA made 200 weight Polartec with great embroidery.

The new Goose Down Filled Coats with the removable hoods are finally en route from our manufacturer. This coat has been in the works for quite some time. We work with some of the best manufacturers, but any new item we bring has to be exactly right and this coat was no exception. Our obsession with quality just wouldn’t allow us to accept anything not done perfectly. The first samples were not sized correctly, the hood presented sizing challenges and we went back and forth with the manufacturer many, many times. We know some of you have waited patiently for the new coats right along with us and we thank you for your continued support and patience. We expect the coats here on 12/11 and we will ship them out to those of you who pre-ordered them right away. Please do let us know how you like them and as always, send photos! We love getting photos of your pets and so appreciate you taking time to send pictures and your comments. We are very thankful we have customers who take time to appreciate the difference in our quality. Providing superior quality and service are huge to us and it’s nice to be recognized for our efforts.

I wish you a holiday season filled with Joy and Peace. I like to take a few minutes in the midst of the bustle just to say thank you. It keeps things in perspective for me so I don’t get too overwhelmed with all I’ve yet to accomplish. I’m grateful to have a wonderful family, grateful to be in a business I love, grateful Desi is on the mend and grateful to you for your support.

Blessings,

Patti and Desi

Posted by Patti Wilson at 9:11 AM 0 comments

Warm Wishes for Cool Weather!

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Warm Wishes for Cool Weather!

Thank you for stopping by our Blog. There’s been so much going on that it has been much too long since I’ve written. We’ve been working diligently on our new items and as always, meeting our high quality standards has been challenging. We’ll never rush a new item if it means sacrificing quality so it has taken quite some time to have our new Perfect Fit Hoodies, Double Handle Leads and Small Breed Comfort Fit Figure Eight Harnesses ready for you. Please browse our site’s new pages to check out all that’s new. And yes, for those of you who asked about the Trick or Treat shirt Desi is wearing in our Fall 2007 post, it will be available in the next week or so. Take a peek at our new model, Becca wearing that hoodie on the site.

We’ve also done a very special limited edition Perfect Fit Hoodie for our Spread the Joy campaign of charitable giving. You probably already know Joy Pet Products donates a portion of our proceeds to animal charities in need of support. Now we’ve created a special hoodie so we can donate more! All the profit from our signature turquoise Joy – spread it around hoodie will go to charity.

On a personal note, our little Papillon, Desi, has been through a serious illness. He was being treated for chronic pancreatitis and suddenly signs of neurolgical problems surfaced. He’s nine years old and has been a spot on, healthy, smart little agility dog. His diagnosis was GME (inflammation in his brain) and at one point it didn’t look like he’d make it. He’s home from the ICU now and has made good progress. None of the doctors know if he’ll fully recover, but we are working with him and doing everything possible. At times we see signs of our little Desi so we’re encouraged, but we know it will be a long process. We love him dearly and thank those of you who have heard about his situation and sent well wishes.

Fall is such a wonderful time. The air is crisp and the color is just beautiful. Take a nice walk with your best friend and enjoy some happy time together.

Thank you as always for stopping by our site. We appreciate every one of our customers.

Best,
Patti Wilson and Desi

Posted by Patti Wilson at 1:45 PM 0 comments

Happy Spring!

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Happy Spring!

Happy Spring to You and Your Pets!

It’s been quite some time since my last post in December. Things have been very busy here at Joy Pet Products. We have several new products just about ready for you and that means a lot of behind the scenes work. There’s new patterns, fit corrections, color choices and much more to get absolutely right before we offer anything new to you. Our new harnesses, hoodies and leads will be on the site very shortly. We hope you love them as much as we do.

Joy Pet Products will also have a new fresh look for our site soon including a new logo. Some of our wonderful customers made suggestions and offered their thoughts along the way. We appreciate your help and suggestions. Keep those ideas coming!

Desi and I enjoyed a little time at the beach together. Then photo shows us having a little chat. Enjoy some outdoor time with your pets this spring and please check the site soon for our new items.
All the best to you,

Patti Wilson and Desi

Posted by Patti Wilson at 9:14 AM

Joyful Holidays to You and Your Pets!

Joyful Holidays To You and Your Pets!

Joyful Holidays to you and thank you for stopping by our blog. Holiday preparations are in full swing and we wish you all the best at this very special time of year.

We’ve heard from many of our wonderful customers that their dogs are enjoying their goose down filled doggie coats. Knowing people and their pets are happy with their purchases means the world to us. Thank you for letting us know you enjoy them and keep those emails and photos coming!

If you haven’t added your name to our email list yet, please do. Joy Pet Products will never flood your inbox with useless emails. We’ll only send you our quarterly newsletter and products or events appropriate for you and your special pets.

We are in the process of our Winter 2007 – 2008 model search. If you are in the local MA or NH area and have a dog who is ready for her close up, do let us know! We will be having our next photo shoot this winter just as soon as our newest coat colors are in from our manufacturer. We recently met with about twenty potential models who came in for measurements and fittings. If you aren’t in the local area but have one of our coats, please send a photo of your best friend in his or her goose down filled dog coat along with your written permission so that we may use the photo on our site or in our advertising. There’s no airbrushing in our photos, so please send a great print quality photo and make sure your pet is very well groomed. Those selected as models will be notified. Thank you for participating.

As the weather turns colder – we had our first snowfall today – Desi is busy testing new fabric combinations for our new coat colors as well as enjoying his favorites. Here he is in his plaid and red. He’s also been hard at work testing our soon to be available small breed harnesses. A ll this research requires lots of walking and playing outside, but no worries, Desi really enjoys his work!

All the best to you and thank you for being our customer. Stop by again soon for some behind the scenes photos and info from our model search!

Be Well,

Patti Wilson and Desi

Happy Fall!

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

October 2007

Happy Fall Everyone!

Welcome to Joy Pet Products’ new blog. I’m Patti Wilson, the founder of Joy Pet Products (that’s not me in the photo!) and I thought it would be a nice way to begin our blog by telling you a bit about the company and inviting you to send your ideas and thoughts directly to me. I’ll add new postings about once a month or whenever there’s something new to share with you.

Joy Pet Products is a small New England Company that began with our Goose Down Filled Dog Coats. Like many great ideas, the coats were originally designed to solve a problem, not with the idea of selling them or starting a business. With four Yorkies in MA, I needed something that truly kept them warm, actually fit them and that I could put on in a hurry – if you know Yorkies you don’t always have a lot of warning when they need to go out. Nothing I found really worked very well for them, especially my little guy who was three and a half pounds.

One especially cold day when I was grabbing my jacket to go out I thought why not make them coats with down fill? My mother had sewn since I was a little girl and she passed the skill on to me, so I made four little coats. I had a lot to learn about working with down, but that’s a subject for another day. My first four coats weren’t nearly the quality that we now offer, but they did keep my four very warm, they fit and they stayed on them. My Yorkies were older then and whenever I’d have them out or at a vet’s office people would always ask about the coats. People with bigger dogs with hip issues asked about them because the coats, unlike many others, cover the hip area. People with smaller breeds, short coated breeds, just about all breeds asked about them and soon it was obvious there were a lot of people who like me, had tried many coats that didn’t really offer much warmth.

After several years of research and tweaking the design, the coat now has two US patents and is enjoyed by many dogs and their peoeple. It gives me great pleasure to read customers’ emails and hear how the coat has helped their special pet. I’ll never forget one of our first fit models. She was an older, larger mixed breed dogs with a health issue that prevented her from walking comfortably whenever it was at all cool outside. Her mom told me how much of a difference it made for her. She could actually enjoy walks again with her new coat

My Yorkies have passed on now, but of course they will forever be with me. I’ve since adopted a beautiful Papillon, Desi, who accompanies me to work every day. He’s the VP in charge of moral and he’s always happy to offer a paw with testing new designs. We recruit many other doggie models and testers too to be sure our coats and our new items currently in production work well for all sizes and shapes.

In future posts I’ll be sure to include some photos and I’ll do my best to include info on topics you suggest too. So once again welcome and thanks for visiting our site.

All the best,

Patti Wilson & Desi

Posted by Patti Wilson at 10:57 AM 0 comments