My GSD , Dexter went for his second round of the heartworm injections on Mon 17th, spent the night at the vets, and finished with the last one on Tues 18th. My vet and I had some miscommunication in that I thought we were only recieving two injections total but actually we did the total of three. 1st shot wait a month , 2nd shot followed by the 3rd after 24 hr. My vet quoted me a price of $650 toatl and I had researched and knew in this area that series cost upwardss of $1000. Needless to say I took it and ran!!!!
I can say I noticed a huge difference with two shots verses one. He is not moving well, and did not want to eat. After I was able to get him to take some Dermaxx, he ate very well later. His back is really swollen and he is hunched up, almost roach backed as he walks.I have never seen this dog walk this slow , ever!!!!
He is panting very heavily and is wanting to drink a lot of water again. The vet stated that was normal to just give him a cup at a time spread out over the hour.
He is to remain crated again and have on leash walks only for the next 30 days. Again the first ten days are the most critical as far as the possibility of anything going wrong i.e,; worms breaking loose in the bloodstream, clots etc.. Realistically this could happen throughout the 30 days , but lessens as time goes on.
After the 30 days I will be able to start light conditioning the resume training. I would love some feedback from anyone(hint David Frost ) who has a working dog who has gone through this to give me some ideas as to what they did with return to training. I asked about breeding dogs after this just to gather information for this board,and was told that after the 30 days breeding could be done.
Will be posting again the next several days to letyou know how he is doing and what is seen.

No experience with this but just wanted to say I hope your guy feels much better very soon.

Thanks Barbara. It always amazes me how fast dogs recover!!! The swelling in his back continues today and it is obvious it still hurts even on the Dermaxx, but he is much improved from yesterday. He will not lie still in one position very long, rolling from side to side to get comfortable but he is moving better overall. His appetite is back and as before, he tries to drink all the time. No signs of a cough yet as before but his breathing is heavy when we go out for his potty breaks.
So far so good, hope it stays this way.

I would give him the most easily-digested food ever, like white poultry, and not kibble (makes him thirsty).

I will see if I can find David, and also I have material on post-op reconditioning (similar) that I will dig up tomorrow.

Part of it is passive exercise, which is you doing the work (like range-of-motion "bicycling") so his muscles start to re-build with no strain on his heart. This way you can supplement the light cardo. Of course, he will need the heart-lung rebuilding too, but you can add to it with passive stuff. He will probably like it, too.

Lorelei, our experiences have been similar to yours. The dog appeared to be in some discomfort. We followed the vet's advice to a Tee. Kept the dog crated and as calm as possible for a high strung working dog. It seemed that each day that passed you could see improvement. After the 30 day period, we started increasing his exercise and started inservice training with the dog. At the end of 60 days, the dog subjected to the certification and had no problems. The dog is currently back to work, healthy and showing no ill effects from the heartworm or the treatment. For all my dogs West of the river, we are still on a 2 treatments per month, testing them semi-annually. We've gone through this twice now and I just don't want to have to do it again.

DFrost

Today it is hard to tell he even had injections. He is back to his big goofy self again. I think the hard part now is keeping him calm!!!

Did not want to bore everyone with the same posts as beforwe so I have delayed posting. Dexter is still having pain in his back with the two shots. He hd trouble getting into the vehicle over the weekend if he is not on Dermaxx. His back is still swollen but has decreased slowly since the first day. It has been six days so we are in the 10 day window still of higher risk but this time verses last is deffinitely different. He has days where he is himself but still has more where you can tell he is hurting. Hopefully that will start turning around for him now.

Started tracking with my dogthis weekend with clearence from vet. After 4 mo off was not sure what tp expect but he picked right where he left off. Could not tell he had ever taken a break!!!He was tired after but recovered nicely.

Lorelei,

That's great news!

Dana

Update!! Got out to training finally. Dexter did great!!! He still gets tired more quickly but is steadily gaining strength and endurance. We continue to go slow and steady but no side effects from the heartworm treatments have been noticed.He really brought it to the helper. It was really fun to see!!