Overview of Goya's history

Goya is mastiff, born in April 1997. He had a lot of allergies as a pup and, after several vets couldn't help with the allergies, at the urging of his breeder, we started feeding the BARF diet (biologically-appropriate raw food) when he was about a year old. That really helped with the allergies and he has been healthy and happy for many years. He is small for a male mastiff, about 155 lbs adult weight. He has his Canine Good Citizen's certificate and is just the most loving, perfect family member.

(Lisa Nicollelo is Goya's breeder, see her page at http://members.aol.com/gcmastiffs/
See some pictures of Goya as a young dog at Lisa's "extended family" page http://workingmastiffs.com/gcpups.htm, about half way down.)

In late June 2003, Goya suddenly lost control of his back legs and over the course of a few days, lost the ability to walk at all. We took him to our regular vet and then to an orthopedic surgeon and then to the vet school at Ohio State. No one could diagnose him. They did many blood tests and a nerve biopsy and his symptoms fit no pattern they could recognize. Coonhound paralysis was mentioned, but they kept saying he wasn't "down enough" (he could always lay sternally and roll over). Finally, after about 5 weeks of tests, they gave him doxycycline (just to shut me up) and within 4 days he was up and walking. He was on doxy for about 8 weeks, and 3 weeks after going off it, he collapsed again. They put him back on doxy and he recovered quickly -- this time he was on it for about 16 weeks. Then he was fine for a good long time.

He had weakness in the hind quarters in spring 2005 and we put him back on doxy and he never collapsed -- just got stronger in a few days. The vets still had no idea what was going on with him, but doxycycline seemed to be his drug of choice. (They always did full blood work-ups before putting him back on the antibiotic, to make sure it wasn't something else, but nothing ever came back out of the ordinary.)

Then, on Nov. 19th 2005 (the Saturday before Thanksgiving) he started looking weak in the back legs. He "tells us" he is starting to get weak by taking the stairs one at a time on the way down. I called the vet and they prescribed the doxy over the phone this time, so we started it on Saturday and gave him the right dosage until Wednesday night. We were going away for the Thanksgiving holiday and Goya was going to the kennel with our other two dogs (Cherry, the mutt, and Joe, the younger mastiff). We forgot to pack the doxy, so he didn't get four days of doses. The kennel lady said he was fine while he was at her house (she is very vigilant -- I'm sure she would have noticed if something wasn't right). We started giving him the doxy again. 10 days after coming home, on December 5th (I think), he was weak in the morning and needed help with a hand-held sling to go out in the morning. By the afternoon, he couldn't walk at all. That's when the latest, and most severe, bout began, and those details will have to wait for another post.