Schatzi, the Tiny Behemoth

There is a movie called "The Giant Behemoth." It was actually called something else in England, but the American release was titled "The Giant Behemoth." Obviously, the title is redundant, BUT it does provide inspiration for referring to Schatzi as "The TINY Behemoth," which suits her. If you ever watch the movie, you'll understand why!

Vet follow-up 8/27/2012

Schatzi was still looking up sharply every once in a while, but her weird behavior continued to improve on the low-protein diet. The vet added Lactulose to her daily diet. Lactulose is a synthetic sugar that reduces the amount of ammonia in the blood of schnauzers with liver disease. It works by drawing ammonia from the blood into the colon where it is removed from the body. Schatzi will probably be taking Lactulose with every meal for at least a year and maybe forever. The vet said she is not in distress as long as she stays on her diet and new medicine, but that her life span could be short (five years).

(Photo by Poon)

Signs of improvement?

After a couple of days of the low-protein diet, Schatzi does seem to be behaving more normally. There's not as much of the craning of the neck, looking up and around at invisible heebie-jeebies. She is still doing it a little bit, however.

Today, Sunday August 19th, Schatzi went to Poon and Bruce's apartment. P & B have a dog park just across the parking lot. It features a "chute" or long tube that Schatzi can run through. In today's video, this tube looks a lot like the movies of the esophagus that are made with endoscopes. We shot so much video that it's too long to put the entire epic in this post. Here's a short highlights reel:

We're scheduled to bring Schatzi back to the vet on Monday for a follow-up ultrasound and exam.

Diagnosis: Hepatoportal Microvascular Dysplasia

Her vet says Schatzi probably has a rare genetic defect that made her plumbing develop abnormally. He thinks this blood vessel mis-routing affects her liver function and therefore her behavior. If we are fortunate, changing her diet will correct this problem. If you want to read more about this, here's a link to PetMD.

Is Schatzi suffering?

Schatzi's behavior today begs the question: Is she suffering from mental illness?

Usually, Schatzi behaves like a normal dog, but today she is doing strange things. Most notably, she is constantly (more than once per minute) stretching her neck back and up, as if she is looking at things flying above her. You can get a sense of what this is like watching this short video:

This behavior is unusual for Schatzi, but not unprecedented. From time to time, Schatzi keeps looking up and around. These spells usually last for a few days and coincide with other uncharacteristic features.

Also noteworthy is that Schatzi shows no interest in play or patting/attention. She spent more than half an hour sitting by herself in the bathroom. She has never done that before.

Here's a thought experiment for you: What if Schatzi is afflicted with some kind of episodic hallucinatory dog schizophrenia? If she were seeing flying objects swooping at her head every few seconds, maybe she'd be looking up at them to track their movement. Maybe she'd run from one resting place to another, usually a den with a low roof (like running under the chair, or the bed, or into her cage), trying to get away from whatever was buzzing her.

If it's Wednesday, it must be Schatzi!

On this, the first day of August, Schatzi was excited by Spud's visit.  Bruce and Poon and Connie were all in on the deal also.  Here's proof; don't miss the cameo by Olympian Michael Phelps . . .