Puff H. Bailey's "new blog" (belated)

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It has fairly recently come to my attention that it's something of a tradition around here for each beardie or family of beardies to have their own thread, so here goes nothing...

Brief review, as I've mentioned most of this in other posts -- Puff was about a year old when we got him from a local rescue around 4 1/2 years ago, and we all seemed to adjust well at first, but the following year was a bad one for all of us...

One story I have never told, because it is a very painful memory for me and one that I am not proud of :oops: :cry: , is that in the summer of 2014, I had what was probably a "nervous breakdown", and became convinced that I could no longer take care of either of our reptiles (we also have a corn snake), nor could I let my husband do it, and I railroaded him into taking them to the local animal control facility on a Friday evening after he came home from work. (No one can talk sense to me when I get like that, and all I could think of was that I had to get them out of here while they were still in good health.) Fortunately, Anchorage has an excellent animal care and control facility. They were there for about 40 hours and my heart was broken. On the following Sunday morning I came to my senses and realized that I was either going to have to give up on them forever, or let my husband help me take care of them. He has always been willing, but I'm a control freak and had been insisting on doing everything myself. So we had a hasty discussion and made plans for me to teach him how to do what I'd been doing and no longer seemed to have the energy to continue to do myself. Then we rushed back down to the animal control facility just as it opened for business in the morning, hoping they would still be there. They were, and we brought them back home. My husband, true to his word, has been doing most of the hard work to care for them ever since, and thanks to him, we still get to keep them and I still get most of the cuddles -- not fair to my husband but he doesn't seem to mind. They are ours for life now, and I have realized that we passed the point of no return when we brought them home. I don't think I had previously realized how much I loved them until that horrible 40 hours when I believed that I would never see them again, and without knowing if they would ever have another home even as good as the one they've had with us.

As I have also said elsewhere, Puff was diagnosed with adenovirus at the end of that year, and was pretty sick for a while, but eventually pulled through, although his appetite and activity level has never come quite back to what it was before that. For the most part, he's been doing fairly well for the last several years, and things have been better.

Latest escapade (just so this won't start out as a total downer):

Recent Saturday afternoon: Puff is pancaked out under the heat &UV lamps in his tank, and "Daddy" sits down at a nearby table with his laptop, all ready for a nice little session on the internet, and plugs in an external tabletop mouse because he prefers that to the hokey little touchpad on the laptop. All of a sudden, Puff goes nuts and starts doing his little dance, the one that usually means, "Get me out of here! I see something I want on the other side of the glass. :blob5: " So "Mommy" (that's me) takes him out and brings him over to the table, because I have my suspicions. Sure enough, he goes after the mouse cable. Probably thinks it's a worm. So Daddy decides to take advantage of the situation and grabs Puff's salad, hoping to use the old bait and switch trick to get the little wannabe carnivore to eat some veggies. Puff is having none of it -- Daddy slips greens in his mouth while he's busy chewing on bugs all the time, and Puff is wise to that. So I put him back in his tank, but Daddy isn't giving up yet, and brings the mouse over and dangles the cable on the other side of the glass, while trying to slip Puff a leaf on the inside of the tank with his other hand. Puff avoids the leaf, but succeeds in banging his nose on the glass trying to get at the mouse. At this point, poor hubby gets the order to cease and desist from his naggy wife, followed by the lecture that we do not want to use inedible, non-digestible objects to trick Puff into eating greens, as I do not want to have to replace a chewed up mouse cable, or worse yet, we definitely do not want Puff swallowing bits of it. It's ok to try to spoon feed him worms using collard greens for the spoon, but not this, and blah, blah, blah...

Bottom line, no permanent damage done to the mouse cable, the bearded dragon, or to Mommy and Daddy's marital relationship. Just another fairly typical Saturday afternoon at the Bailey's... :mrgreen:
 

SHBailey

Gray-bearded Member
Original Poster
Countdown to vet appointment this next Saturday. Meanwhile, I'd been meaning to dig up our little old scale and weigh Puff, because it has seemed to both my husband and me that he's been losing weight, and I've been worried that the sudden increase in appetite for greens might be too good to be true (greens as well as anything else he thinks he can get a hold of, including anything that even vaguely resembles a worm -- extension cords, computer cables, yarn, even the earpiece on my glasses).

Finally got around to weighing him this morning :shock: :cry: and should have done it sooner. If the scale is accurate (and it may not be) then he's lost over 30% of his body weight in the last year. We hadn't been weighing him on a regular basis because his weight had fairly stable in the last few years. Talked to the vet today -- yes, eating more greens is a good thing, but losing that much weight is cause for concern. So we're planning a complete physical exam and blood work on Saturday. Meanwhile, I fed him some extra roaches with calcium sprinkles and he scarfed them up with much enthusiasm, as usual.

Although it looks to me as if he's lost some muscle in his arms and legs, he can still get up and walk, and he's still behaving pretty normal otherwise. I still haven't seen any obvious signs of hormones, which may or may not be unusual -- I haven't quite figured out which hemisphere his biological clock is set for because it seems to be different every year. So hopefully he's not too far gone yet, whatever turns out to be going on with him, and we hope to find out this next weekend.

Meanwhile, almost all our snow has melted and it's gradually getting warmer. Soon we'll have a yardfull of dandelion greens, and hopefully Puff will still be healthy enough to enjoy them. :?
 

SHBailey

Gray-bearded Member
Original Poster
So we took Puff, along with our little old scale and a couple of his latest big green turds, to see his vet on Saturday morning. Unfortunately, the scale is accurate -- his weight has dropped from 540 grams to 360 sometime over the last year. I am ashamed that I didn't realize what was happening, dig up the scale, weigh him, and take him in sooner. :oops: :cry: My recent suspicions that he was losing muscle were also correct. She felt some sort of a mass in his belly during the physical exam ( :shock: :( tumor? abscess? blockage? or maybe just a wad of poop on its way out? :? She did say the location didn't seem likely to be anything to do with his liver or kidneys...) So we did an X-ray and she said it looked like it might be poop, but couldn't tell for sure -- some things show up better on X-rays than others. But at least we could tell that he has good bone density, so no apparent problems with MBD, calcium, UV light, vitamin D, etc. Also no parasites detected with the fecal exam, and she said his poop looked like he was digesting his food normally -- my husband and I were concerned that it was going right through him because we're not used to seeing the kind of poop that comes from eating lots of greens.

He plopped a nice big green turd on his basking platform an hour or two after we brought him back home. I kind of wished we could have brought the vet home with us so she could feel his belly again and tell us "yes, that was it and now it's gone" or "no, there's still something else in there." Oh well. She was overdue for another appointment when we left -- there was a bird squawking up a storm in the next room.

So no explanation for his condition so far, other than the possibility that the adenovirus is causing this. We are still waiting for the results of the blood tests, which we're supposed to get sometime today. Meanwhile, we're home with instructions to feed him more bugs more often, as well as to try him on some higher calorie veggies, besides the leafy greens. So far, he doesn't seem interested in squash. My husband has a couple of days off this week so we're planning a trip to the local health food store to see if we can find him some especially good veggies that he might like. Dandelions should also be sprouting up in the yard any day now too -- things are just starting to turn green outside. (Spring comes pretty late around here.)

The one good thing about all this is that there's nothing wrong with his appetite so far, although he still seems to have his preferences. He continues to chow down on his greens several times a day and almost never fails to go after a cricket or a roach -- seems to know instinctively that he needs to eat, maybe even as a matter of life and death. He also has not yet gotten too weak to get up and walk, so we're hoping he's not too far gone yet to make another recovery, although I'm planning to keep an eye on him and give him a boost if he appears to be having a hard time climbing back up onto his basking platform after he's been "downstairs" to the cool end to eat his salad. I've also been talking with my husband about building him a ramp with a shallower incline to make it a little easier for him. We're also planning to weigh him weekly now that we know the scale is reasonably accurate. And all this pending the results of the blood tests and assuming they don't reveal anything other than what we already know. I've been afraid that this might be the beginning of the end with the adenovirus, but we're hoping that with some extra nutrition (beyond what he's needed to maintain a stable weight in the past), he may be able to recover sufficiently to enjoy a few more good years.

Just waiting for the results of the blood tests now, and doing the best we can in the meantime...
 

sweetiepie9

BD.org Sicko
Retired Moderator
You're doing everything you can and I'm praying he gains more weight and the blood tests are all normal. Are you taking him in for a follow up?
 

Terry15

Sub-Adult Member
You could try some Repashy Grub pie. I make it and then add a little unsweetened applesauce & baby food prunes and blend it in a food chopper. Sometimes mine won’t eat his greens either, but I do have to feed him like a baby.
 

sweetiepie9

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Retired Moderator
I make a mix with Oxbow Carnivore Care and Critical Care, butternut squash babyfood and bee pollen. I've been using this mix for the 12 years I've had dragons and it really helps with their appetite, if they go off eating. They love it. I give it by syringe and they lap it up. I always have the cares in my fridge, lasts over a year. If they have trouble pooping, I give them canned pumpkin. I freeze what I don't use in an ice cube tray and store them in the freezer in a freezer bag. That also works as well as the apple sauce. I took in my 1st rescue dragon when Sweete Pie was 4 mo old (my son and his ex-wife got her at a pet shop and she was skin and bones when I brought her home. I was surprised that she hadn't passed yet. So I kept her (I was babysitting her for them) and within 2 mo she was over 200g and 16" long. This is what she looked like when I first got her. Lighting was wrong and she'd only been fed veggies for a month, no bugs at all. And from there we accumulated dragons, at one point we had 6, then 5 and I've had 5 ever since. This is what she looked like when I got her and the vine she's beside is 1" around:
11887-6388715487.jpg

And this is what she looked like 2 months later. I hadn't even found a vet for her yet but I got some great advice from a moderator on this site and she thrived after that.
11887-1998434402.jpg

I only found out a few months later how bad the calci-sand was and from then on, they were on newspaper (I get a great free newspaper) and have been ever since. I also upgraded all their lights to Arcadia MVBs and they do very well under those.
 

SHBailey

Gray-bearded Member
Original Poster
So we got the results of Puff's blood tests, and it turns out that he is severely anemic, but the underlying cause is uncertain. The usual assumption is that he's either losing it somewhere or his bone marrow isn't making it, but there is no evidence of bleeding (either internal or external), and no evidence of anything like leukemia -- white blood counts are all within normal parameters. We suspect that the adenovirus may have something to do with it, and I wondered if it's done something to his liver, so I asked if they did or could test for bilirubin, but they told me there isn't a test for that because a good reference range hasn't been established for bearded dragons, and I have since realized that he would probably be jaundiced if he had elevated bilirubin levels anyway, and they probably would have seen that. The only other possibility that I can think of is that he's gotten iron deficient over the years of not eating enough greens, even though he gets it in his vitamins -- I suppose it's possible that he hasn't been absorbing it... :? :?:

So we took him back in for iron and B12 injections, and he goes back for more injections next week, then another quick blood test for hematocrit the following week to see if it's doing any good. Meanwhile, we're feeding him extra bugs and oh yes, Terry15 -- we discovered Repashy Grub Pie a year or two ago, and he really likes it. In fact, he gets so excited about it that he wears himself out trying to "catch" it -- grabbing at it with his hands and knocking it off the plate. :roll: He's really quite a klutz when it comes to eating -- I wish he could learn to just open his mouth and let us drop it in :banghead: , especially now that he's so low on fat reserves and muscle.

But at least he hasn't lost his appetite, nor has he gotten too weak to get up and walk, and he is still just as alert and responsive as he's ever been, so we're hoping that he has a fighting chance to pull through this and that it isn't the beginning of the end for him. He's about 6 years old BTW, and he tested ADV positive a little over 3 years ago, so we've been pretty lucky with that so far.

Needless to say, things have been pretty hectic for us this last week, and this is probably going to be a fairly busy weekend on top of all that, so I'm hoping to catch up with the rest of you and your beardies and other critters sometime soon. :wave:
 

sweetiepie9

BD.org Sicko
Retired Moderator
I hope what you give him works. Did you look into the Oxbow Carnivore Care & Critical Care to see if there's added iron, that also might help. Sounds like he's good otherwise. Hopefully they figure out a way to get him back to "normal" and he does better and starts gaining weight. Keep me posted, k?
 

SHBailey

Gray-bearded Member
Original Poster
It looks like the Carnivore care doesn't include iron. Meanwhile, we're still not sure if iron is going to "fix it" :? -- we'll know better after he's had his second set of injections and we check his hematocrit to see if we get any improvement. I'm supposing that at that point we might look into some sort of supplement that might work better for iron (and maybe vitamin B12 as well) than the one we've been using. Our vet did say that it wouldn't hurt to give him a little spinach or kale in moderation -- since he has good bone density and good calcium status, he could probably afford to trade some oxalate for some iron once in a while.

Meanwhile, he weighed 370 grams on our scale at home this morning, which is a slight gain, but which may have included a huge poop that he did in his bath a little later, although the same could be said for his last weigh-in, so hopefully we're seeing some actual overall improvement plus or minus the daily fluctuations due to food in and poop out. He also scarfed up a huge meal of crickets and roaches, ate a few greens a little later, and even sampled some squash for the first time in at least 3 years. So things are going as well as can be expected under the circumstances, at least for now.

BTW, those pictures of Sweetie Pie are impressive. You wouldn't even know it was the same beardie. You did a beautiful job nursing her back to health.

We've been using the Reptisun 10.0 T5 HO fluorescent tubes for UV light for over a year now, and we had the T8s before that, with regular incandescent white light bulbs alongside it for heat. I have dimmer switches on all the heat lamps so I can dial them up and down when needed. I'm home all day most of the time so I play "human thermostat" with a digital assist from a number of thermometers, since my body's own thermostat often goes "offline", probably due to menopause. :wink: That part seems to be working well. I use plain white paper towels on the bottom of the glass tank, and an assortment of bath towels and dishtowels around the basking platform and other "furniture." It seems to work for easy cleanup -- trash or wash if it gets pooped on.

I think we've all made mistakes that we regret once we know better, but sometimes we get lucky and our critters survive our inexperience. It's kind of disgusting that the calci-sand is still on the market and being advertised as a good thing for bearded dragons. :banghead: The other day someone posted a link to a brief video where a guy displays a package of the stuff (complete with a picture of a bearded dragon on it) and says he's going to show you how to use it safely with your beardie. Then he drops it in the trash bin and walks away. :lol:

Puff's idea of "normal" seems to change every few years, but I'm still hoping we can get him back to something that's sustainable and comfortable for him. At least he does not seem to be suffering so far.
 

sweetiepie9

BD.org Sicko
Retired Moderator
I'm glad to hear about the small weight gain, that's the best way for him to gain anyway, otherwise it would probably come off as quickly as it went on. I'm praying you'll get good news. As for the B12, I'm not sure, but I know a store that sells B complex liquid. www.beardeddragon.co is a store I buy from often and have been since I first got Sweetie Pie. It's hard to get stuff where I live. Collard and bok choy are the only greens available in my area (mostly Asian & East Indian populations) so that's what they eat, when I can get what looks good.

Sweetie Pie was my first dragon and it was amazing the change, when we changed her lights, got her basking spot at the right temps, and food and made sure she was well hydrated. I was so lucky to have gotten onto this site, even before I had a computer, I went to the library and looked up "bearded dragon" and found this site. I'll always be grateful that it was this site and not a different one without the wonderful moderators on here. The one who answered me (I posted in ER) was very good at answering me back with all my questions, so I'd get to the library every Sat am to get the next one. She saved Sweetie's life. Thanks for the compliment :D

Keep me posted on how he does, sounds like he's bent on improving. Don't be too hard on yourself. I almost lost Gabriel because I couldn't fit them all into my work schedule, but he survived and is doing so very well. Freya goes to the vet on Wed because she has lumps where she shouldn't and her belly brushes the floor when she walks, it's huge, which I don't think is normal for an 8 mo old. I'll keep you posted on what my vet says about her.
 

SHBailey

Gray-bearded Member
Original Poster
So Puff had a huge meal of roaches on Saturday and hadn't pooped yet when we weighed him this last Sunday afternoon, but his weight is still holding at 370 grams. At least he hasn't lost any more weight (unless too much of it was undigested bugs and poop). He goes to the vet this next coming Saturday to have his hematocrit checked again and see if we're making any progress with the anemia after two rounds of iron and B12 injections.

I just found out that his regular vet is going to be out of town due to a family emergency, but they have another new reptile vet (only the 3rd one in Anchorage, according to ARAV's website), so it will probably be good to meet him so we'll hopefully have a good second option in case our regular vet is out of town or retires -- I think she's close to my age, and Puff may be needing a good vet for a while. It may also be a good thing for a second vet to take a look at him and review his medical history -- two heads are better than one.

I'm hoping this is just due to a dietary deficiency from not eating enough greens for so long. We give him vitamins, but I know that sometimes they don't absorb the vitamins or minerals from the supplements as well as from food, depending on what chemical form they're in. If that's the case, this should be easy to fix and the vet can probably prescribe different supplements (that link you provided looks like it might be a good source for a lot of stuff).

My worst fear is that this has something to do with the adenovirus, and I'm trying not to think too much about the possibility that there's been some sort of damage to his organs to the point that something is doing a slow bleed into his body cavity -- not enough to drop his blood pressure and stop his heart, but enough to make him anemic. He's at least not bleeding into his digestive tract in any noticeable way, or we'd be seeing it in his poop, and that looks normal. We thought the greens were going right through him, but the vet said they looked nicely digested -- we just weren't used to seeing what his poop looks like when he eats enough greens.

Fortunately, he's still got a good appetite, and still hasn't gotten too weak to go "downstairs" and attack his salad (and I do mean "Attack," and with much enthusiasm), and then climb back "upstairs" to his basking platform to worship his light bulbs, although he does understandably tire easily and has to stop and catch his breath sometimes after he gets a little too excited about chasing bugs. So I'm hoping that he's not too far gone and has a good fighting chance to pull through this.

We have a similar problem getting fresh greens here in Anchorage. Usually the only thing that makes it up here in decent shape is collards -- they seem to be fairly "sturdy" as greens go, but sometimes we get mustard greens or endive. Also, the dandelions are finally coming up in our yard, so we will have plenty of those for the next several months. And since Puff started eating greens again, we discovered that the local health food store has better quality greens, and we've been surprised to find that they're even a little less expensive there than at the regular grocery stores, and organic too, so we're at least able to provide him with several different kinds of pretty good quality greens.

I remember the days when I didn't have home internet access and had to go to the library when I wanted to know something. I inherited internet access when I married my husband, who couldn't live without it, and now I can't live without it either. :roll: And I notice that somewhere along the line, you joined the ranks of the "wonderful moderators" on this site yourself. I supposed there's a story there somewhere and I'd be curious... :?

Sometimes we get lucky and our critters survive our inexperience and mistakes. We almost lost our little snake because we made just about every mistake possible, but he survived and we had him for 15 years. My sister went through something very similar when her son brought home a turtle -- she had to learn fast and ended up becoming something of a local expert on turtle care among her family and friends. Her son died tragically, but the turtle is still alive.

Phew -- TLDR. Enough of a ramble for now...
 

sweetiepie9

BD.org Sicko
Retired Moderator
I'm really hoping that you'll be able to get his iron levels up and that he starts gaining weight again. It's always hard when we make mistakes that are difficult to fix. I did the same with Leo, when he was about 8 yrs old, he suddenly gained alot of weight. So I put him on more greens than bugs and his blood vessels starting to leak. So I got him back on more bugs and he did fine until my vet found a tumour in his belly. He was nine when I had to have him put down.

I was offered to be a moderator in 2010, I think, because I had alot of dragons and because of the help I got from a few moderators, I was offered the post. I've been a moderator ever since. I like to get on the posts that haven't been read yet, but otherwise I'm not on here as much as I used to be.

I'm glad I got Freya into the vet when I did, she'd been previously through a dose of panacur and she had eggs again in her poop, so did Castiel (I've been going to the same vet since 2006, so I don't have to bring a dragon in if I think they have parasites, just the poop). So they're both on panacur again and I'm hoping, this time, that it sticks.

So my vet thinks Freya is alot older than 8 mo old, she's just a small dragon. She also thinks she's making eggs. The xray shows eggs starting to form in her follicles. The lump I found under her left knee is a calcium lump because her leg was broken when she was younger. Perfectly healed but left that lump behind. Doesn't bother her at all, so all is good there. Otherwise, she's very healthy, so I keep doing what I've been doing. Oh and I get 10% off everything with my vet for the last few years, which comes in handy.

Castiel, Cierra and Freya are all starting to slow down but it's way too early for brumation, so I still get them under their lights every morning. Castiel is in the middle of a complete body shed, Nathaniel is shedding, too, so no brumation until the shedding is finished. Nathaniel usually goes down in July to Nov, Castiel Aug to Dec and Cierra Aug to Feb. That's been every year since I got them all, so I won't let them go down until at least those times, which is coming up WAY too fast!

Gabriel is still my miracle dragon. He's not only done with absorbing the 80g aneurysm he had in his belly, he's become very active again. He'll run across the living room to the ramp but when I put him in his tank, he spends at least a couple of hours trying to jump out of his tank. I'm amazed at an almost 8 yr old dragon being so active. He's more active the the youngsters.

I'm glad you have a 2nd vet to go to in case yours retires. Mine is semi-retired, she's in only on Weds now and she'll be fully retired soon. I found another vet, much more expensive, but I'll have to go there once she's done....sigh....Otherwise it's an hours drive to the only other exotic vet I'm aware of.

Keep me posted on what he's doing, so glad he's eating his greens and bugs so well, that's a good sign.
 

SHBailey

Gray-bearded Member
Original Poster
So we had our trip to the vet on Saturday, and I'm finally getting around to catching up on the website here. The new vet is really nice, a young guy fresh out of veterinary school and up on lots of the latest stuff (The senior reptile vet at the same office does her best to keep up on that latest developments as well, but the downside is that she's often out of town at conferences). Unfortunately, there is still no cure for adenovirus on the horizon so far. But he was very kind to Puff (who was not particularly happy about getting poked with a needle several times), and spent a lot of time talking with us. Puff's hematocrit has improved a little, enough not to write it off to just dehydration (which he also seems to be having a problem with) or an artifact of the equipment, but it's still not where it should be, so we did another round of iron and B12 injections, and we have another appointment for more injections next Tuesday. He also did an ultrasound and found no unusual fluid (blood or otherwise) in his body cavity, also took a peek at his heart while he was at it and said that all looks ok for now.

But the prognosis is not good -- we're afraid the adenovirus is probably catching up with him, and we may be looking at the classic "wasting disease" that sometimes goes with it, perhaps due to malabsorption from damage to his intestinal villae (we've ruled out just about every other possible cause for the anemia and weight loss). He's also dropping a lot of water with his poop -- well formed turds but with a puddle of clear watery liquid, and pooping daily, although the vet attributed some of it to shedding because they secrete fluid under their skin to help it come off. We're doing everything we can to keep him hydrated (short of forcing it or injecting it), including serving his veggies with water so he gets as hydrated as possible when he eats them (also helps them stay fresher longer under the heat lamps), and giving him daily baths and dribbling water on his nose -- sometimes he drinks it. He also has a water dish, but like a typical beardie he doesn't do anything with it except run through it once in a while and make little wet footprints on the towels. :roll:

So we had some difficult conversations with the vet, and I told him that my goal is to minimize suffering, not to prolong our beardie's life if his quality of life is gone. Puff does not appear to be suffering for now, but the vet said that beardies with this condition do not usually go peacefully if you just let nature take its course. My husband believes that "euthanasia is murder," so we may have some hard decisions to make sometime down the road, and we may be in for some difficulty in the future.

But for the time being, Puff is still eating like a trooper and still has enough energy to walk from his basking platform to his salad and back again, although he tires easily (and understandably) when he chases bugs, and has to stop and catch his breath.

His weight was 350 grams, a loss since last week, so no significant improvement there. "Daddy" is off to the pet store for more bugs after work today.

Someone on this website has the philosophy, "Don't give up till they do," and we agree with that, so we plan to keep doing our best to help him recover if at all possible. And cuddles :love5: -- cherish him while he's still here, because at this point, we don't know how much time we've got left. But Puff has definitely not given up, at least not at this point. I might still be able to get away with hoping for a Gabriel-style miracle. :)

At least no parasites, so we don't have that to deal with, and good bone density, so we must be doing something right with calcium and vitamin D and UV light.

So your vet gives you a "volume discount" for having so many beardies, huh? Pretty good deal. :mrgreen: We only have 3 reptile vets in Anchorage, but fortunately they all seem to be good ones. I haven't met the other one yet -- he's at a different office, but I've heard good things about him.

My husband has 3 weeks off starting next Monday, so we will be able to do more trips to the vet if needed, at least for a while. We are doing a "staycation" around home to catch up with housework and yardwork and various "honey-do" projects that we don't seem to have time for during his normal work week. I may also be "lurking" on this website during this time -- not sure if I'll get a chance to post anything, since I hate to get interrupted in the middle of one of my TLDR posts (like this one). :wink: But I hope to at least keep in touch... :lurk:
 

CooperDragon

BD.org Sicko
Staff member
Moderator
Good luck to all of you! Hopefully he has plenty of good quality time left without suffering. I'm glad to hear you have such good vets. That is unfortunately a luxury in a lot of places.
 

sweetiepie9

BD.org Sicko
Retired Moderator
Hi Sue, sorry to hear about the prognosis, but so glad he's doing well for now. How old is he, 6? and yes to a Gabriel miracle. I have a friend who is very up on the latest for ADV+ dragons, too. She's had 3 and she runs Dragonheart, a permanent home for rescued dragons. I've known her for years and she and 3 other well known women put together a site called http://www.everythingreptile.net. There is a diseases part that talks about it. She also started her own Facebook site called Atadenovirus in Bearded Dragons. So look it up, join and copy/paste this last entry to the site. Her name is Amanda Mosher and she is a good friend of mine. There are alot of documents that show what they recommend to keep ADV+ dragons healthy. There is also a Canadian site called http://www.northerndragons.info that also was put up because of the owner Nancy McBride's Charlies, he was born with ADV+ and he lived or he's still living to this day. He got past 9 years old, at least.

I hope these these two sites will help you with Puff. I would also recommend, because he tends to get dehydrated to buy this from http://www.bug-de-lite.com, my long term friend Tracie owns the site. She has a product called REPTI-HYDRATE, has electrolytes and minerals that work against dehydration. It's not that expensive and she sells a really good probiotic REPTOPHILUS, also not expensive. If you don't have it, SERREPEPTASE would help alot. Give all to him daily, the doses are on the sheet. I use the HYDRATE for Puff, as she tends not to poop often, it's been a week of eating already, so she needs to do this soon. Day 3 of pumpkin will be today. Today she's staying in the bath until she does poop. But that's just Cierra.

I'm glad you have good vets where you live. The only vet I've ever been to has semi-retired. She's only in on Wed for reptile stuff. So glad in to see her with Freya and Castiel's poop and they finish their last Panacur next week. There's another vet 1/2 hr away but costs way more than the one I go to now....

So all the best with Puff. Please join the sites, just to see what it's all about and Nancy, who I've known since Charlie was small, will answer any questions or just look Nancy McBride up on Facebook and send her a message. She, Amanda (you can contact Amanda on Facebook, too) and Tracie on here, she's Drache613 (who does the testing for AV+ dragons and may have come up with a cure, she's not quite sure yet, her 3 dragons are all + and she'll be retesting them in a couple of months to see if the 3rd negative stays in place. I'll keep you posted!). That was very exciting to hear when Tracie announced it on Drama Free Dragons (that's the site I'm administrator on, I'm admin on 3 other facebook sites, too) Plus being moderator here.
My crew give Puff big hugs from all 9 of them :D :D :love5: :love5:
And so do I.

Hope to hear from you after you've checked out those sites.
:D Deb
 
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