how many arms and legs?

Well, the appointment went fine. Dr H said that we can probably rule out food allergies as the problem, although dogs can have allergies to more than one kind of food (but we're not figuring her to be allergic to duck or potato). So we can give her her beloved pig sticks again (although not until we get her back into the swing of hiking again).

So, as far as an alternative for phenobarbital goes, we can switch her to bromide, but we'd have to give her both for about three months because it takes that long to get into their systems. It does not have excessive thirst as a side effect. I'm sure we didn't go that route to begin with because we didn't want Josie to have any more seizures. So we had blood drawn and are waiting to see what the lab results look like for her liver activity. We then have a couple of options.

1. Try and lower her phenobarb. and see if it controls them still, but makes her less thirsty.

-or-

2. Add the bromide into the cocktail and hope that we don't lose our sanity while dealing with peep for the three months before we can take her off the phenobarb.

However, for the next week, because her skin condition has worsened (right after it was looking amazing!) we have to give her the following pills:

Am
1 phenobarbital
1.5 PPN
1 antibiotic
3 antihystamines

Pm
1 phenobarbital
1.5 PPN
3 antihystamines

That's going to be one large wet food meat ball for her. Will have to remember to cut her food a bit so she doesn't gain more. And get her booty (and ours) out of doors while we can before the next wave of wet nasty comes back.

So, that's the update. Now, I must go further into the depths of Ravelry (it's like World of Warcraft for knitters).