Expert: Susan R Griffin - 1/10/2012

Question
Hello

I have an 11 years old American Pit bull Terrier that I adopted 10 years ago.  Very healthy and loving and I love him a lot  as well.  4 months ago I left him at the kennel for 1 week.   A day after I got him he developed very unpleasant signs of weakness.  I took him to the vet and he was on IV for 12 hours and in 2 days was back to normal.  Blood tests fro valley fever etc. could not find anything.
2 weeks ago he started developing mild signs of the same - weakness,his backbones sticks out, etc.  The vet said it is 95% disc rapture.  Minimum movement for 3 weeks and gave some med.

I put him again in the kennel as I had to leave town,  and he got the same but much worse only after 4 days being there.  Again  IV etc. Now the vet said it is probably meningitis.  However, we still not sure as the exam is too expensive for me.   He is on antibiotics and anti inflammatory as if he got it.

My question - could being in the kennel activate any of this?

He was at the same kennel many times before and people are very nice there. But the fact that it happened just after that is scary.

Would you please give me some input?

Also, any general advice to handle him if it is indeed meningitis?

Thank you very much,   Gabe

Answer
Dear Gabe,

Meningitis is rather beyond my scope of expertise.  I can,however recommend that regardless of what the issue is, putting your boy entirely on a raw food diet (convert over a period of a week or two)will help him immensely to not only recover from the problem, but will help him continue to develop muscle tissue and strength as well as better mobility as he gets older. There are many frozen balanced raw diets available. The one that I prefer for quality at the best price is Northwest Natural if you can get it in your area, but there are many others. Making your own is quite complex but a little book by Kymythy R. Schultze called "Natural Nutrition for Dogs and Cats" is quite good and easy reading.

As for the meningitis, I would highly recommend contacting Dr Gerald Wessner VMD. He is a holistic vet and a totally awesome person in general. I know he has a web site that you could probably find via Google, and his phone number is 352-245-2025. Perhaps you could e-mail him.

Sue