Dog Diagnosed with Megaesophagus? Don’t despair!

 

By Green Dog Pet Supply

“Megaesophagus is a condition in which a dog’s esophagus is enlarged to the point that food remains in the esophagus and never makes it down to the stomach and is instead regurgitated. The muscle contraction and relaxation that normally takes place to move food down to the stomach doesn’t work. Megaesophagus can be present since birth or can develop in adult dogs. If left untreated, it can cause a range of problems, including starvation and aspiration pneumonia.” This quote was extracted from a site called The Pet Project and their post details how to get a hold of “Baily’s Chair” which enables dogs to eat in a way that lets food get down into the stomach more easily, as well as giving many great resources for where to go for support and information about this condition. Check out this fantastic You Tube video of a dog using a chair like this – it’s so flippin’ cute how the dog jumps into place!

In the “Answers from Experts” (03/99 issue) of the Whole Dog Journal, Holistic vet Dr Carolyn Blakey suggests that homeopathy can help, as well as acupuncture, “which would be great for stimulating whatever tonal ability the dog may have. With megaesophagus, the whole problem is a lack of innervation (sufficient supply and activity of the nerves). The messages are just not getting through to the esophagus to constrict and move food down; it gets all flaccid. But acupuncture can get those neurotransmitters working, or at least, get them working better than before.”
She also mentions that it would be important to have a good vitamin mineral supplement as well as digestive enzymes to help the dog (or cat) to absorb more nutrition from the food that makes it into the stomach.

Simple Solution for Dogs that Bark out the Windows

By Green Dog Pet Supply

A customer shared her very clever solution to a long time problem she was having. Her dog loves to bark out of the window, and was not only creating a lot of noise for her close neighbors, but she was also shredding her blinds. The shredded blinds not only looked terrible, they were an expensive loss. Then she hit upon the great idea to purchase a sort of contact paper made for windows that made them look frosted, and the problem was solved! They still let plenty of light in, they look attractive, they provide valuable privacy for houses that are close to the neighbors, and by only frosting the bottom panes, the owner can still look out the top part of the window if she needs to see outside. The dog can’t get up that high though, so the visual stimuli that were causing her to bark (squirrels, people passing, etc) were removed. She’s calmer, the neighbors are happier, and the new blinds remain unshredded, as there’s nothing to see by pushing them out of the way. Check out this awesome DYI site that shows beautiful ways to embellish the frosted glass look with a paint pen. Beautiful!