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On the toothpaste gel for pets, I would be caution about giving my maltese something with grape seed extract since grapes are very toxic to them. (09/11/2009: Callista from Penang, Malaysia replies: "re: Teeth problems in pets)I just wouldn't want anyone's pet harmed.
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WARNING!
Collapsed trachea emergency solved -- Update on Gidget... If I hadn't been very ill with a antibiotic drug reaction, my Gidgi-poo would have been put down. I figured out what was wrong, and she's almost completely well. One night, not being able to sleep with the Keflex rash and too weak the two days before to bring her in to be put down, I lay listening to her heaving for breath - at least once she passed out. She had been so much worse that day that even at the highest dose the vet's medicine was no help at all... I thought, "what was different about today?" and it hit me... I thought that since she was dying anyway her weight didn't matter, and little by little over the course of the week I had given her all the treats/chews I had... Then I ran across a few Dentley's dental enzyme dog chews and gave her one. That evening and night she struggled, heaving and strangling for breath. The CET enzymatic dog toothpaste works so much better than the regular.. I thought these dog chews would be good for their teeth.
So I went online and researched collapsed trachea in dogs. It is a common weakness in toy and miniature dogs, some more so than others. Its cause is unknown, but the action is that the rings of the trachea somehow soften.. The rings are made of cartilage... Dental enzyme, plaque, calcium... Cartilage, calcium...!!! She always had a weakness for the symptoms of trachea trouble, hoarse coughing when she got excited, probably because she was under-nourished as a puppy, but these were her first attacks. She had had her first attack of trachea collapse in July and I took her to the vet, gave her the medicine and she got better. Well, I now realize that first attack coincided with the first time she had been on another brand of dental enzyme chew, Sentry HC Petrodex (Seargent), for a couple of months, I ran out while she was getting the meds.
It wasn't the vet meds that made her better, it was running out of the enzyme chews. When I got more in, after a couple of months again she went down - this time the vet meds did no good. With the addition of the Dentley's occasionally during the day and my recent increased use of the enzyme toothpaste.. I almost killed her. While I suspect that there will be residual damage from the spell of collapse before I discovered my mistake, two days without enzyme chews and she is almost back to normal. Warn everybody.
